Chengdu 10th - 12th May
Chengdu is a great city, the first thing that we noticed was the change in weather and scenery. Green, lush and wet! There is a huge Tibetan influence - Chengdu is the main legal loop hole for visiting Tibet on ghost tours. We felt our hostel had a great location, was cheap - Holly's Hostel, with a good roof terrace. We orientated very successfully, everyday the buses get easier to use. Infact we feel that the key to us enjoying our stay somewhere is how mobile we are able to become.
The first visit we made in Chendgu was to see the Panda's at the Research and Birth Centre early in the morning. The place was set up very well with excellent interpretation, when we saw the panda's they all seemed very happy and occupied with stuffing themselves.
We saw a couple of temples that really paled in comparision to what we had seen in Xiahe, they where bigger but looked far tackier and badly restored. At one particular temple we where drawn by the lore of a Kung Fu display. We waited for 2h for this display - David demanded to see the manager and through an interpretor he demanded our money back, very calmly loosing face doesnt go down well here, by jove he did it! The manager was very embrassed and twitchy with Dave.We had the hottest food ever in the Wushu temple that had a veggie (that sold shark fin soup Hmmmmm) restaurant. It consisted of mushrooms of all different variety but the main ingredient was chilli! Another food adventure here was our Sichuan Hotpot hhhmmm, skewers of raw foods are set out for you to pick your choice of (most of them where unidentifiable), you then submerge them to cook in a boiling vat that contains simply a sea of chilli. This sits on a gas hob in the middle of your table - great fun. The cooked skewers, once cooked should be dipped in seasame oil mixed with raw garlic, the last stage is lovingly sprinkle them with salt, sugar and fresh corriander - yum. However, some skewers never made it out the pot. For amateurs like us they held a slotted spoon on reserve so we could fish our food from out the depths of the 'Sea of Chilli'.
Markets where spread all over the town food, silk, arts and antiques. The local food markets where the best, as usual, the highlight had to be the herb market in the N of the city. It took some time to find but once there we where overwhelmed with the amount of food - sacks of dried mushrooms, seaweed, flowers, herbs and lorry loads of chilli's - really lorry loads!
Next stop Lijiang!
The first visit we made in Chendgu was to see the Panda's at the Research and Birth Centre early in the morning. The place was set up very well with excellent interpretation, when we saw the panda's they all seemed very happy and occupied with stuffing themselves.
We saw a couple of temples that really paled in comparision to what we had seen in Xiahe, they where bigger but looked far tackier and badly restored. At one particular temple we where drawn by the lore of a Kung Fu display. We waited for 2h for this display - David demanded to see the manager and through an interpretor he demanded our money back, very calmly loosing face doesnt go down well here, by jove he did it! The manager was very embrassed and twitchy with Dave.We had the hottest food ever in the Wushu temple that had a veggie (that sold shark fin soup Hmmmmm) restaurant. It consisted of mushrooms of all different variety but the main ingredient was chilli! Another food adventure here was our Sichuan Hotpot hhhmmm, skewers of raw foods are set out for you to pick your choice of (most of them where unidentifiable), you then submerge them to cook in a boiling vat that contains simply a sea of chilli. This sits on a gas hob in the middle of your table - great fun. The cooked skewers, once cooked should be dipped in seasame oil mixed with raw garlic, the last stage is lovingly sprinkle them with salt, sugar and fresh corriander - yum. However, some skewers never made it out the pot. For amateurs like us they held a slotted spoon on reserve so we could fish our food from out the depths of the 'Sea of Chilli'.
Markets where spread all over the town food, silk, arts and antiques. The local food markets where the best, as usual, the highlight had to be the herb market in the N of the city. It took some time to find but once there we where overwhelmed with the amount of food - sacks of dried mushrooms, seaweed, flowers, herbs and lorry loads of chilli's - really lorry loads!
Next stop Lijiang!
posted by David at 11:09 am
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