Chengdu

Arrived in Chengdu at 5am one morning, watched a little of the market traders coming to life around the station, found the hostel I intended to stay at, left for a day trip to Leshan a couple of hours later, and later returned to the hostel. Mix Hostel in Chengdu is a great place to stay, at first appearance it is an ugly block building, but inside a lovely atmosphere, tastefully decorated and with a nice terrace on the top floor to sit outside in the warm evenings, although the piles of washing hanging everywhere to dry is a bit frustrating as whenever I left my room I kept walking into someone's trousers or towel hanging down from above.

It's a fairly large city and so bus transport was a necessity in Chengdu, this was complicated by the construction of a metro system, that results in some one way roads and the solution that buses follow a different route in one direction to the other. This left me hopelessly lost for a while on my first evening trying to get back to the hostel. I noted to get off at the first stop north of the river, but a few moments after alighting I realised this was a different street and completely lost my bearings for a while, confused by the route change of the bus. This was further confused by some friendly local who saw me looking puzzled at a map and tried to help, but he had no idea where I was either and in trying to help, made things worse ;)



Left: Performing Buddhist chants.
Right: Daci Si's tea garden.

I quite liked Chengdu, it has a nice atmosphere, a location convenient for travel to many interesting places around and generally friendly, relaxed people. As well as seeing the giant pandas nearby and visiting Leshan (twice - returned a few days later to extend my visa), I popped into a couple of nearby temples and also to the first 'Irish Bar' I have seen in China, (I never found "The Paddy Field" in Guangzhou) which gave the chance to watch some football and indulge in an excellent dish of sausage and mash. It wasn't all good though as it also meant being surrounded by noisy, drunk Australians for a couple of hours. Another evening I visited another ex-pat favourite bar, 'the bookworm', which I was taken to by TT, a Chengdu local who I met in Dandong some time ago. This place was a bit like a library in that it had bookshelves full of books all around, but was far from quiet as there was a horse race event and auction going on which involved lots more noisy Australians, can't get away from them!

No noisy Australians at the temples I visited thankfully, Wenshu Yuan was very close to the hostel and worth a quick visit as in one of the halls, monks and non-monks(?) were reading from Buddhist scriptures and performing chants. While the Daci si is a temple dedicated to the travelling monk Xuanzang, who at one time lived in Chengdu before starting his journey to India, from where he brought back Buddhist scriptures that introduced Buddhism into these parts. I have mentioned Xuanzang previously in my blog from a statue in Lanzhou, to artistic impressions in the Big Goose Pagoda in Xi'an where he lived much of his life, he was of course the subject of the books 'Journey to the West', dramatised in Europe as the TV show 'Monkey'.

A bit of a treat at this temple was a tea house in the back garden that I decided to try out, surprisingly for such a quiet place, I found it was packed with locals sipping tea and chatting, clearly one of the famous Sichuan tea houses which are a feature of Chengdu and Sichuan province. So I grabbed a table, chose some unknown tea, sat and read in the sunshine for a while as locals chatted away creating a busy atmosphere of relaxation. Nice place if you like to drink tea ;)

Also while in the hostel in Chengdu I learnt how to play some new Chinese card games with some Chinese guests from Kunming, Guangzhou and Xiamen. I wasn't sure what was going on at first and communication was a little tricky due to language barrier but I had some expert help from one of the players and soon became quite successful, beginner's luck of course ! Instead of playing for money, their payment for losing is that you get your face painted by the winner, this was the result.



See, I did quite well ! The guy on the right wasn't playing, hence no warpaint.

Sichuan: Home of the Giant Panda

Chengdu is the home of the very rare, endangered and beautiful giant panda. There is a research and breeding centre on the outskirts of Chengdu where you can go and see these beautiful animals in a reasonably wild and natural habitat.

The park has a number of giant pandas as well as some, unrelated, red pandas, ranging in age from babies to adults. It's best to get there early morning and watch them play around a little before breakfast time. Then at breakfast the park staff feed them bunches and bunches of bamboo which they sit and chomp on endlessly until they get tired and fall asleep. Jut watching them eat is fascinating as they lie half backwards, seemingly posing to the crowd as they rip the outer bark off the bamboo stalks before munching the remains. Great fun and if they hadn't all gone inside to rest after the breakfast I could have sat and watched them all day. They are such beautiful and cuddly looking things.

Left: Panda on the prowl.

Centre: Bath time.

Right: The red panda.

Something interesting for many travellers is the sign language used by people from different cultures to communicate a message when you cannot speak a common language. On my way to the panda centre I found a great example of this. I was at Zhaojue Si station looking for a bus to the panda research centre and was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of motorbike and rickshaw taxis who wanted to take me somewhere, anywhere, just to get a fare. I said I wanted to visit the giant pandas (Daxiongmao in Chinese, I had done my research that morning), but as is often the case, they reverted to sign language and started playing the miming game on me. They obviously guessed where a foreigner in that part of town was heading towards and started their little show. Now, without photos that I don't have, I can't vividly describe the pose, but basically, I learnt that day, that the way to mimic a giant panda when in China, is to hold your arms at your side pointing upwards, close to your body, with your hands close to your ears, let your hands relax at the wrist and fingers curl to point downwards. That and a cheeky grin and I gurantee you they will understand you want to go to see the giant pandas at the panda research centre ;-)
It's hard to describe in words, but it was so funny to see these drivers all together trying to imitate a giant panda with this strange action, in order to try a get a taxi fare. Top class.

Travel Tip: If you want to avoid the expensive transport tours offered by travel agents and hostels, take bus #1 (northwards) to Zhaojue Si station and then bus #107 or #532 both of which stop outside the research centre.

Dafo in Leshan

I arrived in Chengdu (成都) very early one morning and almost straight away left again! There's nothing wrong with Chengdu, in fact it's turned out to be quite good, I left because I went off on a day trip to Leshan to see the largest Buddha sculpture in the world!! Dafo (大佛), Big Buddha is indeed very big, 71m high and carved into a niche in the sandstone cliffs overlooking the river in Leshan, at the point where the Dadu, Min and Qingyi rivers converge.

There are two ways to view Dafo; from the Buddha park or from the river. First, from the Buddha Park you can look down on him from a ridge just above his head and then after climbing down steps in the side of the cliff's niche, from which there are many more good views, you arrive at his gigantic feet, from where you can gaze up at this gentle giant in awe of the enormous size. Secondly, you can view him from a little further away, by taking a river trip or ferry from the ferry port at the West bank of the river in Leshan town, either on a round trip, or to the port on the East bank of the river.

The Buddha park is large and you can spend many hours wandering around if you want to view everything that is there. There are a many sculptures (copies) of famous Buddhist sculptures from around other sites in China, a couple of temples, pagoda and lots of walking around paths snaking through woodlands.


Left: Dafo's ears are 7m long !
Centre: His feet are enormous (see people kneeling beside to compare size)
Right: View from the boat.

The steps down to Dafo's feet can get very busy if you arrive at the same time as a few groups of Chinese tourists, so patience can be required. This is especially true at some viewing spots, where every single one of them insists on getting a photo taken in a pose which gives the appearance that their hand is touching his ear, this of course can take many attempts depending on the photographer and subject, and can get irritating if all you want is a photo of Dafo, without any over-excited Chinese tourist in the foreground.

Travel Tips:
- Buses to Leshan depart from Chengdu's Xinnanmen station.
- Leshan now has a new bus station in the South Western part of town (both Rough Guide and LP are out of date).
- Bus 13 takes you from the new bus station to the ferry port and goes onto all three entrance gates of the Buddha park site. Take your pick!
- Last bus back to Chengdu was around 7pm!