Chengdu Travel Guide - Pandas, Hotpot , Opera, Big Buddha, Emei and a Lantern Festival - all in one and a half days.

Chengdu Travel - for a Chengdu Travel Blog this site seems a little lacking on info regarding stuff you can actually do within the city! So here's an article, about our last guest, that puts this situation a little to rights. During this trip we were helping a traveler who wanted a very full and hectic one and half days - that would almost be a non-stop tour between her airport touchdown and take-off. By the way - she arrived during the afternoon - so this tour started around 1pm on the day that would include Pandas, Hotpot and Sichuan Opera.


It's always "fun" with airport pick-ups - late arrivals, spotting a guest in the crowd, meeting those guests, face to face, for the first time - but rarely are we already giving a tour within a hour of touchdown. But this was the case during our last assignment - a guest who wanted to be whisked from airport to Chengdu Panda center - and within 40 minutes she was clicking away at the bears.


However this part of mission also included getting our guest a young panda to hold. We'd phoned up the center - but had been told that being able to hold one of these Pandas depended on the decision of the keepers with regard to how the animal was that day - and no bookings were possible. So all we could bank on was turning up - and hoping an animal would be available.
The pic shows a younger bear - but behind glass in the baby Panda enclosure


Sometimes if you're very lucky you get to see the very small pandas - but today the incubators were empty.


Yikes!!!!!!!!!! Take a look at this pic - is that an escaped Panda on the run????


It wasn't that hard to get permission to get our young Panda picture taking opportunity - in fact we only had to wait 15 minutes before the staff set everything up.
The cost for having this opportunity is 1000RMB for a small panda and 400RMB for an adult/larger animal - and these prices are advertised as donations. The whole thing is very brief - under 5 minutes from the time you start sitting with the bear. Meggie was allowed in to take pics - while a member of the staff also shot more pics with our guest's camera.


Here's a bigger version of Panda - totally chilled out.


And lets not forget the Red Pandas - who, if anything, are more entertaining than their bigger cousins.

By the way the admission prices of the Chengdu Center has nearly doubled - up from 30RMB to 58RMB!!!!


Well after Pandas it was time to eat - eating Chengdunese. So what better than the most popular meal in town - hotpot.
Hotpot is like a giant fondue set-up - but that pot is put over a gas burner. Inside the normal Chengdu style pot we have oils and very hot and spicy spices into which you cook a whole variety of dishes (these you choose yourself). Because the normal oils are so spicy - a special pot was put in the middle, called white hotpot - which is very mild and contains far less oil.


Here's some of the food that we chose for our feast - we included kidneys and tripe, but if you're squeamish you don't have to order this kind of stuff. Otherwise we got regular meat, vegetables and a variety of mushrooms - and tofu.


There are so many Hotpots in Chengdu - but to pick the good ones look for the crowd. by 6pm a few folk had started to queue on the street waiting for an empty table.


Well after the eating came the final destination of the day - Sichuan Opera.
Here we have one of the troop about to give one of trademark moves of the style of Chinese opera - a high kick.


The opera comes with its orchestra - and the music is characterised by a great deal of gong crashing.


There's a lot of exciting stuff in these performances - quick mask and costumes changes, marionettes, circus type acts and and good helping of fire-spitting (I've left this pic slighlty bigger than the others - if you click on it, it can be downloaded - it makes great desktop wallpaper).
Like all good popular folk performances - its quite okay for the audience to give there feedback with not only "ohhhhhhhhhs" and "ahhhhhhhhs" - but also a little bit of shouting.


Here's the hand-shadow part of the show - I reckon that one should be a butterfly.


Phewwwwwww - the first half day over - and everything going to plan. Now comes day 2 - and a lot of travel. We're going to try and do Big Buddha and Emei mountain in one day - and there's a thick fog!!!!!!!!!!!
Well if you're going to do the Big Buddha quickly you have to be careful of going into the park - it can be very crowded - especially just now when kids are still on their Chinese new year's break.
If you look at this pic you can see that there is queue going around the Buddha - we could hear the park people telling folk to be careful and move on - it all looked rather clogged up.

And how did we get to see the Buddha??????????????????????


We chose that island that lies just in front of the Buddha - you get there from the Leshan side of the river - a 1 minute ferry ride costs an amazing 1RMB each way - surely one of the best Sichuan bargains going!!!
We were worried that the fog would prevent us from seeing the statue - but luckily it wasn't that bad and we got good views.


After Leshan town its a 40 minute rush up the road to Emei mountain - here the fog was also heavy and we walked the mid elevations.
This is a pic from earlier in the year - from the golden summit - if this place is clouded out you can't see very much.


After a day traveling what better to get back to Chengdu - and get some local snacks on Jinli Street. This site is labelled as an ancient street - which is a bit of a misnomer - since it's a modern built copy!!! This is a real shame, since so much that was genuine and lovely has gone under the developer's concrete - but at least it gives a little feel of how things used to be.


Here are some of the snacks - of course for us folk who travel the countryside and find the genuine stuff - very over-priced. But because these foods are becoming harder and harder to find - maybe we shouldn't begrudge paying a few extra RMB in keeping the local snacks and specialities something we can also find in Chengdu.


Being close to Chinese New Year - we also had a very colourful lantern festival.


And there's always a souvenir or two to buy - these are painted gourds .


But the highlight of this place is food - and how better to sign-off after one and a half days of hard-core, non-stop sight-seeing - than with a mouth full of squid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chengdu Travel Guide - Luding - walking to a mountain monastery

Chengdu Travel - last week we finally got the chance to make a trip to a couple of areas we've been meaning to check out. One of these places was a monastery which is found high on a mountain that overlooks Luding - a town that's 7 hours drive from Chengdu on the road to Kangding.


Here's the start of our walk - from the edge of the town. Luding itself isn't much of a destination - and although its bustling and busy - nearly all that was old and interesting has been redeveloped into a rather sterile concrete mess. But if you take the paths that lead up the valleys you soon get out to far more appealing areas.


At the bottom of our track we ran into a local method of transport - horses. If you're living at the tops of the valleys there's no real roads - just very steep tracks that soon turn into small winding mountain paths.


At the bottom there's still farming - with lots of terraced fields. In the past there also used to be fields at higher elevations, but because of reforestation projects farming is now not allowed on the upper valley.


This picture gives you an indication of this area's climate - an orange tree


As we get higher we look down on the last of the farmland.


This is the lower monastery on our route - it only took half an hour to get here. We were told it would take two to three hours to get to the upper monastery.


However that path just kept on going - up, up and yet further up!!!!!


You need a fairly good pair of lungs for this kind of trek. The actual path was in fairly good condition - and the altitude isn't that high to cause us problems. The habitat here has turned into a scrubby dry grassland.


And, of course, as you get higher those views just get better and better. After a couple of hours trekking the snow mountains of the Gongga range come into view - but still no sight of that monastery.


The scrub of mid valley elevations started to turn into woodland as we got higher. As you can also see the sun really started to come out latter in the day.


About 4 hours into the trek - stopping for a well-earned breather!!!!


In that last pic Meggie is looking down this valley - that monastery lies somewhere in this direction.


After around 6 hours we finally arrive.


Here's the caretaker - there are no monks left at this place. It was getting on to be late afternoon - so the old guy agreed to let us stay overnight.


The old man was quite a character - 86 years old he had been some sort of Kung Fu monk. On his cheeks he had black tattoo scars that had been made while testing his powers against pain - which involved some nasty stuff with a knife!!! During the night he showed us that he could lick and touch a red-hot poker - not your usual old-age-pensioner party trick.
He was surprised I had a name - he assumed only Chinese were given names. The first - and only - foreigner he had ever seen was three years before during a visit to the town. I don't think many foreigners have made it up to this place.

This is inside one of the main temple buildings.


To hold guard we have a couple of lion statues - I suppose if you've never seen a lion then you also might produce something like this.


I actually think these lions are pretty superb - inside this one's mouth we have some kind of offering.


Our bedroom lies through that door - hardly 5 star - but whose to complain, this place is great.


Just to prove we're not staying at the Hilton - this is the bedroom lighting.


But who needs opulent luxury when you can wake up to views like this.


The sunrise is always spectacular when you have snow mountains in the scene


Chilly morning - getting a fire going. No chimney here - the smoke works its way out past the rafters.


well it looks nice and cozy in a pic - but boy your eyes start to sting after a bit. and it can't be too healthy - the after effects of warming up - feel like smoking a box of non-filter cigarettes


Outside there's plenty of fresh air. After our night up in the monastery we set off towards the bottom - another tough walk - going down is just as hard as going up. 72 hours latter - my legs are still protesting - but what a great trek.

Chengdu Travel Guide - Tibetan Faces

We've spent our Christmas days around Chengdu, but are looking forward to soon travel westward again. Chengdu is very close to the Eastern geographic borders of the Tibetan Plateau - a region that is often referred to as Kham.
The map illustrates how easy it is to get to this region by road - at least half the distance to Kangding - the gateway to the grasslands - is made up of modern motorway - while the the rest of the route which winds its way up to the Erlang Tunnel - is on main-road (a few more potholes on this section - but still an easy drive) - and the whole trip to Kangding, if you did it without stopping, is only a 6 to 7 hour project.
Beyond Kangding the roads are not of the same standard - but, in normal conditions, 2WD vehicles can easily drive in this area.


We saw a picture of this guy in a magazine - voted the most beautiful man in the world - I suppose you could call him a beauty-king. This picture is out on the high grassland between Yajiang and Litang - when we drove past and just happened to stumble upon a local horse race meeting.


Well its not all beauty-kings - these ladies, and their dogs, also looked very regal.


The grassland is also a place for 'real' men - and women.


A face of concentration. Walking around the Temple at Dege - praying with beads and prayer-wheel.


A monk at Dege.


A smaller cheekier monk - taking a peep at the strange foreigner driving an old Jeep.


And here's my old jeep surrounded by a group of beauty queens - they don't seem too camera-shy. This was at a religious festival in Litang.


A crowd scene from the same day.


A portrait from the crowd


another portrait - but this time it's Meggie munching on a Tibetan blood-sausage. These things taste just like the British version of blood sausage - the black-pudding you get up in the North of England!!!!!


Well I suppose you can't portray a series of Tibetan faces without including this one!!!!!

Bi Feng Xia - A visit to the historic town of Shangli

Chengdu Travel - we've already put up a report about the Bi Feng Xia Panda Research Center - however this article shows that this area isn't just Pandas. One of the best spots around Bi Feng Xia - just 10km's up the road from the Research Center - is the ancient town of Shangli. Once an important center for the old tea-horse trail - a trade route where tea and other commodities were traded to the Tibetans to purchase horses from the grassland - a bit of this old town has survived to make it into a worthwhile stop-over for any body doing a trip to the Pandas. You can even do a circular route from Chengdu - driving to Bi Feng Xia panda Center via the Ya'an Expressway - and then going back to Chengdu on a small winding country road that takes you over the scenic mountains in which the Bi Feng gorge is located and then on to the Qionglai/Chengdu Expressway for the final leg back into the city. This route takes you past many sites of interest - including the ancient town of Shangli.

The picture above shows the bridge that leads to the main gate of Shangli - and the river that runs around the town.


Although not a huge tourist spot - this site is still popular with locals - and as such some of the town has been re-built in the old-style. It looks okay - but many of these building aren't old.


However if you take to the side streets.....


There is still some of the genuine old tucked away in this place.


courtyards.....


and old wooden buildings.


Impressive carved doors -


with people still living behind them - and using the old traditional furniture which has disappeared from the modern China.


These doors used to open up into courtyards of rich traders and land-owners.


Although events in China's recent history have caused the destruction of many old artifacts - in Shangli you still get a taste of the craft and culture of old traditional China.


It's very easy to spot the genuine old.


With an eye for fine detail - there's a lot to discover and enjoy here.


But even the tourist part of the town is interesting - a counter selling traditional sweets.


An old-style local barber.


and of course the doctor of traditional Chinese medicine.


Inside the doctor's shop - the ingredients for the different cures.


When you're paying for your potion - an abacus to tot-up the price.


It was Sunday when we made our visit, and couple of small girls had set themselves up selling small animals and flowers made out of folded leaves.


A flower is nearly finished.


Other locals took it a little easier and passed their day tourist-spotting.


There's a lot of interesting food in these places - these are steamed buns made out of rice-flour.


In one kitchen they were smoking pork and sausages - by the look of those roof beams this isn't the first year they've been doing this!!!!


A lady selling soft-white tofu - one of my favourites with a good red-pepper sauce.


Another product of soya-bean is tofu milk - this small hand mill is used to extract the juices from the beans.


Something not quite so healthy - deep-fried peafritters - and some tofu which also gets the same treatment.


Something that strikes us western-folk as odd (and indeed a few Chinese city people) - in the countryside you often buy your coffin before you die!!! Here's somebodies coffin lying out in the backyard - covered in boxes and empty bottles - but it's ready for use when the time comes!!


Shangli - an historic town that still hasn't been completely taken over by the tourist.

Chengdu Travel Guide - Sichuan Winter Wonderland

Chengdu Travel - A couple of Weeks ago we received an enquiry from a young Canadian engineer - on a short working trip in Shanghai - about wanting a weekend break with a difference - something a little beyond the usual 'snap-snap another nice photo' experience. So where better to go than explore some of the trails around Moxi (about 5 hours to the west of Chengdu). This scenic area with its forests and soaring peaks oozes adventure - but what we didn't expect was the weather - a day before we set-off Moxi had sun - when we got there it was in the middle of a snow storm!!!


It was snowing the whole of the first day - here's the path we took the first morning.


Although the temperatures weren't too cold you need to dress well for these type of conditions - our guest; Dave - with Meggie.


The snow and the ice created some very pretty scenes. Many of the trees here are covered with hanging moss - in the sub-zero conditions this had frozen to create an effect that would have been the envy of any Christmas tree.



The frozen berries also looked very neat.


They may have been cold - but the birds were still tucking into them. This is a White-throated Redstart.



It's also good fun playing with these snow-shot photos in Photoshop.


In cold conditions what better way of getting warm that to build a campfire. We moved out of the forest and got some firewood from a local farmer - we had taken grill meat with us from Chengdu - but that snow is falling even harder.


That's better - it didn't take long to get a good blaze.


Nothing like grilling in the snow - we had ribs, steak, sausages, corn and potatoes - and just to wash it down some local brandy mixed up into a hot toddy with boiling water and brown sugar. That fire was very effective - we spent six hours grilling, talking and watching the embers.


We weren't going to keep that fire going all night - so back to the hotel - and set the electric blankets to top heat. The hotel we stayed at was rather primitive - but these electric blankets keep you cosy enough.


To get our car through the snow we fit chains onto the drive wheels.


Although the snow had stopped falling the second day we needed those chains to climb the pass to get to our second walk. It's difficult for camera light-meters to work out settings when you have a combination of silver car and white-snow!!!


The big problem with our first day had been the low cloud which had prevented us from enjoying the view - but as we climbed over the 3,000m mark we started to drive through the top layers.


Up around 4,000m we were in strong sunlight - indeed so strong, I had no sun-glasses, my eyes suffered minor irritation the following night.


The walk here is fantastic - at this height we're coming close to 5,000m. As usual we all had to take it easy in the thin air - but our guest had no altitude problems.


and we still had a rib or two from the night before - they taste extra better up here!!!


We found this Christmas-tree like branch by the side of the prayer-flag - I'm sure its nothing to do with our own festivities - but it does look rather seasonal.


These mountains are great places!

Chengdu Travel Guide - Real country walks - just an hour outside Chengdu

Chengdu Travel - Chengdu is a bustling city of 11 million that is ever spreading in every direction! But for those who hanker after a little solitude and a lung full or two of fresh-air, it is possible to escape the crowd and find some nice walks on pathways that don't contain the slightest trace of concrete or tarmac - just an hour or so's drive outside Chengdu in the Qingcheng mountains that lie close to the town of Dujiangyan. However you need to know where to look - because there are a lot of mountain out here - and the main tourist sites are both expensive, crowded and all the paths are concrete walkways - while in other parts you'll hardly see soul as you hike on farmer paths that weave up the mountain from field to field. Last Sunday we decided to take one of those nice quiet country walks .
The secret to finding these places is to find a slightly bigger track that used by motorbikes and trikes - and then.........


follow it until it turns into a path. On the Qingcheng Mountain these paths are used to connect farmhouses and fields, and to allow goat-herders to get to graze their animals at the tops of the mountains.


The paths - which are quite easy to follow - go up, and the fields are often run close to patches of woodland making for a very pretty scene.



..... and the idea is to climb a little more until.....


you're past the field line and up in the woodland at the top of the ridges - there are still paths up here.


Our Walk last Sunday got us up to this forested area - it makes a good campsite in the summer.


Although too cold for camping, there's still a lot of stuff to photograph. This seed head - is really fascinating when viewed so close


Looking down it's a bit hazy - but the view isn't that bad!


Here we can see an example of the strange kind of weather we often get in the Sichuan. Looking down towards the flat Sichuan-basin and Chengdu - we have a foggy haze - while here around 2,000m we can see the blue sky. In those areas of Sichuan that lie above 3,000m a sunny winters day - down around Chengdu its a little more gray!


Here are some locals working up near the top collecting bamboos to make into brooms. That's heavy - I know, I helped load the old guy up


Mao caps are still the fashion up here with the older generation - and those pipes that have a simple rolled up tobacco leaf stuffed into them - are also popular. All the people on this part of the mountain know us - after all I'm just about the only foreigner they get to see. They are also very friendly always taking the time to talk to us - and inviting us into their houses. These are very nice folk.


Other stuff you can find around here are small shrines - in this one the baby has lost its head!


Any good Sunday walk should be topped off with a good Sunday dinner - this is in a country restaurant - hardcore Sichuan food. Bacon and beans in a sweet sauce, Beef tripe in pepper sauce, cold pickled veggies and tofu, Chinese carrot in soup, sauce dips for the carrot and a portion of soft-white tofu (which arrived latter) and my favourite - home made herbal rice-wine (pretttttty Strong stuff).
If the walk doesn't knock you out - the food will!!!!

Chengdu Travel Guide - San Xing Dui

Chengdu Travel - This last weekend we visited another of Chengdu's important tourist sites - The San Xing Dui museum.
San Xing Dui - about an hour's drive outside central Chengdu - is the location of an excavation site where relics from a lost civilisation have been found. These artifacts are very old - carbon dating putting them from periods dating between the - 11th and 13th century BC.
Apart from their age - the finds are also unique, since the styles employed in their design are totally different from anything else found in Chinese art, and that the large size of some of the bronze castings show that the manufacturers used casting techniques - adding lead to the bronze alloy mix - that were remarkably advanced for this period of time. The Bronze head, in the picture above, is massive - 4 or 5 adults would easy fit into to it - and its tall enough so they would only be visible from chest height up. If I was to compare this stuff to those pre-historic bronze collections I've seen back home in the UK - usually made up of small bronze blades - then I'd classify some of this stuff as gigantic.
But perhaps what's so intriguing about the exhibits, are their sheer mystery. Apart from the finds there are no records whatsoever - not even through folklore or myth - of this truly lost civilisation.

For lots of pics of that illustrates the stuff to be found here - just scroll down.


Here's the gang again - our nephew and a friend's daughter - on their way into the museum. The exhibition halls are sighted in a park. Admission was quite expensive - 86RMB for adults, half price for kids and since the smallest of our team was under 1.20m - she got in for free.
We drove our own car here - but there are buses going out in this direction - and decent traveler friendly hotels like Sam's and Sim's can put you onto good transport possibilities.


There are two exhibition halls - here's the first - built into a mound.


Inside, I'm afraid the display design and lay-out, is rather boring and conservative in comparison to the fantastic ancient art that's exhibited in the halls.
Also you're not allowed to use flash-photography - and lighting levels are very low. I'm lucky to have camera with an image stabilising function - and a copy of photoshop on my computer to edit and sharpen the images for latter use. But if you do want good photos here - you need either a very steady hand or a tripod, and a good photo-editing program is a must. I took many photos - maybe one out of ten are what I'd consider decent.


The other problem here - is lack of interesting labeling. But I suppose if the stuff does come from a lost civilisation with no recorded history - then there's very little to write about it.
Like all of these type of sites - you can hire an English speaking guide.


But the quality of the exhibits well make-up for any lack of imagination on the presentation front. This stuff really is treasure - here's a gold mask dating from the 13th century BC.



Here are Tiger teeth - they've gone that color through being buried for over 3,000 years together with all those bronze artifacts.


In that first hall there's a lot of jade - and not your usual jade jewelry - but jade knives!!!


Here's a beautiful selection of jade blades.


This is the biggest - they've described it as a sacrificial knife. I wouldn't fancy being an offering to the gods after being poked by that!


In these kinds of places I often much prefer the small to the big - this jade knife is less that 30cm long - but it has such a neat design.


More Jade on smaller scale - a spear head - these guys could carve.


But it is the ability to produce big that makes the San Xing Dui exhibition so special. The crowing pieces of the first hall are a couple of weird bronze 'ornaments' - that look like cross between very fancy lampposts and exhibits in some avant-garde art show. Kind of crazy to think that they're over 3,000 years old.


The second hall - which was the original museum before the site developed and expanded.


Inside we have all the bronze heads, and a lot of other bronze artifacts - there are three level of exhibition hall - you ascend on a spiral walkway.


Again another large bronze casting - this time exhibiting those protruding pupils that seem to be a popular style with some of the heads.


Now this guy is big - and it's also the worlds oldest life size bronze statue of a human - in fact it's slightly over life size at 2.6m. Obviously in the days when it was still serving its purpose, probably as some religious monument - its held something in those hands.


Again another huge head/mask.


These next two guys are on a smaller scale.


Since we have so little knowledge of this civilisation, pieces like this, can certainly get the imagination rolling.


Some of those masks are covered in gold.



But once again its the small stuff that fascinates me - an eagle head bronze - about 6cm high.


here we have a chicken.


A fantastic bird.


Now we're getting onto the bigger stuff again - this is well over 1 m high - and with all those crazy designs, would surely be an inspiration for some modern day tattoo artist.


And if everything gets too much - then there are useful sites outside the exhibition halls - like a sacrifice platform to put them naughty kids in their place. Actually there are no ruins - remains consist of mounds. But San Xing Dui does home a truly remarkable collection - a good day out.