Hot, Spicy and Cute

Our terrace at Sim's Cozy Guesthouse - what a great find!
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Getting to Chengdu was one of the more 'interesting' travel experiences of the trip so far!  With the help of Mr. Wei's son [see Yangshuo blog entry] we flagged down a bus headed back to Guilin.  It seems that busses in China are always a bit of a gamble - and our number was clearly not the lucky one since the bus was already fully packed [a clear drawback to not boarding at the station!] so we were given tiny plastic infant chairs and told to squat in the aisle!!  Suffice it to say that it was a pretty uncomfortable 1.5 hours - made not a bit easier by the blaring Chinese movie playing at full volume [screeching women, impossible martial arts, cheesy dramatic pauses...pretty much the standard fare really!].  From Guilin we took a taxi to the airport - not keen to try our luck on busses so soon again.

1.3 billion people in China and Denise runs into Laurentius, a business associate of hers, at Sim's! Small World!!
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Chengdu is the capital city of the Sichuan province - famous primarily for two things: Giant Panda Bears and REALLY spicy food.  We were very lucky to have found accommodation at the much-sought-after 'Sims Cozy Guesthouse' [see seperate review] and had arranged an airport pick-up, which went smoothly.  Chengdu itself is huge - and driving through it you quickly realise this is no longer the rural backwoods China we had thus far experienced.  Our guesthouse was set in a side-alley which looked quite dodgy with lots of trash, stray dogs, tea-houses etc. but turned out to be excellent.  On our first night we were having a drink in the bar of the hostel and Denise ran into someone she knew [an amazing thing to happen randomly in a country of 1.3 billion Chinese!] - Laurentius [who had been involved in one of her Chinese study missions] and his wife Cheng - who live in Beijing and were on holiday.  We agreed to meet up the next evening for one of the famous Sichuan Hot Pot Dinners.

Giant Panda's and Really Spicy Food

Wenshu Monastery
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The next day, Thursday, was spent sleeping in late (14:00) and taking a leisurely stroll around the 'New Old Town' - an area built in the last ten years or so but made to look like the ancient center of the city.  The highlight for us was the Wenshu Monastery, the best-preserved Buddhist temple in Chengdu. Initially built in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), Wenshu Monastery is a treasure trove of cultural and Buddhist relics, as well as a centre of Buddhist teaching and arts.  The first of its buildings we entered is the Bell Tower and we were accosted by a wizened old man who greeted us in English and invited us to join him in a side room for tea!  It was one of our most memorable meetings on the trip - Ping Feng is a Chinese traditional doctor who learnt English entirely by watching Chinese TV's English channel.  He knew SO much about everything - including bushmen, the South African ocean currents and the origin of the species.  He was, as Denise later said, a really wise old man.  Tea lasted an hour and a half and we loved every second.  Other highlights of the monastery included a Tea Garden, a massive Buddhist library with over 1000 statuettes of Buddha, the turtle ponds, and a number of Chinese kids who wanted to have their photos taken with us!

Teahouse at Wenshu Monastery
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Dinner that night was with Laurentius and Cheng at the Hotpot restaurant.  It was really social with the table designed to hold a large pot over a gas burner in the middle.  Into this pot is poured a potent mixture of spices, peppers, chilies and sauce.  A second, smaller pot is then placed in the center of the large one, with a non-spicy broth mixture within.  These two mixtures are brought to a simmering boil and then you dip raw meats and vegetables into either of them to cook.  We ate ourselves silly - about 15 different courses including, inter alia, stomach, yak meat, fish, shrimp, and meat balls - all washed down with copious amounts of local beer.  Finishing with a delicious sweet bean paste pancake it was a meal fit for a king - and we were very proud of our ability to handle the heat!  It was also ridiculously cheap at about 40 Yuan per person [around R40 each].

Ping Feng (left), a traditional Chinese Doctor at Wenshu Monastery - probably the wisest man we met on our trip.
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Friday was our last full day in Chengdu and it was the one we had chosen to visit the famous Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base.  In retrospect we regret having booked this trip through our hostel since [a] it would have been cheaper to do by taxi and alone and [b] the drivers tried to rush our group of 30+ people from one sight to the next at a crazy Chinese tour group pace.  We rebelled, left the group, and had a fine time on our own.  It was a real privilege to see the black and white bears up close and personal - in the bamboo forested enclosures and morning mists you could almost believe it was in the wild.  Highlights included the sub-adult enclosure, red pandas [more like racoons] and the incubator - where we got to see a 7-day old Panda looking more like a hairless red rat than a bear!  The video presentation was also good, although the museum [replete with cheesy stuffed animals from 'prehistoric times' and pickled Panda genitalia was worth skipping!].  Overall it was a worthwhile experience but one better done without a group.