Day 8 (Part 2): Arrival in Chengdu

We touched down and immediately felt better....no-one thought the change in altitude would be quite so difficult to deal with in Tibet, but it was worth it!

Now we have arrived in Chengdu, panda country and capital of Sichuan Province! Our new guide Cindy, met us at the airport and got us onto our new bus with our suitcases. Instead of heading straight to the hotel, we visited Jinli Street; it is a market area with traditional style buildings and lots of delicious food. We were given 40 minutes to explore; we walked round one of the loops before deciding we had time for a quick beer in the craft brewery. It was pretty expensive, 65 yuan, but it was the first beer over 3.3% we have had since we arrived! It even tasted like beer, rather than fizzy water! Iain even got to try another one, think the guy was impressed that we finished them so quickly; we didn’t want to tell him we were in a rush as we wanted to buy some tea from one of the many tea shops on Jinli Street too. We got to try some green tea as we decided what to buy; honey peach and blueberry smelled amazing, so that was that!

Not so delicious....Chicken feet!



We met up with the group just after 3pm and set off for the hotel. Cindy gave us some information about Chengdu as we drove through the busy streets; Chengdu is known as the city of poets, that is:

P = Pandas

O = Opera (face changing opera)

E = Eating (Sichuan Cuisine)

T = Tea 

So it looks like we have covered one already, T = Tea! 

Earlier in the morning, Tony asked who would like to go for a massage and reflexology; I instantly said yes as the bed in the hotel room in Lhasa was so hard and uncomfortable, I felt like my spine was twisted! We arrived at the hotel at 4pm and those having a massage, and going to the evening show (I will explain later), were told to be ready in 10 minutes. Seven of us went to get a massage and had absolutely no idea what to expect! We were all in the same room and allocated a masseuse; we then put our feet in a basin of, what looked like tea, while the person started work on your neck and shoulders. We didn’t have to change or take off any clothes as the type of massage only focuses on points on the body and can be done through clothing; it was bliss albeit really painful at the time. The lady that massaged me had muscles like popeye on spinach but she really found the areas that were knotted! 

The massage lasted 1 hour and then Cindy came and collected us to take us to the restaurant. It is apparently quite famous, and very good. We had 2 “proper” Sichuan dishes both of which were really hot; Sichuan cooking is known for being very very spicy! The best course was Sichuan beef; which was basically a plate full of chillies followed by authentic Kung Po chicken and a Chinese burger (nothing like what we have!). Dinner was definitely one of the best.

That’s the “E” covered!

After dinner, the group split up again and those going to the show went with Cindy to the theatre next door. Guess what, that’s the “O” covered too! The show was an opera but not your usual opera; it had 5 different parts, all performed differently. We had acrobatics, puppetry, dance, other random things like spinning tables with your feet and the highlight of the show, face changing and fire spitting! There were only 14 of us at the show and it was reasonably entertaining until the last 20 minutes; they were outstanding! I have never witnessed face-changing before but it was fantastic.Basically, the performers will change from one mask to another with slight of hand (well that’s what we thought!) We actually have no idea how they did it but one of the performers changed face 5 times within seconds and the puppeteer changed the puppets face too! If you have no idea what I`m talking about, have a look on you tube!

After the show, it lasted for 1hour 20 minutes, we headed back to the hotel. Thankfully I had been paying attention and managed to guide everyone through the shortcut at the back of the hotel. It wasn’t too late, around 9.30pm but the travelling and descending from such a high altitude seems to have made us very tired. We did notice one very strange thing in the hotel before we went to sleep; at first we thought it was a gas mask but it’s actually for wearing over your head if there is a fire! You can see why we were confused, right? Love the calm business man in the mist of flames thinking `Just another day at the office`....

As I explained earlier, Chengdu is the city of POETS; so far, “O”, “E” and “T” have been crossed off the list; I`ll just need to wait until tomorrow to see the Pandas! Although, our hotel did have one of its own....