Bryan in Hong Kong

Got back late Sunday night from another great trip. I’ve posted the photos from my camera, with more to come later.

Chongqing 重庆

We flew into Chongqing in central china on Wednesday night, and started off with some very spicy hot pot. The Changjiang river runs through town, so after dinner we headed down to the waterfront to enjoy Chongqing at night (kind of like Shanghai’s Bund, though Chongqing is more mountainous). The next day we visited a number of places in town, ending up at a nice boat restaurant for lunch. Nearby there was a little carnival going on, so we did all the things I’m too cheap to do in America, including driving gocarts, archery, carnival games, and buying a kite just to fly it for 15 minutes (gave it to a kid afterward). Chongqing is a very large Chinese city. The amount of new construction was amazing, a lot like when I was in Shanghai three years ago. We left a little before seven to take the five hour train ride to Chengdu.

Chengdu 成都

We spent the remaining three days in Chengdu, which is a city with a lot of very interesting sights nearby. We started off at Qingcheng Mountain (青城山 or literally Green City Mountain), a major location in the development of Taoism. We hiked the mountain visiting the temples and caves along the way. In the afternoon we headed to the Dujiangyan Irrigation system which was developed in the 3rd century B.C. and is quite an engineering marvel. Here we also hiked an impressive trail along the cliffs. You can read UNESCO’s World Heritage description for the two sights here.

The next day we went to visit the Leshan Buddha, which is about a two-hour bus ride away from Chengdu. It’s carved out of a hillside and is the largest Buddha in the world at 71m high. It’s quite an impressive sight to experience in person, especially considered that is was carved in the 8th century. The river runs by directly in front of it, so as you work your way down to the feet (on the very crowded and narrow stairway carved from the mountain) you have a beautiful view.

The final day in Chengdu was spent at the famous Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. I’d seen pandas before a few years ago at the Beijing Zoo, but this experience was much better, as it was outdoor and very well maintained (not to mention it’s kind of the center of the panda “world”, serving as a distribution point for most zoos around the globe). The pictures can pretty much speak for themselves, though I only posted a few as they tend to get repetitive (panda eating, panda sleeping, panda eating…). Basically, we saw lots of giant pandas.

As a side note, the entry tickets to the sights in Chengdu were significantly more expensive that those in other Chinese cities I’ve been to (but still a great deal considering what you get). However, all the areas were noticeably well maintained, without an excessive number people selling things within the actual site (which I’ve sometimes seen overdone). I’m not sure if this has to do with the increased ticket price, their World Heritage status, or the Sichuan government, but whatever the case, I can highly recommend spending a few days in Chengdu.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 4:51 pm and is filed under travel.