The Giant Panda Base

Friday 11^th Oct.

Luckily we felt fine when we woke up, so we left Cosy Garden, and walked towards the bus station. Just the thought of noodles, or any chinese food, made us feel sick again, but we had to find some breakfast for our empty stomachs. Yoghurt was the only thing, that could satisfy us at that moment, but unfortunately hard to find. After going through most of the stores on the way, we ended up finding what we needed. Yeeaah!

We had to get some food for our trainride aswell, the most common thing to bring is cupnoodles, but no way, we were not going down that road again. We got by with fruit, crackers and yoghurt.

In Guilin we got surrounded by a lot of fake cabdrivers, they offer to drive you to all the near by cities, but they only know the city names, or train/busstations, they don’t understand a word of English. To get rid of them, we just mention a city that’s really far away, then they stop following us. Or if we need to kill the time, we sometimes stop, and pretend to be interested, and have a chat with them in chinese/danish. That’s good intertainment.

Since we didn’t book the traintickets, we were kind of excited to see, if there was available tickets left to Chengdu (only one departure each day). Second time this day we got lucky, and just managed to buy the tickets 10 min. before the office closed. The trainride went even smoother this time, and it was even 5 hours longer (almost 25 hours in total). Had hard-sleeper tickets again, this time we both got the top beds. It’s more comfortable up there, cause the people in the isle can’t stare at you, you’re closer to your belongings on the shelf, and it’s actually also the cheapest bed you can get – so that’s a win win win situation!!

Saturday 12^th Oct.

In the morning I was sitting in the isle, reading in our “bible” lonely planet, and at some point I looked up, and around me was 4-5 women, just starring at me. I assume they never saw a light redhaired before, so I said ‘Nihao’ (hey) to them, and they all started giggling, as a bunch of teenagers would do. Well I was in a good mood, so I tried to teach them, some english phrases from lonely planet, and they tried to teach me some chinese. I don’t think, any of us learned anything from that, but it was quite fun and we had a little laugh together. I tried to read again, but they were so curious about my book, that I couldn’t concentrate.

We’ve experienced the chinese curiosity a lot, we’re not sure if its just us, they are curious about or if they’re just curious in general. Anyway they have no sense of keeping a distance to strangers, like if we’re looking, at our map to find our directions, it’s not uncommon that 2-10 people will stop, and just look over our shoulders, not to help, but really just because of their curiosity. That’s something we will never get totally use to (one out of a million things)!

We found a couchsurfer host in Chengdu, eventhough it was with a really short notice (2 days before arrival). We wasn’t exactly sure how to get there, so we started up finding the city center, and a starbucks café, to charge the computer and phone (there’s no power on the trains), so we at least had a chance to contact our host, and ask for further details, about transportation opportunities.  

Eventually we found the right place, and our host Mary picked us up at the busstop. It was a mom and her daughter that should host us, but apparently the daughter is studying in Beijing, so it was only her mom hosting us, who was terrible at English. Oh well it was a free place to crash, so we didn’t care.

We lived in a very local part, and were both very sceptical, when we walked through the area, which mostly looked like an old ghetto, with ancient builings, dirty streets, dogs barking and small shops with local articles.

The entrance to the building, definitely didn’t look inviting, and the lights didn’t work in the lower part of the stairways (we lived on 4^th floor). It was so dirty and disgusting, that we almost turned around again, ready to book a hostel instead. If the apparentment had been in the same conditions inside, we would have left immediately. But to our big surprise, it was clean and neat, and we got our own room with a bathroom (even with a western toilet), so we couldn’t complain at all.

We communicated with our host through google translate, it took a while but we managed to understand each other this way. She offered to cook dinner for us, but we had already eaten, and was still not ready for chinese dishes, specially not meat, so we lied to her, and told her we were vegetarians, and wasn’t hungry. We wanted to avoid getting sick again, and also because we saw how the meat was treated, just outside her apartment. We arranged that she should cook for us the day after, but vegetarian food.  

She showed us a massage place, it was 35 RMB (32,5kr) for an hour. We couldn't reject that offer, so we went there later. It was one big room with 4 massage beds, no curtains in between. Chinese massage is without oil, and with clothes on, so that makes sense with the social room. You get what you pay for, so there were a lot of noise from other customers, the tv, the masseuses and a guy playing loud games on his phone. The massage was okay, and well worth the money.   

Mary was really interested in our country, eventhough it didn’t seemed like she knew where it’s located. She wanted to see the danish money, and had a lot of questions for us. She realized how small Denmark is, when we told her that the population in Denmark is half as many, as the population in Chengdu.

My new curious friends, from the train, (several horses would be jealous on those teeths).

Very cosy bedroom in Chengdu

Amazing view from the balcony at out host Mary

Sunday 13^th Oct.

Got up really early to make sure, that we would make it in time to the Panda breeding base. We took the public transportation to get there, which is always a challenge in China.

The pandas are most active, when they eat in the morning, and we got there just in time, to see both adults and young pandas eat. They’re so cute, and really lazy creatures. We saw the panda nursery aswell, they are extremely tiny when they are borned, around 120-150 g. Would fit perfectly into a pocket! The black spots first start to appear after 2-3 weeks. This breeding center, is the one that breeds giant pandas, to the rest of the worlds  zoo’s (or the few zoo’s around the world that has giant pandas), a really nice experience to see these animals, that’s most likely to be extinquished from the nature, within the next couple of decades. L

After the panda park, we took the bus into Chengdu downtown, to have a good solid meal in the afternoon, in case we didn’t like the food, our host would serve us… We shared a very expensive pizza (99 RMB), and walked around for quite a while, cause we hadn’t got a good map over Chengdu – but eventually we found the right bus, and got home to a delicious homemade vegetarian dinner, with rise, eggs, potatos and a lot of vegetables. Maybe it’s not the last time, we have become vegetarians on this trip.

It was a short visit in Chengdu, and we basically only went there, to see the giant pandas. We’re happy, that we decided to do so, since China is the home-country of them, and they are their most respected, and beloved animals (beside the dragons). Not seeing the pandas, while you’re in China, would be the same as, not seeing the pyramids, while you’re in Egypt!

One of the better public busses... 

Little cute one

Ohhh 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10....

Panda playground

Lazy red pandas chilling after breakfast


And of course a little video of the cute pandas

Monday 14^th Oct.

So... the next morning we left Chengdu, with another (and hopefully the last in China) hard-sleeper train towards Kunming (the capital in the Yunnan province). Actually our plans were to travel, to the north of the province, but because we have got so tired of the chinese people, and our constantly communication problems with them, we decided that 5+ weeks in China must be enough, and now we wanna try something new, and hopefully within the next couple of weeks, being able to find a beach, with some nice cold drinks.

Well… As we were waiting for the train, at the departure hall, we were surrounded by old, dirty chinese men, and we prepared ourselves, that this train ride, probably would be the worse. The older men spit, smoke and smell, plus they are REALLY loud, so this was gonna be a hell of a ride – and as Jannik told us in Shanghai: Remember kids – in hell the time stands still!!!

None of us believe in god, but someone must have hold their hands over us, because as the gate opened, and all of us walked towards the train, we realized that there was 2 trains departing, at the same time, and most of all these old men, were going with the other train. Such a relief, and the train ride (20 hours) were just like the others we did.

Trainride to Kunming

Cracker woman

My little nerd

Tuesday 15^th Oct.

Once again we arrived just on time, and we quickly found our bus (we always right up the directions, and bus numbers before going to a new place, so that we know exactly what to do upon arrival), towards the hostel, that we decided to go to. We didn’t make a reservation, but got a 4 bed dormitory (for 45 Yuan each pr. night). We checked the wifi connection, which was the worse we have had so far!

W e found some dark bread at a bakery nearby, and made some danish style sandwiches, for both dinner, and lunch the next day.

Well anyways we had to figure out, several things concerning the transportation to Vietnam, and what to do at the border, when entering Vietnam. We agreed to stay 2 nights in Kunming, and I went to the reception to book the next night in advance, so we were sure to have a room, unfortunately the reception girl couldn't think longer, than I can throw a full grown buffalo, so I got really annoyed of her, not understanding me. I didn’t want to stay there another night, if they were that stupid. Went back to Erik and told him about it, and we decided to book another hostel for the upcoming night. Was really tired of chinese people not understanding simple things, our patience has run out.

Next day at the new hostel we ordered rice for dinner, but guess what! They ran out of rice… and beef. How can a restaurant in China run out of rice, I still don’t get it. China is the country of rice. What, no rice? Really!!?

Earlier same day we tried to order fried vegetables, but got rare vegetables, they didn’t know what fried ment, eventhough they had tons of fried-rice on their menu card. We left the restaurant, shaking our heads, without eating or paying... Instead we found some fresh made sushi, from a hole-in-the-wall kitchen (street kitchen).

Now we were as ready as ever to leave China.

GOODBYE CHINA!!!

Shopping streetfood again

Fresh made sushi.. No rare meat, but can tuna and vegetables.. Yummi..!