The hard seats on Chinese long distance trains do exactly what they say on the tin so to speak. Our carriage was double decker with about 30 people too many - so anytime someone stood up there was a fight to sit in the empty seat! We where told that you can actually buy a ticket for less if you do not want a seat and just wander the carriage for the duration of the trip hoping that someone does not turn up.
It wasn't just the seat that made the journey uncomfortable - we where greeted to constant silence and open mouth staring by everyone else on the carriage - plus I even had my own stalker!
A 6 year old girl decided to just stare at me for the duration of the trip, which sounds harmless enough - BUT when you wake up at 3am and the first thing you see is this girl still staring at you - I could be forgiven for thinking I was in a children of the corn film!
I must also point out that Chinese train stations are absolutely huge! literally the size of airports and most cities have at least 3 or 4 and it can be a little worrying hoping that you have gone to the right station.
After leaving the main train 18hours later with a sore back we hit the subway/metro and headed for our accommodation "lazybones hostel".
I'm putting it down to tiredness but we walked around for 15 minutes after the metro looking for the hostel and we where starting to snap at each other because we couldn't find it - only to pick our heads up and realise we where stood right outside it! We started laughing as we headed inside.
There are a number of reasons that we headed to Chengdu and I will list them here in no particular order;
1, Giant Pandas
2, Tea Houses
3, Sichuanese food (very spicy)
Chengdu is also nothing like Kunming - it is a very modern city with 14 million or so residents and also very hot - so we where treated to 33 degrees 90% humidity and our first real introduction to Chinese smog. But this aside Chengdu is a really nice city to look around.
7am the next morning we headed off to the Giant Panda breeding facility in the hills around Chengdu. It is apparently the most successful breeding programme in the world (according to Chinese information) and we sound found out why. The place was modern and catered to all of the Pandas needs and most importantly the Pandas seemed really happy in their environment and enjoyed playing and laying around as we walked around the park.
For those who don't know the Giant Panda is classed as an "ancient species" as it has been around for over 5 million years. That said it is amazing how they have survived this long and for once it is mainly nature and not man that is against the Giant Panda! "Why?" I hear you ask - well here are a few reasons without it turning into a BBC nature documentary;
1, The Giant Panda's live in separate areas in the wild and rarely come across other Pandas let alone females who are in the mood to breed.
2, The males penis is too small in comparison to it's body size and the females vagina is too big for it's size, lowering the rates of successful pregnancies.
3, A Giant Panda gives birth to live young 1000th the size of an adult - so technically this is a premature birth.
4, probably the most poignant - the Giant Panda whether male or female are extremely lazy and would rather not waste their energy mating.
So as you can see just through evolution the Panda has it tough and adding deforestation to the problem means that the success of the breeding centre is of paramount importance. Luckily we can report good news as we saw at least 30 new born Pandas in incubators (they look more like baby rats to be honest) but they will grow into the next generation and continue the cycle so we can enjoy watching them for years to come. Also at the centre is the less famous Red Pandas which I actually like a lot and you can watch these guys go about their days in their habitat without the large crowds that gather to see the Giant Pandas.
During our visit we met some cool fellow travellers who where also staying at our hostel by the name of Dan (Australian) and Yona (Canadian) which brings me onto the next point. Dan was studying just outside of Shanghai and could speak good Chinese (although he would disagree with this) so we all went to sample some famous Sichuanese Hotpot - thanks to Dan's skills we enjoyed one of the best meals of our travels and we would highly recommend having one if you ever get to Sichuan.
At the hostel we also met two English nurses by the names of Chrissie and Vicky and instantly Leanne began enjoying talking about all the good and bad things about nursing and some delightful topics of poo and bed sores. The girls also shared Leanne's love for all things tea so we went in search of a nice tea house which was in the middle of the city park. Along the way we where treated to the sight of the largest Mao statue in China (a fact that Chengdu is fiercely proud of). Upon finding the tea house we where treated to a nice seat next to the lake and enjoyed some weird fusions of fresh tea - we noticed whilst drinking that there where a lot of people cleaning ears in the park so after striking a good deal (or so we thought) a gentleman set about cleaning each of our ears one by one and placing the contents on our shoulders and at the end of cleaning each ear he would display a clean piece of cotton to prove it was really clean - thrown in with the deal was a quick massage that none of us really wanted and by the end we felt slightly battered and bruised but it added to the experience.
We spent the next day exploring more of the city and Leanne was super excited to have here picture taken with not one but about 10 giant Miffy's which made her day.
We didn't want to make the same mistake as our previous train journey so we hit the ticket office in advance and managed to get some hard sleepers to Xi'an, we where slightly sad to leave Chengdu in the end but it was time to move on.
Our next stop is Xi'an....
To see our pictures from Chengdu then click on the link below;
https://picasaweb.google.com/112941139607408893724/ChengduChina28thAugustTo1stSeptember2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCMGHouP05sGZngE#
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