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Chengdu (成都) is a very safe and refined city, bustling with many shopping malls and nice people. It has a very good transport system, it has buses to almost all the attractions at Xin Nan Men Che Zhan (新南门车站）with reasonable prices. It is ideal for backpackers and free and easy trips. Cabs are cheap, even a 30 min ride from airport cost merely 45 yuan (S$9). Or you can travel around in the trishaw. However you need some skills in crossing the roads as trishaws, scooters and bicycles criss cross alongside with you. Honking can be heard everywhere but not to worry the vehicles look out for pedestrians and they are quite used to each other overtaking their paths.
We booked Traffic Hotel for our first night through internet booking. It is a budget hotel and we realised that the internet booking actually overcharged us by a lot and the tour agency driver told us we could get a 3 star hotel for the price we paid! We had to change hotel as the heater was not warm enough in Traffic hotel and we woke up a few times during the night by the chill and the noise made by the heater! The blanket also seemed dirty and old too. I guess it will be fine to stay there in summer.
A tip for those who wish to travel free and easy in china: Go to www.ctrip.com and register as a member to source for a cheaper hotel and even flights online. It is Nasdaq listed and offers many discount and loyalty points.
Sichuan is famous for its spicy flavours, especially the 麻辣 taste which is hot and makes your mouth and tongue numb. This is due to the use of spice like 花椒 (a type of pepper) which will numb your tongue instantly if you bite it unintentionally. So must remember to pick it out from your dish! The Sichuan hotpot (鸳鸯火锅）consist of 2 different soup, one spicy and oily and the other chicken soup. Those who ate too much spicy food will get their lips swollen like two sausage stuck onto their face! Just like what the Hong Kong movies like to depict... haha
Shopping and eating are 2 things to do in Sichuan. 一品天下 consists of many restaurants which offer cuisines from all over the world, except that it is partially completed only. We saw Singapore brand planning to be set up there too. We went to 3 of the very good restaurants there, namely 红杏酒楼， 文杏酒楼 and 苏大姐 Sichuan hotpot. They have many snacks 小吃 in Sichuan and you can order a set of all the snacks that come in small portions for a very cheap price of less than 30 yuan (S$5) and you get to taste everything. 龙抄手 is a good place to get them. It simply means our dumplings 水饺. Dan dan noodle 担担面 is nice. Btw, they will ask you how many liang 两 of noodle you want. Usually 2 liang is more than enough.
The good place to shop for modern clothes and movies would be Chun Xi Lu 春溪路 and movie city 电影城. There is also a computer mart 电脑城 although IT stuff are not any cheaper there. We bought many winter clothing there as it is definitely much more cheaper than here by 5 times! Furthermore the selection and designs are better there. The thing to note is that smaller shops there do not accept credit card and you will need to bring along an ATM card with a "PLUS" sign behind so that you can withdraw their currency.
If you want to buy Chinese ornaments and handmade sourvenirs, you can go to Wen Shu Fang 文殊坊, Jinli 锦里 (beside 武侯祠） and Qintai road 琴台路. At Qin Tai road you can find many hand cravings, paintings and tea. They sell Yunnan Pu'er as well as green tea 竹叶青. Before you purchase any tea, they will serve you samples of your selected tea and demonstrate the art of tea making in front of you. We bought some Pu'er tea and tea biscuits. Jinli offers many small little snacks stalls, sourvenirs stalls and modern bars, very much like Lijiang Gu Cheng minus the nice stream of course! Wen Shu Fang is built along a traditional Chinese street and historical buildings. Food and handicrafts can be found there too.
We booked several local tours to bring us around Chengdu. We hired a ten seater to bring us to Emei Shan and Leshan too see the huge and magnificent 71 m over 900 years old Buddha statue facing the sea. Our tour guide says they are going to rebuild the 13 storey pagoda that once protected the Buddha statue, hence in future you may not be able to see the body as it will be covered, left only the face to be seen. You need pretty good stamina to climb Emei shan as it is full of ups and downs. There is a service called 滑竿 where two men carry you in a chair which costs around 70 yuan. Usually tourists like us will give them more as it is very hard on them to carry our heavy weight. Along the way we also saw men and women carrying heavy loads many times their weight up the hills.
We went to Dujiangyan 都江堰 and Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda breeding 熊猫基地 . The former is a great irrigation system managed by Li Bing to divert half of the waters of Min river to irrigate Sichuan land during the Qin dynasty. It is a very huge park and we did not have time to cover the entire area. The panda base is a fun place to visit. Here you get to see panda cubs learning to stand in their nursery room and huge panda roaming around and sleeping in their playground. Small panda 小熊猫, their cousin， look more like racoon than the usual panda we know.
After spending 6 days with us in Chengdu, 4 friends left and the 2 of us book their local tour to Hailougou 海螺沟 , Jiuzhaigou 九寨沟and ShuNanZhuHai 蜀南竹海. This is the first time we join a Chinese local tour and we opted for the luxury tour 豪华团,and met people from different provinces of China. They are generally knowledgeable and warm people, kept asking us to eat and engage us in conversation. We learnt quite a lot from them and are glad to have join such tours. They were equally excited when they tour the places despite being mainland Chinese. China is so huge that they seem to have come from different parts of the world! They are mainly on business trips and took the chance to tour Sichuan. We met 2 Singaporeans too, a father and son. The father has been backpacking in China for 3 months and shared with us many tips and stories.
Hailuogou has a glacier and great snow view. We need to pass through the Er lang shan tunnel 二郎山隧道 which is a scenic drive there. We were lucky that it snowed the day before and the day we went up it was sunny so we could see the peak of Gongga Mountain, the highest in Sichuan. You can choose to track the glacier or take the cable car up to view the glacier. We chose the latter as it offers better view. After we reach the top we took a 滑竿 to go down to the glacier which took us only 30 min as compared to 1h 30 min if we walked down ourselves. Altitude was high and can feel some sickness if you exert yourself too much!
Jiuzhaigou has the most beautiful waters I have ever seen. 九寨归来不看水 is really true...It is so clear and bluish, greenish sometimes. Fallen tree trunks and rocks covered with minerals can be seen through the untainted waters. Waterfalls are partially frozen with the cold weather but the sun helps to keep you warm. It is very easy to walk in there, with small vans waiting to pick up passengers from one stop to the other. It is free and it will drive off once the seats are filled. You can choose to alight at every stop or skip any stop you like. Although altitude is high you can manage with a leisure walk. The nuorilang waterfall 诺日朗瀑布 is breathtaking!
Tips: Must bring more memory cards as you will be taking lots of photos and videoclips. Apply sunblock to avoid sunburn! This is not the best season to come but during peak season (Sep - Oct) Ticket is 300 yuan per day and about 30000 visitors visit it per day, hence to take a solo photo is simply impossible! You will wonder who is main focus of the photo...One way to overcome this is to start from the bottom to the top as most people start from top to bottom.
We went for a performance by the Qiang people. The men are really handsome and the gals pretty. Their vocal was strong and really enjoyed their singing and dance. After that we went back to Sheraton hotel which we enjoyed our food for 2 days, after eating almost the same thing for the past few days. The continental buffet and mushroom pot serves delighted us a lot. However we would opt for Jiuzhai Tian Tang 九寨天堂 next time as it is specially built to let you experience Heaven! Haha it has shen xian chi 神仙池 as an extra scenic spot. The reason for me to return to here is Huang Long 黄龙 which is closed during winter times.
The last stop of our journey is Zhu Hai, which is of course a place with bamboos. We hired a driver and a car for 240 yuan per day. The highlight of this trip is to row a bamboo raft in the peaceful bamboo lake 海中海， which is where the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 卧虎藏龙was shot. We paid 20 yuan to row for as long as we want and since we were the first to reach there, we were the only ones in the lake. We had a bamboo meal, with bamboo rice 竹筒饭, which uses only bamboos that are 2 years old for the fragrance to be released. Winter bamboo shoots 冬舜 ,bamboo beancurd 竹筒都花,which has a very strong charred taste. Plus a weird looking dish made from bamboo parts that look like eggs! We love the oily noodle 燃面, famous in YiBin 宜宾 , which we ate for breakfast the next day. It is very delicious and costs only 3 yuan (S$0.60). The journey to Zhu Hai was very long, at least 5 hours! The trip back took us 8 hours as we met some jams... But it gives us a taste of public transport. The waterfall lacks volume during winter time hence the best time to come is summer.
15 days is still too short! I did not manage to squeeze out time to go for foot spa and enjoyed the tea houses by the river nor enjoyed the local opera. I hope to come back again to Chengdu some other time again. Besides JiuZhai, I also wish to go to Dao Cheng 稻成亚丁, which the guide went and claimed that it is even nicer than Jiuzhai! You can also go to Tibet and Shangrila from here.
I would like to thank the lady from Anyi Tour who served us so well throughout this trip!
previous travel blog entry
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