A Journey to Well Known Places

My first day in ChengDu was great. I arrived at 6:45pm and took an unofficial taxi to my hostel. That one sentence glossed over so much. I was met at the airport by a tout, ‘You need a taxi?’ Yes, and I show him the card for my hostel. We negotiate a price. At his prompting I take off my backpack. The olive green bag that contains everything I need to continue my little adventure. Suddenly a black volkswagon zooms up, the guy takes my bag, throws it in the trunk, points to the car and says ‘OK.’ I laugh nervously. There is no taxi perephanalia; no signs, no meters. Just three people and my bag in the trunk. So I get in. The driver takes off. I immediately recall all the sound advice I heard before I started my trip: never get in a taxi that already has other people in it, only take official taxis (lest you be taken to the seedy side of town, robbed, and beaten), and always use the meter. Cool. ChengDu whizs by me. It is lush and humid. Finally some moisture in the air. At 7pm on a Saturday the streets are packed. The apartments look much nicer than anyplace I have ever lived. After 15 minutes the driver stops and the girl in the front seat gets out. The driver gets out and opens the trunk for her to get her bag. Money is exchanged. I relax. I spend the next hour in the back seat of that Volkswagon while the driver tries to find the next guys drop off. Cell calls are made, u turns are executed, and lights are run. I get a scenic tour of the city.

I arrive at my hostel, Sim’s Cozy Guest house, and am struck by how appropriately it is named. It is in fact a very cozy and comfortable guest house complete with fish pond, bar, internet cafe, lounge area and ping pong table. I approached the reception desk and told them I had a reservation. They held up a list and pointed to a name. ‘Nope’ I said. They looked at each other, then back to me. ‘Marc?’ they asked. ‘Yeessss’ I replied, very curious how they knew that. ‘We did tell you that we would hold the room until 4pm, didn’t we?’ I shrugged and smiled at them. I then notice the sign on the desk that says they are all full tonight. I ask if I can get my key and smile again. ‘Well, we gave your bed to someone else.’ OK. I continue to stand there and smile at them. Luckily, I booked the room on the internet and paid a deposit with my credit card. They converse in Chinese. They call over the manager. Someones relative was given a bed in the 12 bed dorm. They got demoted to cot in the kitchen and I got a bed. That settled, I proceeded make friends with a Canadian guy and a girl from Seattle. We stayed up until past 1am.

I got up this morning and leisurely went about my day. I had real coffee with my oatmeal for breakfast. I grabbed a map from the front desk and headed out to explore the city. I was gone about 10 minutes when I came across the WenShue monastery. Why not right? I paid my $.80 admission fee and went in. I stayed for almost 5 hours. I have been in a monastery or two since I have been here, but nothing like this. This was one of the four most important Zen Buddist monasterys in China. I walked pat the huge Buddha statues and took a random left into the garden. My shoulders dropped, my breathing slowed, and I smiled. Beautiful and peaceful. There was a pond filled with turtles and greenery everywhere. I wandered around and found that the monks run a vegetarian restaurant on the premises. I went in, but it wsa so busy I couldn’t get a table. I walked on to the tea garden. No sooner had I say down then I was engaged in conversation with a young girl and her father. We talked for about and hour and they gave me cookies. When they left I went back to the now empty restaurant and sat down. I ordered ‘pork’ and green vegetable soup. It was fried tofu, a couple kinds of vegetables, tons of red peppers and absolutely delicious. I got a glass of peanut milk to go with it. What a great combo. It made my top five meals of the trip so far. Half way through my meal I offered to share my table with a couple of Isreali girls and we talked for another hour or so. Fun. I continued to wander the neighborhood afterwards and treated myself to a chocolate eclair.

Either tomorrow or the next day I am going to see the giant pandas eat bamboo. Exciting. I like this place.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 2:59 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.