Sichuan Sichuan we all fall down

Forgot to mention in the previous post, the picture is of The Maglev, it is a tilting train we took to the airport, it goes 430 km per hour.

It takes 7 minutes to gets from it's 1 stop to the airport and has a first class part.  This will give your average 1st class passenger the chance to sit down, be handed a drink by an assistant which will be poured into a glass while another stows your bags, you will then be told to stand up, your bags be handed back and your drink poured down the sink.

Chengdu-Sichuan

It was a good old scrap for a place on the plane.  We all had allocated seating but why should that stop you throwing a 5 year old off the boarding steps while kneeing a pregnant lady, it was crazy again.  We all had allocated seats! what's going on here?  We sat back for a bit, were practically last on the plane.  There were lots of old folks with traditional dresses on, a lot of the older people didn't know how to operate the lights and air con, understand the seat belt sign etc.  I would guess it was a new experience for a lot of people in that flight.  There was an equally deadly fight for overhead locker space when we boarded also.

The flight was ok, i slept through a lot of it but was woken for the treat that was the in-flight meal.  It had all my favourites there, the shrink wrapped dried fish with scales still attached, the packet of green cough sweets, the bun with black lumpy stuff and strangely a viennese whirl for dessert. Then there was a western-style saloon fight to get off the plane.

So we arrived in Sim's Cosy Guesthouse in Chengdu planning to spend a few days and then head to Lhasa.  We asked for a permit and for the price of a plane ticket at the tour counter and was then told the day after that we owed about 250 pounds for a flight which we hadn't asked for and we worked out that a flight out of lhasa was not going to be much less.  So after booking a tour in lhasa to go to everest base camp it was going to cost 700 pounds at least for a week somewhere.  The budget doesn't really stretch that far, i thought of paying for it with savings money such was the desire to go but common sense has won the day, dammit.  So flight to Lijiang today after 4 days of basically sitting round, doing washing, eating, watching football.  All well and good after some hectic stuff but i feel like a have missed an opportunity here.

Because everything was in flux until we made a decision on lhasa we didn't know how much we had in the budget, now we do but don't have the time to go see some of the stuff around here like the giant budda carved into the side of a cliff in Leshan.  So all i can say really about chengdu is that it does really nice barbeque mystery meat on a stick at anytime on any road including chickens heads on sticks.  Tofu with spices is a favourite, it looks like a fly squatter, being a flat square on a stick and has sichuanese spices that burn your tongue off but are really pleasant taste two days after when your taste buds grow back.

We did go to a temple around the corner  which was quite impressive.  Traditional chinese architecture but the statues looked very indian-influenced.  Lots of elepahnts, lots of brightly coloured men with huge teeth.  As we bought our ticket i was attacked by a woman with a completely burnt face and body.  This is becoming quite frequent, i gave her 1 yuan which is not much at all but then was swamped by people with missing limbs, facial deformities etc i could spend my whole day giving money to people.

Anyway Lijiang where we are going to has mountains frodo, mountians and beautiful scenery and we can then head to Zhongdian to see some tibet.  This will mean some comprimises to our western luxuries like western toilets and constant hot water but that is what we are here for.

Ruth is currently sporting a lovely summer range of insect bites, including the impressive 15 bites on one leg.  I myself have 2, 1 on my back which is developing into a hunch.  With my daily drinking of huge quantities of "blue sword" (30p for 500 ml) and smoking "panda" cigarettes (made out of real panda from the taste) i am developing in quite a hit for the ladies.  The ladies that love, fat bearded hunchbacks who stagger back to their rooms at 3 in the morning via all walls in the hostel.

The hostel has a really nice puppy here by the way, it is only very young a gets all narky when you don't feed it from the table and yaps and bites your toes.  It is very spoilt and is going to be a nightmare when it is older but it is a costant cute companion as you roam the hostel.  It has friends such as a cat, rats on the wooden beams, a black centipede the size of mouse which we saw in the pub and huge cockroaches and mosquitos.  This has not helped my sleep too much which again is making me look quite the treat.

1 hour to go then Sichuan Airlines, can't be as bad as Shanghai airlines surely? then the traditional dual fight between hotel sellers and bogus rip-off taxis when you get out the airport.  That's if we get out of the flight alive.