Trip to and fromWolong, Sichuan Province (5th and 6th November)
We flew out of KL at 12.30 on Sunday night, sharing cabs with other people from work.
We arrived in Beijing at 6.30am. Our flight to Chengdu was delayed and didn't leave until 10am. We arrived in Chengdu at around 12.30.
A nice girl at work who is a Sichuan native helped us to arrange it all. The driver was great, picking us up at the airport on time and holding up a sign with my Chinese name on it.
I have a sneaker in each side pocket of my bag and I keep laughing at the sight of Dan at each of the Beijing and Chengdu airports holding up my sneakers in his hand because the sneakers have fallen out. It is quite funny.
The roads to Wolong are a bit tricky so the driver and we could only cross over at 5.30pm so the driver dropped us at this little food street in Chengdu to hang out for an hour or so.
I am at the Panda Inn in Sichuan Province. We drove about four hours from Chengdu across very, very rocky and narrow mountain-terrain.
The trip here took us down highways, through dark tunnels, along narrow mountainous roads and past huge piles of rubble. It's a very unforgiving and grim landscape out there.
The Panda Inn is minimalist with a bathroom floor that floods everytime you have a shower. It boasts 24 hour heating but the water in the shower goes in intermittent bursts of scalding hot then icy cold then back to scalding hot which is very disconcerting.
As we were in the lobby two very cold and miserable-looking foreign tourists sidled past wearing heavy coats and doleful expressions.
"Is there anywhere to eat except the restaurant?" I asked.
"No, there is nothing," the man said with a Gallic shrug of resignation.
We asked for a double room but got a twin which the woman said had better heating. The restaurant was also funny - deserted and they put us in a huge private room. The dinner was actually quite tasty and then with nothing else to do we showered and went to bed.
These are photos of the trip back to Chengdu but you can see what the road was like.
We passed through a dingy depressed town. For some reason Chengdu was very smoggy and overcast while we were there.
We arrived in Beijing at 6.30am. Our flight to Chengdu was delayed and didn't leave until 10am. We arrived in Chengdu at around 12.30.
A nice girl at work who is a Sichuan native helped us to arrange it all. The driver was great, picking us up at the airport on time and holding up a sign with my Chinese name on it.
I have a sneaker in each side pocket of my bag and I keep laughing at the sight of Dan at each of the Beijing and Chengdu airports holding up my sneakers in his hand because the sneakers have fallen out. It is quite funny.
The roads to Wolong are a bit tricky so the driver and we could only cross over at 5.30pm so the driver dropped us at this little food street in Chengdu to hang out for an hour or so.
I am at the Panda Inn in Sichuan Province. We drove about four hours from Chengdu across very, very rocky and narrow mountain-terrain.
The trip here took us down highways, through dark tunnels, along narrow mountainous roads and past huge piles of rubble. It's a very unforgiving and grim landscape out there.
The Panda Inn is minimalist with a bathroom floor that floods everytime you have a shower. It boasts 24 hour heating but the water in the shower goes in intermittent bursts of scalding hot then icy cold then back to scalding hot which is very disconcerting.
As we were in the lobby two very cold and miserable-looking foreign tourists sidled past wearing heavy coats and doleful expressions.
"Is there anywhere to eat except the restaurant?" I asked.
"No, there is nothing," the man said with a Gallic shrug of resignation.
We asked for a double room but got a twin which the woman said had better heating. The restaurant was also funny - deserted and they put us in a huge private room. The dinner was actually quite tasty and then with nothing else to do we showered and went to bed.
These are photos of the trip back to Chengdu but you can see what the road was like.
We passed through a dingy depressed town. For some reason Chengdu was very smoggy and overcast while we were there.