Private: 6th September 2006
September 6th, 2006 - Posted in UK to NZ - by Sarah|
by Sarah & Brendhan
We saw masses of Pandas at the Chengdu Research Institute where they breed them (mostly using artificial insemination). We were really lucky as there had been 9 born in the last 3 weeks and we saw some teeny tiny blind ones with pink skin and some slightly larger ones that were just getting the black fur round their eyes. There were also loads of older ones and we got masses of photos and video. Here are the 5 day old babies:
The next day we left the hotel at 6am to catch the public bus for the 9 hour journey to Songpan, on the edge of the Tibetan plateau (2800m). The ride was relatively comfortable as none of the passengers had brought their livestock with them. The actual distance travelled was only about 350km but the fact that the bus had to keep stopping for water and at the driver’s relative’s restaurants plus all the slowing down to over take Yaks (actually off the side of the road for photo ops with handlers in native costume) meant that our speed averaged 40km/h.
We arrived to our lovely Transport Hotel in Songpan – certified to take international tourists by the government – to find all mod cons such as a large TV that only picks up static, hot and cold running water all over the bathroom floor, and unwashed tea cups (!) plus 4 light bulbs to go round the 7 lights in the room. But all sorted now – after a 10 minute discussion with the hotel staff (our English to their Chinese) we managed to get the cups cleaned and decided to wear our sandals in the bathroom.
Today we got up early again and after breakfast at the traditionally named “Emma’s Kitchen” we climbed aboard a couple of horses for a day’s trekking. Once the locals had finished laughing at our mounting technique we rode over the ridge (a measly 3000m) into the next valley an had lunch at a Tibetan Red Hat Buddhist monastery complete with prayer wheels and flags.
Brendhan was then allowed inside to pay his respects to a photo of the Dali Lama while Sarah waited outside as the monks were fearful that she would lose her fertility if she entered the holy place. Here is a photo of us and the horses just before leaving the monastery after lunch.
The ride down got pretty hairy at times and after Brendhan’s horse tried to eject him from the saddle our guides decided we were too fat to ride down the steep slope and made us walk although they allowed us to get on again on the flat (this is normal, honest).
After a big thunderstorm late this afternoon the air feels a lot clearer and less humid and we’ve just had another lovely meal so will sign off again for now.
Private: 3rd September 2006
September 3rd, 2006 - Posted in UK to NZ - by Sarah|
by Brendhan & Sarah
The cooking class went really well. We learnt to cook 4 dishes and were advised on improving our wok technique. It was good fun as well as very tasty! Some people found the previous visit to the market a bit off-putting though – especially the dog stall.
From cooking we went straight to a multimedia performance in a park on the river which is very hard to describe. It was really beautiful but a bit boring – mostly because we couldn’t understand the words as they were all in Chinese.
The next day we just tootled about the old town, sitting over lunch for as long as possible to keep out of the baking sun. In the evening we flew to Chengdu and landed just in time before an absolutely humungous thunderstorm. It rained so hard that our 10th floor hotel room got flooded and we had to move to another room. (As an aside, the hotels so far have been really flash by our standards – 10 times what we would have been prepared to pay if we’d been travelling solo but we assume that the group discount is pretty good.)
Chengdu is very laid back for a city of 5-18 million people. The Buddhist temples (see photo below) are peaceful oases, as are the many tea gardens around the city. You can make a cup of tea stretch for an hour and a half easily without raising any eyebrows. That was how we occupied most of yesterday!
Today we went out to Mount Qingcheng where you can spend 3 hours climbing up through rainforest to the Buddhist temple for a blessing. ‘Can’ because we actually took the soft option and took 2 cable cars (see the picture below) and one cup of tea (see above) instead. It was nice to get out into the countryside.
