BootsnAll Travel Network



Sichuan spice

So my train to Chengdu wasn’t nearly as flash as the one to Xian, same class but just a bit crappier. I was settling in for a long night of train crazy-ness, which is a bit more crazy than Russia, no vodka however just an over abundance of tea and instant noodles. Spitting as well is not just restricted to outside, no, no spitting everywhere all through the train on the floor. Best to put your bags up on the luggage racks. By some fluke of nature, Ross and Alice, an English couple were sitting right near me and made the train ride actually kind of fun. They had meet some Chinese guy and his wife who insisted on taking us to the dining car for dinner where they fed us with food and beer and paid for the whole thing- awesome! The rest of the journey was pretty good, as long as you didn’t touch the floor too much. We rolled in sunny Chengdu about 11am where we had a hostel pick up to take us back to Sim’s Cozy guest-house, a fantastic hostel which was really just perfect. Set around beautiful gardens with animals, nice dorm rooms, cheap food, it was great!

Chengdu is in the Sichuan province and very famous for spicy food and panda’s. So naturally we saw and ate both (saw the panda’s and ate the food of course!). Chengdu was actually great and ended up spending 4 nights there. Ross and Alice were great to hang out with and we had heaps of fun. Rdoc came and joined us the following evening so had cool people to hang out with.

Once we arrived though we made use of the sunny weather to sit around and drink tea in Chengdu’s famous tea houses, where for $2 you get a cup of tea with unlimited hot water to keep refilling it. Everyone sits around for hours, drinking, gossiping, all playing cards or mah jong. One guy was even having his ear wax removed! So it was all happening at the tea houses. We sat around enjoying the atmosphere for a bit and checked out a nearby temple and ate some lunch.

Rdoc arrived the following evening after Alice, Ross and myself had checked out the panda’s (see next post) and sought out the best dumplings in town (all the wayon the other side of town). We wandering through the Tibetan quarter on the way back packed full of robed monks and shops selling prayer wheels, I walked back to the hostel via town and through the big Mao square with his statue overlooking the crazy fountains.

There seems to be a lot of people with missing limbs, instead of begging, singing into small sound systems on the side of the road for money…it was a bit odd and saw far too many on my walk.

Once Rdoc had arrived we headed out for dinner, hotpot of course. Chengdu and the Sichuan region are well known for their spicy food, spicier than usual in China and that is pretty spicy! And of course hotpot is one of the most famous meals. Hotpot is where you order a bunch of raw ingredients and get a big bowl of bubbling oil/broth that is heated to cook your food in, you then all sit around and chuck stuff in until it is cooked then fish it out with your chopsticks until its all gone. We found a messy and busy (always a sign of a good place) around the corner with crazy cheap prices, and no english. Luckily the staff were patient and helped us order a bunch of food. Our hotpot was half spicy and half mild,with the spicy side being dangerously overloaded with chillies and peppercorns.

(Alice and Ross get into the hotpot) 

The food was good, very good, but the spiciness was out of control, we sat red faced and sweating ordering more and more milk and beer trying to fight the burning chillies. But its kind of addictive and we got through it all, hot but happy…yum food. Back at the hostel we grabbed a couple of bottles of wine and chilled out before taxing over to an Irish bar where we had a couple of drinks and dancing happily until strangely a leather clad guy turned up and did a pole dance. Very weird.

The next day was pretty chilled out, headed to electronics mall where I picked up an external hard drive, then headed for another delicious meal at a little restaurant (food is just so good here!). Back at the hostel we hung out for a bit making use of the table tennis table with a few tournaments then grabbed takeaway burgers and a few bottles of coke (haha, so lame, but good, and chinese fast food, no dirty Maccas) and watched a dvd we picked up at the market. Great day!

 



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