The Muslim Quarter

After we made it back to the car and met our driver, I was surprised to see the driver’s pushy brother there as well. Apparently, he had driven someone to see the Terracotta Warriors as well.

“You going back to the hotel now?” he asked.

I showed him a copy of a map of Xi’an that we had gotten from the hotel. “No, I want to go here,” I said and pointed to a famous dumpling restaurant in the Old City.

“He takes you there, you pay him,” the pushy brother said.

We were nowhere near four or five o’clock, but I figured we would be awhile and could get back to the hotel on the bus, so I agreed.

The trip back was uneventful, and eventually the driver slowed and started pointing at a large building. I interpreted his gestures to mean the restaurant was in there, and he drove some more until there was a spot where he could drop us off. I paid him, and we started off for the dumpling restaurant.


I can’t remember where I heard about this restaurant, only that they had a dumpling banquet, where you could pay a substantial sum to eat dumplings shaped like walnuts, pigs, penguins, birds, and other assorted items. This somehow appealed to me, but when we reached the restaurant, I quickly learned that no one spoke English and there was no English menu. I probably could have muddled through, but Kinsey was completely nonplussed about having dumplings anyway, and there was a display of all the dumplings in the lobby, so I gave up, and we headed down the street toward the Muslim Quarter.

The Muslim Quarter ended up to be a warren of streets with the equivalent of a permanent New York Street Fair, only with a Muslim and Chinese flavor. Typical vendors hawked nuts, dried fruits, jewelry, cheap toys, and assorted trinkets, as well as foods I never could quite identify.

A few vendors had a nifty iron cooking contraption with six small half-spheres in a row. The vendor would crack small eggs--perhaps quail eggs--one in each tiny bowl. When all six were filled, he would put a skewer across the top. The eggs would cook and puff. He would eventually cover the skewers with a lid with six more half-spheres and turn the contraption over, so that the eggs cooked into six little golden balls on a stick.

Another vendor sold glazed-brown puffy animal shapes on a skewer. I couldn’t quite tell what they were made from--animal bladders? Sugar? We only knew they were edible because someone walked by nibbling one.

Most of the food did not look particularly tasty or edible. However, I came across one vendor who was making Chinese versions of quesadillas--two tortillas with a filling inside. A boy was making the Chinese quesadillas on the street, and then frying them in a giant metal frying pan with lots of hot golden oil. They actually looked quite good--hot and freshly made--so we tried to order one, only to discover that you had to pay inside and they would cook your order outside. The result was something like having dumpling filling inside a quesadilla. Not bad, but tough to eat with chopsticks!

We wandered deeper and deeper into the Muslim Quarter, where the stalls ended and better shops appeared in narrow alleyways. I bought a t-shirt, and then we watched some masterful haggling by several American women who wanted a knock-off handbag.

After a lot of walking, and only a little purchasing, we headed back toward the bus stop and our hotel, tired but happy, and the end of our two days in Xi’an.

The Terracotta Warriors

For our trip to the Terracotta Warriors, I decided to do something different: we would hire a car for the day and see how that worked. The hotel concierge had a couple of different day tours listed on a signboard; however, the tour to the Terracotta Warriors also stopped at some hot springs and a tomb, neither of which interested me. I asked the concierge how much it would cost to hire a car.

“Four hundred and fifty yuan,” he said. It was cheaper than both of us taking the tour, and the Terracotta Warrriors are outside of Xi’an, maybe 45 minutes to an hour. Not wanting to waste the one day we had in Xi’an, I agreed to a driver, hoping we could squeeze in some other sites.

“How long do I get the driver?” I asked.

“Mm, maybe until four? Five?” the concierge replied. We set the time for 9:30 am.

In the morning, after our free buffet breakfast at the hotel coffee shop, we arrived at the concierge’s desk to meet our driver. He spoke no English, but it seemed like he had a pushy brother who had some minimal English communication skills.

“Do you want just the Terracotta Warriors?” he asked.

“No, we want to go some other places.”

The pushy brother translated. “Pay him when he brings you back to the hotel,” he told me.

We got into the car and started off. The drive to the Warriors was long, compounded by heavy traffic. As soon as we arrived, I could tell we were going to be in trouble. The Chinese government had built a huge complex around the Terracotta Warriors site, creating a huge destination for tourists. The main buildings were hidden in the back of a vast, sprawling market area, newly built, so that all of the shops were in layered strip malls that looked architecturally identical. The driver apparently did not know exactly where to drop us off or park (he had to call to ask his pushy brother for help), so he found a spot near some shops and parked. In an instant, I knew that I would have a hard time finding the car again--I wasn’t even sure where to find the entrance to the Terracotta Warriors.

The driver leapt out of the car and looked up and down the street, then flagged over a woman in a uniform, who was carrying an open teddy-bear patterned umbrella to shade her from the sun. He talked to her briefly and then motioned us over. She spoke English, although she spoke very, very quickly, so much so, that it was often hard to catch what she said. She explained that she was a guide and could take us through the site for a fee. This part got garbled and I thought she told me it would be 200 yuan for three hours. The trip to the Warriors was quickly ratcheting up in price, but the fear of not being able to find the car, and the novelty of actually having a guide seemed interesting, so I agreed.

The driver watched on and was similarly satisfied when we went off with the guide, probably figuring that his fare would not be lost in this catastrophe.

The guide, however, speed walked like she was in an Olympic event. Kinsey and I struggled to catch up, not least of all, because there was a huge throng of Chinese tourists here for National Week. A few times I lost sight of her, but we managed to keep in contact largely because of her umbrella. She hustled us through the ticket line, and then stopped us outside of a gift shop.

“Let’s go in,” she said, “and see the farmer.”

“I don’t really care about seeing the farmer,” I said.

She didn’t process that at all. “The farmer is very famous. There were five farmers who found the Terracotta Warriors. This one is the youngest one.” She guided us into the gift shop where we saw a man sitting behind some books.

“You can buy a book and he will sign it,” the guide said.

“Um. I don’t really want to buy a book,” I said.

She seemed puzzled. “All the Chinese people come to meet the farmer and get a book.”

We turned and left. When we came to the courtyard for all the main buildings, the guide pointed out the different buildings. “That one is Pit 1, Pit 2, and Pit 3. Over there is the museum.”

I had read about the different sites, and one of the guidebooks suggested seeing them in backward order: Pit 3, Pit 2, and then Pit 1, because Pit 1 is the largest and most famous--the one with the rows and rows of soldiers, so that you kind of leave the best for last.

“Can we see Pit 3, then Pit 2, then Pit 1?” I asked.

She seemed disappointed. “Yes, we can do that,” she said, “but if we go to one, two, and three in order, it will be in order of their discoveries.”

“It’s okay,” I said, “I still want to go three, two, and one.”

She seemed a bit frustrated, mostly, I believe, because I later learned that the sites are set up to flow from one to two to three. She tried to communicate to me how that order would be inconvenient, so I relented a little.

“Okay, we can go to two and three, but I still want to see Pit 1 last.”

She perked up at the compromise, and we headed off to Pit 2. As we headed off to the site, the guide explained to us that the main importance of this area, was that the archaeologists had recovered and assembled four different characters: a general, an officer, a standing archer, and a kneeling archer. Most of the warriors were in pieces--perhaps as many as 70 to 80, so reconstruction was pretty slow, and many of the warriors could not be reconstituted at all.

Standing Archer

Officer

General

Kneeling Archer

Originally, the warriors were all painted in bright colors, and when they were discovered, some still had paint remnants left. Once uncovered, the paint had deteriorated and only one figure still bore some original color--the kneeling archer.

The only remaining color is on this figure.

Each of the figures was in a glass case along one side of the pit. We struggled through the crowds to see each figure. The guide gave me some quick tips on how they identified the rank of each piece. The general had a double knot of hair and shoes that were larger and had a distinctive upturned toe. The officer had clothing with different characteristics and hair with only one knot. The archers were posed as if carrying bows, and although the wooden bows had long disintegrated away, I think they found the arrow tips nearby. The statues were charming and I was struck by their friendly, happy faces. Whatever their purpose, they did not seem aggressive.

The pit itself did not have any activity inside. The guide seemed to explain to me that most of the archaeologists were working at some new sites that had been found near Emperor Qin’s tomb.

The Terracotta Warriors were commissioned by Qin Shi Huang (pronounced Chin), the first great leader of China (221-226 BC)--which now bears his name. Qin was the first to unify power over the warring regions, and institute a common currency and writing system. Although those accomplishments were impressive, he was also a tyrant and was the leader who began building the Great Wall, enslaving and killing many Chinese in the process. Qin also had the Terracotta Warriors built as a monument to him, and they were located geographically near his tomb, which has been located but not opened. The guide explained that the tomb was loaded with poisonous mercury, and scientists have not yet determined how to excavate it. It sounded a little apocryphal, but another guide we had told us the same thing.

The new excavations were much closer to Qin’s tomb and contained figures of acrobats, musicians, and other members of the court. She said the new figures are being reconstructed and will be unveiled in a few years.

After Pit 2, our guide took us into a gift shop filled with miniature terracotta warriors.

“These are special,” she said. “You see the clay that is excavated at this site. This is used to make these terracotta warriors. The government controls this. No other terracotta warriors are made from these materials.”

She gave us 15 minutes to look around. I had heard that terracotta warriors could be cheaply made, and some are made of such poor materials that you can make impressions on them with your hand, so I allowed that we might look here even though we’d be paying through the nose. Kinsey was interested in buying a terracotta warrior. I thought it would be fun to buy a large one and carry it around like a Travelocity gnome, taking pictures of it in various scenic spots around southeast Asia; however, in my heart, I knew there was absolutely no way we could pack or carry it. Kinsey had far less grandiose notions and chose an officer, about six inches tall. After we bought drinks, the guide rounded us up again.

“See! Over there!” she enthused. “There’s the farmer. The most famous one. He is the oldest, and the one who discovered the warriors first!” She pointed over to a table mobbed by Chinese. I was not inclined to view the farmer, but Kinsey wanted a quick peek, so she angled herself until she got a glimpse of a balding, elderly, Chinese man.

“In China, the government owns the land,” our guide continued. “So when the farmers found the warriors, they gave them lifetime jobs to come here and sign books.”

“Are they very rich?” I asked.


“Yes,” she said, quite matter-of-factly. Then she added, “This farmer is 78. He does not come here much anymore, but he is here for National Week only. The Chinese people know that he will be here, that is why it is so crowded this week…the people come to see him.”

Later, when I was looking at some other Chinese tourist websites, I came across a blog that said this farmer only knows how to write three Chinese characters--the three for his name.

From the gift shop, we went into Pit 3, an excavation with only two major parts. The first dig had bodies of reconstructed soldiers that were arranged standing and facing each other, as if they were in a room being inspected. Most of the soldiers did not have heads, and the guide explained that these had been so damaged they could not be repaired.

The dig also had four horses that had been reconstructed, along with a jumble of terracotta pieces, so that you could see what the archaeologists had found. There were also some human bones, which the guide told us was from the burial of some local Chinese, who had happened to bury someone at the site, but they had not dug in quite the right place in order to discover the warriors.

She then herded us off at great speed to Pit 1. By this point, I was getting a little upset. Even though, she had imparted a lot of interesting knowledge to us, she was getting us through the site at warp speed. There was little lingering or subtle exploration. I kept telling her to slow down, but to little avail.

Pit 1 is the most famous of all the sites, the one most people think of when they picture the Terracotta Warriors. It was justly impressive, but I was surprised to see that the actual rows of reconstructed warriors did not extend back as far as I’d thought. In my mind, I had pictured long columns of soldiers, completely restored. Perhaps that idea was planted by movies that have used the iconography of the soldiers, coming back to life as a massive army. Instead, I was surprised to see that the actual number of completed soldiers was far fewer. I suppose it makes sense to me now…I probably had the incorrect idea that the warriors were mostly in unbroken form as they were discovered, which would have meant that uncovering them was a fairly simple dig. Reconstructing them from jumbles of pieces was a completely different story.

If you look carefully, you can see that the rows of soldiers only extend so far before they show only the jumbled pottery remains.

Here's a better closeup. You can see how many pieces the archaeologists discovered.

Our guide also pointed out the place where the farmer originally made his discovery…he had been digging a well when he came across a warrrior’s head. The well site is at the very outermost corner of the Terracotta Warrior’s site. If he had moved just a few feet, he would have missed the site entirely.

The sign shows the site of the well.

You can kind of see the size of the National Week crowd in this picture. Apparently, if you go at any normal time, there are very few people visiting.

Once she hustled us out of Pit 1, the guide quickly headed us toward the museum, breathlessly telling us that the museum contained two chariots discovered at Emperor Qin’s tomb. I thought this sounded fabulous, so I was a little disappointed to see that the chariots were only about ½ size--not the full-size of the warriors. The museum contained little else, except quotations from world leaders and pictures of artifacts.

The museum took us only about 10 minutes, and then our guide suddenly seemed to slow down.

“You should do some shopping,” she said, and took us out of the grounds into the marketplace.

Although Kinsey had already bought a terracotta figure, she wanted an even smaller set, figures about two inches tall, a full set of the general, the officer, the standing archer, and the kneeling archer. She commenced to bargaining with one of the merchants, who startled us by striking the figures to show us how strong they were. Eventually they came to an agreed upon price, with the merchant throwing in a two-inch emperor figure…sort of a throwaway, as there was no emperor figure discovered.

Back outside, the guide tried to lure us into buying jade, but I refused, thinking this was surely going to cost me a fortune. Eventually, we got back to the restaurant by the car, and I asked our guide again how much I should pay her.

“Umm. 100 yuan,” she said.

Our entire tour had taken only about 2 ½ hours. My head was spinning, and in some ways I felt like I’d hardly gotten a chance to see the Terracotta Army at all. Nevertheless, 100 yuan was better than I’d hoped. I paid her--even tipped her--and she hurried off in search of another tourist group.

Xi'an

National Day disrupted our travels in many ways, but in Xi’an it was a blessing. Due to poor planning on my part, I did not make hotel arrangements far enough in advance, so all of the cheap lodgings had been snapped up by the time I started looking. I decided we could use some “luxury” in our lives, so I started cruising the hotel sites. Many of the cheaper rooms were also already booked, so I decided we might as well go for a four-star room.

After checking a map of Xi’an, I discovered that the city was divided into two sections, the Old City and everything else. One of Xi’an’s great landmarks was an ancient city wall that had been completely rebuilt, and this wall, laid out in a nine-mile rectangle, encompassed the Old City. I decided that we should stay inside the Old City, so I searched for hotels within those boundaries, and finally settled on the Grand New World Hotel, a nice looking four-star hotel that cost a little less than $100 per night. We booked for two nights.

It turned out to be some much needed western comfort! After checking in, we discovered that we were on the Executive Level, the fifteenth and top floor. The bathroom was heavenly with a separate tub and shower and marble tiled floors. The toilet was completely modern and we could even put our toilet paper in it (you usually have to put your used toilet paper in the wastebasket because the plumbing can’t accommodate toilet paper). However, this bathroom had no sign about not putting toilet paper in, and the first night, I couldn’t even locate a wastebasket in the bathroom, so I tentatively flushed the paper down.

Everything was plush and clean. Two drawbacks though, the bed seemed no softer than any other bed we had slept on, and the outlets had strange configurations so that I could not plug anything in--I had left my vast array of adapters in Chengdu as we had been living off only one, which did not fit in Xi’an. As a result, our computer time was drastically cut.

Since we had arrived around noon, after a brief rest and a long lunch at the hotel restaurant, we decided to go out into Xi’an. One of the things I had wanted to do was to visit the City Wall, which I heard you could either walk in three to four hours, or bike in one hour. Kinsey seemed lukewarm to the idea, but came along.

We couldn’t manage to get a taxi…a common plight in every city, so we asked the concierge what bus to take and managed to get to the South entrance of the wall…it was after all massive, so we couldn’t miss it!

After paying the entrance fee, we climbed to the top and looked around. The City Wall was actually how I imagined the Great Wall to be…very wide, you could have two lanes for cars…and well maintained.

After some searching we found the bike rental, which had two options, single bikes and bicycles built for two. Kinsey and I both preferred single bikes, so we fought our way into getting a couple of bikes--single bikes were in short supply that day. The bikes were old and pretty trashed. The seats were not adjustable, having either been welded or rusted into place. I managed to get a girls bike with a fairly low seat for Kinsey, but my bike’s seat was way too high, so it took me a while to figure out how to comfortably stop. After securing our purses in the wire baskets, we were off.

It was a glorious day, comfortably cool and overcast, but not threatening rain. Many people were riding bikes, but once we pushed off, the crowds thinned and riding was easy.

We took it slow and easy, avoiding potholes, and just enjoying the ride. It easily became one of our top experiences so far. Along the way, we stopped for drinks, to check out some mock catapults and weaponry, shopped, took pictures, and enjoyed the view of the city below. Bike riding has fast become one of our favorite China experiences. If you go, don’t miss it!

A view of the city from the wall.

Here's a close up of the local McDonalds. Notice the Asian man's face on the building. Who is he?Perhaps a Ronald McDonald clown is too freaky for a foreign culture...

One of the four main gates along the wall.

If you don't want to ride bikes, you can take a tour bus along the wall.

Towards the very end of our bike ride, we came upon crowds of people gathered by the South entrance. Various groups of seemingly ordinary Chinese folks were performing busker-style, although no one ever asked for money. A group of mostly middle-aged women performed a type of dance with paddles and tennis balls, sweeping the paddles around without dropping the balls; old grandfatherly types had a act with Chinese yo-yos; several groups had elaborate costumes and performed dances with a small band. I later found out that it was the Mid-Autumn Festival, a celebration mostly marked by people buying and eating moon cakes. Whether or not the performances were going on because of the festival, or whether it was just a common occurrence on a Friday night in Xi’an, I couldn’t tell, but I wouldn’t be surprised either way.

Afterwards we just wandered through the town a little, stopping for dinner, and then tried to find our way home again on the bus. I cannot for the life of me, manage to get taxis unless it is from the airport, train, or bus station. Getting one off the street seems next to impossible. As a result, we’ve been walking a lot, and of late, trying to figure out the buses. We managed to get home on the bus and had a great first day in Xi’an.

Hard Sleeper

After one more day of rest, Kinsey and I got ready for our short trip to Xi’an. For some inexplicable reason, I thought that we should travel light to Xi’an, then return to Chengdu, before traveling onward to Lijiang. In retrospect, we probably should have just gone to Xi’an and then flown to Lijiang from there. In any event, I managed to book two train tickets to Xi’an, but due to National Week, the hostel could only get me berths on the hard sleeper train…there are six bunks per compartment, three on each side. On the way to Xi’an we each had the middle bunk and on the way back, we’d each get the bottom. Prices increase the lower you are, but space also seems to decrease. We paid about 209 yuan each one way, approximately $20.

On our way to Xi’an, a night train that left at 9:20 pm, was a lot less comfortable than the train from Beijing to Shanghai. To be fair, the Beijing to Shanghai train is an express, newer, and likely to be a little more plush anyway, but if you get a four inch mattress on the soft sleeper, you get a hard flat surface with a ½ inch mattress on the hard sleeper. I slept on the comforter for extra padding, but that leaves you without covers. Meanwhile, the Xi’an train was definitely not an express. It felt like the train never went very fast and then made many interminable stops. Sleeping was difficult.

Traveling during National Week meant that the train was at full capacity. Kinsey and I made one walk through and found only one train car with soft sleepers, mostly filled with foreigners and some wealthier Chinese. The hard sleepers are full of middle class Chinese, lots of families, but not that many children. After that, you find cars with seats filled with the poorer Chinese, many of them men traveling alone. On our trip from Beijing, the seats had been filled with a lot of college age kids, but they were not in evidence on this train. Somehow the ticket takers keep track of everyone--who gets on and off, when and where. One note of caution, if you ever take a train and you are not getting off at the last stop, you must get help figuring out when to get off. Announcements are only in Chinese (and you cannot understand what they are saying--not even cities or stops), so I think it would be incredibly difficult to figure out when you were supposed to disembark.

In some ways, the hard sleeper was less intimidating than the soft sleeper. There were no doors, so you felt less concerned about sharing spaces with strangers. On the other hand, on our ride back, we had some issues with cigarette smoke. This varied car by car, so it was just a matter of whether you happened to be unlucky and had a bunk in a car with a rogue smoker. We also traveled during the day from Xi’an to Chengdu, so I think there was more of an issue with smoking because of that. The private car soft sleepers most likely did not have a smoking problem.

Lastly, no matter what anyone has told you about bathrooms in China, the squat toilets were disgusting. In some places, they were tolerable. On the train, it got pretty bad. There’s no place on the train for privacy, except for the bathrooms, so I tried to change from long pants to shorts one day. That was quite a trick as the floors were wet from the hole-in-the-floor toilet and I had to take off my shoes without touching the floor with any part of me or my clothing while the train was moving. Many places will have one western toilet, usually marked "handicapped," but there are still places with all squat toilets. And, regardless of what type of toilet you have, you'll have to put your toilet paper in the trashcan. I'm not a big fan of that trend either.

Leshan: The Grand Buddha

If you start researching places to go in China, you will inevitably learn about the Grand Buddha in Leshan. I had seen pictures in guidebooks and on our plane flight to Beijing, the airplane had a documentary on the Seven Wonders of China, highlighting the Grand Buddha. It is supposedly the largest (tallest) Buddha in the world, carved by monks from sandstone in the cliffs along the river in Leshan. So it seemed natural that we should visit the site.

We met up with our other traveling companions at the van at 9 am. Our group consisted of an Israeli couple who were backpacking around China; a Japanese man who worked in Shanghai and was taking his National Week holiday in Chengdu; and a Turkish fellow who had lived in NYC and was doing a round-the-world trip, having already completed Africa and Europe. We all chatted companionably, although I failed to get anyone’s name.

The drive to Leshan took about two hours. It was October 1, National Day, so the streets were filled with extra cars from vacationing travelers and the televisions were broadcasting the endless parade from Beijing. You could tell that the entire country was involved in celebrating, as places everywhere had decked out in red lanterns, banners, Chinese flags, new plants, and often even fresh painting. When we arrived at Leshan, you could also tell that the Chinese were out on holiday in force. Our driver dropped us off near the entrance, announcing to the Japanese fellow (the only one of us who could understand Chinese) that we were to meet back at the van at 3 pm.

We all started off toward the ticket line, drifting apart at various points. As you entered , you could not see the Buddha at all, until you paid your entrance fee and then walked a short distance slightly uphill. Eventually, we came to the top of the cliff area and I realized we were standing at the Buddha’s head. For some reason, I thought we would start at his feet and then climb up, but we were doing the opposite.

The line for walking the steps next to the Buddha was long. We met up with the Japanese man and the Turkish guy, who seemed to be traveling together. The Turkish guy was griping because he couldn’t stand the crowd. I teased him and said, “Aren’t you going to India next? It’s going to be much worse than this!”

Eventually, we began the descent, a zigzagging route of steps next to Buddha. The crowd was thick so that we could only go a few steps at a time. The Buddha was so large that you couldn’t really get him all in the same picture, so I have photos of his head or his feet. The Chinese also like to take pictures of themselves in front of every site possible, and as a culture, they are incredibly pushy--and I don’t mean verbally (although they are that too)--but the Chinese are physically pushy, and they will force themselves into any tiny spot, effectively pushing you out of it. You cannot be patient, thinking that you will eventually get a chance--there are just too many people. So, if you intend to see a site, you will have to adapt and push back. The trick is that the Chinese don’t shove, it’s just a strong steady full-body pressure. No one gets mad if you do it; it’s just expected. It also helps to put on your game face and look like you aren’t going to be intimidated. That deters some Chinese who would take advantage of your proclivity to wait your turn. Oddly, the Chinese have adapted to lines in some places--the airport and McDonald’s come to mind--but often it’s just a scrum of people and many times, there will be a line, but people will just butt in.

Meanwhile, as we slowly descended the Buddha, Kinsey told me she wasn’t feeling particularly well. I hoped she wouldn’t faint or throw up as we couldn’t get out of line, so we gamely made our way through, although by the time we made it to the bottom, her only thought was to get a drink, so we didn’t pause for very long. I had thought we would exit pretty quickly, but learned that we had to climb back up the other side of the Buddha in order to exit. Poor Kinsey had to take the climb slowly until we finally reached a rest area with some concession stands. After a drink, I think she felt much better and we were able to continue.

The other part of the Big Buddha experience was to take a boat on the river in order to see the entire sculpture from a better angle. However, as we were wandering around the Grand Buddha Park, I couldn’t see anything that seemed like a dock. I watched the boats and it seemed like they were not stopping anywhere nearby, so we left the park. After numerous missteps (we always seem to walk in the wrong direction), someone at an information table was finally able to direct us to the boats. We walked another 500 meters down the bank and found the dock. The ride was nice and it was fun to see the Buddha from the river, as you were able to see the stairs carved into the sandstone cliffs.

However, the main function of the boat is to allow the Chinese tourists yet another opportunity for everyone to get their picture taken in front of the Buddha, as we hovered in front of the Buddha for probably 10 minutes, vying with several other boats. A professional photographer with the boat made sure everyone who wanted a photo managed to get one. There was nothing else of interest in the boat ride--luckily the day was nice for just a fresh breeze on the water.

Back on land, we managed to get back to the van just before 3 pm, although we hadn’t had time to eat lunch. The Israeli couple was there, although the van was gone and the other two travelers hadn’t shown up. We talked and waited, until finally the Turkish and Japanese guys arrived, panting from having run. Mysteriously, the van driver arrived just seconds later, and waved us over to the van, which was parked in a back alley.

The drive home was uneventful. Almost everyone napped in the late afternoon heat, only to awaken to traffic jams in Chengdu. We debated the merits of visiting the Big Buddha with the consensus being that it had been somewhat overblown as a destination…although of course, once you’ve been to a few temples in Asia, you do get some Buddha overload. I thought it was nice and I don’t mind that we went, but lately I’ve been learning that streamlining your itinerary might be a better way to go.

Later that night, we went up to the roof of the hostel to watch Chinese fireworks. I was disappointed that our view was not as good as I had been led to believe. Otherwise, I might have tried to get to the actual site. Chengdu was having fireworks from six sites around the city, and we were able to see parts of two. I would have liked to have seen Beijing’s, but I do have to say, New York’s Fourth of July fireworks are a lot more impressive than Chengdu’s.

Sick on the Road

Pretty much, the next day, Kinsey came down sick with a low-grade fever and a cough. My rules for treating the sick are that you take care of yourself immediately in the hopes that things won’t get worse. So we hunkered down at Sim’s to wait it out.

For pretty much the next week, Kinsey quarantined herself in our hostel room. Her symptoms didn’t seem to get much worse, but neither did they abate. I came down with a more minor version a couple of days later, but was mobile enough to get food, drinks, and an endless supply of dvds. So holed up in Chengdu, we averaged three movies a day. For the first couple of days, I was in secret heaven, watching movies I hadn’t had a chance to see in the past year…and Sim’s had an excellent collection of the latest bootleg titles. I watched The Visitor; Synecdoche, New York; Last Chance Harvey; Die Hard 4 (surprisingly good with subtitles); The Bucket List; with a brief foray into movies with a Chinese theme: The Forbidden Kingdom and The Mummy 3; before we finally descended into previously watched, but entertaining fare like The Bourne series, Indiana Jones 4, and Harry Potter…although with some of the latter, we had to watch in Russian with English subtitles. Harry Potter was especially entertaining, as occasionally the dvd would lapse into English and then suddenly revert into Russian. Chinese Hermione had a very annoying voice. Most of the dvds were in English and in excellent condition. A few were darker or less sharp, but otherwise, most were as good as regular retail versions.

The days passed in a haze. I tried to get Kinsey to take a walk one day, but it was clearly too much, as she had to stop and rest several times and turned a curious pale shade. I went out a couple of times to find cough drops and snacks, snapping a few photos along the way.

I kept cancelling plans and extending our days at Sim’s, but I had already paid for train tickets to Xi’an for October 2, so I knew we had a date to travel by.
 By the last day of September, we both seemed reasonably well. We were still tired, and a little out of shape from lack of movement, but I was determined we needed to get out of the hostel and back into travel mode, so I went to the travel desk to inquire about the bus to Leshan.

The girl at the desk promptly suggested we hire a van instead of taking the bus.

“Someone just asked about a van,” she said. “If you take the van too, we just need two more people to make the van full. This will cost 100 yuan each, the same as the bus.”

It sounded tempting, just to have the van pick us up and drop us off…just the thing for two people recovering from the flu.


“Okay,” I said. “When will you know if there are enough people?”
 “Come back later,” she said.
 Later, when I went back, she told me there were enough people. We were set for a daytrip to see the Big Buddha.

Panda Country

At the beginning of our trip, I asked Kinsey to list her top three sites to visit. Her answer: Chengdu for the pandas, the Great Wall, and either Huang Shan or Tiger Leaping Gorge--she wanted to do some kind of trek.

For our first day in Chengdu, I signed up for the Panda Breeding Center tour. I was a little hesitant to sign up for the tour, because I thought we’d rather go at our own pace, but tours are cheap and easy, so I committed, figuring we could always go back on our own if we wanted.

We got up early for the 8:30 tour, as pandas are best viewed in the morning. The day was cool and cloudy, a perfect panda day.

The research center was a well thought out place, beautifully landscaped, and the areas for the animals were large, clean, and full of vegetation. Our guide was sort of an anti-guide…he walked us from place to place, but did not utter a single word. He didn’t carry a banner to keep the group together, mostly he just kept a shrewd eye open and expected everyone to intuit when to leave.

At the area for the yearlings, we came across an opening into a building that was labeled “Nursery.” The was a large group of people near the cave-like entrance, and I thought this was where you would enter to see the very small pandas. As I stood near the front, though, I noticed that no one was going in.

“What is this?” I asked.

A woman nearby told me that this is where you go to hold the pandas. I had heard about this--the price for holding a panda was 1000 yuan. Supposedly, you could stand next to an adult panda for less money, or hold a red panda for 150 yuan. But the big draw was actually holding a panda. We had done considerable research about this before we left for China, and I knew that the panda, although young, is about one year old, and not the tiny panda you might be thinking of. It’s probably about 2/3 the size of Kinsey. You also only get to hold the panda for about a minute. Most of the people waiting by the door were foreigners, and most were opting not to hold a panda.

Earlier in our trip, I had been debating with Kinsey whether she should do this. She had been surprisingly non-committal, sometimes saying she didn’t want to hold a captive animal, sometimes talking about the high price. I had been waffling mainly due to the price, but that day, I had decided that if she wanted to do it, we should pay the 1000 yuan. My rationale was that you should never turn down things you might regret. This could very well be a once in a lifetime opportunity for her, as I could imagine China might shut down panda-holding in the future, or the fact she might never get back. So I told her, I’d be willing to pay and we plunked ten 100 yuan notes into the hand of a park employee, and Kinsey was escorted inside. I was not allowed inside with her, even considering her age…but they took her camera and promised a lot of pictures.

As I was waiting, I struck up a conversation with a middle-aged couple from the U.S., and discovered they were traveling China with their 20-something daughter, who was now inside, holding a panda. We chatted about all the different places we’d been, comparing notes, when their daughter burst out, thrilled to death, and showed her parents her photos. What immediately struck me is that she had video…video from her regular little camera of her and the panda. A light bulb went off, and I set off to find the park employees and luckily, one spoke English very well. I told her Kinsey was inside, and asked her if they would shoot video of her. She was happy to oblige and disappeared with my camera.

Five minutes later, Kinsey emerged with a huge smile, both cameras, a lot of photos, and some great video. The employees took a lot of pictures…I think she may have gotten more time and pictures than others because she was young. But the video was the thing that made the whole enterprise worthwhile. I don’t have much video of my kids…I probably don’t have anything, really…but we do have this great video of Kinsey and her panda.
All in all, we saw areas for adult pandas, red pandas, and yearlings.