Chengdu’s pand(a)emonia

Today we are six months on the road! It’s been half a year since we said goodbye and took the plane towards Southeast Asia. The good news is we’re still alive without serious health issues and we haven’t killed each other so far. There are no household troubles, as in hostels they clean the mess up after you. And the cheap Chinese beer helps to keep the spirit up.

However, our knees and backs have quite suffered from steep hikes and the load of the heavy backpacks. We feel a bit travel-weary and realize that our travels won’t be indefinite. We miss home, Leerdammer cheese, Pinot Gris, the Sunday newspaper, the luxury of our own four walls.

But we won’t give up so easily and here we are, still travelling eastwards through the Sichuan province. Did anyone mention that sometimes the worst part of travelling is quite literally the travelling part? The bus ride to the city of Kangding was a torture, as there was a lot of construction underway – China is building superhighways to Tibet with tons of brand-new construction equipment. The roads were terrible, not to mention our smoking and spitting fellow passengers, many of them nibbling on the best snack you can get in China, fatty chicken feet.

Kangding itself was unremarkable and so a cable car ride and a few days later we continued to see Sichuan’s capital, Chengdu, and try out some couchsurfing in China. The funny thing was that we slept in a tent that our host has set up in his living room. The unfunny part was that he keeps two border collies in cages on a balcony and rarely walked them. Once more we realized how animals, especially pets, are treated in Asia.

On the contrary, pandas enjoy a very good treatment, with the world’s attention and the money focused on their survival. Maybe because they draw crowds? People were ready to pay hundreds of dollars just to play a few minutes with the animals. Chinese visitors were making the usual noise talking and shouting despite the “Silence please” signs everywhere.

We enjoyed watching the big white-and-black bears (not raccoons!) and smaller red pandas so close up. The Chinese government has even introduced harsh measures to protect the mammals, as life sentences or public executions on convicted poachers.

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