17: Sichuan: Buddhas, Pandas, Gorges, Mountains & More
4 July 2002
We’re back on the road in China again, after much pampering and yummy food at home in Thailand. Using numerous buses, trams, and trains, we went from Hong Kong through Guangzhou (great food, but not much else to see) to the river town of Yichang.
Three Gorges
One of the most touted experiences in China is sailing down the Yangtze River through the Three Gorges. You’re supposed to see various priceless historical monuments and towns before they are forever submerged under a 550km-long lake formed by the Three Gorges Dam. That was the rhetoric put out by the travel industry, however, most other travellers told us to just skip the Three Gorges. But we went on ahead anyway…
And since our expectations were so low, the journey turned out to be very pleasant. We weren’t travelling the ideal way, since we had to sail upriver from Yichang to Chongqing. We took the slow boat (the other options were a hideously expensive foreigners’ tour boat or the hydrofoil) and ended up spending 52 hours on the water. It was relaxing and mellow. We had our 4-bed second-class cabin to ourselves for most of the journey, and it was certainly deluxe with a TV, huge windows, and a bathroom (at least it’s deluxe compared with all the other accommodation we’ve been staying at).
The boat was also curiously empty – maybe 15% occupancy – and most of the Chinese spent the time inside their cabins watching TV. We had the top deck mostly to ourselves. Food on the boat left much to be desired – our meals were either ramen or cabbages and rice. The Three Gorges themselves were pretty, but I wouldn’t call them spectacular. Unfortunately we missed the smallest and sheerest of the gorges as the boat went through at night, but the other two were pleasant enough with sheer cliffs rising up two to five hundred meters. After the dam is finished, the water level is supposed to rise 175 meters. Many of the towns we passed had already been evacuated, in preparation for next year’s first water rising. You could see the deserted houses forming a ghost town up to a certain level on the bank. Then above that are all new condos and apartment buildings. We didn’t really seem to see many historical monuments that will be covered by the water, but maybe we just weren’t looking hard enough.
The Biggest Buddha in the World
After the boat trip, we headed to Leshan. The town’s star attraction is the Da Fo (“Big Buddha”), the biggest Buddha in the world at 71 meters. The one that once stood in Afghanistan, sadly, used to be the second-largest Buddha. There’s not much to be said about this Buddha, except that he’s very very big. The carving isn’t done in too much detail and from a distance, he somewhat resembles a chunky transformer robot toy. The location, however, is splendid. The grounds around the Da Fo are made of lush green forests with various tombs, pagodas, temples and other interesting sites scattered throughout. Da Fo presides over the intersection of two rivers, placing him in a delightfully scenic setting. We spent several days in Leshan because, even though there isn’t too much to do, the people were very friendly. We just hung out and drank countless cups of tea by the river.
One Million Steps
After the relaxation of boating and Leshan, we headed off to climb one of China’s sacred Buddhist mountains – Emei Shan.
Well, to be more honest, we cheated by taking a bus up to the top and just descending the mountain. I’m glad we did so, because the descent was enough to kill me. The whole path is paved and mostly consists of tiny slippery stone/concrete steps. I figure we descended a million steps (more or less), since the mountain is 3099 meters high. It certainly felt like a million, and a week later my calves are still sore.
Unfortunately, it rained and misted all through the first four hours and we couldn’t see very much of the top at all. At one point, the fog parted and we glimpsed the most breathtaking cliff edge, but even before I could pull out my camera, it quickly disappeared into the fog again. When we were lower down on the mountain, the rain cleared and we could see lush green forests with waterfalls and sheer cliffs all around.
However, the more entertaining aspects of Emei Shan are the people. Since it is a sacred mountain, there are tons of pilgrims headed up and down. These are mostly wizened old women with rubber slippers who fly down the mountain past us! Others who are not so healthy are carried down on the backs of porters, sitting in a contraption that resembles a baby carrier. Along the path are also gangs of fierce hungry monkeys. Thank goodness we’d been forewarned and carried walking sticks with us to fend them off – it was quite scary to see the alpha male baring his teeth and hissing at us.
Pandas! Pandas! Pandas!
Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, is just another busy, well-planned Chinese city with wide boulevards, bike lanes, and parks. I’ve really gotten to love Chinese cities at night, and Chengdu was no exception. It’s a lot cooler at night so everyone comes out to congregate in a buzzing cosmopolitan mass. People are out and about to see the opera, eat, chat, go shopping, and visit with friends. There’s a huge mass of energy and excitement, from the pedicab drivers hawking their rides to the street vendors calling out their delicious food.
But the highlight of Chengdu, and maybe of China, has got to be the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base. At the breeding center, we got to see about eight different giant pandas. We arrived early in the morning to see the adorable creatures eating breakfast. They are just so roly-poly and cute, sitting up and eating various twigs and shoots of bamboo, spitting out the hard bits onto their tummies. We saw two babies waddling around, playing in the ponds, and ineffectively trying to climb trees. And even though it’s kind of bad for their future release into the wild (if the government will ever let that happen), I did get to hold a baby panda on my lap for a few precious minutes. He was darn heavy, but oh-so-cuddly as he tried to nibble on my hands.
Doing Nature with the Chinese
OK, I’m done being cutesy.
Now we’re up in the northern part of Sichuan. We spent a couple of days in Jiuzhaigou National Park. The alpine scenery in the park is breathtaking – countless brilliant turquoise lakes interspersed with running rivers and waterfalls. It looks somewhat like Banff in Canada (or so Josh says). The colors of the glacier-runoff water are unbelievable, ranging from green to blue to purple. The water is crystal clear, so you can see tree trunks all the way to the bottom. The most unique aspect of Juizhaigou’s scenery is the waterfalls linking many of the lakes in a fairyland network. Scattered around the park are Tibetan settlements, so all through the hills you can see bright prayer flags fluttering.
Despite all this beauty, we both have very mixed feelings about Jiuzhaigou. Our problem, I hate to say, is with the Chinese way of enjoying nature. Huge luxury hotels are built all the way up to the front gate of the park. The entrance fee and mandatory bus ticket are prohibitively expensive. Inside the park, the buses shuttle you from attraction to attraction, while showing videos about these same attractions. Hoards of Chinese tourists rush out at each bus stop. At the most spectacular waterfalls spots, the crowds push and shove their way through unwilling lines to the exact same spot to have their photographs taken. Most of the women strike ludicrous glamour-girl poses, hair coyly flung to one side as they gaze off into the distance. Wooden plank paths covered with metal mesh pave the way between each attraction. You are not allowed off the path at all. There are barriers separating the people from each lake, waterfall, etc. And Jiuzhaigou is swarming with so many people it makes Yosemite Valley in the summer seem deserted. So I’m really torn about the park. It is such an utterly gorgeous place, yet I wandered around most of the day being pushed and shoved by Chinese hoards eager to experience nature-in-a-day.
For a much more isolated experience, we’re now in Songpan, a couple of hours away from Juizhaigou. The scenery around seems just as beautiful, and we’ll spend the next three days on a horse trek through the mountains. Since only the crazy foreigners would want to exert themselves that much, it should be a relatively peaceful experience.
