Giant pandas and even bigger Buddhas

At the end of another long day of travelling we arrived in Chengdu in the dead of night. After showing the taxi man the name of the hostel in Chinese on my phone we were quickly deposited on the doorsteps of the Wada hostel and crashed into bed. How did people manage in China before smartphones?? Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province in central China, and would be our base for the next few days of exploring. It took us forever to rise the following day, but with no time to waste we set off to explore the city. Of course like everywhere in China, Chengdu has a fantastic subway system that makes getting around really easy.

We headed for the people’s park for a stroll, which is where the city folk get together in the evenings to drink tea, dance, do tai-chi or just sit around and watch the world go by. After walking around for a few minutes we noticed several flyers hanging up on trees along one of the footpaths, with people gathered around reading carefully. A friendly lady spotted the 2 tourists with bemused looks on their faces and politely told us “for wife!” The signs were a sort of match making service. It just happened that this very weekend was a Chinese holiday, and with that many people were returning home for the weekend and obviously looking for love! We thanked the nice lady by posing for the photograph she wanted of us, and carried on into the park.

Chinese dating

By far the most bizarre thing we saw were the many ear cleaners applying their trade! Yes, that’s what I said, EAR CLEANERS! Gross! The park was full of other odd and interesting characters and it was a nice place to spend the evening.

Ear Cleaner

Interesting balancing act in Peoples Garden, Chengdu

We had to get back to the hostel early enough as we had booked a couple of tickets to the Sichuan opera that evening, something different we thought! It was ok, not what I had expected at all. It was more like an hour long variety show, sort of like a China’s got talent! The standout performance was the finale of face changing where the actors seemingly change their masks in the blink of an eye. It was pretty amazing and no matter how many times or how close they were to us, it was impossible to see how it had been done.

Sichuan Opera 

When I thought of China I always thought of the Great Wall, The Terracotta Warriors and of kung fu. But there’s another even more powerful symbol that everyone seems to associate with the country. They’re big and fluffy with big black eyes and are prone to rollerblading (or so an old Kit Kat ad would have us believe) and everybody wants one! Yes pandas of course!

Chengdu is the location of the only giant panda breeding centre in China, so it was impossible to come all this way and not pay the furry guys a visit. I don’t need to describe the centre itself or what a trip there entailed! I’ll just let the photos do the talking. (Cue incredibly cute panda photos!!)

The lesser known red panda

The tour also included a trip to Leshan about 2 hours drive away, to see the world’s largest Buddha statue. It would have been really hard to reach Leshan by ourselves so the tour was a good choice. All the excitement of seeing the pandas that morning must have really drained us, because all 6 of us on the tour fell asleep in the car straight away. We arrived in Leshan in no time at all and helped ourselves to a nice lunch. Having lunch in China turns out to be a bit of a pot luck game, menus were rarely in English so you just had to choose a few dishes and hope to God you could eat some of them. Everyone digs in to all the dishes and with the help of the lazy susan meal times are a real social event.

With lunch out of the way, we boarded a nearby boat and set off across the river to view the enormous statue. Built in 713AD and measuring over 230ft it’s easily the biggest statue of Buddha in the world and quite a sight to behold. We had chosen the boat as it afforded the best views of the statue and also the 2 hour walk on the mainland in near 30 degree heat didn’t sound too appealing!

Giant Buddha, Leshan

In hindsight, the 4 hour round trip was probably not worth it, but hey! Where else are you gonna see something like that! It was an early night on our last night in Chengdu as we had booked some bus tickets for the next day. Again this was tough as nobody at the bus station spoke English, but once more it was the iphone to the rescue. A quick flash of some Chinese symbols and in no time at all we had our tickets to Kangding in hand. Kangding is a small town in western Sichuan province and the gateway for trips into Tibet. Although we weren’t gonna get to Tibet, Kangding and the surrounding countryside promised a very Tibetan feel. So with high hopes we set off the next day on a somewhat scenic 8 hour bus ride for our faux Tibetan adventure.