Chengdu, Sichuan

We came to Chengdu to experience Sichuanese cuisine and see the scenery. Sichuan is a moist region surrounded by mountains, and the fiery food here is supposed to dry you out. A lot of backpackers come here to go to Tibet or backpack in the mountains in general, and otherwise there aren't too many tourists.

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From 20090312_Chengdu_QinChengShan_Cupping_Starred

From our first day we heard about foreigners getting stopped by police. It's near the 50th anniversary of a failed Tibetan rebellion. Our hotel has informed everyone that the western part of Sichuan (which borders with Tibet) is closed, tourists are being turned away, and mobile phones don't work there. Even the Tibetan neighborhood in Chengdu is closed to foreigners. The police came to our hotel 3 times looking for a group of Israelis at our hotel that were caught taking a picture of a self-made sign in the Tibetan neighborhood of Chengdu. The Israeli's claim it said "Happy Birthday," but the police suspected something like "Free Tibet". A lot of our fellow travellers have had to totally change their travel plans, including our Polish-Canadian friends.

Our hotel manager, Sim, is quite a character. He's Singaporean and his wife is Japanese, and theirs is the only "foreign-run backpacker hostel." He's very knowledgable and helpful and takes his guests on a variety of custom trekking tours. The Tibet problems are causing him a lot of grief since he wants the best for his guests. And apparently the landlord and police are rough on his hotel since they don't like foreigners. Further the Sichuan earthquake caused a decline in tourism and cracks in their building that the landlord won't fix. You have to feel bad for the guy - he's obviously staying in Chengdu because he loves helping his guests live out their travel dreams, but running this hotel seems to cause him a lot of grief.

When Sim found out Steve was sick he personally walked us over to a nearby spa and waited with us while Steve got a cupping treatment, which dries out the body and involves torches, cups and wierd purple spots on your skin.

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Probably the top rated site in/near Chengdu is the panda breeding center, where several hundred pandas live. China breeds pandas here and loans them out to zoos around the world and in China, and any offspring pandas belong to the Chinese by contract. We saw tons and tons of pandas of all ages, especially babies. The adults were all eating or sleeping. Pandas don't get much nutrition out of bamboo so they have too eat a lot and conserve their energy. The babies were all playing. They are still fed milk/formula so they get to mess around all day instead of chewing bamboo. There's not much else that needs to be said other than that they were basically the most adorable animal you could imagine.

We also tried to take in some scenery at nearby Qin Cheng Shan. This steep mountain is a (or the?) birthplace of Taoism and is dotted with temples to visit on the way up the mountain. Oddly this is one of the most expensive things we did in China. The temples in the park were hit pretty bad by the earthquake.

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From 20090312_Chengdu_QinChengShan_Cupping_Starred

I got carried in a sedan-chair like thing up part of the mountain. I wasn't particularly keen on doing this, but it was the only way we could get to the top without destroying my foot. 2 middle aged men carried me up a rapid 200 ft elevation hike while smoking. This was impressive, though one of them sounded like he was about to have a heart attack. Part of their trick was that they had 2 younger guys with them and they switched off when they got tired. There were at least 10 carriers milling looking for people to carry and, and roughly 1 customer - me. The chair was actually extremely uncomfortable, both physically and mentally (because I don't like the idea of paying other humans to carry me), however the carriers were really happy to have work. They maybe having an exceptionally tough time because of the earthquake's impact on tourism and the economy. On the other hand, it seems normal in China to have 3 people employed doing the work of 1 person, or doing work that is isn't necessary at all. For instance each bus stop has a rush-hour attendant, and it's common for stores to have multiple employees milling around chitchatting with each other.

From 20090312_Chengdu_QinChengShan_Cupping_Starred

The other really memorable thing we did here was take cooking lessons. We did this at our hostel and it was a surpringly good lesson since we each got to personally make 3 different Sichuanese specialties: kung bao chicken, spicy green beans and ma po dofu (tofu in spicy red sauce). Everything was delicious, although the chef didn't wash his hands after touching raw chicken. It's a freaking miracle we don't get sick more often from eating out.