Chengdu

Another day another train journey! Seems like we are ploughing straight through China at the moment but time (well bureaucracy and politics) dictates and we need to get to Chengdu in order to start the ball rolling on our process to enter Tibet. No travel is allowed inside Tibet without a permit and we want to get it sorted and into the country before the 1st October which is a Chinese national celebration day, although the Tibetans aren’t quite as keen to celebrate it. Last year there was some trouble which resulted in the Chinese Government not issuing any permits for 6 months or so! Plus to make it worse you can only travel as part of an organised tour, anyway all of this means getting to Chengdu (the main hub and gateway to Tibet) a bit early but we plan to head off for a few days once we have sorted things out. Other than Tibet permits Chengdu is also the place to come if you want to see Panda’s although obviously not in the wild, man has long ruined that one! There is a conservation and breeding centre just outside of town set up to try and boost the slowly dwindling numbers of these fantastic, if not a little lazy creatures – they lounge around eating tones of bamboo all day and don’t really do much else, can’t even be arsed to breed that much! I was expecting a seaworld-esque centre of entertainment – Panda’s jumping through hoops, riding mini tricycles, juggling, ok may be not!! It was nice to see them just doing what panda’s do, flopping around and eating (think I’d make a good panda!) in what was meant to be a natural environment although I don’t think they find silver bowls of food out in the forest! The same day back in town we also stumbled across the people’s park where we found 100’s of local folk dancing to traditional music, singing, doing Tai Chi, aerobics classes, kite flying, playing badminton and lots more. Was fascinating just to wander round and see them just enjoying themselves, shame I didn’t have a camera but equally it also felt a little uncomfortable, like we shouldn’t be there so probably wouldn’t have taken any pictures anyway!