sichuan, baby!

Feeding time (every three hours, or so) at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Facility




"I'm so cute, I exist despite my species' staunch proclivity toward extinction."




"Is there a carbon monoxide leak in here?"

The rail station at Chengdu resembled every other rail station I've seen in China. The Chinese, I later proposed to friends newly made, haven't suffered the luxury of metropolises long enough to internalize the need to escape, to nature, to solitude. Shopping malls are still a novelty. The surrounding area, too, was generically Chinese. Dusty, dirty commercial centers, lots of cabs and cars. Only this was Sichuan, and not Shanghai - Chengdu, while a junior Chinese cosmopolitan of eleven million strong, still lagged behind its coastal counterparts in many respects. There was no subway system. Squatter toilets would be the norm.

Chengdu - and Sichuan at large - is notoriously care-free, to the point of scornable laziness, to the mind of the typically type-A, fashion-forward, money-driven Shanghainese. (Fitting that the giant panda, mind-blowingly lazy/cute spetial leech makes its home here.) It's also, I discovered, a backpackers' haven. Chengdu is the gateway to a number of attractive adventures - the last big Chinese city before the mighty Tibetan Autonomous Region to the west; exotic XinJiang to the north, and the splendid southern Yangtse River regions of Yunnan and Guangzhou.

Sichuan itself is famously beautiful. Magical, mist-shrouded mountains and mirrored lakes line the northen region. Cultural minorities and their farms and ponies and snow-capped pilgrimages can be found in pockets along the southern and western borders. I decided that Jiu Zhai Go, a picturesque reserve 330 km north of Chengdu was a must-see; the Shaolin mountains nearer to Chengdu would make good day trips; Tibet, if accessible, would be a treat.