2009-03-09
Up again bright and early to join the Chinese tour in the restaurant for breakfast which was, apparently, included in the cost of the nights accommodation. I must say that the Chinese breakfast really doesn’t do it for me. They have a very watery rice porridge, a hard boiled egg, some spicy pickled veg, not dissimilar to white cabbage in texture, steamed bread rolls and some croissant type thing which was very greasy and some tables also got noodles. We then all bundled onto the bus to be taken to the dam.
The dam is 2.3 km wide and has 26 turbines, 12 on one side and fourteen on the other with the excess runoff in the middle. Sadly, the tour allowed us to view the outside of the dam and even gave us some information regarding construction and capacity but it did not allow us to view a turbine and there was no film showing the building. It would have been cool to see a time lapse film showing the reservoir filling up.
It was during this outing that I started to feel a little queasy and out of sorts.
We were then bundled back onto the bus to be dropped in Yichang at about 12 and had to kill time until our flight to Chengdu at 10.30 that evening. The weather was sunny and warm so we took a walk along the river and then went and found a park. By this time Paul was beginning to feel a little queasy as well so we spent the whole day wishing the hours away, unable to eat very much, feeling tired and sick. It gets dark by about 7pm and so, with nowhere particular to go and little to do, we decided to take a taxi to the airport and wait there as we hoped that it would be a little more comfortable.
Well it wasn’t! The tiny domestic airport was really quite small, cold and the only area where there were some chairs, and they weren’t very comfortable after a short while, was by a television where the volume was on ‘loud’ – not sure they have any other volume! The call finally came to check-in and so with some relief we dumped our large rucksacks and made our way up to the departure lounge. Unhappily the relief was very short lived. It was just as cold up there, the seats were just as uncomfortable and to make matters worse, the plane was delayed by another hour. We decided to drown our sorrows and warm ourselves up with a cup of hot chocolate, what a mistake – the most expensive and disgusting hot drink I have ever had the misfortune to purchase, and the time just dragged by. We were both still feeling queasy and we were both very tired from the cruise (due to the late nights and early mornings) we couldn’t get comfortable or warm.
Finally, just after 11.30pm the flight took off for Chengdu. We both napped through the one and a half hour flight. The luggage seemed to take some time to come through at Chengdu but when it did it was every man for himself – the Chinese can be very pushy – i.e. pushing in and pushing everyone else aside. Thankfully, once through the gate we saw a man holding up a sign with our name on it – then we lost him. As it turned out, once we had acknowledged him he had gone off to get the car to take us to Holly’s Hostel. We went in search and finally we were reunited with the driver and happily on our way. Driving along, the driver’s mobile phone rang – he answered and then handed the phone to me.
The call was from Holly’s Hostel and a very friendly female Chinese voice informed me that ‘foreigners were not allowed into that district at the moment and so she had booked us into another place which, she told us, was better than the room we would have got at Holly’s and the driver would take us there instead. By this time neither of us cared, we just wanted a bed! No-one was able to tell us why this might have happened but, coincidentally, someone else told us that it was the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan ‘uprising’ and Holly’s is in the Tibetan quarter of Chengdu.
We went for our usual exploration of the immediate area the next morning, or should I say later that day. We slowly made our way down to the bus that would take us to the panda breeding centre. We actually wanted to go to Wolong where, although the panda’s are still caged the cages are much much larger and the panda’s have far more room to move around. Sadly Wolong was badly affected by the recent earthquake and the panda’s there have all been moved to different areas so if we were going to see panda’s it would have to be at the breeding centre. We found the correct bus which we were told would leave at 2.30pm. Around 2.25 we got on and waited for the driver to come along, there were already a Chinese couple sitting waiting. And we waited, and waited and then about 20 mins later another Chinese woman got on and said something in Chinese to which the Chinese couple got off. She also tried to communicate with us. She was clearly talking about the breeding centre, we kind of worked out that she was saying that the centre closes at 6pm which we knew then she said a few other things that we didn’t have a clue about. Finally she gave up and got off leaving just us on the bus. After another 5 mins or so, now getting on for 3pm, we realized that we weren’t going to the centre that afternoon and so we carried on with our exploration and headed for the monastery which just happens to be close to the Tibetan quarter and there were lots of police men and vehicles parked around the entrances, in fact we were talking to another tourist who said he was taking a photo of the entrance and two policemen can up and asked to see his camera, they then made him delete the photo’s that showed any police presence – he said he thought they were going to confiscate his camera, but they didn’t.
The Chinese are well know for their tea drinking and they do do a lot of it. Most can be seen carrying a little flask containing the green leaves which they can top up with hot water in numerous places. They even have tea ceremonies and as we were walking to the monastery we were offered a paper cup with some jasmine tea, which was very pleasant, so we drank the offered beverage. So on the way back, when we had more time we stopped and the girls went through the tea ceremony which was a great deal of fun. First they wash the equipment with boiling water, then they rinse the tea with boiling water and finally they make the tea, all done on a special wooden tray that catches the used water. It was fun talking to them and trying to make ourselves understood and we bought a pack of the jasmine tea.
When we got back to our hostel they told us that the public bus takes about 90 mins to get to the centre and that the best time to see the panda’s was first thing in the morning because they all come out to eat after which they go and snooze generally indoors, particularly if the weather is on the warm side. She recommended that we get picked up at the hostel at 8.30am then it would only take 30 mins to get there and we would be picked up again at 11.30 and taken back to town.
And so we got up early the next morning and were surprised to see that it was not a mini bus but a posh car and that it was just the two of us. When we first got there we found the first enclosure that had adult panda’s waiting to be let out and pacing, which suggested that maybe this was not entirely the best environment for them. The ‘nursery’ is separate and the infants are fed with bottled milk – but they are so cute. Having said that this is probably not the best environment for them it is probably the only environment left to them. I believe that panda’s have been on this earth far longer than human beings and survived quiet happily without us but now that we have conquered all environments the poor old panda can’t survive without the human – well that’s progress for you.
One only other thing of note that happened in Chengdu is they have a very large statue of Chairman Mao and so we went to see the square. A very modern area with fountains and information posts around the outside detailing the history of Chengdu. As we headed across the square we were stopped by a policeman carrying a very large machine gun and a hand gun in his holster and a very large trudgeon demanding to see our passports. With him were two other officials although they didn’t seem to be holding any weapons. Bearing in mind the trouble we had had at the border we were both somewhat apprehensive but he just noted down our names, passport numbers and visa numbers then gave back our documents and moved on to the next Europeans. Laughing off the experience we carried on taking our photo of the statue and then we decided to walk around the square reading all about the history of Chengdu and the Shu. As we moved round we became aware the we were being followed but thought that we were just being paranoid but sure enough, after a little while, an electric buggy with another heavily armed policeman and accompanying ‘bodyguards’ stopped about 10 feet in front of us and they all jumped out the armed guy again demanded to see our passports. This time I was just irritated but as we looked around we noticed that we were actually surrounded by another three groups of one armed policeman and two ‘bodyguards’. This one noted our details and told me to open my bag and, as I went to do so, took a step back almost as if he expected to see some killing apparatus in there. Once again he handed back our documents and went on to harass the next tourist. Some time later we were talking to another westerner who said she was asked three times for her papers in the same square – Welcome to China!
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