Chengdu: Home of Pandas and Sichuan food.

Arriving in Chengdu we had just taken a three day bus tour to go approximately 700km over a mountain pass. Much of this ride was in a bus that was far from comfortable. Needless to say it was nice to get to Chengdu so we could just relax for a few days and not have to worry about smoky, stinky, cramped buses for a while. Chengdu was one of my favourite cities in China. There were a few things that contributed to my liking of the city. The first reason was that we found a great place to stay called Mix & Backpackers' Hostel (http://www.donkey-pal.com/.) It was great for a few reasons: friendly staff that spoke English, great showers, western toilets, heaters in the bedrooms, free internet, and a DVD room to chill out and watch movies at night. It was a very comfortable place, and we met some cool people in Chengdu because of our stay there.

The second reason that Chengdu was so cool was because of the pandas. Just outside of Chengdu is the largest panda breeding and research facility in the world. It has approximately 60 pandas living there, and is the most successful facility for breeding pandas in the world. It only cost us 70 Yuan ($9US) to get a bus to the facility and entrance inside. We had to go to this facility early, because pandas are only active for a short time of the day, and that is when they eat in the mornings. During this morning time they eat approximately 20kg of bamboo shoot! They don't have a very good digestion system, so they have to eat a lot just to survive.

After our panda adventure we found some people at the hostel to explore the city for the day. Chengdu is the capital of the Sichuan province (many people in the west may know it better as Szechuan for the food they eat in their local Chinese restaurant,) which means it has a lot of history, and a large population (about 10 million.) We headed to this one district that had a whole bunch of street vendors and cobblestone. Apparently it was pretty popular with the Chinese tourists, because even though it seemed touristy, we were the only Westerners there.

The only disappointment I had was in the Sichuan food. I had high hopes for the local cuisine, but when we tried it we both found it quite lacking. It was very spicy, as most Szechuan dishes in the West are, but it was a spice that added no flavour other than hot. I'm all for spicy food, but this variety of spice was not very delectable.

All in all Chengdu was a great stop on our Chinese adventure. If you happen to be in Western China I would recommend this city.