Chengdu

Trip Start Jul 11, 2006
1
9
32
Trip End Jun 28, 2007


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of China  ,
Friday, September 1, 2006

So another sleeper train across China, pretty easy again, although I almost didn't make the train! My train was at 16.46 and so I gave myself about 40 minutes to get to the station, just a few km away. For some stupid reason all taxis finish their shift at 4.30 so nobody wanted to take me in the direction of the train station. Everyone I flagged down just ignored me! It was so frustrating! I managed to jump on the bus heading to the station, but with the crazy traffic during rush hour I wasn't too hope full of making it on time. I got there with about 10 mins to go so I had to run into the station and find the train. I made it with just over 5 minutes to go but the sweat was pouring off me, smelling good...

Another top bunk journey, pretty easy. I met the girls from Xi'an when I got off and we got a free taxi ride to my hostel as I dropped them an email the day before. The hostel was super cheap, just a quid per night for dorm bed and the food was pretty good too. Yet again I run into people; I met Hayley, Charlotte and Paul who I met in Beijing in the hostel although they were leaving that day. I didn't really want to do any sightseeing in Chengdu, just fancied chilling out. It was just place to stop on route to the Yangtze river cruise really.

That evening I organised a cruise down the river for 3/4 days; it cost over Y300 more than in the last hostel but it did include transport (Express bus taking 5 hours compared to the overnight train of 12 hours) to Chongying, (which the girls found out, was a problem) and a few excursions on route. They could only get soft-sleepers to Chongying for around Y250 (the usual choice of hard-sleeper had sold out and it meant staying in Chengdu for a few days when I wanted to move on really), so the cruise deal worked out pretty good value. We booked it to leave on the Sunday morning, sailing the same evening.

Chengdu has a World famous panda breeding centre so I booked onto a tour to go see that the following morning (The pandas are only allowed to exercise for a few hours during the morning...??). It was ok, but I'm not sure if I agree with what they are doing; breeding an endangered species just to put them in zoos? They constantly man-handle the babies and it just seemed a bit sad really. They would never survive in the wild. It was something to do at least and it was funny watching them laze about.

I trundled around the city centre in the afternoon, didn't buy anything and got the bus back.
Not much else really, few beers but nothing of interest.

6.30am bus, 3 gorges cruise here I come...
Slideshow Print this entry Chengdu hotels