Day 1 A bit confused in Chengdu

Lost on a rainy day with lots of help from friendly people. 

Our first day in Chengdu was rainy, we only saw Panda products, no real Pandas yet: st­­ill, panda products are pretty cheerful. We decided to keep the real pandas for when our other friend met us here at the end of the trip.

It’s probably useful at this stage to explain that I speak some Chinese (mostly travel Chinese), and while at one point I was pretty good, with the help of the phrase book, at communicating most things; on this trip it had been some years since I’d used any Chinese so I really didn’t remember so well. Also, sometimes I had a time lag on understanding things. This got better as the time went on, but day one was sometimes a bit confusing – despite the always wonderful attempts by locals to help us out. 

It was raining all day, which is unseasonal, but what can you do? We had an adventure on the subway trains and went out to this great museum which is an archeological site. It’s called the Jinsha Site Museum and I think I found out about it by doing a google search of “what to do in Chengdu.” Here’s a link https://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/sichuan/chengdu/jinsha-site-museum.htm

When they were digging foundations for a new building, they found evidence of a civilisation from around 800 BC with king’s house, a platform for sacrificing animals, lots of burials with burial goods and lots of remnants from the people’s lives. You see the dig and then the artefacts. They’ve also done a reconstruction of what they think it would have been like. That was great. 

Exchanging money

We knew which subway station to go to and getting there was easy, but before we went to the archeological site, I had to exchange some money. After leaving the subway station I went to the Bank of China and asked the teller if I could exchange money. She asked the security guard and indicated that we should go with him. We went with the security guard to an ATM inside the bank where he showed me the exchange rates, I said yes, and he asked for my money. I gave him my Australian dollars and he got the Chinese currency out of his wallet and gave it to me! Strangest exchange I’ve ever done. 

Jinsha Site Museum

To get to the archeological site there are no signs in English anywhere and so we had to ask people using sign language, maps, some Chinese. They were very helpful and it was fun. First the woman in the bank told us where to go, but her instructions seemed too simple, just go out of the bank, turn right and walk along. We couldn’t believe that we had understood correctly, and that it would be so easy to get there, so we decided to ask someone else. We did and he gave us the same instructions, so we set off. 

We wandered along the street, not really believing that we were going in the right direction until we got to a place with a big fence and what seemed to be a park. There we asked another man where the site was. He pointed through the fence. We were there!

In the grounds of the archeological dig is a "forest" of petrified wood.
In the grounds of the archeological dit is a “forest” of petrified wood.

We spent quite a few hours there, looking around the archeological site and at the artifacts. They really have it set up well for visitors and there are plenty of English signs and explanations. Also it was all under shelter, so a great thing to do on a wet day. There weren’t that many people there so that made it pleasant too. 

We had lunch in the restaurant in the centre, and although they didn’t have an English menu there wasn’t an issue because we were so late that they only had one option left. It was pretty good. 

The grounds of the site had a lovely Chinese garden arch framing a lush garden.
The grounds of the site were beautiful too.

It was well worth the visit. There’s so much history in China, and as development continues they’re finding more and more as they excavate for foundations. 

On the way home we got the subway to People’s Park, which is lovely and very green at that time of year. It has lots of really nice Chinese gardens. There were some women there in the covered walkways practicing their ballroom dancing while outside it rained on. Lots of people were playing go or cards.

Then we could see the very big Mao statue so we went up and had a photo. I took some very bad selfies, then 2 men from the country wanted our photos so we had photos with them, one taken by a young police officer. Everyone is taken with my friend’s pale skin and light coloured hair, so they all want photos. 

I'm the worst at taking selfies. Here's my big face, laughing because the picture is so bad, with a very small statue of Chairman Mao in the background.
I can only take bad selfies. I look like a quokka who’s just bombed someone’s photo of Chairman Mao.

We were pretty tired by then so decided to take the subway back to our guesthouse, so we asked people where the station was. They all said, “Here”, some even pointed downwards. We didn’t know what they meant so we kept walking around and asking people. We always got the same answer. Finally we realised we were right above a giant station, it was just one set of steps below where we were walking. There just weren’t any signs on the entrances saying it was the subway. 

Once we went downstairs there was a huge complex of shops and a station so people must have thought we were very obtuse to not know where the station was. We saw a very cute booth selling pandas, and advertising the Panda Sanctuary. The booth was in a little van in the shape of a panda and had lots of toy pandas in it. There are not many things quite so enjoyable as seeing a van of pandas in the middle of a giant city. 

When we got back to our station we didn’t know the way to Sam’s Cozy Hotel from the subway so we asked people. They told us the way, my friend kept saying they were wrong, so I asked other people. They all told us the same thing. We followed their advice and here we are! It did prove, though, that we had walked a very long, round-about way to get to the subway that morning, when we clearly also didn’t know where we were going. 

It turns out that we are in the area near the main temple and a lovely, smaller nunnery. There are quite a few tea shops and restaurants in the area. We had no idea where we were when we arrived last night and everything was closed so we couldn’t get our bearings. We’re opposite an area that has a few outdoor restaurants, kebabs and so on, maybe a few night clubs, and a bit further on just regular places where locals go to eat. 

Sam’s Cozy Hotel is quite basic, but comfortable enough. The staff has been very helpful, not much English but a great willingness to communicate. The woman on the desk this morning organized a Chinese SIM card for me, it’s a lot cheaper than roaming and it’ll be helpful to be able to phone people once we’re out in the wilds. 

We had the included breakfast this morning, which was typically eclectic but good, some boiled eggs, a toaster to make our own weird toast (bread in Asia is usually very sweet), congi with various things to put in it, some dumplings, egg fried rice and some cooked vegetables. The women cooking breakfast were very friendly, they seem to be working very hard indeed.

We saw lots of vegetables being prepared by them so decided that, after a very big day out, we’d have dinner here. It was good, very fresh and lots of vegetables.  

In the next post we set off into the wilds of China and Kham Tibet.

Best wishes from China and the world of Pandas.

Useful hints: 

You can’t google in China so we were using different systems. I found WeChat to be very useful while we were there. It can search, chat, translate, it’s very useful indeed. In one place when we were trying to talk to our hotel manager he would text me on WeChat in Chinese and it would arrive as English! 

I also downloaded google translate and Mandarin before I went to China and it worked there. That was a wonderful help and great way to have real communications if you’re not fluent in Chinese. Most of the Chinese people we met had translation apps or WeChat on their phones so that was great. 

Also there is no gmail or FaceBook and probably other things that I have forgotten. While we were there something else was banned, although I can’t remember what and in previous trips yahoo has been down. Things can change all the time so it’s best to either communicate using a Chinese system like WeChat or have lots of options in case one stops working, or just accept that you won’t always be in contact. I find that being out of contact can be very restful, especially if it has to do with work.

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Kham Tibet: Chengdu to Zhongdian October 2017

How it all began…

My first little series of posts will tell the story of my 2 week trip, with a friend, into Kham Tibet in Eastern China in October 2017. We started in Chengdu in Sichuan province and travelled overland by car through Kham Tibet to Zhongdian (also known as ShangriLa) in Eastern Tibet. An absolute highlight was our visit to Yading National Park, but we enjoyed all of the places and stops along the way.

A cute, panda shaped van, with panda face has many panda toys in the front window.
Chengdu is Panda Town!

 

A Dag stands, smiling in front of a lake and snow mountain
The walk up to the mountain is well worth the high altitude puffing at Yading National Park

What a beautiful region! The trip was wonderful, if a bit fast paced, and it was organised for us by our friend, Henriette at China Minority Travel in Dali, China. Henriette had organised 2 trips for us in previous years, and both of them had been wonderful with their visits to beautiful places and meeting interesting people.

I saw some photos on Henriette’s Facebook Page of a few new trips that she was offering and immediately wanted to go to the places in the photos.  It took about a year and a half before we set off, but we got there. Here’s a link to one of the trips that inspired me http://www.china-minority-travel.com/south-china-tours/sichuan-yading-national-park/

To be honest, I am usually a lot more involved in planning my trips than I was with this one, so I can’t complain about the pace, I gave Henriette some parameters, she met them, we approved the schedule and the trip was wonderful. However, next time (or if you’re thinking of planning a similar trip) I’d say go a bit more slowly and either spend a bit more time overall or go to fewer places. We could have stayed longer pretty much everywhere we went. Still, this was the trip of a lifetime: wonderful, wonderful.

We started off quite slowly, but pretty soon the trip was wonderful, wonderful and each day we were saying “I must come back here.”

The flat roof scapes of a Tibetan temple, layers of horizontal colours, maroon, white, blue and black, white gold coloured religtious statues on top. A beautiful deep blue sky in the background.
All traditional buildings in Tibet; monasteries, temples, even houses have beauty. The skies are as blue as they get.

The trip was actually coordinated by Samtours in Chengdu. They provided our guide (briefly), our lovely, enthusiastic driver and wonderful phone backup support from a young woman named Worley in their office.

The adventure started with the flight from Sydney to Chengdu, then a day slightly lost but enjoying it in Chengdu.

The Journey Begins…

The first part of the adventure was the direct flight from Sydney to Chengdu. This is a twice weekly service, since Chengdu (only 17 million people) is a regional flight. It was perfect for me since I was starting my trip in Chengdu.

The quirky China experience started at check-in, where most passengers were Chinese and, just like in China, everyone was pushing. No one wanted to get in front of anyone else, they just all wanted to move forward. So, we all just got squeezed in tighter and tighter. I was laughing because it reminded me of so many times in China, lots of other people started laughing too.

The same thing happened when we were getting onto the plane; made me smile. I love travelling in China and I love Chinese people, so this reminder of one of the foibles of China travel also reminded me of the joy of travelling there.

It would make sense to just let all of the Chinese people get on and then go on after the pushing has ended, but my experience of travelling in Chinese planes has taught me that if you want to put anything in an overhead locker it pays to get on early. I can’t begin to tell you how much hand luggage people take on Chinese flights, but it’s a lot!

The flight attendants were, in the beginning, a bit brusque to those very few of us who weren’t Chinese, I think they were very anxious about their English. Once they understood what we wanted, though, they were very happy to do anything for us, and got past their anxiety.

China Air has the best green tea of any airline I’ve had green tea on, and it’s always available, whereas on other airlines you have to wait for ages (maybe I was getting the attendants’ own tea) anyway, good tea. I know that this is not important to everyone….

The other thing I enjoy about China Air is that they have slightly older planes, so there’s a little bit more leg room.

The best bit of the whole flight, though, was the exercises just before we landed. There’s a film that shows exercises to stretch neck, arms, legs, hands and feet to get you started for the next big adventure. The flight attendants do them as an example and almost everyone on my flight joined in.

At Chengdu airport I met up with my travel companion, who had come from Scotland. This was surprise since she’d arrived 2 hours before me, and we’d organised for separate transfers to our guesthouse. It seems that the man doing the airport transfer had made her wait for me: apparently he didn’t want to make 2 trips. This man turned out to be our guide for the trip, and (although we didn’t realise it at the time) this was a hint of strange behaviour to come. Still, it was nice the share the long ride into town with my friend.

Chengdu

It was wonderful to be back in China, and wonderful to be back in Chengdu: home of the Chengdu Panda Sanctuary, the most wonderful place in the world! It also has great food (Sichuan), great tea, wonderful monasteries, a Tibetan area, friendly people and lovely parks where people sit at outdoor tables drinking tea, eating snacks, playing complex card games and sometimes singing Sichuan Opera.

We stayed at Sam Cosy Hotel which turned out to be quite near the main Buddhist temple and a lovely nunnery. We didn’t realise that, though, until we’d walked past the temple quite a few times. Being humorously unaware of our surroundings turned out to be quite a theme of our trip.

We would be meeting another friend after our 2 week trip to Zhongdian so decided to keep the panda sanctuary for the end of our trip. (To be honest, though, I could go to the pandas every day and not get tired of it.)

Our plan for day one was to visit the site of an archaeological dig showing remains of a village from more than 2000 years ago (if only we could find it).

For that story, read the next post….

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