After a mammoth 34 hour train journey from Beijing across to Chengdu in the western Sichuan province we geared ourselves up for our final part of the Chinese adventure. First stop – the Giant Panda Research Centre for a morning with the pandas (when they’re apparently at their most active...!)
The real treat of seeing the pandas was upon entering the “nursery” where two tiny cubs lay in their incubators whilst a three-month old cub (who literally looked like a teddy) lay snoozing in his cot – they were gorgeous.
Back in the city, supposedly China’s most liveable city (I guess when the country has 20 out of the top 30 most polluted cities in the world a bit of smog each morning isn’t too bad?!) we headed off to a Sichuan hot-pot restaurant. Famous throughout China for being the spiciest food – its basically a meat and veg fondue with a boiling broth filled with a killer combo of the hottest chillies imaginable and Sichuan’s very own mouth-numbing peppercorns. We were very much in local’s territory on the eve of one of their biggest festivals - “Moon festival” - which brings families together to celebrate each other and the moon whilst eating a rather salty cake predictably called “moon cake”. As the restaurant didn’t have a menu in English (something we were now well accustomed with) we were led into the kitchen where chefs proudly held out all sorts of odds and ends (literally). I had an ingenious idea to draw a prawn as we fancied some in the hot pot but as most people who know me well will know my drawing skills didn’t reach GCSE standard and I had a total mind-blank other than that a prawn has lots of little legs – it looked less prawn, more centipede and the chefs and waitress looked horrified as they shook their heads. Now one thing to bear in mind, the Chinese eat everything so when someone looks so disgusted at what you’ve suggested that means something – thank god the waitress hadn’t nodded in agreement!
One of the many lakes in Jiuhaigou National Park - reported to be China's best
As the final part of our trip through China we headed north to the Jiuzhaigou National Park, stopping frequently en route due to landslides which Sichuan is blighted with. It was lovely being able to see clear skies for once (a real rarity in China) and wrapped up in our wintery clothes.
Its almost impossible to take a photo without someone else accidentally (deliberately) getting in shot
The striking blue pools
Colourful Tibetan buildings in the national park
From the national park we had a few days in a small town called Songpan which was very different from the China we’d experienced thus far. Most of the residents are Muslims, there’s plenty of mutton on the menu and overall there was a real feeling that we were close to Tibet and Xinjian – another ethnic minority autonomous region up near the border with Tajikistan.
Songpan's "butcher shop"
We went on a morning horse trek - it rained throughout!
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