Giant Panda's outdoor city

Already at first site, Chengdu seemed like a much better city than Xi'an. People here seemed very friendly and were not that surprised when they see foreigners. This capital city of Sichuan is the main hub for many travellers who are planning a trip to Tibet. Either they are waiting for their permits, train tickets or just recovering from the trip to Lhasa, which takes about 40 hrs on the local train.

Our hostel was a true backpacker's paradise with everything geared toward the needs of someone on the road. Also, Chengdu is full of outdoor stores with every possible piece of equipment. We have taken advantage of this and bought a pair of hiking boots for about 40 euro. (so when people tell you, don't worry about buying some stuff before you leave, you can get it there. They are mostly correct :)). Furthermore, if you like spicy food, this is the place to be. The local delicacy is called the hotpot and we of course had to try it (with the help of arms and legs we ordered one). It was a pot full of spicy pepers and one 5kg fish with all of its fins, even the head. To ease the burning pain of the spice, we were sipping a peanut butter milk which was quite tastey. It was only 100 snot filled napkins later we realised, we could have gotten half the pot non-spicy and half spicy :). Very good food though.

What is here to do? Well, there are a couple of mountains to hike on where temperatures go down to -1 degrees in October, so we decided against this as we weren't equipped for this. However, the main attraction seems to be the Giant Panda Breeding Research Center. Even though it sound a lot more natural than it actually is, the research there offers some good insights into pandas' lives. The facilities are pretty large and very zoo like which was quite disappointing. Everything is mainly geared towards tourists, so do not expect any tropical rain forests. On Sunday we have opted to take a local bus about 2 hrs to a nearby small village Leshan where the supposedly largest sitting buddha can be found. And what do you know, there he was overlooking the river and the city. Quite interesting to see a statue so large, but the weather was quite foggy, so the pictures are not great.

Chengdu was great, now onto our next destination, Chongquing and then river Yang Tze cruise through the Three Gorges.