Despite our best laid plans to leave Beijing, booking the train ticket South-West five days in advance, the best tickets we could get were hard seat (which is somewhere around 4th class). After thirty hours aboard the train, the meaning of the name became painfully clear. Surrounded by hordes of shouting spitting, slurping Chinese, we faced a constant battle for foot space with the ones even worse off than ourselves- the dreaded standing class. At night time they took the floor, trying desperately to catch a few winks between the incessant passes of the refreshment trolley, creating a Mexican wave of standing people along the aisle. A trip to the toilet was a journey not to be taken lightly, trying to squeeze through the obstacle course of people and luggage whilst answering a few hundred “hello, hello, where are you from”s along the way. Enduring this lengthy procedure for the sake of making tea, even as an English person, was out of the question.
When we finally arrived in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, it felt like walking for the first time, after our battery chicken style train experience. We happily arrived at the hostel and took a welcome break from Chinese culture with a nice cheeseburger. Unfortunately, we
were soon to find that our planned route westwards towards the Tibetan areas was closed to foreigners, which may or may not have had something to do with the 60th anniversary of its, ahem, ‘peaceful liberation’ by the gracious Chinese government. We like to think (for our own sanity) that plans are destined to change, rather than fail. So instead, we enjoyed a few days in Chengdu, exploring the tranquil parks, where hundreds of women gather to dance in unison to Chinese pop blasting from loudspeakers found on every corner, playing anything with a beat, all at full volume. Nothing like some good communal exercise. If that’s not loud enough for you, then you can pay a visit to one of the many traditional ear cleaners, running around with white coats, wielding pieces of wire with some kind of fluff attached to the end- “very comfortable” they tell you with enthusiasm that’s hard to refuse.
In the end, decided to wait a few days in the hope that rumours were true and the West would reopen. Meanwhile, off we went to cross a few things off the Sichuan sight seeing list. First the Leshan Great Buddha- the biggest in the world infact and I suspect the most impressive. He was created by one dedicated soul with the purpose of calming the wild river tha
t ran past the city, and in some way it succeeded. Whether it was indeed the calming gaze of the enlightened one, or the huge amount of rock that was calved out of the cliff and thrown into the river leveling the bed, is up to you. Next on our Buddhism expedition, was Emei Shan, one of the four holy mountains and now shrine to capitalism, with its thousands of camera wielding pilgrims every day. On reaching the golden temple at the summit, its not difficult to imagine the mystery behind this place, the sheer face cliff disappearing into the clouds below, blue skies and bright sunshine, untampered by the usual foggy haze.
There was one thing which we decided to leave of the tourist ‘to do list’ and that was the speaciality Sichuan hotpot. So hot that it might well kill you. Infact, it is said that it used to be made with opium, the numbing effect supposedly countering the burning effect, making it bearable and maybe drugging you enough to actually enjoy it. Now that is outlawed, we thought it safer to stay away, especially with the ‘non-spicy’ food already pushing our limits on the hot front.
As we were wondering what to do next, wait for the police to make up their minds, or to forget it and head south to Yunnan province, fate made up our minds with an opportunity we could barely let pass by… dun..dun..duuuun.
When we finally arrived in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, it felt like walking for the first time, after our battery chicken style train experience. We happily arrived at the hostel and took a welcome break from Chinese culture with a nice cheeseburger. Unfortunately, we
were soon to find that our planned route westwards towards the Tibetan areas was closed to foreigners, which may or may not have had something to do with the 60th anniversary of its, ahem, ‘peaceful liberation’ by the gracious Chinese government. We like to think (for our own sanity) that plans are destined to change, rather than fail. So instead, we enjoyed a few days in Chengdu, exploring the tranquil parks, where hundreds of women gather to dance in unison to Chinese pop blasting from loudspeakers found on every corner, playing anything with a beat, all at full volume. Nothing like some good communal exercise. If that’s not loud enough for you, then you can pay a visit to one of the many traditional ear cleaners, running around with white coats, wielding pieces of wire with some kind of fluff attached to the end- “very comfortable” they tell you with enthusiasm that’s hard to refuse.
In the end, decided to wait a few days in the hope that rumours were true and the West would reopen. Meanwhile, off we went to cross a few things off the Sichuan sight seeing list. First the Leshan Great Buddha- the biggest in the world infact and I suspect the most impressive. He was created by one dedicated soul with the purpose of calming the wild river tha
t ran past the city, and in some way it succeeded. Whether it was indeed the calming gaze of the enlightened one, or the huge amount of rock that was calved out of the cliff and thrown into the river leveling the bed, is up to you. Next on our Buddhism expedition, was Emei Shan, one of the four holy mountains and now shrine to capitalism, with its thousands of camera wielding pilgrims every day. On reaching the golden temple at the summit, its not difficult to imagine the mystery behind this place, the sheer face cliff disappearing into the clouds below, blue skies and bright sunshine, untampered by the usual foggy haze.
There was one thing which we decided to leave of the tourist ‘to do list’ and that was the speaciality Sichuan hotpot. So hot that it might well kill you. Infact, it is said that it used to be made with opium, the numbing effect supposedly countering the burning effect, making it bearable and maybe drugging you enough to actually enjoy it. Now that is outlawed, we thought it safer to stay away, especially with the ‘non-spicy’ food already pushing our limits on the hot front.
As we were wondering what to do next, wait for the police to make up their minds, or to forget it and head south to Yunnan province, fate made up our minds with an opportunity we could barely let pass by… dun..dun..duuuun.
