08: Coach to Chengdu

Woke up just as we were mooring up at Chongqing, this means we’d been sailing all night through Chongqing Province, we expected to stop much earlier but apparently the water levels were high for the time of year, allowing us to sail on further. Happy with this as it apparently reduced our on going coach journey to Chengdu by up to two hours.

After our breakfast we watched some of the porters struggling up the stairs of the dock with our cases and returning with huge loads of produce for the next voyage.

These guys all looked around retirement age and quite frail but relentlessly continued throughout the morning.

We disembarked around eight thirty, and after quite a march from the wharf we loaded up onto the coach for the onward journey to Chengdu, the capital of Sechuan Province; but at least the cases were loaded for us, and there were packed lunches for us too! The trip was going to take around five hours, dependant on how kind the traffic was to us...!!!

Soon after we left, Max explained the history of China’s “One Child Policy” that was introduced by Chairman Mao in 1980 and has since been relaxed to the point where it’s due to be revoked completely very soon. He also gave us the very good news that our next hotel in Chengdu, The Tibet Hotel, had

upgraded every one of our rooms, ohh yeah, thank you...!!!

The journey was nowhere near as bad as we thought it might be, and when we got booked in and saw our room... well, a very rare situation occurred... we were both in awe and speechless! One of the best rooms we’ve ever had anywhere in the world, it was amazing and had the softest of beds in a country that only uses hard beds; according to Max it’s the only hotel in Chengdu Province that has such luxury.

We had an hour or so to rest and freshen up before meeting our local guide, Shannon, and heading out again to visit the Chengdu People’s Park. It's here that locals can enjoy a drink from the central tea house, relax, mingle, exercise, sing and there’s even open air ballroom dancing! We couldn’t resist a

bit of a waltz with the locals ourselves, which increased their never ending interest in us even more than usual.

This lovely park was quite busy, everyone seemed very happy and there was none of the shouting all the time that we’d experienced almost everywhere else so far. The strangest thing here was an area of the park that was used for open air match making. Parents, mostly mothers, advertised their daughters for marriage with detailed information sheets posted on the fence surrounding one of the flower beds... !!!

After an hour in the park, it was briefly back on the coach to the renovated ancient streets of the Wide and Narrow Alleys, now full of shops, coffee houses and restaurants which are mostly quite upmarket, so there must be a fair amount of

money in this area. We treated ourselves to a coffee in a Chinese version of Costa, though avoided the local delicacy of roasted rabbit heads! I also had a quick look in the two storey local market, which had some very unusual produce available including some live things I’d never seen before...!!!

Back on the coach again to a restaurant for our dinner, which was rather conveniently just a block or two along from the hotel. There was a good cross section of choices, including just one sample of the local spicy Sichuan Hot Pot, that Shannon said was there to give us an idea of what they’d normally have, but it wasn’t too hot as she knew us Europeans didn’t like meals to be too spicy. Well, I hate to think what the really spicy ones were like as I could barely breathe after my first mouthful...!!! Finished it though...

As it was near the hotel we could drift off as we pleased, and Elaine and I were first to slip away as we wanted to quickly check out the nearby shopping mall and then get back to our sumptuous room and make the most of our stay here. The shops were all modern and upmarket - a little too rich for our blood! We spotted a Häagen-Dazs Parlour and treated ourselves to the most expensive cornets we’ve ever had... worth it though. As we were finishing our treat the assistant pointed out to us that some of our group (Lynne, Amber, Sharron & David) were banging on the window to attract our attention, then pulled faces and moved on... so immature!

We’re up quite early tomorrow to visit the Leshan Giant Buddha (Da Fo), which is a two and a half hour drive away.