Day 117: Chengdu, Sichuan Province

I am glad today is our last day in Chengdu, a big concrete jungle can get a little boring,; however, this is the transportation hub for the Sichuan Provence, so we are stuck here until our train tomorrow evening. 

Since we are here and have the time, we woke up early and went to the Panda Research Center. Here, I saw more westerners than I have in all of China. Pandas are the national animal of China and they are working hard to keep the dwindling population under control. Pandas are known to be very lazy, we had to get there early because after 10am they get really sleepy and lazy; they also LOVE to chow down on bamboo!

In the park there was also a red panda, never knew these things existed!

It was great to see so many Pandas and actually see China fully address a problem in their country. The animals are absolutely hilarious, they roll around and just lay their, covered in their own food and grub out.

We eventually headed back to the hostel to drop some stuff off Since Su is part Korean, she really wanted to have some Korean food for lunch. We headed out to a place that we barely knew how to get to with a new friend from Australia, who has been in China for the past two months, knows Chinese, and is looking for an English teaching job somewhere in China. Su speaks broken Korean and ordered us lunch. We ended up with a smorgasbord of food that we could in now way eat in one sitting. The food was so good! We had chicken.... A little sketchy, but it was good. They first serves us this chili chicken wings and legs, I could have eaten that allll day. With our stomachs bursting at the seems and still plenty of food left, we grabbed some 'to go' boxes and headed out. Joseph and I headed to this place called computer zone, which is a massive 4 story complex full of computer, camera, and other electronic products. It was a little bit ridiculous, Nikon store down the walkway from a Nikon store, and this was replicated with every brand. We ended up not finding what we wanted so we made our way back to the hostel. 

Not much happened that night. We sat around and watch a movie with some fellow backpackers before we went to bed.

Day 116: Chengdu, Sichuan Province

Today we had planned to make it to the bus station early and separate for the day, possibly the night and then meet back in Chengdu. The other two over slept, so we were not able to make it to the bus station at our target time (another reason why I don't mind traveling on my own). There was no way for us to get out of this park, everyone was trying to charge us ridiculous prices and there wasn't a taxi in sight. We decided to walk a little less than a mile to the entrance. Once we got there, we were bale to get a cab. When we got to the bus station, my bus was about to leave. I am off to Lèshān to see the Grand Buddha, a 233 foot statue that was carved into a mountain over 1200 years ago on the edge of where the Dàdù and Mín rivers come together; they are off to see a dinosaur museum... Really? 

Once I got to Lèshān, I had no clue as to where to go. I was told the bus ride was going to take 4 hours, it only took 1. The Chinese timetable is a mystery to me. Of course I was the only westerner for miles so all these men came up to me when I got off the bus trying to take me to the Grand Buddha. Since I gotta here so early, I would have plenty of time to see the Buddha and catch a late bus back to Chengdu. Mind you, I have my big bag and my day pack with me. Over 50lbs of gear to carry around all day, not something to look forward to. When I go my ticket back to Chengdu, I began to talk with the guys again to see how much it would cost. Their English was just as bad as my Mandarine. A Chinese girl, who spoke broken English, came over to help. I asked her to ask them how much it would cost. They said 100 Yuan, which is about $16, way over priced, so I walked away. The girl came up to me and told me that her boyfriend and her were going to go and they could get a non-westerner price from a normal cab. They were able to get a 20 yuan cab for all three of us, about $3. They pointed me in the right direction and then told me which bus to take to get back to the bus station for only 1 yuan, about 16 cents. Like I said, if you can work it right, Chinese transportation is cheap.

Before i saw the Grand Buddha, I wanted to walk around and check the place out. I entered a small outdoor temple with these big statues inside. I think they are deities, not sure though; the only one I could identify was Buddha. 

The bad weather actually worked out in my favor, there were no lies. They had all the lines set up just to take a picture from particular angle; no wait for me.

Grand Buddha!

The walk down the side of the mountain was not only long but very narrow, providing very difficult with two packs, especially when I can't even see my feet.

It was rewarding to be at the bottom and truly appreciate the magnitude of this statue and the skill that went into building it.

The walk up was miserable. After seeing the Buddha, I figured I might as well head back to the bus station. My trip to the Grand Buddha was similar to my trip to the Pyramids in Cairo, completed in couple hours. While it is convenient, I didn't get to full take either experience in. There is a large park full of other Buddhas and caves that I could have explored. Regardless, I got places to be.

It was great to get back to Chengdu and relax, all day with two packs on my shoulders had been killing me. When Joseph, Su, and Tom arrived, we all grabbed some dinner and took it easy for the night

Day 115: Changning, Sichuan Province

When we woke up, it was pouring down rain. Since most of the park should be walked, we were not sure what to do. We decided it would be best to hire a cheap car and have him just drop us off at a couple hot spots. Joseph was feeling much better and decided to join us. 

We started off by riding a long (30 minute) cable car up the Zhuhai lifts. The ride is supposed to be amazing. As you can imagine, we couldn't see anything.

    

After the ride, we walked over to the View Sea Floor, which is a large tower that boasts another great view of the Bamboo Sea.

From there, our driver took us to the Yingfeng Harbour. He was anticipating that we were going to rent a boat and take it around the area. We really didn't want to get rained on to only go nowhere on a bamboo raft.

We then preceded to the Qicai Waterfall. Finally something worth seeing. There was a small man-made waterfall that fed into the big natural one.

This was the first waterfall that I have been able to walk behind. The wind from the force of the waterfall hitting the rocks below was intense.

We walked around for a little bit and then made our way back to the car.

We proceeded to a great area of the park where we could do some easy 'trekking.' As we walked through the bamboo forest, I was able to find a bamboo tree that was larger than the grip of both my hands, amazing.

While this walk was a bit foggy, I feel that it allowed us to see a rare form of the forest; everyone who has come here sees the same thing and takes the same photos. It was a little bit creepy though.

After a while, we finally reached the Tianbao Strongholds with a view of the Xianyu Hole. The actual view wasn't much to write home about but seeing the village houses on the side of this massive rock face was pretty cool.

As we walked through the village, there wasn't really much going on because of the weather. There were a couple monks (one was texting) and some big Buddhist statues.

As we finished up the walk, we got a great view of the town. Luckily we were finishing up because some fog was moving in fast, like a thick wall of invisibility. 

Since we were running into the late afternoon, we got dropped off at the hostel and grabbed some dinner. We didn't really do much, just let our clothes dry, rest, pack, and get ready for an early bus ride outa here tomorrow.