What to do - Chengdu

Before I left Canada, I did everything I could to inform myself about entering Tibet and having a pleasant visit there; in fact, I had been doing that several years. It was confusing especially as Tibet had been closed to foreigners only a month before I departed. The usual air entry points to Tibet are Kunming, Chengdu and there had been some weekly flights from Zhongdian. Once I met Dewen, he spent a lot of time with his contacts in travel and travel agencies trying to grease the way for me. Part of the problem was that I intended to visit Tibet for up to two weeks, and the continue on to Nepal. In any other part of the world, this would be 10 minutes work on the internet. Not so in China. First, I was not a group, and had to join a group. Fine, I will do that. But I must stay with the group so now I had to find a group going out to Nepal on the date I wanted. Worse, Air China dominates the flights into and out of Tibet and all the flights to Nepal were full for weeks. Well, no they weren't. Some travel agents buy the seats in hopes of selling them for higher prices and one has to find those agents, but there is no known way of doing so.

The alternative was to go by Land Cruiser right from Deqin for eight beautiful travel days across Tibet for about $1100. The risk is, you are paying in advance for a driver you do not know, in a vehicle you cannot trust for road worthiness going into winter weather, which is going to be packed full with humans you have to put up with for eight days and hotels and food that are unknown, but since you know the Chinese, you can be pretty sure will be crap in both cases. This is fine if you are a backpacker, but at 66 years, you usually have learned to be in control of as many variables in travel as possible or else a potentially nice trip turns into a nightmare.

Ultimately, I was able to find a likely air ticket in, if the permit went through on time (which is might not - 50/50 chance at best), but I would have to go by land to the border of Nepal. That was fine as I wanted to stop at the Tibet side of Everest base camp anyway. But then came the price; to go a couple of hundred miles over two days was $1100. Worse, the weather had turned bad north of Lhasa and it appeared that I could only visit Lhasa city and nowhere else. Finally I said ' Is it worth all this trouble and expense,' and the answer was emphatically "NO.'

But part way through the exercise, I decided to go to Chengdu as that is the place when most agencies are that handle permits and Tibet travel. I flew the 90 minutes northwest to Chengdu, caught a ride with the world's most horriffic taxi driver and went into town. I foolishly paid him before removing my luggage and he drove off with it. I ran down the street and jumped up on the Jetta trunk and shouted and pounded on the car's roof. It caused quite a commotion on the street and he had to stop.

I had an hotel address from Trip advisor I was trying to find and the crazy/angry driver left me in the wrong place. Eventually I found The Zen Hotel, but they were fully booked now. They sent me to another nearby hotel which I think was better because it was quieter. Sometimes we used to read of authors or artists or travellers who find just the right hotel and stay in some city for weeks or months. That is the way I felt in this new hotel with the goofy name Enjoyable stars hotel. It was so comfortable and looked out on a large Hutong (Chinese common courtyard for apartments) which was interesting. Just below my room, some owner let their dog and cat come out each day and walk in an odd and wild roof garden each day. The room was new, pretty, well arranged, quiet, so comfortable and about $50 night. It was also close to the old town. The architecture of the old town is typical of what we westerners think of as old China. The city has erected some really charming concrete statues - which are usually public disasters but these are all very nice. There was one street in the area where the cafes hauled out large wicker easy chairs and tables onto the street and served tea in the mild weather. Some days were smoggy, but warm and a few days were sunny and warm as a nice September day at home.

It was wonderful to sit out there and drink nice tea. Inevitably, some Chinese would stop to speak with me. They never have a gimmick like Thais or Indians. They just want to talk.

Chengdu was the only place I saw interesting shops with things I really wanted to buy - art, figuringes, antiques (undoubtedly all fake repros, but attractive), and oddities. There was also a lot of nice food.

There were two monasteries in the old City. The one for women was about a block square and lovely in every way. It was lovelier then because the inmates were about to celebrate the 100th birthday of their founder - who died only three years before. She had been the first woman to attend Szechuan U., and the first female Buddhist monk in China. The nuns had decorated the place for a whole week and it was rocking with gold and yellow and flowers and ribbons. On the great day, their relatives came for a veg lunch (free, oh-my-Buddha-Lunch was free mama!!! so Chinese!!!!). It was nice to see them all so happy. Their ex-leader's photos all over the place made her look like Yoda. The rest of the women had shaved heads and ugly sacks for clothing, and had potato-shaped bodies, and a cell phone under every sack dress it seemed (who DO they call? Pizza Pizza?). Upstairs in the open windows I could see little girls looking down on the event and I suspect they and many of the nuns are/were orphans. Og bless them whatever the case.

The male monastery (oh, so that's who they phone!) a few blocks away is huge and includes many buildings and the ultimate perfect gardens of trees, water and bridges among peaceful adn beautiful buildings and surroundings inside 12' high walls hundreds of years old. I loved that place. It stands as one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

The greatest wonder of Chengdu is Sim's guesthouse. It is a youth hostel with about 200 rooms in a huge building with a large (ugly) courtyard and (failed) garden. It has a great restaurant with many kinds of Western coffee - including expresso- beer and drinks and about 20 internet positions available free for 20 minutes and then only pennies per hour. It also has a travel agency right in the main lobby staffed with six people all of the time, all busy arranging travel into Tibet, the rest of China, and local tours, plus taking in laundry and making international calls and many other things. Sim's is legendary on Lonely Planet and is the mother of all great hostels. It was a bus ride and 15 minute walk from my hotel but I went there daily trying to make the Tibet trip happen, and also to use the internet, eat breakfast and drink coffee at $2.50 a cup. After immense efforts and some linguistic misunderstandings and expensive admin error on their part, it was clear that fate did not want me in Tibet.

Now I had to re-think my whole plan as I had planned to leave Nepal on a flight to Varanasi, India and continue on frm there through north India. But all flights out of Chengdu went the wrong directions - Beijing, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Bangkok. The only solution was to go to Bangkok and probably fly to Calcutta and re-start from there.