Chengdu is another big city in Sichuan province. The government has been trying to encourage more industries away from the already highly-developed east coast and Sichuan is one of those provinces that has seen tremendous growth the last 20 years. Many multi-national corporations have factories here, including Intel. Some of you may be familiar with Chengdu because of a big earthquake here in 2008. However, most of you may have heard of Chengdu because all the Giant Pandas in zoos worldwide came from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. My visit to this center was probably the highlight of my trip. I will write a separate post on Pandas in the next post.
I took a 2-hour fast train from Chongqing to Chengdu. The fare was 98 RMB , about US$16. This is not a bullet train but fast anyway, reaching speed of about 200 km/h or almost 125 mph. China has been feverishly building its transportation infrastructure to modern standards. The trains and train stations are very impressive. While the US has ben debating on the merits of high-speed rail, China has leaped ahead of most countries, including Europe and Japan, in building high-speed rail. This is similar to the US building the Interstate freeway system that gave a big boost to the US economy.
The trains are clean, spacious and comfortable, although quite crowded. I wish there is such a train that I can take to go from Phoenix to Tucson, Los Angeles or Las Vegas. It is such a nice experience not having to go through the tight security at the airports, weather delay and having a lot of leg room.
While Chongqing (CQ) is built against the mountains, Chengdu is located in a flat area. You get the feeling that Chengdu is more spread out, not closed in by skyscrapers.
One of the popular tourist attractions is the Wu Hou Temple, where much of Chinese history of the Three Kingdoms is found here. Next to this temple is Jin Li Street, that sells many local arts and crafts and delicacies. You also find many restaurants and tea houses where you can just sit and watch people go by. The locals are fond of sitting and relaxing at teahouses. Unfortunately, they put a Starbucks here.
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| Entrance to one of the small temples at Wu Hou Temple |
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| Souvenir Stand at Jin Li Ancient Street |
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| Starbucks: Ugly Americanism |
I also visited the Sichuan Museum, which gives me a good glimpse of Sichuan and Chinese history. Most Americans associate Sichuan with spicy Chinese food. What I was told is that in the early days, Sichuan was a very poor province and the people had to work very hard manual labor to survive. They could only afford and so ate a lot of innards of animals, like intestines, kidneys, tripes, etc, so they have to add a lot of chili peppers to make the food tastier and edible. Indeed almost everything you eat at the restaurant has a spiciness to it. You have to tell them when you order that you don't want your food to be spicy otherwise, the norm is almost too spicy for non-locals.
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| Bronze Artifact displayed at Sichuan Museum |
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| Mask used for Sichuan Opera |
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| Ming Vase |
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| Local Delicacies: Intestines, kidneys, etc |
I stayed at the Hello Chengdu hostel. Hostels are not very popular in China because some of the local hotels are quite cheap and not many backpackers come here because of difficulties in communicating with the locals. This hostels is very well run and they have a very good travel desk. All the staff speak some English so this is a great place for someone who is trying to learn some Chinese.
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| Popular Local Dish: Dan Dan Noodles |
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| More Places to Spend Money |
