Sichuan
bababardwan
March 20, 2010, 11:19 AM posted in General DiscussionFamous for ,amongst other things,it's cuisine.What are the most famous dishes in Sichuan?
Best places to see the Pandas?
Tourist attractions?
What sets Sichuan apart from the other provinces?
light487
December 07, 2010, 04:39 AMOoh ooh! :)
Best Hostel in Chengdu: Sim's Cozy - Very cheap and clean rooms with great amenities and wonderfully helpful staff as well as a bar/restaurant serving traditional and western-ised dishes. I stayed a week in a single private room (it had wifi, TV and DVD player in the room with a queen sized bed) and it only cost around 240rmb from memory.. for the whole week!!
Pandas (in Chengdu): From memory, there were two main places to go and see the Panda, the one I went to was the Panda Breeding Research Base (or something like that). Very affordable and you can get within metres of the animals.. almost to the point of being able to reach over and touch them.. not that you would. The price to hold a baby panda is 1000RMB or 400RMB for an adult to sit next to you or 100RMB for the chance to hold a Red Panda (which I did); all for a photo opportunity. You only get to hold or sit next to them for a brief couple of minutes.. so to hold a baby for 2 or 3 minutes for a quick photo.. well.. it's up to you decide if it is worth it.
To the south of Chengdu (2hrs by bus) is a place called
"Le Shan" and it is here where the Giant Buddha sits, carved out of the side of a cliff. It faces the water and you can see it both from above and climb down to its feet. The rest of the park is very well looked after and contains a lot of walking paths to take in the nature etc.
Chengdu felt very much like a smaller version of Beijing. It has the ring-roads, the slow pace (yes.. you'd be surprised how slow the pace in Beijing is compared with other cities), wider-than-normal streets etc.. but of course it has an obviously smaller, more "on the fringes" feel to it due to its promixity with a place starting with the letter T and other mountaineous western areas of China.
One other major difference I noticed was that the local dialect there was unlike any of the other local dialects I had heard in the other areas of China I have been to. I remember thinking that it sound more like Arabic.. or something.. nothing at all like SouthEast Asian languages.. even Vietnamese/Cantonese.. completely different..