<-gattomatto->

Friday, October 01, 2004
My travel to Sichuan ( Chengdu Phase)

I had a little consideration about what language I should choose to write this travel blog. Due to An's inability to read Chinese, and my will to share with him this beautiful experience, I decided to pick up English. I know that in this way, my blogging language could become much more plain and less interesting, but... as for everything in life, we have to make our choice and then go on.

18/09/2004, Leaving Shanghai from Hongqiao Airport 上海虹桥机场 to Chengdu, Shuangliu Airport 成都双流机场.

Everything was smooth: I even managed to catch a bus to reach Hongqiao Airport. I realize that I was quite spoiled during all the business trips I had in the past. I always slept in 4 or 5 stars hotels and took taxi or the hotel limousine to reach the hotel. Now I want a more direct experience about how to travel on a very tight budget. It is really interesting for me to know, after I got used to comfortable trips, if I am still able to go back to a student way of traveling.
I have a big Millet red backpack (55~65 litres, bought in Vietnam) with me, and a little backpack for the computer (it is amazing that I have carried this iBook being around for more than 2 months, the only reason is I have to download time by time the photos when the sim card is full). Then I have another little bag to always carry with me my valuable things.
Fine arrival in Chengdu including the airport shuttle bus costs only 20yuan per ride.
Once downtown I changed to a tri-cycle to reach my lodging destination: The Dragon Town Youth Hostel 龙堂国际青年旅社(Tel: 028 86648408; 27 Kuan Xiang Zi Street). I was a little bit shocked and depressed from the first sight of the room and facilities. The toilet was at the first floor while the washing room is at the 3rd floor. My room was on 2nd floor, with total 5 beds inside. "but it costs just 30Yuan per night" I tried to tell myself. Once left the big bag in the room, I started my adventure at the discovery of Chengdu, a long time dreamed destination. Kuanxiangzi 宽巷子and Zhaixiangzi 窄巷子 are the only two ancient streets remaining almost intact in Chengdu and some of the architectures date back over 450 years. It is said that these two streets will disappear soon due to a "downtown reforming project". Probably, as usual, the old buildings will be substituted by shining malls. That's always a sad thing. China has such an heritage of over 5 thousands years history, but we just throw the old and ancient things away, like rubbish. How many crazy town mayors we have?? Always thinking about grand new projects and unable to understand the beauty of our heritage. Anyway, what I can do is just to take pictures and memorize this moment.

It took me 20 minutes walking to reach the central Tianfu Square 天府广场. On the way I have noticed everywhere are construction works (well...like everywhere in China). Sometimes I just think China is becoming a big construction site.
I made a tour around the square, willing to spend some time and meet Huangliang, my former high school mate. for dinner. Later, unluckily, my wait became a nightmare as he was continuously postponing the dinner because of endless business meetings. In the end I was completely pissed off. I had a noodles dinner by myself, nearby, and then I went back to the hostel.

Back in the room I met my roommates: a Japanese girl who was writing her diary quitely; a Guangdong guy (Yuanchao) who works in Beijing coming from a crazy trip in Tibet; a girl from Guangzhou (Fang Xueying) willing to to have a short trip in Chengdu and in the surrounding area. The first time I realized to travel alone is not a fresh thing at all. We decide to join together for a city tour tomorrow.

19/09/2004 Everything seems getting better. After a natural wake-up, we decided to invite the Japanese girl for breakfast. The girl is a kind of strange type: she can speak few Chinese, very few English. It is amazing to think that she has travelled more than a month in China alone. Anyway, I managed to communicate with her through Kangji "chinese words": Japanese writing derives many words from Chinese, and we can share some meanings.
Chengdu is a town famous in China for its different types of snacks. We decided to follow the suggestions of a travel guide and have local noodles.
Unluckily we were not able to find the exact location of the suggested place: so, instead we had Longchaoshou 龙抄手(a kind of hundun/ lavioli ). We were now ready, after a good breakfast, to go to Qingyanggong 青羊宫.
Qingyanggong is the biggest and most important daoist temple in the southwest area of the town and was built during Tang dynasty.
Daoism is a native religion of China. It claims for " calm and non-action" 无为 . I am not such an expert in religious things, but it was interesting to watch and feel the spirit of the place.
It was a raining, and quite cool day. The Japanese girl was so patient: She waited for us to finish reading each and every line of each panel, without any impatience. I have to admit she is really a nice girl.
Later we had our lunch in " Chen Mapodoufu" 陈麻婆豆腐 Restaurant. "Maopodoufu" or "maopo tofu" is one of the most famous Sichuan dishes, and is said to come from this specific restaurant. It tastes much different from similar tofu dishes, due to a local pepper;it is not very spicy but it makes a strange effect of deep and persistent tickling on the tongue. From this moment, I started to always share my meals with others: it is a good way to control the costs and to enter in the sharing spirit of true travellers.

Now have to rush to attend the Yoga course, to be continued...

Last time I was talking about we had a nice lunch in "chengmapotoufu". After lunch we went to "Dufu Caotang" 杜甫草堂-
Dufu is the famous poet in Tang Dynasty, and the place is his ancient house. Walking to reach there, on the road, we have seen a nice road market: A typical flea market, plenty of fake antiques :-)
Unluckily my temporary partners don’t like such kind of things. We went straightforward to our destination: Really it was not such a special place and the current house made by leaves is not the original one either.
The only nice thing you can see there is the huge quantity of Osmanthus trees and during fall season all the Osmanthus trees are blossoming. The sweet scent is spreading everywhere in the air.
Under this kind of atomaspere I felt very delighted and joyful.
Finally I received several messages from Huangliang who was ready to meet me: We arranged to meet in front of Wuhouci (the place built to remember Liubei 刘备and Zhugeliang诸葛亮: it refers to the tale of “ three Kingdom” 三国演义).
Huangliang and his wife were kind: they bought already the tickets for me and wanted to accompany me to see this place. It was the first time I saw his wife, a local Sichuanese.
In the following few hours I was amazed how much she was taking care of all the things: Huangliang simply didn’t do anything apart some chatting with me, because I am his friend instead of hers: otherwise I assume she will also help him to chat with me! How spoiled the man is!!! Luckily he is not my type. They offered me a fish hot pot for dinner and we went to a tea place to continue our chat.

I went back to Dragon Town by taxi. Once there I managed to talk with An for my daily report ;-) (I asked them to give me a number so he can call me back without letting me pay). It was not possible to get a computer or use any Internet service, as there were always a bunch of foreign girls queuing up in front of the two pc of the guest house. After I finished my phone call I was willing to go back to the room and write a note to be posted on a board downstairs to ask for some companions for my next destination. I have been stopped by a guy more or less the same age of my father. “ Is there anybody going to Jiuzhaigou 九寨沟 tomorrow? Here I have only a girl who is willing to join the trip”: Wow, that’s what I would like to do. So I followed him and we sat down in the yard. Obviously he is a “Laolu” 老驴– an "old donkey", a nice way to call those people who has a lot of backpacking experience.
He (Li Dage) told me he has a new roommate and he was trying to help her to find a suitable travel companion. Soon several other people joined our little chat. The number included the girl (Xiaozhu)with which I will have several-day trip together later on, then my roommate Fangxueying (she tried to find me out because it seemed I disappeared for quite a while) and another Shanghainese girl. She was also a kind of strange type from what she told us. She never managed to get out once she arrived Dragon Town, everyday she stayed in front of the hostel drinking the tea and getting to know new friends. Was telling us last night she saw a Shanghai plate car parked in front of the hostel so she got up very early that morning to wait the owner of the car in order to get to know him: later they have spent the whole morning chatting.
I have to admit in front this kind of personality I feel myself so ...normal. Hehe. Li Dage and this Shanghainese girl had a kind of conflict. I suppose they both have strong personalities so each one was trying to prevail on the other. As onlooker I have been offered a good tea (Fujian tieguanying 福建铁观音) from Li Dage and I liked the moment.
Situation seems very serious, Jiuzhaigou area didn’t allow people to stay inside for an overnight that’s why that Shanghaiese girl (even with such a strong style) had already joined a local travel agent to go to Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong 黄龙. But but… I have just told myself no more travel agents after a recent trip in Tibet: how I can re-enter such a circle? Xiaozhu, fangxueying ( after chatting with us, she decided to give up the surrounding tour and go to Jiuzhaigou with us) and I decided to make an early wake-up tomorrow morning and go to buy tickets for our destination, directly in the bus station.

20/09/2004 Morning: we rushed to the bus station. We were told there were only 2 tickets left: But we were 3 people. While we were discussing about what to do, we weretold that only 1 ticket was left. We were forced to buy the tickets for the 21st,a day later, but Fang cannot join us any more due to her tight timetable.
Zhu was not sure about the tickets real availability, and she suggested we might try to go to Daocheng 稻城. We turned back to the ticket counter and we have been told there were tickets free for Jiuzhaigou the same day. What wonderful news!!!
We three rushed to the waiting hall and found our bus, happily waiting for the departure: But this time we were not so lucky.
Later we have been joined by another lady (Wujie) and the bus went to the North bus station to pick up more passengers. After the whole bus had been loaded they told us we cannot leave due to an Abazhou 阿坝洲 (Aba State is the Tibet and Qiang Autonomous state in Sichuan) strike. Strike was organized because the bus fare to Jiuzaigou imposed by the bus company in Abazhou is lower than the fare of Chengdu bus company even if there is no any difference on the bus facility and routine. So the whole Abazhou public transfer system is on strike for protesting. The strike day should have been carefully chosen by them, as we were very close to the peak tour period of October 1st.
We waited up to noon and nothing changed. The driver was even not dare to depart . Meanwhile, for first time in my life I was no more in a hurry and I started to enjoy this kind of unexpected issues. I simply sat down and took out my notebook to write down my thoughts. And then we four girls decided to go to “Huangchenglaoma” 皇城老妈hot pot to award ourselves.

“Huangchenglaoma” is considered the top restaurant in Chengdu. Unluckily it turned out to be a very normal restaurant. And we have chosen super-carefully the menu and the final bill still came out to be 307 Yuan. I know it is not such an expensive bill if compared with a lunch in Shanghai for 4 persons. But considering I am making a different type of travel, this meal remained as the most expensive meal in my following trip.

Then we separated. Fang and I decided to go to the Panda Park to see the Pandas. Actually we arrived pretty late due to the luxurious lunch, which finished around 3:30pm. Like everything in the world is hardly to predict, we realized we arrived exactly the right moment: It was the feeding time for Pandas. As you might know, Panda is famous for its non-activity, so very often, even if ,as a Chinese, I have more chances to see Panda in different parks, I saw them sleeping. This time it was different. They are all getting around to be fed. The most cute are the three Pandina ( Here I have used Italian grammar to create this word, means Little Panda), they are around 1 year old. Like all the youth in every kind of animals, they are super naughty. It took me more than 15 minutes to watch they play and fight with each other. Lovely indeed. The most exciting thing was that I have also seen a new-born Panda baby which was 1 month old. It looked like a little mouse with some back dropping. But believe me, Panda is not really so cute as it looks. Scientifically, it should be called as "Cat Bear" instead of its current Chinese name, that means "Bear Cat" : Definitely it is more a kind of bear.
We got a chance to talk with the trainer of Jiaojiao 娇娇 ( A famous Panda which is the logo of a local tobacco company). Probably my question in someway were too straight and she didn’t answer me. Only thing she mentioned is she has seen once a Panda attacks people. She used the word "beast" to describe the Panda. I have really no idea about what happened, but I can image something very sad and cruel. Later on, we have visited "little Panda with red tail", which is another type. Then we rushed back to the town.

We arrived Chunxi Street 春熙路. The street is considered as the best place to encounter local beautiies and find very good local snacks. We asked Wujie and Xiaozhu to meet there. Xiaozhu arrived and we started our hunting of famous snacks. First Laitangyuan 赖汤圆, then Hanbaozi 韩包子, and 3rd chuanchuanxiang 串串香. It was amazing how many things we can put into our stomach with lots of different tastes - sweet, spicy and salty. I felt so great as I can eat every kind of taste and this ...skill allowed me to enjoyso many great foods around the world. Unluckiy I didn't find any local beauty there.

Chengdu Phase is finished here, and it will be continued by Abazhou Phase…