Day 248 - Another long overdue update (I'll get better, I promise)

DAY 26 - XI'AN 西安 => LESHAN 乐山

In the morning, two incredibly irritating girls disturbed our technique to stave off boredom - sleep. They were screaming, running back and fore and constantly shouting mispronunciations of "mother," "father" and "sister." I was ready to throttle them. They were 20 as well.

On arrival in Chengdu, we didn't go and get tickets for our next stop (le gasp) - we got straight in a taxi to the bus station to do the trip to Leshan. Buses run pretty constantly, so we got one pretty much straight away. The journey was painless and uninteresting, although we did have a brilliant film about a guy that worked at Pizza Hut who was in love with a girl whose office he delivered pizzas to. Really cheesy, and made by China Mobile and NEC.

When we got to Leshan, my heart sank. It looked rather too much like Tangkou for my liking. We walked a little away from the people at the station ("Where are you going?" "Taxi!") and headed towards where we assumed the centre was, but due to heavy bags and things, we got in a taxi. We had no idea what to tell him, so Nikki asked him to go straight on, then that we were going to a hotel. He took us to a Lonely Planet recommended hotel, advertising standard rooms for 230. We didn't know what to do - that was far too expensive. At this point, the lady behind the reception desk informed us there were discounts - 120. Much better. We dumped our stuff and went pretty much straight out to see the Giant Buddha, 71m tall carved/built into the cliff of Leshan where three rivers meet. The story goes that that part of the rivers was really dangerous, so the built a giant Buddha to protect the mariners. There was nice scenery and things, although it was quite misty so you couldn't see far. We joined the queue to get the foot of the Buddha, which moved at a glacial pace and was full of people who felt the need to comment on our whiteness and giant noses. Rather annoying.

After taking photos and things, we decided to head home (the park was about to close and that was all that we had come to see - I couldn't cope with the thought of yet another temple). We walked along the road the bus went and ended up walking the whole way home. Not so bad actually it wasn't that far. We wanted to go to the recommended restaurant. When we got there, they had no tables. But then, it wasn't actually a restaurant, so no surprise there. It was a little side bit on the second floor of a hotel with some large group tables which were all taken apparently. It was also really far away and quite hard to find. It was on 嘉定中路, number 289. Which one would assume is near 嘉定南路 number 200, but no. When 南 (South) becomes 中 (Middle), the numbers go back to zero. We had some awesome kebabs though, some from a Uyghur guy from Kashgar(!). We saw some food places by the hotel, so we went to go there, but none of them could be bothered to cook two dishes and some rice. This is not an annoyed comment, they actually said this to each other in Chinese.

So we went to a kebab place just around the corner, where we had beef, mutton and rabbit (never had it before, 'twas rather nice actually). And I had a random bird which may have ben pigeon, which was far too much hassle to eat. The kebabs shrunk in the cooking process quite considerably, so they weren't enough, so we got more to go. Which included a bug one for Nikki (that's not a typo, that does say bug). And I ate a bug. It was alright actually, bit crunchy with pokey legs and feelers. Full of bug (and real food), we went to bed ready for a good night's sleep (haha).



(apologies for the darkness of the video, here's a photo of what I was eating (oh, and excuse the really bad hat hair))



DAY 27 - LESHAN乐山 => CHENGDU成都

Up bright and early (thanks to a delightful rooster just outside) and ready and packed, we checked out, left our bags with reception and got the bus to the 东方佛都 (Oriental Buddha Capital). We got the same bus out as the day before (it was very near the Giant Buddha), and once again the first bus that came said he didn't go that way. Well, he might have, he said 'no' (in English) and shook his head ambiguously.

We got there, saw the longest reclining Buddha in the world (which is a cheat - they carved the head and the feet, but not the middle - it's just a big blob of trees), and climbed far too many steps to see reproductions of major Buddhist sites from across Asia reproduced here (some bigger than the originals). Knackered, we got the bus back to the hostel to pick up our bags and go to the station, but not before getting still more kebabs (every single thing we ate in Leshan came on a stick) and some of the most amazing fruit in the history of time. No, really.

The bus back to Chengdu was equally uneventful (although there was a 老外(foreigner) on the bus), but on getting off the bus we got rather annoyed that all Chinese bus and train stations (with one or two exceptions) are on the outside of town, almost as if to let their rip-off merchants taxi drivers make more money. We were offered 30 to our destination, but I won't get in taxis to unknown destinations for fixed prices (been stung for that before). We flagged one on the street outside, and he got us to our hostel for 30 exactly. The amusing thing was, as we walked away from the guy offering the fixed 30, he changed his price - up. First 40, then 50 and then 60. Fool. In English though, so maybe he doesn't know the numbers?

We checked into officially the cheapest hostel in Chengdu (Mix Hostel - if you go to Chengdu, stay there), and the cheapest hostel we've been to in China (including dodgy operating basically outside the law guesthouses (fear not family, they're not dodgy enough to be classed as unsafe, they just don't bother reporting foreigners that stay there which is required by Chinese law)) (15 a night), dumped our things and booked tickets for the world famous Sichuan Opera. We got a taxi to a recommended restaurant (we wanted the quintessential Sichuan dining experience, given that Sichuan food is world famous (Sze-chuan to those who use Wade-Giles romanization). But said restaurant didn't exist any more, so we went to a different one, where the food was average and the service poor. The rice had only just arrived when we had to pay and leave so as to not be late for the opera, and not once did we get our tea refilled (to be fair, the manager did shout at one of the waitresses for ignoring us).

We got in the car to the opera and got talking to an American girl from California called Claire, who's a teacher in Shanghai. And then she said the one line I hear far too often from Americans: "Oh, I'm British too!" But this one actually was - born and raised in The Big Smoke 'til the age of 9, then the US 'til 14. Not sure what came after.

The opera was quite good, but the other bits didn't please me quite so much - puppets, erhu playing (to be fair, he was really good, but I'm not a huge fan), shadow puppets (utterly bizarre) and some minor acrobating.

The famous face changing is great, and while I think I've worked out the secret, I'm not convinced and have no way of finding out, as it's a state secret in China, and only 300 people know how it's done.

After the opera, we just went to bed for a rather disturbed sleep thanks to our charming fellow travellers.

DAY 28 - CHENGDU成都

In the morning, after a truly awful shower with pressure ranging from painful to drip and temperature from scalding to ice, I had some toast and awaited Nikki. Then, we walked to the Wenshu Monastery. Or rather, we tried to. But the directions from the girl at the hostel were rather vague (apparently they make sense to women and not men) and we ended up walking in the exact opposite direction for rather too long. We eventually turned round and walked back the other way, stopping to get Nikki some sugar cane. I had heard you can eat sugar cane, but had never tried it. I say eat, you don't actually eat in, you chew it then spit it out. It's not that great, it's got the texture of chewing on a branch (unsurprisingly) and not much of a flavour.

We found the monastery and the folk street it's on, and it was mobbed. It was one of the days of Spring Festival (which lasts for 15 days, not just the one like western New Year) when you are supposed to go to the temple and pray. We were somewhat bored of temples, so we had a wander through the grounds and the nice garden and then found the teahouse inside and sat there for quite some time. They say that in a Sichuan teahouse, time slows down. It kind of did actually. I drank lots of tea to see if it would make me feel any less unwell (I was starting to feel slightly ill you see). It didn't. After a walk around the grounds, we explored part of the Folk Street, which was old and full of tat and (surprisingly) Uyghurs selling Xinjiang style kebabs (although they were completely different to kebabs in Xinjiang).

We headed to the Cultural Park to see a Taoist temple "in the grounds," which is Guidebook for "outside the grounds." We found it, and as it was the first Taoist temple we'd seen, I was quite interested to see what it would be like. For those who haven't been, imagine a Buddhist temple but with different statues. Seriously. There are no other differences. Disappointed in that, we went to Dufu's cottage (Dufu was a poet in olden days who lived in a cottage in Chengdu for 5 years, and said cottage has been preserved and turned into a tourist attraction).

But just before we went into the cottage grounds, lots of boys in tarzan-esque costumes came out and performed a bad dance out of time to bad music. It was quite amusing to watch. I got given a red dangly new year thing with money on it, and a cow gave me a card saying 2008 - Ox (which it's not, it's Rat this year). Anyway, we critiqued lots of calligraphy (Chinese calligraphy largely looks scrappy and sometimes just plain illegible)., saw his cottage and it's really rather nice grounds (lots of green, the first real growing bamboo I'd seen and things), posed where Mao did then headed back to the hostel for a short relax.

Around dinner time, we decided to eat at the hostel, so we looked at the menu, but nothing appealed at all. So we went out, and found a restaurant called 老妈兔头 (old mother rabbit head) where the waitress very helpfully asked in English if we could speak China. At first, I thought she said cello. Fortunately, Nikki was slightly more logical and worked out what she was asking. We said yes, and ordered. First, a fried seasonal vegetable dish, some kind of meat strips and 鱼香茄子 (which translates to Fish Fragrant Aubergine, but isn't actually fish at all), all of which should be straightforward enough. But oh no. For the seasonal vegetable, we had a choice, but the choices were fired off at such speed I have no idea what they were. Eventually, she went to the kitchen and brought out some identical looking leaves (the difference was in one hand she had one leaf and in the other hand a bunch of them), so we picked one. Then did we want big or small bowls of rice. She was still going at great speed, so Nikki asked her to go slower, when the waitress got really embarassed and apologised a lot, and then carried on as before.

By this point, I was feeling even more rubbish, so I picked at some aubergine and we headed home to bed, praying I'd feel better for the pandas the next day. We had pegged feeling rubbish on exhaustion (4 weeks constantly moving, less fun than you'd think), and some sleep and a slower next day should see me right.

Day 229 - Long overdue next installment of travels :)

BLOGGITY BLOG

DAY 21 - WUHAN武汉 => XI'AN西安

As per usual we went to the train station first to dump our bags (I wonder how much we spent on left luggage?), then got a taxi to the Yellow Crane Tower. One driver offered to take us for 100, then lowered his price to 90. There's one price he could shove. We walked away from the train station a bit, and waited for a free even-numbered taxi (there is a restriction on which cars can use which bridges on which days in Wuhan). After about a million hours, we got one (for 25).

We decided we could do this one slowly (which was quite hard, I got too used to Speed Tourism(tm)), so we wandered around slowly, seeing pavilion after pavilion. We saw a stele featuring 2 of Mao's poems, and his "calligraphy," which looks like it was done by a blind person with their feet. Truly awful. But of course, it was Mao, so everyone had to tell him it was good.

We saw lots of things, including the Yellow Crane Tower, which had an exhibit showing it through the ages, and the current one looks nothing like the first one. Suddenly, it was 4:30, and it closed at 5:30, and I wanted to go to the little shop where they painted a picture using the characters of your name. But it was closed when we got there :( On our way, a Chinese girl who was sitting on the grass with her boyfriend ran over and asked "Can I help you? Thank you!" And gave me her camera. We wondered how long they'd sat there waiting.

Having seen all of that, we got a bus to where we had seen Starbucks (oops). But annoyingly, it didn't open until the following day. Rude. So we went into Theatre, a supermarket with loads of imported goods. Including spray deodorant (!!!). So we bought rather a lot. There were two streets we wanted to see at night, but we were both tired and not in the mood, so we just went to the train station to wait for our 10:12pm train. We got talking to a group of Chinese people, who kept telling me my Chinese was better than Nikki's, which I hate. I never know what to say. Eventually, they went on their way, and we waited. And waited. And waited. Nikki went to check the big sign to see if we were in the right room, as our train hadn't appeared on the screens above any of the gate at 9:40 (they let you on to the platform around 20 minutes before the train, and get you to queue a fair bit before that). Then I went a little later, and the signs had changed to 晚点：2302 (Late: 23:02). Poo. We waited some more. And more. The Chinese guy opposite clearly understood everything we said, given away by his laughing at my jokes (which I like, because my jokes are rubbish and really not worth laughing at). At 00:15, we finally got on the train. Nikki and I were separated (Nikki in car 16, me in 12). While on the platform, the Chinese guy starting talking to us in English, proving he did understand. He asked which bit of the train we would be in, and I said 12. So was he. He asked which bed I was in, so I said 18上, he was in 19中. Someone to talk to! But no, there's a wall between 18 and 19. So I just went to sleep until the morning. Exciting.

DAY 22 - XI'AN 西安

In the morning, nothing happened. Once we got off the train, we went for tickets (just for a change), but this time wasn't a simple as one might think. I saw a sign above a door that said 售票厅 (ticket hall), so we headed for it. But part way there, we were stopped by a guyard who asked for our tickets. We didn't have any as yet, obviously. So he very helpfully told us in English that this was a train station. So we had to go back the way we'd come and around a bit market-y bit to get to the ticket office (as he said we weren't allowed to go the way we were going for whatever reason - this is China, you learn to accept these things).

Tickets to Chengdu in hand, we went to get a taxi to the hostel. But at the taxi rank, none of the taxis sitting there empty would take us. But I knew that the hostel was right next to 钟楼(the Bell Tower), so we got a bus there. And found the hostel quite easily. We checked into a 10 bed dorm (hurrah for YHA card, it ended up really cheap :D). I gave them some laundry, and we went to the Muslim quarter. By quarter, I mean one street. Whilst waiting for Nikki, I stuffed my face, as I was bored. So we got to the Muslim bit (which Catherine would absolutely love) and wandered about, realising this was a prime location for procuring tat. Then, we went for food. We decided to try a local delicacy (which we had read about in our reading textbook actually) - 羊肉泡馍 (Mutton boiled flatbread), which was as good as the book said. The portions were huge though. It's basically a big soup with mutton, noodley things and torn up naan in it. Whilst in the restaurant run by the butchest woman in China, we had a bottle of amazing orange stuff, which is sold only in Xi'an, and is essentially orange coloured fizzy sugar water. Nummy.

Quite tired, we just went home and went to bed, planning to get up early and see lots of sights.

DAY 23 - XI'AN 西安

I got up at the crack of 7:30 and showered and got ready to go and see the world famous Terracotta Warriors 秦始皇兵马俑. Nikki slept in a bit, so I checked internet, had terst (toast for those not from Hull) and pretended to write some diary before waking her. We got the bus to the warriors, and battled our way through people telling us a guide was necessary as there were so many 'relics.' Pit 2 was closed, so we saw pits 1 and 3 and saw some exhibitions, one of which had some truly brilliant propaganda. It was amazing how good these things were, considering they were made over 2000 years ago and then lived underground before being accidentally discovered by some farmers digging a well. I would post photos, but see below. Having seen it all, we went to get the bus back to Xi'an, where we bumped into Zack (a guy from Guam who was in our dorm). On the bus, we then saw Lucy and Heidi, two Australian girls from our dorm. Weird.

The bus arrived at its terminus, the train station, where we tried to get a bus to 南门 (the South Gate), but the only gate south we could see was 和平门 (Gate of Peace), so we got that. Then walked through a tourist trap that was actually quite nice and on the way to the 南门. We climbedthe gate and looked around a bit. The views from there are meant to be the best, but all I saw was tall buildings, industry and an expressway.

We headed for the Bell Tower, in order that we might climb it, but it close as we got there (literally, the people one in front of us in the queue got tickets, we didn't) on account of it being New Year's Eve. Slightly disappointed but also quite tired, we went back to the hostel and had some dinner, then showered and got ready to celebrate New Year. Which meant Clean, Nice Clothes and No Hat (!). We went and sat with the Dutch girl from our dorm and had some coktails. 长岛冰茶 (Long Island Iced Tea) nice, XYZ not. We moved to sit with a big group and chatted a bit. We had asked the people in the hostel what was happening to mark the New Year, and we were told we could go to KTV maybe. Not a good sign. After a bit, we went to a club caled Salsa. They had dancers on a glass stage, and some brilliant western music to which we boogied a bit. Some of the people we were with were somewhat undesirable (smoking hash in the club, shouting at the non-English-speaking staff in English, refusing to let people take a chair we weren't using etc.), so we left them and sat with a Chinese guy who had lived in South Africa and was really, really sweaty due to his very enthusiastic dancing (which stopped only to take a swig from his drink). He was really nice, and bought us all a round of weird drinks (I'd seen all night people getting champagne style buckets with sparklers and weird blue and pink drinks in really long stemmed champagne glasses).

Around 2, I was tired so I headed back (via McDonalds (not called Maccas (and not nice either, not sure why I went)). Whilst there, Nikki and the Dutch girl (I wish I could remember her name) caught me up and we walked back together. Heidi came back just afer us, and Lucy was already there. They proceeded to very loudly discuss their nights and their need (mostly Heidi's actually) for "Maccas." They went as far as sticking a note on the door for Zack telling him not to come in without McDonalds. But he never did come back. The poor Korean guy in our dorm must have been getting really annoyed (after spending the new year on his own in the dorm) at the noise, as he was leaving that morning.

DAY 24 - XI'AN (春节 (spring festival, Chinese new year))

So, as we were slightly tired and thirsty, we got up later than normal and got ready. Breakfast at the hostel, where we saw Renée who hadn't yet been to bed as someone else was in it and he had her key, so she couldn't kick him out. Once everyone (us two, the Dutch girl and Heidi & Lucy) were ready (and we've given them yet more laundry), the Dutch girl, Nikki and I went out (Heidi and Lucy were AWOL). Nikki saw some people doing portraits and wanted one, so sat down. Several times the police came, so everyone ran, and Nikki was moved to a corner by a shop. I do always wonder why the police don't let people sell stuff on the streets.

While she was having her picture done, the Dutch girl and I went to get takeout 星巴克. Whilst there, we bumped into Heidi and Lucy who were getting sit-in 星巴克. We went back to Nikki and when she was done, we joined Heidi and Lucy, where we said we were going to go to the Big Goose Pagoda, because at the hostel they had said if anything were going to happen, it would happen there. So we all went to the Muslim bit to buy tat. But I had no intention of buying tat to take it to the pagoda and then back, so after one (painfully slow) tour, we went to find the bus to the pagoda. The bus took us to a big square next to the temple, where, surprise surprise, nothing was happening. We wandered slowly to the entrance of the temple, climbed the pagoda, and then as it was clear Heidi and Lucy didn't want to be there and were annoying us, we went to get the bus to 南门 in case something was happening there (they had built a big stage there, so we hoped something was going to happen). But of course, nothing. So we went back to the hostel and dossed about. We told the Dutch girl everything we knew about places in China to go (as she had no travel route yet for the rest of her trip), and then just went to bed. The whole day was quite the disappointment really.

DAY 25 - XI'AN 西安 => LESHAN 乐山

We had arranged massages for 10am, so we got up quite early and packed ready to check out before our massage. Whilst packing, I organised my things and went to put my wallet, translator, student card and camera into the small bag I use and realised I couldn't find my camera. I checked downstairs and it wasn't there. I thought about it, and came to realiseit had ben stolen on the bus from the Big Goose Pagoda to the South Gate by the horrible old (Han) man who was next to me. I was half raging and half gutted, it had over 700 photos from our travels on it. As I was waiting for Nikki, I went downstairs for breakfast. She has a lot of the same photos as me, which is alright, but some are unreplaceable (posing with a Shaolin monk for example).

When we checked out, about 98436189314897 people on a tour were checking in,s-l-o-w-l-y, and Nikki had to go and tell the massage man we'd be there in a minute (he was waiting for us outside - if we booked through the hostel, he'd only get 50% of the price, so we weren't to tell the hostel). We eventually checked out, put our stuff in the luggage room and went to the massage place. The massage was typically Chinese - fully dressed and not at all relaxing (in fact, painful at times). Afterwards, the woman asked if I wanted to try any other treatments, and I said no. Then they said I could try cupping for free. So I did. Ow. But then, not ow. It was a bizarre feeling, and my back had little round bruises all over it for about a week.

After the massage, we went to buy me a new camera. I wanted a 2GB to go with it to replace the 2GB one I'd lost, but it was hugely more expensive than the same card in the same shop in Urumqi, so I just got the one that came with the camera. New camera in hand, we went to Starbucks for breakfast. We'd checked everything off our Xi'An list except buying tat, so we figured we could take the day easy. After coffee and cake, I went to buy tat, but Nikki couldn't be bothered moving and I was hoping to make the post office, so I went alone. I managed to get a fair bit (bartering was so boring - I was willing to pay the prices they said first time. I obviously still bartered a little, but it hardly seemed worth it), then went back to Starbucks to find Nikki, who wasn't there. So I went back to the hostel, and found her. She wanted to buy tat, so we went back around, and bought a little more. We had no time for dinner before our train, so we got some street food and jumped in a taxi to the train station.

We got on the train and went to go to sleep. We talked a lot, and they turned all the lights off at 9:30 (really early for a train). After a bit, a girl came up to us and said, "Please sleep quickly." Confused. Nikki (after several attempts by this girl) asked her to say it in Chinese, and then we found out the guard had asked her to tell us to keep it down, as other people were trying to sleep (now, if only they'd say that to the Chinese people who sit shouting at each other (just holding a conversation - Chinese men seem to have one volume setting - L.O.U.D.) until 3am.