Originally uploaded by bendyphotography.com
While life in the crazy city of Shanghai has yet to prove dull, we recently craved a relaxing retreat from the insanity of being pushed, pulled, honked at, and/or constantly HALLOOO-ed at by the rowdy Shanghainese crowd. So we left the huge city for the peace and tranquility of… another huge Chinese city. You know, it really is very difficult these days to find what one would describe as a “small Chinese city.” While the traditional images of small rural oases where skyscrapers are replaced by rolling karst mountains and crowded streets are traded for rice paddies are definitely out there, they have been a fairly rare sight in my journeys so far. I guess the effects of economic development have made Chinese villages more meccas for new shopping malls and KFCs than teahouses and old Chinese courtyards.
The wonderful thing about Chengdu is that, while being a huge city in China and having all the signs of recent economic growth, it has still preserved a lot of good ole traditional Chinese charm. In fact, the entirety of what I believe to be the delicious, crunchy nougat-core of Chinese culture is fully encapsulated in this great city.
For our seven-day break over the Chinese National Holiday, three other friends and I ventured out to Chengdu and traveled around western Sichuan province. The first two days consisted of enjoying the beautiful city of Chengdu. For centuries, Chengdu has been known for its delicious spicy food, friendly people, and laid-back atmosphere. It’s what I like to think of as the ATL of China. We spent our first few days there taking in some local temples, getting much needed massages, and, actually, doing pretty much nothing at all. But that’s the beauty of Chengdu. Coming to Chengdu and planning out non-stop activities would be an injustice to the atmosphere of the city. Instead, we lived like the locals – sitting around in teahouses and enjoying the weather, some green tea, and a good hand of cards. Sooo nice compared to the hectic pace of Shanghai.
We spent a good majority of our time trying out the notoriously spicy food. Sichuan food is known for liberally employing what I call “tongue-number” – a peppercorn which isn’t so much spicy as anesthetic. A few bites of food in Chengdu and your tongue will start to tingle. Then you’ll curse yourself for accidentally ordering a dish with tongue-number again as your entire mouth turns numb. I’ve never enjoyed this sensation before, but after this trip to Chengdu, I have to say I kind of miss the strange spicy numbing flavor.
One of the nights we spent in Chengdu was the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. I think this is the closest equivalent of our Thanksgiving – families get together, eat good food, and then “gaze at the moon.” We managed to do two of those things. Luckily, Stephanie has family living in Chengdu, so we were hospitably welcomed into their home for the evening. We had a great time – spending hours making about 10 pounds of big dumplings from scratch and then gorging ourselves. I didn’t count how many dumpling I ate, but if I had to put a number on it, I would say about 21? Yikes. Her family was super nice and even pretended to understand my limited Chinese.
The next day we ventured outside the city limits to see the big Buddha in Sichuan province. Carved into a rock cliff on the side of a river, it is supposedly the largest Buddha in the world. I offered some prayers, so if you’re a friend or family you’re good and blessed for the next year or so.
We then travelled out to Emei Shan – one of the holiest Buddhist mountains in China. This place definitely makes top 5 in the places I’ve been in the country. While the bottom and top of the mountain are swarming with tourists, the hikes in between were absolutely breathtaking and blissful. Our first day, we got up in the wee hours of the morning to hop on a bus to the mountain. After two hours of ascending up and up, watching the sun slowly rise and the dew collect on our rainforesty surroundings, we arrived at a bus stop about halfway up the mountain and started our trek. Now ya’ll, hiking in China is drastically different than hiking in America. I’ve visited three different mountains in China, and at every one, the trails up to the top are basically just long, steep, never-ending series of stone steps. AKA misery. So for about two hours we huffed and puffed up to the summit, climbing stair after stair, stopping only when the Chinese tourists asked us to take pictures with them. However, the pain was definitely worth it. We got up to the Golden Summit, a peak with a beautiful golden statue of buddha Puxian and some temples, and saw only a sea of clouds below us and blue sky above. We grabbed a restorative lunch of corn-on-the-cob and meat-on-a-stick, and we vegged out, taking in the beautiful scenery that China is known for.
The next day, we spent some more time hiking around the bottom part of the mountain. Here we were free of the main tourist crowd to take in the beautiful rainforest solo. It’s so rare here to see any piece of land that hasn’t been taken advantage of commercially, so being in the middle of the woods alone was wonderful. We hiked around for hours, occasionally running across a small temple or a noodle stand. As it started lightly raining, we ducked into the main hall of one temple, completely dark and abandoned save for one monk chanting his mantras. As we sat listening and watching the rain come down, I wondered if some of the mountain’s residents had ever ventured out of these woods before. On the way there, we saw many hired men carrying heavy loads of supplies down the forest trails and into these small temples and houses. Had the people living there ever had to visit the outside world before? Or did they only know the forest and the occasional tourist group peeking in at their doorways? I guess it’s most likely they had been out many times and were actually listening to Britney Spears on their knock-off iPhones in the back. But at the time, the romance of this ignorance was pretty enviable.
Last but not least, we encountered the monkeys. We had heard rumors of the legendary “Monkey Zone” on Emei Shan. But not until we had monkeys swinging from our backpacks did we realize how intense it would be. Along our hike, we had many Chinese tourists stop us and tell us to hide all of our food and water in our backpacks. “There are monkeys coming up,” they would say. Uhhh ok. Rounding the corners of the mountain we were on constant look out for surprise simians – laughing awkwardly as we realized that we were all holding our breath, legitimately scared of the impending encounter. Later on in the hike, we heard screams on the trail ahead and braced ourselves. We walked up to find a good three-foot tall monkey glaring at one frozen Chinese girl, a whole ripped in her poncho where the monkey had tried to go in for the goods. We speed-walked down the trail, narrowly avoiding attack until one lunged at my hand. But we got through ok. It was only later that we realized we would have to walk through the Monkey Zone again to get home. There was no other way. And this time we weren’t so lucky. Liz actually had one huge monkey jump on her back, and she had to swing around violently to fling it off of her. One elderly Chinese lady, who we later realized worked there, screamed at us WALK WALK WALK in Chinese and then accompanied us bodyguard-style down the rest of the path. At one point she stopped, walked into the woods, came back with large stones, and then made us get together in huddle formation as she passed out stones and counseled us on what the rest of the trail would be like. Unfortunately we didn’t understand a word of this. Walking on, I looked back to see Liz’s latest assailant, the old grandpa monkey with one arm. He had been silently stalking us. As we walked quickly on, I realized the one-armed monkey was gaining on us, gimping faster and faster down the trail. At last when we crossed the wooden bridge near the end of the trail, I looked back to see the monkey hobbling full-speed across the bridge at us. I yelled THE ONE-ARMED MONKEY IS COMING and we all proceeded to scream humiliatingly loud as our bodyguard chucked rocks at it. Lucky for us she was there because the monkey ran past us and down the path, leaving us extremely embarrassed but nonetheless untouched by his one greedy monkey hand.
So there it is. My week in Sichuan. We also managed to throw in some pandas and hot springs for good measure, but I think this entry is about as lengthy as need be. The week was absolutely wonderful and it made me truly realize how happy I am to be back in China. Until next time, check out Flickr for more pictures – including Halloween fun with the kiddies!
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