June 2015

Chengdu
Flip Flop Hostel
The 4-bed-dorm was a bit tiny and all the warning signs about theft may have given a false impression. The communal area is huge and the roof terrace very nice.

We spend nearly a whole day to figure out what we wanted to do the coming weeks until we would have to apply for a visa extension. We even booked train tickets ourselves via ctrip.com, and it was quiet easy to do so.

Tip
Even if you don’t want to book online, the train info (train number, price, etc.) is quiet useful when buying tickets directly at the station.

After “work” we explored the city on foot:

White Lane
From the once historic quarter wasn’t much left to see. As always commerce ruled. Souvenirs and restaurants one by one. On the wall of the outer street were pictures how the area once looked like.

People’s Park
Chinese parks are cool places and so was this one. A lot was going on. People played badminton, or danced, or practiced the art of calligraphy with a brush and a bucket of water on the walkways of the park. Standing there we were approached by one of these man who – after he found out that we were German – wrote “Goethe – Die Leiden des jungen Werther” on the stones.

Restaurants

Tao Lin Can Ting
Directly opposite to the Flip Flop Hostel. It had an open an very clean kitchen. Try marinated Duck, glass noodles with pork, spicy tofu and cucumber in garlic.

Panda Base – Bi Feng Xia
We had bought our bus tickets (48 RMB/person, 128 km) the day before and started at 7 am from the bus terminal. An action movie later we arrived in a small town. The bus driver gave each of us 5 RMB and we changed into a mini van in front of the bus terminal. Approx. 30 minutes later we arrived at the entrance. The Chinese had made the entrance into a big selling opportunity. The Chinese tourist bought popcorn, flower- and panda hats. 118 RMB was the entrance fee and a bus brought us to the Panda Base. Because we heard that the pandas are more active in the morning we took for 15 RMB a shuttle to get to the other end of the park. The shuttle honked loud on its way – a little odd, because for visitors it’s prohibited to make loud noises?! We saw about 10 giant pandas, each in a separate area, on our way back. They were really cute and didn’t seem to mind even the tourists that clapped into their hands, whistled and made all sorts of noises to get the pandas attention. The best time in the park was during its midday break, when the entrance closed. It was so wonderfully quiet – like during our visit to Uncle M., but this time with some birds singing.
We skipped the Zoo that is attached to the area and as we saw a promotion video in the ticket building we were glad that we’ve had done so. The idea what a Zoo is for and what it should look like (if you think Zoo’s are necessary at all) differ too much! Driving in a bus with little holes in the windows visitors fed the tigers with meat on sticks. The video showed that the visitors enjoyed retracting the meat once a tiger or two tried to get it.
The return trip by mini van cost 5 RMB and the bus 47 (?!) RMB. Buses left frequently for Chengdu.

Tip
You need no tour for this! Getting there is easy and cheap + you can stay until the park closes at 4 pm.

Chengdu to Emei Shan
We took a regular bus that brought us in 2,5 hrs directly to Baogou village.

Baogou
Rather a souvenir shop and restaurant street than a village.

Teddy Bear Hostel
At the time we stayed there, they renovated a lot of rooms. Over all the service and the advise for Mount Emei wasn’t that hot. There is a lot of competition in town – no need to stay here!

Restaurants
There are plenty. We chose a place in a side alley, that only consisted of restaurants. One had to bring a sense of humor, as the food looked at us – alive. Chicken, rabbits, carps, frogs. The carps were butchered near the tables. It can’t get fresher than that … (humor remember!?)

Grand Buddha – Baogou to Leshan

We got some steamed buns, bought our bus tickets and headed for the Grand Buddha. In Leshan at the bus terminal the bus stopped, we got out and saw a picture of the Buddha with a marker in the direction of a small bus. “Buddha?” A guy nodded. As we sat in the bus we thought that this can’t be right?! We stepped out again and discovered that in front of the terminal bus 13 leaves. It cost 1 RMB/p.p. and took us directly to the entrance.

Tip
You don’t need a tour for this! It is absolutely easy to get there.

As we drove through the city, we saw a big sculpture of a naked woman on the back of a crocodile. A little further in a park men wiped what looked like a heavy metal spintop. The streets that we saw looked pleasant, shaded by trees.
To see the Buddha in full, we had to go down a staircase. It started amusement park like, but as we descended further down the staircase got smaller and steeper. In the turns some people tried to get pictures while the others wanted to descent further. The irritating part was however, the smaller it got, the more the Chinese shoved and pushed. It got so far, that Tom had to tell them how uncomfortable he felt about it. Their reaction where astonished faces and “ha, ha, ha”. That for sure wasn’t one of the high points in cultural understanding, but nobody shoved in our proximity anymore.
We were impressed by the Buddhas size of 71 meters. We simply had to admire the builders vision and endurance. Another astonishing aspect was that all the tour guides had lowered the volume of their loudspeakers, so that is was pleasant – even for us.
At 4 pm we boarded the bus back and arrived in Baugou an hour later.

Mount Emei Shan
Or why does it rain every time that we climb a holy mountain in China?

We started early with a good won ton soup from a street stall. We had chosen to take the bus to the Wanian Temple, 40 RMB. The entrance fee was another 185 RMB. The walk to the temple was relatively flat and the weather warm. After the temple the staircases started and they were steep. Claudia tried to count, but lost the count several times
We encountered some monkeys on the way and passed them quickly. We saw many signs that warned: “don’t joke the monkeys!”.

Tip
Ignore the monkeys and don’t look them in the eye. They interpret such behavior as aggression!

After a while it got foggy and colder. We were already wet, so we didn’t mind. Than it started to rain … The visibility got bad and the temperature dropped some more.
We were not alone on this side of the mountain, but compared to the tourist masses we experienced so far, we were more or less alone. Most people that went up like us were students.
At around 4 pm we arrived at a monastery at 2500 m. Not the kind of monastery that we expected – a relatively new one that had in the basement two stories of accommodations plus dinning hall. The friendly English speaking monk showed us some rooms and gave a good discount for a nice double without shower. Even the dorms were quiet spacious and the beds no bunks and broad. Only discomfort was that there was no heating, so we got of our wet clothes and directly under the sheets. At 6 pm we had dinner in a huge unheated hall. For 20 RMB we had a basic but tasty vegetarian meal.
The next morning the gongs woke up everybody – live starts early in a monastery. Rice soup and some vegetables – basic but tasty. At our table we met a young German couple, that we spend the day with. Together we worked the stairs to the top. After approx. two hours, walking in the rain again – we reached the top at 3000 m. And we saw … nothing. Or better nearly nothing. It had stopped raining, but thick grey clouds blocked the view. You could only guess the outline of the temple. Even the giant statue on top was only visible as we stood right in front of it. A cold wind started blowing and we were happy that we had packed some warm clothes. Suddenly the clouds rolled away and we had a good view on the statue and a short glimpse in the valley. Minutes after that the clouds had rolled in again and the view was gone. Instead of being disappointed – we had walked up a hill for about 10 hours – we decided that we got lucky for at least seeing the top for a few minutes.
We walked down to the bus station. Not without seeing some monkeys again. This time the monkeys succeeded in grabbing some peoples snack bag. With the bus we were in one hour back from where we started.

For the last night we stayed at Dove Flower. Nice communal area, some English spoken, very friendly.

Baogou to Emei Shan to Kunming to Lijiang

Bus no.8 got us directly from the entrance gate of Baogou village to the train station for 1 RMB.
At the ticket office of the train station we tried to get our tickets booked online via ctrip. To be sure that we were understood a girl from the hostel wrote us a notice in Chinese. I got 2 tickets, one for each segment of the journey. 5 RMB for that service. As we checked the tickets we saw that they were only for one person. Back in line and tried to get the other two. Got them – 5 RMB for that service … arrrg! Checked the tickets again … we were not in the same coach!?! Oh, NO!!! What now? Changing them, ok – but how to explain? First we went into the waiting area. There we decided to at least give at try to change the tickets. Tom drew a sketch with us in separate coaches ( including the coach numbers) and us making unhappy faces. Beneath that, us in one coach smiling. The security assistant at the entrance got it quickly, but couldn’t speak English. He called a colleague who explained in broken English: “not possible, sorry!”. Claudia did not want to except this and tried it herself. After a short while they got back to us and tried to explain it again. If we understood it correctly it may have been possible to change the tickets the moment at the ticket office of the station – now it was to late we thanked them for at least trying to be at service.
Immediately after boarding coach 4 and coach 6 we met at Claudia’s coach. She had the lower bed, so at least we could sit together.
Because of all the hassle and due to the fact that there was no shop inside or outside Emei station, we counted on the sellers in the train for an instant noodle soup. Fruits, rice, comics rolled by, but no soup. So Tom went into the direction of coach 5 to 1 – no seller anywhere. Than the other direction near coach 11 he found the restaurant coach. Only security and conductors stared at him – no food on the table. After a second of astonishment I guy from security approached him and asked what he wanted. With two soups he came back
We decided to watch a movie. It was “Deep …” with Bill Murray. A good distraction. The night we spend together in one bed. It took a while until we figured out what the least painful constellation was. In the middle of the night a conductor woke Tom up, pointing his torchlight directly at him. He said something in Chinese, tapped on the upper bed. What did he want? Should Tom go to his bed? Should he use the upper bed? We just stayed were we were and he didn’t came back.

So we arrived in the morning in Kunming and got of the train. We had to wait until noon for our journey to continue by train to Lijiang.

Thank you for reading this far!
Zài jiàn!
Safe travels!
Claudia & Tom

What happened next in Yunann province? How was Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Dali, Erhai Lake? Did we get our visa extension? You can read it all here.

Find tips and general remarks to China 2015 and the links to the previous provinces – from our start in Beijing in June, down to the south west, until our last stay Hong Kong in July here.