Chengdu (November 28-30)

On the Monday night we set off for Chengdu, a city south-west of Xi’an. We were looking very forward to visiting the large Panda conservation park in Chengdu and convinced Lu to come with us. We took another over-night sleeper train (no drama this time) and Lu spent much of the trip teaching us how to use all of the cool functions on our camera. She is a very talented photographer and we learned so many neat tricks!

When we arrived in Chengdu, we stayed in a very Tibetan area of town. There were some amazing markets and little Tibetan shops everywhere. We walked down Ancient Street, which had some cute ponds, mini waterfalls and little places to eat. Very scenic! There we some really beautiful tea shops all along the roads, where you could try so many lovely flavours of tea.

Val with cheery Tibetan monk!

Fish Pond on Acient Street

On the second day, we went to see the PANDAS!!!!! They were so cute! And, to our disappointment, you could only hold them if you were willing to pay about $215 US dollars. Of course, we could not afford it. But it was soooooo amazing to see them eating and walking around! We were pretty close to all the action and it was truly a wonderful experience! And OMG, the baby pandas! SO cute!!!

In the afternoon, we rented some bikes with Lu and an Italian fellow we met at the Panda park, named Rocco. The four of us biked around Chengdu on the crappiest bikes in China! We waited about 45 minutes for our bikes to be fixed up before we could take them out, and then they all pretty much broke down on the trip! Rocco bike lost both its pedals! "Special", but so fun. We biked to a park that had a beautiful temple, and you could hear the monks chanting inside of it. Pretty cool stuff.

Rocco and Mark - two of a kind...

That night we had a party back in our dorm room, and the next day, off to Kangding!

Adorable Tibetan baby!