After my most comfortable flight ever i landed in Chengdu, I found a local bus to take me to the northern train station. The bus trip was really long and where driving everywhere. Since i didnt have any place to stay my first goal was to find an internet cafe.

Found a hostel called Traffic Inn with great reviews that i went to. The room was were fresch but extremly cold, at least the A/C was working really good so after a few hours i got a really warm and nice room. I also did some fixing of a window with toilet paper and tape to keep the heating inside…

The next day i flew to Jiuzhaigou that is a nationalpark about 350 km north of Chengdu, might sound a bit luxery to fly but the option was a bus on a bumpy road for 10 hours… The plane was a bit late so when i got to Jiuzhaigou the only way to go to the village was by black taxi and the price was 300 yuan so looked around after other travellers and found one that was also heading in the same direction so we could share the cost.

From my Tibet travel agency i got info about their hostel in the town so i headed there, it was really lousy and cold but all the other buildings looked the same so i thought it was just to face the fact that this would be really cold. The room was to big for the airconditioner that almost didnt work so after a while i came up with the solution. I boiled water and filled into bottles that i put in my sleeping bag, it worked really good and this was the solution for the rest of my trip.

In the morning it was just to go to the park entrence and when i was on my way to the bus (too big to walk around all the park) i met a chinese that was also travelling on her own so we had a view of the park together. I usually take a lot of photoes but she took a million so i guess she had a lot of work to look through all the pictures when she got home. I know i usually think its tireding to look through all of mine. The bus went all the way to the top and then it was possible to walk or take the bus back. There was several bus stops on the way down so if you got tired of walking it was just to jump on the next bus.

The park had several small lakes with green/blue water that really nice and also two really wide waterfalls. It was a nice place but i guess its best to go there in the fall for the best experience, at the same time then the park is crowded so i dont know if it would be so nice anyway…

Met a German on the way down that i also met the day before on my hostel so he came along and after the visit to the park we headed back to get some food at the hostel. We ordered two dishes but were lucky and only got one of them. A chopped bluecolored chicken leg and i had one piece before i went and boughht instant noodles. I think its the most horrible i have eaten this far and the scorpions and grasshoppers in Wangfujing seams like the best meal compared to it.

After suffering for another cold night i went back to Chengdu, the flight was late again. This time due to the fact that they were not able to clear the 5 cm of snow that had been falling during the night.

Back in Chengdu i scheduled a trip for the following day to their panda breathing center and also a Sichuan opera show. DOnt like zoos but had been told that this was more natural and like their normal environment. IT ended up being a zoo like all the others small cages and the places outside was 10×10 meters, They also had the red panda and got there the time they was going to have their injection, so 15 workers running around screaming to catch them one by one. Cant say i got a better view of a zoo after that…

Since the Sichuan opera was scheduled for the evening i got some hours after the visit to the pandas to explore downtown Chengdu. Since its impossible to get a taxi in Chengdu i had to risk my life on the back of a scooter. I went to the central square where they have a huge Mao statue and afterwards i headed for a park. Not really too much to see in the city and i headed back to the hostel to catch my ride to the show.

The Sichuan opera was not a full show but they had picked up some parts that was famous from different ones. I guess it was good since i would probably had gotten bored. Its famous for doing fire tricks and also change faces (masks). The mask changing was really interesting and they had 5-10 masks on them. In a very quick move they were able to get rid of the top one to change to another one. It was a nice performace but too cold as usual…

Next day i took a bus to Leshan to watch their big budda. A boring bus ride but it was ok, the budda was huge and its told that it was carved out of the mountain to protect all the boats since lots of boats had sunk in that area. Of course budda helped and after finishing they cold have a safer boat ride, now they most people think its because of all the material that was carved out of the mountain that made the river more accessible. I guess its depending on your believe whats the correct answer.

Back in Chengdu i had dinner with the chinese and a german i met in Jiuzhaigou before i headed back and started to pack my bags for my Tibet adventure.