Lazy Days & A Big Buddha

We took the train to Chengdu a couple of days ago and it was SO much better than the bus. It was actually pretty comfortable and we passed through some amazing scenery. The only downside was all of the snoring! I had an old man next to me snoring his head off, Sean above doing the same and two other guys in our bunk area contributing to the orchestra! Fortunately, I had a pair of earplugs (thanks dad!) which worked great.

We checked into a lovely hostel and settled in for a few days. That evening we went out to try "hotpot" a regional dish. We ended up going into some restaurant that was full of Chinese people- we figured that if it was so crowded it MUST be good. So we sat down and tried to order. We didn't speak any Chinese, she spoke very little English- it was a bit of a mess. We told her to decide everything for us which ended up being a pretty good move. It was delicious! They had a big tank of live fish swimming around and she chose our fish for us and then brought out our big bowl of bothy fish soup. The only down side was the big fish head that kept popping out of our broth to glare at us every once in awhile.

The next morning we got up early and went to go visit the giant panda research center/reserve. We were the first ones in the park and got there just in time for their feeding. The big ones were super cute but mostly just lazed around and ate bamboo. The young ones (1-2 years) were hilarious! They were roughhousing with each other, falling out of the trees and pushing each other off of their play scape! We were afraid that they would get hurt at first but they took it all in stride. One even ran into a pole at full speed! He just shook his head and went off to push someone else out of a tree!

We found a Tex-Mex restaurant listed in our guide and just couldn't resist going there for lunch. The inside was actually really great- felt like home. The food on the other hand... Hopefully, we won't have to break out the Imodium after this.

Today, we went to go see the giant Buddha. It's crazy tall (230 feet) and carved into the face of a cliff. This monk, hundreds of years ago decided to carve out the Buddha to pacify the river because people kept drowning in it. Amazingly, it worked and the river has been much calmer ever since. Of course, this also could have been because they threw tons of rock into the river after carving out the Buddha, but who are we to question?

We were planning on entering Tibet from here but it looks like we're going to have to change our plans. Thanks to a demonstration to free Tibet on Mt. Everest by a few students, it's become really difficult to get in (I was going to post a photo here, but all images related to Tibet protests have been blocked by the government). We were looking at a 10 day wait plus about 6 permits which were going to cost quite a lot. We've decided to go further Southwest in China where we should still be able to get a pretty good taste of Tibetan culture.