China - Siuchan Province

As you read in Brian's last post, we love China!! After 3 weeks in Yunnan, we headed to Siuchan for a week, the home of spicy food! First stop was Chengdu where we bumped into Michelle who we last met in Borneo in Sims Cozy Hostel! Small world. Sims is one of the best hostels ever and if anyone is planning on going to Chengdu stay there - the hostel gym they are building will be open by the time you get there! So, with Michelle, we headed off to see a temple, the Pandas and a sichuan opera, good thing too because we were running a risk of not leaving the fantastic hostel!

The Sichuan opera was really entertaining, didn't know what to expect but it was a taste of lots of different styles of opera - acrobatics, singing, comedy, facechanging, puppets, all really entertaining but the two girls who juggled garden pots, tables, etc in synche on their legs that impressed most!

Next morning we went to see the Pandas, who are so cute, and lazy, they have a great life, sitting around eating bamboo. They are quite fussy about the bamboo they will only eat a type from the mountains which has to be fresh, they don't like the 14 types that grow in the sanctuary and Brian says I'm a fussy eater??!!. Pandas used to eat meat but have evolved to be only bamboo eaters so have to spend the whole day eating to get their nutrients. There are signs all over the sanctuary requesting quiet around the pandas, it was lovely and quiet until a tour group of about 1000 chinese children arrived. Bedlam! The funny thing is it wasn't the Pandas they were shouting at, it was us!!! 'hello, hello, welcome to china, good morning, etc'


Michelle and I went on an adventure to see the grand buddha the afternoon after the Panda

visit. We got to Leshan the location of the buddha at 5pm, the last bus back to Chengdu was at 7pm and a whirlwind ensued to get to see the buddha. We ran up stairs, got locked into a section of the park, posed for photos with a local tour group (again we were as much as a novelty as the novelty itself), got a crazy driver who deliberately went so slow i'd miss the (last) bus so he'd try and get me to pay for him to drive me 2 hours, not a chance! phew but we were rescued by a tour bus who dropped us to another bus station where they had rang ahead for another bus to take me back to chengdu and michelle got a taxi ride to her destination. Great fun though!

Jazzy Jeff - The buddha is grand like...

Next morning Brian and I headed off on a 12hour bus journey to Juizhaigao National Park in northern Sichaun. 12 hour bus journeys are (unfortunately) second nature to us. A regular bus journey is maybe 6 hours and not a bother. I can't believe I used to give out about the Newcastle West to Cork bus when I was in college! In Juizhaigao we stayed with 2 Irish guys working in the national park, Andrew and Kieran. Andrew is a friend of Richard Langford who has 3 of the Fitzsimons girls visit in the last year, he will be thinking of twinning Shanagolden with Juizhaigao soon. The lads gave us a great welcome, fed us plenty of barrys tea (yum!), and we got to explore the national park and valley nearby. Its a beautiful part of the world. A few days eating, drinking tea and seeing the sights and we headed onto to Songpan, 2 hours south of Juizhaigao. Where we met Emma, the fluent english speaking local coffee shop owner who looks after everyone who calls to the town. Emma's place provided a refuge while the electrity and water in the town were both on the blink! We went on a horse trek which was good until Roger my horse decided I should fall off without telling me, but all ok.

Another 12 hour journey back to Chengdu, roadworks!, relaxing night at Sims guesthouse and off to Nepal to see Lorraine.