China - Panda Love in Chengdu
We left the busy streets of Xi’an behind and had a largely uneventful 300km journey to the city of Hanzhong. The Amap app that we are using in China is so superior to Google maps giving a constant narrative on speed, which lane you should be in, where cameras are and what they’re for. It even shows when traffic lights you are approaching are about to change and whether you should speed up or slow down. The road signs warnings are constant too.
When we reached Hangzong we parked up next to a scenic park where there were many Chinese motorhomes parked up. After a visit to a very swish supermarket, we got our Brompton bikes out for a good pedal around the park, then down the other side of the river which was very pleasant to get our legs moving after all the long drives.
As always the locals were curious and kind. We met a lovely family picnicking next to us The father forced his shy daughter to speak some English to us. They had to leave early to take her to school on a Sunday afertnoon. We were given a bag of tea by another guy who was passing, then the lady in the motorhome next to us gave us peanuts to have with our beer.
The following day started cool and misty, then turned wet. We had a 300km drive to an ancient city called Langzhong. Colin tried a Starbucks Cheese Latte at a service station stop - lets just say he's not converting from Flat Whites. After a decent run on the expressways we ended up on a national road which took us through more rural scenic areas but it seemed to take forever to reach the ancient city.
Langzhong is located in southern Sichuan Province and has a history of over 2,000 years and is one of the best-preserved ancient cities from the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China. The city has many well-preserved ancient buildings and we were looking forward to exploring its narrow streets.
Unfortunately as we arrived the rain got heavier, so after a good coffee in a cultural centre where we were joined by a four-legged friend we just had to accept getting wet and visited as much as we could before the light went.
We got a good view of the rooftops from a tower in the old city. The old city sits on a river where there are also supposed to be good views and boat trips are offered, but sadly not something to be done in the bad weather.
The weather didn't seem to put off the locals who were playing Chinese Chess and Mahjong on every street corner.There were a number of historic buildings we could visit where we enjoyed our over 60's free entry again.
In the evenng we met Olivia for a tasty dinner in a local restaurant where a group of local men took an interest in us, then insisted we had a cheers with the local hard liquor. We got drenched on the way back to Lolly.
It was still raining as we set off for a 260km drive to Chengdu, Olivia's home town. We had two full days off driving here so we checked into a hotel for 3 nights to better explore the city.
Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan Province, with a population of over 20 million. For a city that is larger than most major cities in the West, most people know very little about it.
Some interesting facts about Chengdu:
Chengdu is the only city in China that has not been relocated or changed its name for over 2000 years.
Chengdu was the first city in the world to use paper money in 1023 AD.
Chengdu is an Official UNESCO City of Gastronomy (the first city in China to receive this honour), which was awarded in 2010. The city is particularly known for it's spicy food.
Chengdu's tea culture is one of the oldest in China, and the city has over 10,000 teahouses.
We were all excited on our first day here to be visiting Chengdu's No. 1 attraction - the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. We went in the morning when the pandas should be most active but we were lucky with the weather - it stopped raining and stayed cool which pandas like. Olivia had worked here as an interpreter and guide previoulsy so she was looking forward to taking us around.
The Panda base started nearly 40 years ago caring for just 6 pandas. Today there are more than 270. To give some context, there are around 1,900 giant pandas living in the wild, with just over 800 living in captivity in China. The Centres mission is to combine conservation, research, captive breeding, vetinary care and public education. I can't imagine anyone could not love pandas so it's no surprise that the base attracts over 12 million visitors a year.
We walked around the various ‘villas’ and got some good views of many pandas as well as the smaller red pandas. Although there are 270 pandas at the base, only a small number will be in the public enclsoures at any one time. They have a hard life of eating kilos of bamboo and sleeping. In fact they may eat for up to 16 hours a day as bamboo, their staple diet, is very low in nutrients. There are some nursery enclosures in the base where we saw some youngsters sleeping up a tree, which in the wild would offer them protection. For such cuddly creatures, they are surprisingly good climbers.
Olivia said that we were lucky to see so many pandas in the open, as on a hotter day (over 26 degrees) they retreat to their air-conditioned inside space.
Even our coffees had pandas in them!
We visited a newish area dedicated to golden snub-nosed monkeys. It was much quieter here and we saw more pandas with less crowds on the way. The male monkey we saw didn’t look pleased to see us - we thought he’d be proud to show off his magnificent gonads !
Once we'd seen as many pandas as we could, Colin and I caught a panda bus into the city centre to have a walk around some of the sites there.
Our first stop was Kuanzhai Alley which is some old Qing era streets in the centre with with restored traditional buildings which are now largely touristy tea houses, restaurants and shops. We had some refreshing jasmine tea in one of the tea houses and watched several other customers have their ears cleaned. The practioners performing this use a collection of instruments to scoop out ear wax - whilst it is supposed to be a relaxing experience, we couldn't help thinking we are always told not to stick things in our ears, so decided it wasn't for us!
We continued on for a walk around People’s Park where there are a lot of tea houses and it is a good place for people watching with locals dancing, playing Mahjong and taking rowing boats out on the lake.
We moved on to Jinli Ancient Street which is very similar to Kuanzhai Alley with old touristy lanes but quite atmospheric in the evening when it is lit with the red lanterns.
On our second free day I had my hair cut and coloured again. Olivia found a salon near our hotel that was offering a great deal. It was quite an experience with two young guys working on it together. I was happy with the result though and paid a quarter what I pay in the UK. I tried to get Colin worried by asking which colour I should go for.
As mentioned, Chengdu is famous for its spicy Sichuan food. Specialities include hot pot (where the ingredients are all put in a pot of simmering broth on your table to cook in front of you), Kung Pao chicken, dumplings and cold noodles. We can verify the food is very delicious.
After our two days off driving it was time to hit the road again. We left the rush hour traffic in Chengdu behind and headed to the Giant Buddha in Leshan. On the way we passed tea plantations.
Just outside Leshan we took a boat on the river to view the giant Buddha which is 71m tall and is a World UNESCO Heritage Site. It was carved in AD 713 to 803 and the Buddhas ears are 7m long and its feet 8.5m wide - quite a sight.
While the Buddha was impressive, the part Colin was most impressed with was the AI screen at the ticket office that visitors could speak to and it automatically translated what you said into Chinese for the sales person. China is so way ahead on this type of technology than the rest of the world.
We drove into the new part of Leshan city and parked in a car park near the river. Olivia walked us to a restaurant to try the sweet roasted duck that is popular in this city which was very tasty.
It was very much more hot and humid now that we were heading south in China. We had planned to get our bikes out to cycle along the river but dark clouds gathered and the rain started.
We had a stroll around the local night street market next to where we were parked which had food stalls as well as fresh fruit and veggies for sale, but after having the duck at lunchtime we didn't have the appetite to try very much.
When the rain started we took shelter in Lolly with a tasty egg pastry snack, then Olivia sent us some egg rolls to try that were pancakes with savoury fillings. It was a first for us having food delivered straight to Lolly in a car park, or anywhere for that matter.
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