China Pt 2: Chengdu and Guilin
We arrived in Chengdu early in the afternoon and our hotel was just minutes from the highspeed railway station. We checked in, and then immediately went back to the station for a little day trip. We were on the train to Chongqing to explore the weird and wonderful city.
 |
| Up on the 27th floor! |
From the station in Chongqing, we caught the metro and headed to the city centre to find some of the sights which best encapsulate the oddity of the city.
Our first stop was Hongyadong Cave. It was a higgldy piggldy building full of shops built on the side of a cliff which meant that we entered from the road (on ground level) but when we looked over the balcony towards the river, we were actually on the 9th floor!
We then walked along the road overlooking the river for a little while until we got to the Kuixing building. This was another illusion building. Once again we went just one flight of stairs up from ground level to reach a lovely plaza with Chinese style buildings surrounding it, but when we walked to the other side of the plaza and looked down over the bridge, we were 22 stories up!
Mitchell enjoyed this a lot and is was very weird to experience. The city (or this part of it at least) is built on the side of a cliff, so the whole thing is stacked very unevenly. We went for dinner at another vegetarian buffet, which we're pretty sure was the same chain we ate at in Xi'an, and got to see the busy city centre.
After eating, we had one more stop to make, the Liziba building. We took the metro which when we got on was underground, and got off at the top of a building. We then had to go down 5 flights of stairs to reach ground level and find the photo spot.
There were lots of people gathered on the opposite side of the road, and we just had to wait a few minutes until the next train arrived, and pulled straight into the side of the building, 5 floors up!
This was the end of our little Chongqing adventure, as it was getting late and we had a fairly long train journey back to Chengdu.
The next day was panda day! We didn't get up too early, as we'd come to the conclusion that everyone gets up very early to try and "beat the crowds" but this means that mornings are actually very busy and the afternoons are actually less busy.
So, we got a late breakfast in a little café in the city, and then found the tourist bus which took us straight to the panda centre where there were pandas everywhere.
The bus went to the west gate which was almost completely empty and we got to visit the first round of panda enclosures with barely anyone else there. It was feeding time for the pandas, so even though it was hot, they were up and about roaming their cages and eating (and pooping)bamboo.
We saw the big ones, and went to see the little ones, and then the red ones too.
After getting the bus back into the city, we went to visit the old town of Juilin and see the market.
We were pretty tired out by the end of the day, especially as it was so hot! But the next morning we had a bit of a lie-in as our train wasn't until 10:30.
The train took us to Guilin, the smallest of the cities we'd been to so far (but still big enough to have a high speed railway).
When we arrived, our hotel was so lovely, the area was very cheap, so I'd paid a little extra to have a room with a tea set laid out and a balcony. It looked over the river and we enjoyed a cup of Chinese tea before heading out to explore.
We walked around the city and up and down the river before deciding on Italian for dinner. We were about to go and visit the Sun and Moon Pagodas, but as soon as we left the restaurant, it started to rain so heavily! We ran back to the hotel, but were drenched in minutes. Unlike Thailand though, the rain didn't last hours and after we got back inside it wasn't long before it stopped.
For our full day in Guilin, we weighed up a day trip to XingPing or exploring more of the city, and decided that we'd rather stay in one place rather than work out another transportation system. We went first to Seven Star Park which was huge and had trails, monkeys, small temples and ponds.
It also had a cave system which was absolutely massive and you had to have a guide take you through.
After this enormous park we went back to our hotel to have a little rest as it was just down the road. On the way, we passed a little shop selling egg wrap things (she cooked a big crepe with purple batter and extra egg on top, then folded it up with vegetables, spicy sauce and crunchy wafers inside) and grabbed two for lunch which were very tasty.
Refuelled, we went back to the river and walked up until we reached Fubo Park. This was a smaller park than the one we visited in the morning, but it came with higher trails and better views. It also had a cave filled with Buddhas.
After seeing all this, we had one more area to visit. Back along the other way, we went to see elephant hill, called that because it looks like an elephant and his trunk drinking the water of the river.
Just behind the elephant was the Sun and Moon Pagodas, and today there was no rain so we went to see them too. We managed to time it so that we got there just as it was getting dark and the towers were lighting up.
Exhausted, but happy that we'd seen everything we wanted to, we started to walk back to our hotel, and went via the pedestrian road where there was a huge market going on. I saw the most European looking people I'd seen all week here, who knew that this particular market was a hotspot!
We got some baked goods to take back to the hotel with us and ended our time in China as we were up for an early flight the next morning.
China was incredible, and so much better than I had expected. I thought it would be overwhelming with the language barrier and the fact that they don't see much international tourism, but everyone was so friendly and the cities and sites were absolutely amazing to see in person. It's definitely in my top countries, and maybe even my favourite so far!
See you next time,
lots of love,
Emily and Mitchell
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Comments
Post a Comment