After two months of studying, we got a well-deserved two week Summer holiday! Where most of my classmates went back to Europe, I decided to travel a bit in Sichuan. It happen to be that Erika joined an exchange group of Dutch students who were going to Sichuan to visit some areas that were hit by the big earthquake a year ago. In order to get acquainted with developmental work, they had meetings with a.o. NGO's, and they visited schools to organize activities and games with local schoolkids.
I met up with Erika and her group in Chengdu, and joined them for their last week in Sichuan. Sichuan is located in the South-East of China and from its capital Chengdu it is a 3 hr flight to Beijing. I arrived in the early evening and while having a walk with Erika in Chengdu's city center, we saw these statues of "Western" people. Chinese people pose next to these statues as to be on a picture with a "Westerner". I know that Chengdu is less of an international city as Beijing, having less foreigners as their inhabitants, but still.. Is it really necessary to pose next to a statue of a foreigner? I sometimes feel that the obsession that some Chinese have with "Westerners" is not healthy. Towards the end of my holiday, I was in Chengdu with Simon and I showed him the statues. We thought of a nice business plan in which he would stand next to the statues, eating a Big Mac and drinking a Coke, and I would ask 10 kuai for every picture taken with him. Now that's a business!
The next day we went to see Sichuan Opera. This was actually the first time for me to see a Chinese Opera. I have never been to any Beijing Opera, because in my mind (and this might be incorrect) it is an play, with continuously high pitched singing to which I can listen to to a certain extent. Not for more than 30 min. Sichuan Opera is famous for its mixture of several acts for example slapstick, erhu performance, puppet-shows, face changing and fire breathing. The show was obviously set up for tourists; it was possible to get a massage before the performance or even during the performance, which Erika and I signed up for ;)Even though it is not really my cup of tea, the Sichuan Opera was quite entertaining. I might give the Beijing Opera a chance now as well..
One of the best kept secrets of Sichuan Opera is the changing of faces. The performers change their masks so fast, that within a blink of the eye, they suddenly have a difference face. I must say that the effect is quite impressive. As with most magician tricks, you'll never find out how they do it, unless you become a magician yourself.
Chengdu and the East of Sichuan has a subtropical humid monsoon climate. The summer season is the season of rain. Here is a picture of Wangjianglou park. This park is also known as Bamboo park as it has more than 150 varieties of bamboo. Since last year, the local government has cancelled all the entrance fees to the parks to stimulate the tourism. As the rain was pouring out of the sky, there were not many people visiting the park.
And the people that were present, preferred to drink a nice cup of tea in tea houses like this:
This picture is taken on the road to Sichuan's second largest city, Mianyang. Also known to be the cleanest city of whole China. The city itself was only lightly damaged by the earthquake, other areas within the Mianyang prefecture were among the most heavily hit areas. The houses with the blue rooftops are prefab houses, temporary houses for the people who lost their homes to live in.
We visited two schools near Mianyang. This is the first school, and as you can see, the kids were all lined up to welcome us. This school only has around 30 middle school kids, coming from different villages in the area.
The Dutch youngsters organized activities for the kids like musical chair, football and singing class and the Chinese kids had a fun morning. I spoke to one of the teachers and she told me that their school was visited often by foreigners who come and undertake activities with the kids. The tour guide who was with our group told me that she is happy that people from the West are concerned and even though there's nothing that these activities can do for the kids on the long-term, at least for the moment, for this morning, everybody was having a great time.
In the afternoon we visited another school. Our bus was too big for the little road that led to the second school.
This school was attended by considerably more children.
Handling a classroom full of kids is certainly not an easy job.
Many people from the villages in this area had come to the school to see what was going to happen. Considerably more people were watching and curious about these foreigners (of whom most have Chinese origins) coming to the school and doing activities with the kids. I guess this school was not used to visitors as much as the first school.
The contrast between the old and the new houses was tremendously big!
New house:
Old house:
What I heard was that most newly build houses were funded by companies or individuals. It is not so clear were the money of the government was spend on exactly, except for some of the prefab houses and schools.
I wonder what all these kids were thinking..
Next item on the programme was a visit to Leshan ("Happy Mountain"), home of the world largest stone-carved Buddha, 大佛 (dàfó = big buddha). The construction period lasted for 90 years, and the 71m high Buddha is the protector of the boatmen. The first thing you see when you arrive, is his head. Then you can descend a stairway on his side and slowly see his grandeur be revealed to you.
Unfortunately, many Chinese had a holiday and of course they ALL wanted to see Dafo! I don't remember anymore how long we stood in line to reach the stairway down. But it reminded me all too much of Xizhimen during rushhour.
When we finally arrived at the stairway going down, we were hoping for a somewhat fast descent, but of course we should have known better. The line just continued on the stairway down to the feet of Mr. Dàfó.
One glance of Dàfó..
Many glances of the tourists like me.
His big toe is 8.5 meter long..
Very impressive to stand as his feet and look up to him.
After Leshan, we went to Emei Shan. Emei Shan is one of the four famous Buddhist mountains in China. We arrived in Emei city, about 7 km away from the mountain. Here I said goodbye to Erika and her group and I went to Baoguo village; a one-street village at the foot of the mountain. Here I would meet up with Simon who had been travelling in the West of Sichuan. I wandered around myself that day, waiting for Simon to come, and I walked a bit up the mountain already. The scenery is beautiful, and it was great to be surrounded by nature as in Beijing it is hard to find. I wasn't the only one enjoying the greenery and the freshness of the little river.
Macaques live on Emei Mountain, and we were warned for them harrassing travellers as you climb up the mountain. The Lonely Planet actually recommended to bring a fixed-length umbrella to use for the rain, as a walking stick and as a warning to the monkeys! Well, 99% of all the monkeys I saw were the ones that this little boy is carrying around his neck.
In the early evening, Simon arrived in Baoguo village, and to pay our honours to the good ol' times when we were both living in Beijing, we had the street BBQ with Baijiu!
The next day we left at around noon. We took a bus to Jingshui, about 500m up the mountain and starting walking up the steep steeeeep stairs! Another option was to get carried up the mountain as quite a lot of other people were doing. What a job!
I don't recall having walked up so many stairs before in my life.
But the views were amazingly beautiful!
This little horse gave a good example of how to walk down the stairs. Do it zigzagging!
We spent the night at Huayan temple, after walking for more than 6 hours.
During the walk we hardly saw any other tourists.
And there is nothing better than arriving at a peaceful monastery, after an intensive walk up the mountain for several hours.
There was even a hot shower!
Simon has fans everywhere in China! The next day a couple with their three daughters arrived at this summit and they were just lovely!
This is the only monkey we saw during our whole walk up the mountain. He wasn't harassing anyone!
On the way up ,there are many little snack corners like this one. No need to starve on the way up!
Again the steep stairs!
The more we ascended, the more misty it became, causing these mystifying views of the huge trees.
I love this one!
We walked until we were at about 2540m in height on the mountain. At that point there was a connection to the road, and buses were just pouring out the tourists. It was just so annoying, after having such a long walk through a very peaceful environment. The fog became thicker as well, and we decided not to go to the top of the mountain. After walking more than 20 km, ascending more than 1500m, spending the night in a monastery which gave me the feeling of sleeping in the sky, amongst the clouds, we decided not to ruin the good memory of Emei Shan by going to the top and be overrun by tourists. The fog would not have allowed us to see anything anyway. So we took a bus back to Baoguo village, and then got a ride back to Chengdu.
Chengdu cannot be mentioned without thinking about Panda's! The Giant Panda Breeding Research Base is located in Chengdu.
The baby panda's are so tiny!
I am back in Beijing and enjoying my last free days before school starts again on Monday!
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