Tag Archives: Chengdu

China, On the Road

Farewell China Tour (Day 5, continued)

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Dodgy Massage
At the end of the day, we had played with pandas and experienced some stressful (although ultimately fantastic) meals, and we were ready for a little relaxation. Our hotel featured a spa, so we wandered up to inquire about getting massages.

The young guy who greeted us at the spa jumped up from his TV show and tried his best to understand my pathetic Mandarin. He led us down a long hallway and opened the door to a huge room filled with deluxe foot-massage chairs, all facing a big-screen TV. The chairs were empty except for three hotel staff members, who were lounging in the front row, watching a Chinese sit-com. They shouted something to our guy, who promptly ushered us out and shut the door. Then an older lady caught up with us and led us out of the spa and down a corridor to a regular hotel room. She unlocked it and gestured for us to enter. We felt a little uncomfortable, so I asked whether we could just do the massages in our own room. The older lady and the young guy (her son?) acted like that was a brilliant idea. So we all marched down the hall to our room. Cath and I stood by while they pulled back our bed covers and otherwise prepared for the massages. We conferred, agreed it was a bit dodgy, and told the lady and boy that we really just wanted foot massages and why couldn’t we do that in the regular massage chairs at the freakin’ spa? So we all headed back to the spa, skipped right past the fancy massage room, saw through half-closed doors that most of the hotel staff members were watching TV in the massage rooms, and finally ended up in a grungy room with four battered recliners, a crooked painting of a naked lady, a plastic wall clock hung way too high and stuck at 2:00, and a wide-open window beckoning all the mosquitoes to come in for a snack.

Cath sat in the recliner by the window, and I sat in the chair next to her. The room soon filled with every variety of flying insect in China, and I discovered that moths are almost, but not quite, as horrifying to Cath as roaches are. The lady massaged my feet, and she did a good job. But I was so freaked out by all the mosquitoes that I used all her towels to cover my legs. Alas, I still got three bites. Not very relaxing.

The boy did Cath’s foot massage, and he was both excruciatingly frustrating and hilarious. From our vantage point by the window, we could see another wing of the hotel, where apparently the staff lived and, at that moment, partied. He clearly wanted to be with them WAY more than he wanted to earn a good tip from us. So he would half-heartedly massage Cath’s leg while he hung most of his body out the window to catch a glimpse of the action. Sometimes he would use his free hand to send text messages. Once he checked his phone and then ran out of the room for several minutes to make a call.

Sometimes experiences such as this make you want to run screaming into the streets. But, as Cath always says, “It’s all part of the adventure.”

China

Farewell China Tour – (Usually) Yummy Sichuan Cuisine

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China recognizes around eight distinct regional cuisines. The food in Shanghai is a bit oily and bland, but the food in Sichuan Province (home of two stops on our trip – Lijiang and Chengdu) is notoriously spicy and delicious.

Crossing Bridge Rice Noodles
In Lijiang, Cath and I asked Li Qiong to take us to one of her favorite restaurants. She took us out for Crossing Bridge Rice Noodles, a meal and a unique cultural experience! First, the waitress brought each of us a massive bowl of boiling chicken broth, a big pile of rice noodles and many small bowls with portions of pig liver, intestines, stinky tofu, spring onions, a raw egg, chicken, bamboo shoots, white fish and bean sprouts. We dumped those small portions and the noodles into the broth and left it alone to simmer for a few minutes. Another plate had tiny servings of pickled vegetables, spicy mushrooms, cashews, deep-fried pork and spicy vegetable salad, so we picked at those tasty morsels in the meantime. Oddly, another side dish was a bowl of “black chicken” soup full of chicken skin and bones. Not my favorite.

Confusing sign that explained what we were eating:

From Crossing Bridge Rice Noodles

Vegetarian Yummy-ness
Another culinary highlight of our time in Lijiang was the Tibetan Vegetarian Restaurant, where we ate twice. Among our favorite dishes – puffy steamed buns filled with sweet cheese, salty green beans, and tofu “meat” with mashed potatoes. Bonus: the owner and the waiter taught us some Tibetan phrases that came in handy when we got to Lhasa.

Chilling with Li Qiong and the restaurant owner and waiter:

From Tibetan Vegetarian Restaurant

Sichuan Spicey-fest
One of the most memorable experiences of our whole trip involved eating in Chengdu. We had just visited the adult panda dorm at the Ya’an Panda Conservation Center when our guide, Deng Li, told us it was lunchtime. Originally, his plan was to drive all the way down the mountain to a restaurant that catered to western tourists. However that would have wasted a couple hours of our day, and I think he realized that Cath and I weren’t too fussy about our food.

“Our driver wants to cook for you,” Deng Li said. We exited the panda center, crossed the street, and walked up the steps to a Chinese guesthouse. We followed Deng Li to the kitchen, where our driver, Luo Shifu, stood in the light of an exposed bulb with flies all over his shoulders. He grinned at us and proudly gestured at his meal in progress. The counters were littered with greasy dishes and chopped vegetables. The wok bubbled with an oily concoction of pork and lots of spicy chili peppers. Cath and I exchanged looks of horror. We couldn’t decide which was scarier: the utter lack of sanitation in the kitchen or the fiery food’s potential toll on our unsuspecting intestines.

Luo Shifu in the kitchen:

From Luo Shifu

We shuffled mutely out to the concrete patio, where plastic tables and chairs were set with grimy bowls and chopsticks. The guesthouse owner brought us beer, which we happily drank from the bottle. Unfortunately, Deng Li noticed and graciously tracked down some dirty glasses for us. Cath and I waited nervously for our lunch.

Luo Shifu emerged from the kitchen and placed the bowl of spicy pork in the middle of the table. When the oily steam made my eyes water, I couldn’t imagine what would happen when I took a bite. Tentatively, I raised the chopsticks to my mouth and took a nibble of the pork. The juice nearly melted my lips, but the meat was delicious. Gradually, our driver filled the table with some of the most scrumptious food I’ve ever eaten. In addition to the blazing hot pork dish, he whipped up another pork-and-veggie delicacy, battered eggplant in a spicy sauce, and asparagus stalks. The guesthouse owner also brought out tofu and rice. Although he didn’t speak any English, Luo Shifu clearly appreciated our gushing praise of his culinary creations.

After the feast, I pulled tissues out of my bag to mop my sweaty brow while our driver cleared the table. When he returned, he brought two flowers plucked from the guesthouse garden. To his amusement, Cath and I stuck the flowers in our hair.

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Local (very local) Fare
After playing with the baby pandas, Luo Shifu drove us back to our hotel at the base of the mountain. Our “four-star hotel” featured lots of marble and gilding, but also mildew, faded carpeting and bugs. I had to talk Cath off a ledge when she spotted a roach in our room, but we flushed the little guy and then headed downstairs to eat dinner at the hotel restaurant. In the lobby, Deng Li intercepted us to say the driver wanted to take us to a local restaurant. We found it odd that the driver seemed to be calling the shots a lot during our visit, but we had to admit he seemed to know a thing or two about food.

We drove to the restaurant, where the driver dramatically ordered for us. Soon waitresses delivered the dishes: a whole smoked duck, an enormous fish in a sweet-and-sour sauce, a platter of fried spicy green peppers, twice-cooked pork, and tofu soup with mushrooms, meatballs and bamboo shoots. The meal really was an example of brilliant ordering. Each bite complemented the bite before with a tantalizing mix of flavors and textures.

While we enjoyed the meal, we noticed a group of men at a nearby table who were having even more fun. They pulled their shirts up to their nipples to cool off, chain smoked, spit out their duck bones on the floor, passed around a bottle of rice wine, and howled with laughter at stories we couldn’t understand.

China, On the Road

Farewell China Tour (Day 5)

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Playing with Pandas
Reluctantly we left our new friend, Li Qiong, and the wonderful town of Lijiang to fly to Chengdu. Although the city of Chengdu is massive and sits in a pollution trap of a valley, we had just one destination in mind: The Ya’an Panda Reserve. We arrived around midnight, met our guide and driver, checked in to our hotel and crashed. After a quick breakfast, we checked out and drove two hours to the misty green mountainside reserve. As the car twisted up the mountain roads, I was looking out the side window and spotted some deer.
“A camel?” said Cath.
“They’re deer!” I said, shooting Cath a look of incredulity.
“No, in front of the car, there’s a camel,” she said. And, indeed, there was. Apparently there’s a depressing little zoo on the way to the panda reserve.

From camel

Our driver, Luo Shifu, parked the car, and our guide, Deng Li, took us into the park. We wandered off the beaten path and wondered where we were going, but then Deng Li told us he knew some people who worked here so he was trying to get us access to the adult panda “dormitory” while the staff was at lunch. A worker eyed us suspiciously but then told us to be quiet and gestured for us to enter. We climbed a ladder to view the enclosures from above, and then we climbed down to look through the bars of each area’s gate. Most of the adult pandas sat next to their gates, reaching through the bars to pull in armloads of bamboo. Then they’d roll onto their backs and use their teeth to peel off the outer bark before munching on the tender stalks. Adult pandas can eat 20 kilos (44 pounds) of bamboo each day. So much for taking one home as a pet …

From chengdu

Soon it was our lunchtime. Deng Li had said that we would drive back down the mountain for lunch, which Cath and I thought was ludicrous, so we were relieved when he said, “The plan has changed.” We walked right across the street to a dingy guesthouse, where tables were set up outside. “Our driver wants to cook for you.” Stay tuned for details…

After lunch, we walked back across the street and took a tram to see the juvenile pandas. There were seven pandas in two enclosures. They’re not the most exciting animals in the world, but their mannerisms are so human that it’s easy to anthropomorphize. Cath and I laughed at how much they reminded us of one particular lazy student we had at SAS (who shall remain unnamed here!). The pandas gobbled up vitamin cakes brought by a caretaker and then rambled about, lay down, got up, sat for awhile, lay down again, rolled over, and more of the same.

From chengdu

We kept hearing a woman yelling, “Qing Qing!” (pronounced like Ching Ching), and we assumed it was a silly tourist trying to get the panda’s attention. Annoyed, we walked toward that enclosure, where we realized the woman was a caretaker trying to rouse lazy Qing Qing, who was napping under a tree up the hill and refused to come down to eat his vitamin cake. We dashed up the hill to get a better view of him, and we cracked up at his obvious attempts to ignore the shouting. He would roll over and put his paws over his ears. Then he would kick his foot out and stretch a bit. Finally, the caretaker hauled a bucket of bamboo shoots up the hill and tossed them at Qing Qing. Without standing up, he reached out, felt around for a bamboo shoot, and then popped it in his mouth. The caretaker threw them a little further away, so reluctantly Qing Qing roused himself from his beloved slumber, rolled up to all fours, sought out the bamboo shoots and then lumbered down the hill to get his vitamin cake. Cath totally related to Qing Qing’s love of sleep, so that became my new nickname for her on this vacation, especially each morning when I woke her up.

From Qing Qing

Deng Li said we could walk to see the baby pandas, but it turned out he didn’t really know the way. We found a trail with a sign pointing to the “Panda Kindergarten,” so we set off through the drizzly mist. The trail took us up and down rocky steps slick with wet leaves. The steep mountainous forest was thick with bamboo and ferns, and Deng Li pointed out that this was the real habitat of wild pandas. Considering that there are only about 1,600 giant pandas left in the wild, it was no surprise that we didn’t see any.

From Bamboo Forest

We arrived at the Panda Kindergarten at feeding time. About 10 babies scampered around the large enclosure while caretakers brought out bowls of food and a big tray of apples and carrots. The babies were all around six months old, and they looked like puppies eating out of their bowls. Several rolled on their backs to munch on the carrots. A few refused to come down from the elevated platform, so the caretakers had to climb up to deliver the food. After a couple minutes, most of them flopped down on their bellies for a nap.

Cath and I knew of several people who made donations to the reserve in exchange for a photo with a panda, and we decided it was a worthy cause and a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We expected to sit in a chair and have a caretaker position a panda next to us, but the workers said we could enter the enclosure to play with the babies! We couldn’t believe it. After waiting an hour for naptime to finish, we suited up in a surgical gown, booties and gloves. Unfortunately, the rain really started to fall at that point, and Deng Li was not the most talented photographer. But we got a few good shots and some unbeatable memories.

From Suited Up

At first, the head caretaker/researcher told us we had to stay on the ground, which was disappointing because the pandas were all up on the platform. We reached up and scratched their tummies. Finally, he said, “OK, you can climb up there but you’re going to get very dirty.” As if we cared! We scrambled up and the pandas loped over to greet us. One grabbed my hand with his thick padded paw, nuzzled my ear and then plopped on my lap, clamping his mouth gently onto my arm. He unlatched only when Cath offered him an apple that had been tossed up by a caretaker. I was surprised at how heavy he was and how coarse his fur felt. Much too quickly, the caretaker told us it was time to go.

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Later Cath and I reflected on our day with the pandas. We felt good about making a large donation to the panda reserve, but we worried that the encounters between tourists and pandas would diminish the efforts to rebuild the wild population. So far, China has been largely unsuccessful in releasing pandas into the bamboo forest. The pandas born in captivity are too coddled by the caretakers and cooing tourists and have no survival skills, researchers agree. That said, we selfishly admitted how fortunate we felt to see and interact with these rare and unique animals up close.