LEAF-go-VSO   

May 2006 Holiday

In our week-long May Holiday 2006, we visited Chengdu in Sichuan Province and met Ali's Auntie Charlotte (who works in Hong Kong) for a weekend in Kunming.

In Chengdu we stayed for 6 nights at this great place, the "Dragon Town Youth Hostel". It had a lovely open courtyard, very friendly staff, a dog (!), train ticket booking service (very useful!) and a splendid triple-bed en-suite blue-painted bedroom complete with antique furniture and ornate iron window bars.

Chengdu is famous for its numerous tea-gardens. Here you can see Lesley partaking of her favourite cuppa during a marathon 4-hour tea-session in Renmin Park. Our friendly tea-attendant (#007 no less!) was more than happy to just keep topping up our cups from his long-spouted kettle as Freda and Edie went wild with their colouring-in books.

 Chengdu is also famous for its spicy food. We seemed to spend a lot of time outside on the rubbly street sitting at wobbly tables on rickety bamboo chairs eating bowls of noodles or spicy kebabs. However, the main highlight in Chengdu was our visit to the Giant Panda Research and Breeding Station in the north of the city. Click here to go to our Panda page where there are more photos!

We also managed a daytrip to the famous Da Fo, the Grand Buddha at Leshan (a 2-hour bus ride south of Chengdu). He's supposed to be the biggest in the World - about 70m high, carved out of solid rock above the river Min. Unfortunately the crowds of Chinese tourists made the whole experience a bit of a struggle, and the 3-hour queue to descend the tortuous path to the Buddha's feet was ruled out! Avoid major Chinese tourist attractions on Public Holidays if you can!

We did however manage to get some peace by walking off the beaten track down to a dock where we caught a boat (not the one pictured!) back upriver for a full-frontal view - very impressive!

After a well-earned rest day (more tea drinking!) we took an overnight (1600 to 1200) train the 1100km south to Kunming where we had to rendezvous with Charlotte on Friday. We were lucky - we had a 4-berth "soft-sleeper" cabin all to ourselves.

We introduced Charlotte to Yunnan's most famous dish, Across-the-Bridge Noodles, on Friday night. Huge bowls of boiling hot chicken broth with, amongst other things, rice noodles and thinly sliced pork and fish - very tasty. On the Saturday we visited the Old Quarter, Yuantong Temple and Green Lake Park for a spot of boating (see further down page). At the temple Freda and Edie did their usual candle and incense-lighting thing.

On Sunday we visited the Stone Forest at Shilin. This is a marvellous area of limestone karst scenery, but the best bits are spoiled by over-development and the Chinese love for carving calligraphy over everything. Off the beaten track it was very pleasant and quiet though.

We clambered about on the amazing limestone pinnacles and even found a stone bed to lie down for a rest on. Sani minority dancers strutted their stuff on the stage...

Rock views at the Stone Forest.

On Monday we said goodbye to Charlotte and headed back to Simao for the Rainy Season...