Relax Max (tea drinking capital)
Trip Start
Jan 22, 2007
1
48
75
Trip End
Ongoing
Chengdu,
China
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Langzhong was an ancient capital for the province and one of the principal producers of silk, it's just developing as a tourist destination so it's not yet overpriced (something like Pingyao). Silk is still being produced by hand and the clothing although not attractive to us was downright cheap (70RMB for a shirt or blouse). The town has some well restored buildings and the town itself is riddled with Tudor like buildings (white with black wooden beams in the walls).
We found a really friendly guest house where the lady called her English speaking cousin every morning so that we could communicate our plans for the day. The first night (until 20:00) there was no electricity so we played cards and dice by candlelight. We ended up getting trapped in a Chinese photo session which basically involves taking your picture with all and sundry in varying positions two or three times (Simon later had to help copy the photos onto their PC so they could return the "communal" camera)
Guesthouse Langzhong
. And not only many positions but with the best furniture taken out of storage!!People are generally more friendly here, the food is good too and we didn't even have to pay for it since we got invited by our other table guests. These unexpected guests who just joined us for dinner managed to communicate with the aid of our phrase book, we ended up in a bar with them where they again refused to let us pay for anything.
Next on our list of places to visit was Chengdu, in fact it was always on our list since we wanted to see the panda breeding site here. The pandas don't sleep as much as koalas but they certainly come close (60% asleep). We saw them during the feeding hours so there was some activity and rolling around on their climbing frames. The red pandas which are also being bred were a surpise since we've never heard of them before. Maybe the pandas sleep so much because they are in Chengdu which is reknowned for its relaxed way of life, people spend hours in tea houses which are scattered all over the city. They don't just drink tea but play mahjong, cards, knit, and gossip, the knitting is most interesting since they also perform in the street (rather like some people read a book and walk around). For the evening it's worth seeing a piece of Sichuan opera, the show we caught, although touristic in the extreme was still professional and had some really good artists. Of note the stick puppets which are extremely lifelike puppets operated with a central stick and two hand sticks permitting finger movement and the more famous changing faces performed by people wearing and changing very rapidly their masks.
Our final destination was Mount Qingcheng Houshan which maybe around 2000m or 1600m which is quite a difference and depends on where you get the info. It's a great walk with hardly any tourists, through gorges, huge waterfalls, caves, temples and a small lake which is crossed by boat. The only drawback was getting here and away, but we've already covered that part of our travels.
