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.

Chengdu Travel Guide - Dazu Rock Carvings Pictures

Chengdu Travel - After some enquiries regarding the Buddhist Rock carvings at Dazu, it seemed a good time to show some of the pics we took during a trip made last January - taking a couple of Italian girls on a Dazu day trip from Chengdu.
By the way the many handed lady above is the god of Mercy - apparently there are 1007 hands, if you don't believe then you best start counting!!
To see this and the other pics in their full-splendor - klick on them to get the larger image.


That last statue is in a small cave, but most of the Dazu carvings were made on open-air cliff-faces. The work itself dates between the Tang and Song Dynasties (9th -13th centuries). At the biggest site at Baoding (there are several sites - Dazu is main town of the area) the scale and state of preservation of this ancient work is very impressive - this picture gives an idea of that, and also shows what kind of viewing opportunities are offered to the visitor.


Here are the Italian girls - they were working with the then upcoming Olympics and had decided to do the Dazu trip from Chengdu. The distance to Dazu from Chengdu is about 200km (Chongqing is closer by about 50km) - and it's possible to do most of the drive by motorway. However to give our guests a bit more of a view to the "real" Sichuan - we drove to the carvings, using country roads, passing through the type interesting small towns and villages that most tourists just never get to see. We took the motorway route home.


Here's another section of carvings - this time at Beishan. These carvings, also very interesting, were not so impressive as those at Baoding.


Viewing the carvings at Beishan.


Here's the girls with Meggie - there are a few hangers-on in the background - obviously trying to get into the picture!!!


Its difficult to capture the scale of this monument in photos - the sites are very impressive.


A few more hands to count.


Its good fun just looking for the weird and wonderful. Could this be a rather grouchy man sitting on an armchair cat?


It's also a good fun place to play around with a camera.


There's something special about this face.


This guy reminds me of my old Maths Teacher at Moseley Grammar - we called The Toad.


A monk in his Lotus flower.


Dazu - a very nice day out.