We left you on our way to Dali. We are now in Danba in western Sichuan Province as part of our substitute Tibetan tour. Next we head further west—towards Tibet—in an effort to get a taste for the Tibet that the Chinese Government doesn’t want us to see at the moment.
But before making it here, we relaxed in Dali, spotted pandas in Chengdu, climbed Emei Shan, and battled the crowd to see the Grand Buddha in Leshan. Our story follows.
Dali
Eli here.
Dali is a quaint little walled city with cobbled streets, stone gates, and waterwheels. Popular with Chinese tourists, it was a relaxing stop for us. In other words, we didn’t do much.
Walking the streets took up several hours, spying a small park, street-side noodle shops, and school kids by the hundred. Local ladies with colourful headpieces offered us ganga at every turn. The Dali Museum was a short stop. But with its small ceramic statues and Chinese-character inscribed gravestones our interest waned.
A side trip to the nearby Erhai lake village of Caicun was one of our only adventurous excursions. We had hoped to climb up Cang Shan—a nearby mountain range—in search of stupas and views of the lake, but the rain was not on our side.
That pretty much left food as our remaining adventure. Across the bridge noodles was a particular hit; which involved a big pot of boiling broth being progressively filled with meat, vegetables, and noodles. Perhaps owing to our perplexed looks (or our foreign origins), the waiter was kind enough to fill the pot for us rather than risk some small disaster.
Other dishes included wonton soup and cold noodles, sold street-side. Hearing of their presence and temped by the idea, we also hunted for Belgium waffles. But to no avail.
Finally, after three nights, it was time to head to our next destination: Chengdu in Sichuan Province, via that little-to-do city of Kunming.
Chengdu
Claire here.
We took the overnight train from Kunming to Chengdu and settled ourselves into Sim’s Cozy Guesthouse a large busy Hostel with lots of amenities popular with travellers.
The main reason to hang around in Chengdu apart from the wonderful Sim’s Cozy Guesthouse is to visit China’s iconic pandas at The Giant Panda Breeding Research Centre (website).
As usual we chose to forgo the organised tour for an “Eli tour” (public transport); thankfully the Chinese have taken to using roman numerals to number buses making catching city buses a relatively easy task aside from the sheer number of people they manage to pack onto a single bus.
Laid out over many acres of parkland the centre has many enclosures for pandas of various ages many who have been bred at the centre. Arriving at panda breakfast time was ideal as all the pandas we fairly active and interacting with each other. We found the pandas fascinating to watch: on several occasions we were mesmerised by their inquisitive, playful behaviour and their great love of food.
While in Chengdu it became clear that it would be impossible to get a permit to go to Tibet. The Chinese Government decided to combine the 90th anniversary celebration of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party with a “celebration” of the “reunification” of China and Tibet. The Tibetans wish to celebrate neither of these events, making protests likely. Therefore the Government has stopped issuing permits for about a month over June and July. Although no official reasons are given, it is generally believed it does not wish foreigners to witness any protests and the response from the military to such protests. If you’re not familiar with the situation in Tibet you can read about it here.
Anyway all this meant we had to change our plans around somewhat. In the end we have decided to stay in Sichuan province longer than initially planned and head west towards the Tibetan boarder. This area is ethnically and culturally Tibetan so offers a chance to experience Tibetan culture without restrictions. We will then head north to Xi’an, Beijing and Shanghai before flying to Nepal.
But first:
Emei Shan
Emei Shan (Mount Emei) is one of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China at 3099m high and covered in Buddhist monasteries it is somewhat of a pilgrimage sight for Chinese Buddhists and a popular if challenging hike amongst western tourists. There are also options to take buses and cable cars almost to the top for the less adventurous.
We arrived at Baoguo village at the base of the mountain in the early evening and quickly found ourselves some hiking companions: Emma from New Zealand and Su and Pascal from Germany. We came up with an ambitious plan to ascend most of the mountain the first day before heading to the summit early the next morning and back down by a more direct route. The next morning it was up early to catch the bus to the start of the trail.
Having decided against bamboo walking sticks at the base of the hill we soon found that rather than assisting with walking their more useful purpose is to discourage the monkeys who at various points on the track have learnt that tourists are very easy targets for food. After a rather traumatic encounter in which we lost several items of food and were generally intimidated sticks were quickly scavenged.
The stairs were seemingly endless so it was a relief to arrive at one of the monasteries for lunch where we added Chris from Guernsey to our group. As well as being good company his ability to speak Chinese made Chris a welcome companion for the next few days.
By late afternoon we were very weary and the weather had closed in meaning we were literally walking in the clouds. We were very relieved to reach our destination and in the toss-up between the very basic monastery with no showers and the hotel with hot showers the hotel won. It was early to bed with a plan to be at the summit by sunrise if the weather improved or slightly less early if it hadn’t
I was in charge of the 4am weather check and it was not a pretty sight wind, rain and thick cloud. Back to bed it was for a far more civilised waking time, it seemed the weather had cleared somewhat as we dragged our weary bodies out of bed. However by the time we reached the Golden summit about 90 minutes later visibility was so limited we couldn’t see the top of the golden stupa or the walls of the temple just a few metres away.
The decision was made given the state of the weather and weary limbs to head for the nearest car park and take the bus down. This had the added advantage of meaning we would get to Leshan earlier. We were headed to Leshan to get an extension of our visa having heard it was a particularly speedy place to do this.
Leshan
Eli here, again.
Now, you might think that with time spent in the Buddhist-influenced countries of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos that we had seen enough buddas. But you would be wrong. Leshan, it turns out, is home to the world’s tallest Buddha—the Grand Buddha.
And grand it was; with toes the size of human bodies, knees taller than most town houses, and eyes that are as large as truck tyres, it was impressively big. Grander still was the queue of people—mostly Chinese—itching to climb down to the Buddha’s feet. Queuing etiquette was in short supply however, which is something we had come to expect.
But, apart from the Buddha, there is not much to Leshan. In fact, our main reason for visiting was to extend our Chinese visas—which with a six-hour turnaround is substantially quicker than the standard five-day turnaround expected in larger cities.
But it wasn’t that simple. First, the Lonely Planet has the wrong address for the visa processing building: the actual building being a five minute cab ride away. Second, the visa processing ladies are reluctant to accept applications close to knock-off time. Third, these same ladies were reluctant to say so until after they sent us on a race-against-the-clock mission to go get passport photos. We were not impressed, but reasoned that: ‘this is China’ (TIS).
Our only other activity in Leshan was dinner with the famous Mr Yang. A delightfully cheery old Chinese man, Mr Yang offers home-cooked meals in his small apartment. The food was great and his colourful life story during China’s communist revolution was a welcome addition. Among his many careers, he was a student, an interpreter, a geologist, a fisherman, a teacher and a tour guide.
Collecting our new visas, we promptly left the city for an overnight stopover in Chengdu before a morning bus to Kangding on the start of our substitute Tibetan tour.
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That brings us up to date. Also, for those that are worried, we are not affected by the severe flooding that is going on in southwest China. But we will let you know if things change.
Love to all,
xxx
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