Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Charming Chongqing
That morning, the 5th of August Francesca and I slept in. There was no real reason to wake up other than to talk to Jacqueline and find out a little more about her, her house and her city. Of course we were both interested in this! Around 9:00 AM our clothes were on our bodies once more and we headed downstairs. Jacqueline was already there, pouring us a glass of juice. We had learned the previous night she had her own interior design company; being your own boss means you can start a little later! Jacqueline immediately inquired what our plans for the day would be. Francesca had wanted to see Buddhist rock carvings for some time now, and after missing two earlier opportunities Dazu County near Chongqing would be our final chance.
And so it happened that Jacqueline offered to drop us off at the bus station. She drove us to the heart of Chongqing, China’s most populous city with well over 30 million citizens, for a spicy Sichuan breakfast. I’d been particularly looking forward to trying the famous Sichuan hotpot, a favorite amongst locals and a killer for foreigners. Jacqueline parked her car near a hole-in-the-wall, explaining that this place had been her dad’s go-to breakfast restaurant. Her father loved spicy food, so his verdict went a long way for Jacqueline (and us of course) as well. The three sisters that ran the place handed us each a huge bowl full of broth and noodles, and asked if we wanted additional spices, beans, meat, intestines and some other additions to our meal. Francesca chose not to add anything, whereas I got the spicy variation with extra meat and beans. The intestines were wasted on me as well.
Boy, what a good breakfast that was! Sweat started pouring out of every hole whilst I emptied my bowl. Francesca did a surprisingly good job also! Furthermore, Jacqueline complimented us both on our chopsticks-skills – they have surely improved over the last month! I filled up on my bowl and some of Francesca’s left-overs. The meal was followed by a drive through more of Chongqing, revealing what an enormous city we’d entered. Construction abound, grime-covered high-rises all around, and people everywhere you look. It was no wonder driving to the bus station took another 30 minutes. After finally arriving there, finding a spot to park and discovering the well-hidden entrance to the station buying a ticket was the logical next step. Jacqueline got them for us, reminding me that it’s a million times easier getting a ticket for anything in China if you’re Chinese.
Before the bus would leave – just before midday – Francesca and I still had some time to kill. Jacqueline left for work, promising to pick us up later that day if we’d just call her. Francesca felt she hadn’t filled up entirely on the noodles. The McDonald’s near the station offered the perfect solution in the form of a take-away chicken sandwich meal. We returned to the boarding hall to find out our bus was ready to leave. Our tickets were checked, but directions to the bus were rather lacking. Luckily an older teenager standing behind us helped out and made sure we made it onto the right bus. The drive to Dazu was pretty scenic, but became memorable for an entirely different reason: the girl that had helped us came over to us and handed us a note, telling us that Tang Xiaoyan, a 7-year-old middle school student, wanted to be our friend. Friendly as we are, we sent a note back. We also looked around for a young person behind us, but spotted nobody in that age-range. However, another note came back with a phone number and the request to stay in touch. Francesca and I had dozed off during the latter half of the drive and missed the young girl’s departure from the bus. Arriving in Dazu, the mystery remained unresolved.
Onwards with our rock carving adventure! A taxi-driver nodded affirmatively when I told him where to go and drove us straight to the entrance of Baodingshan. Guides were a little expensive, but we had no choice and hired one to take us around. In addition to that we had to get tickets for the park, as well as an electric car to take us to the carvings proper. They sure make tourist attractions expensive business in China!
Our guide told us the carvings had been made during the Song Dynasty during the last decades of the 12th and the first half of the 13th century. One monk named Zhao Zhifeng sponsored the entire process. The first carvings soon appeared in our sights, welcoming us to the area. Turning the corner after the short greeting gave us the first real ‘wow’ in a long time. An entire cliff-face of several 100 meters was covered in smaller and larger carvings. We passed our first Buddha, followed by a gigantic lion, and entered a cave. Francesca and I were amazed to see the statues still held color! We tried to ask our guide what materials had been used to make the paint, but she sadly couldn’t help us to a satisfying answer. We admired the 12 Bodhisattvas along with 3 Buddhas in the "Cave of Full Enlightenment" for a while before continuing.
Outside several scenes with water buffaloes and their herdsmen told us that the “Ritual Site of Buffaloes” had been carved to show the difficulties a Buddhist monk might face on the path to enlightenment. Some herdsmen were enjoying the work of a flutist, whilst others had obviously indulged in too much alcohol. The buffaloes represented the monks’ hearts, pulling away from Buddhist goals. An impressive 10 carvings followed over a stretch of nearly 30 meters.
A long niche a few meters further up the path introduced us to the “Guardians of Buddhist Law.” They’d been put there to "guard the ritual site and subdue monsters," as the sign read. Sadly, some of the guardians had been severely defaced, leaving us to imagine what they’d once looked like. The gigantic “Buddhist Wheel of Life,” on the other hand, left little to the imagination. Yama, the Lord of Death, held an 8 meter high wheel, filled with 90 statues of people and 24 statues of animals. The scenes vividly depict the Buddhist beliefs of Karma and retribution.
The “Three Saints of the Huayan School of Buddhism” along with another 119 much smaller Buddhas were a little less impressive, but did show the skill involved in making an elaborate carving such as this. The Saint on the left was holding a 500 kg stupa, which it’s managed to keep up for over 800 years now. A following cave was supposed to reward us with one of the highlights of Baodingshan. Sadly, the gold Avalokiteshvara (Goddess of Mercy) and her 1007 golden arms were under renovation… Still, we could fathom what the carving must look like by putting together the pieces we were able to see. It was still pretty impressive to watch all the golden hands on the wall.
Once outside again we did get to see something awesome. An enormous carving showing “Sakyamuni Entering Nirvana,” reaching a length of 31 meters and a height of 5 meters, lay sprawled out in front of us. We learned that the sculptors had left parts of the body of Sakyamuni ‘in the rocks,’ to leave the actual size of the Buddha to their imagination. Francesca and I had our mandatory photo shoot with the giant face and some other statues in front of it. The tour continued with the “Nine Dragons Bathing the Prince,” a relatively small carving in a pond, with a young prince Siddhartha being wet by the never-ending flow of water from a dragon’s mouth.
The “Niche of the peacock King Sutra” had been damaged (and repaired), leaving us with a rather sad concrete replica of what once had also been a detailed and striking carving. Our guide led us onwards to the “Niche of Parental Love Sutra,” with 10 carvings depicting 10 stages in life, and how parents can show their love for their children throughout the years. The enormous “Sutra of Amitahba and His Pure Land” left us baffled once again. It’s supposed to represent the happy world of Buddhist paradise, the saints that protect it, and the tests one has to complete to reach it.
A little more gruesome, but no less remarkable was the “Niche of the Nether World,” where 18 different carvings show the many layers of Buddhist Hell. We spotted people getting gored, getting boiled, being beheaded and much, much worse. Hell hadn’t been intended to be the end of the carvings, but as funding ran dry in the later stages of construction the final niche, the “Ritual Site of Liu Benzun” had not been completed. However, since it hadn’t been finished it left researchers with a great way of finding out how the sculptors made their art. A final test awaited us, to see if we would have good luck and a happy life. We had to stand in one spot near a character on the wall, close our eyes and spin around 3 times. After completing these steps we had to reach out for the wall: touching the character meant great fortune, missing it meant bad luck. I managed to succeed on my first attempt whilst Francesca took two tries to reach it as well.
Since we’d paid so much for the guide Francesca and I made sure to see an ancient temple near the carvings as well. We passed several awe-inspiring and colorful Guardians on our way to the Jade King, a 3 meter high statue of a Chinese God. Impressive, but the Chinglish on the signs outside was much more amusing. Another hall held a 3 meter high Buddha, followed by a hall with the Buddhas of Past, Present and Future. 5:00 PM was fast approaching and Francesca and I wanted to be back in Chongqing for dinner with Jacqueline. Our guide arranged a driver back to the bus station where we were just in time to catch a 5:30 PM bus. We arrived in Chongqing just past 8:00 PM and were picked up by our host.
Jacqueline asked us what we wanted to eat – we answered that we’d be happy to eat whatever she wanted us to try. Francesca and I were taken to one of the hip areas of Chongqing, the ‘Paradise Walk,’ where we were surrounded by youngsters enjoying the enormous shopping mall. Parking was a problem, but as we reached the restaurant it proved well worth it. Jacqueline ordered us an enormous table full of her favorite foods. One dish she ordered was a surprise, but tasted succulent. We both tried our best guesses, coming up with ‘some part of some fish’ as our best answer. Pretty close as it turned out: we were eating fish lips! Some giant fish they must have been! Other dishes on the table were spicy chicken, sliced jellyfish, mushrooms wrapped in battered shrimp, Chinese cabbage in oyster sauce, a special rice dish and a mushroom soup. So much food! By 10:00 PM the table was pretty empty and our bellies REALLY full. We were also the last remaining customers so we left for a drive through Chongqing at night.
Jacqueline showed us the artsy opera house and the science & technology center, as well as the lightshow on the other side of the river. Pretty neat, but since the day had been really long Francesca and I longed for our wonderful bed and asked Jacqueline to drive us home.
The next morning Francesca and I woke up even later than the day before. Jacqueline had a day off and took it equally easy. Besides, we really had to get our act together to finalize our trip to Tibet. It was past 2:00 PM when we finally sat down for lunch. We ate some great buns with peanut butter and a tasty tomato soup. Whilst eating Jacqueline told us a little more about herself: she’d studied business in Canada, after successfully applying for two prestigious design schools (interior design had been her dream), but being pushed to study something else by her parents. Now, she finally got to do what she wanted and ran her own successful business. Looking around the house we could definitely tell why!
An hour later Jacqueline offered to show us Chongqing’s old city. We needed to go into the city anyway to get train tickets to Chengdu for the following day, as well as some help purchasing medicine to help us deal with impending Acute Mountain Sickness (a well-known problem for travelers to Tibet). With those two acts soon out of the way we were free to walk around the crowded area named Ciqikou. The town was at one time an important source of chinaware and used to be a busy commercial dock during the Ming and Qing Dynasty. Nowadays it only attracts droves of tourists. Our arrival added to their tourist experience as the ‘Laowai!s’ and pointing fingers engulfed us. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see the architecture and try some local snacks.
At the end of our tour of Ciqikou, Francesca spotted a souvenir she’d gotten herself the last time she was in China as well. I bought both her and Jacqueline a “jelly-filled piggy that squishes flat when you throw it at something,” as Francesca later described it. After a bit of driving and walking around we arrived at a shopping and dining area near the river. Jacqueline took us into a different part of the city, where we came to the Chongqing Food Street. Two small stores about halfway through the street had an impressive queue, so we went to check it out. The first one sold an appetizing list of items such as chicks-on-a-stick, roasted chicken-heads, and many much worse-looking snacks. The second store, however, sold a local spicy noodle dish. I had to buy a ticket and stood in line for a while to get my meal. Jacqueline warned me it’d be spicy, telling me to get ready to start sweating. I sat down and started eating, unaware of the locals that were surely looking at me. The two girls stepped back whilst I quietly ate and dripped sweat from every pore, thoroughly enjoying my meal.
Dinner would be another Sichuan and Chongqing specialty: ‘huoguo,’ better known as hotpot. Sadly, I was the only one really eager to eat this – the girls felt for something a little less volatile. When we heard we’d have to wait for 45 minutes for a table that sealed the deal: we were going somewhere else. Francesca promised me I’d still get to try a hotpot before we moved on to Tibet.
Around 9:00 PM we were back where we had started the evening. This location had once been the start of Chongqing a long time ago. The government later replaced the old buildings with newer versions in the old style and filled them with shops and restaurants. We walked around for a while, admiring the many stories and neon lights. The complex even included a man-made waterfall! All the ambulating had made us rather hungry, so the only Subway in town – which Jacqueline loved – became our solution to our lack of food. We discussed going to a bar for a drink, but knowing that we had to get to Chengdu the following day we chose to go back to our temporary home and get ready for departure.
Our final day with Jacqueline and her parents we finally got to meet her old folks. Jacqueline’s mom had been studying English, but found it very difficult and couldn’t converse with us yet. Her father didn’t speak any English and seemed content with smiling at us. Francesca and I were invited to join the family for a brunch before our departure and of course we gladly accepted. The table was filled with corn, roasted peppers, 1000-year-old eggs and some sweet and sour pork. I hadn’t tried the eggs yet, but found them quite edible. Jacqueline’s mother even showed me how they’re made: normal eggs are covered in a thick layer of a special mix of sand and other ingredients and then left to dry for a few days. Interesting!
Around 1:00 PM it was time to say goodbye to our gracious hosts and their awesome dog. We were sad to leave and really wished we could’ve stayed longer. Alas, Tibet was waiting and we needed to keep moving. Jacqueline drove us to the train station, where we were just in time to join the seething masses queuing to get aboard the bullet train. We gave her a big hug and went through security, ready to explore Chengdu.
And so it happened that Jacqueline offered to drop us off at the bus station. She drove us to the heart of Chongqing, China’s most populous city with well over 30 million citizens, for a spicy Sichuan breakfast. I’d been particularly looking forward to trying the famous Sichuan hotpot, a favorite amongst locals and a killer for foreigners. Jacqueline parked her car near a hole-in-the-wall, explaining that this place had been her dad’s go-to breakfast restaurant. Her father loved spicy food, so his verdict went a long way for Jacqueline (and us of course) as well. The three sisters that ran the place handed us each a huge bowl full of broth and noodles, and asked if we wanted additional spices, beans, meat, intestines and some other additions to our meal. Francesca chose not to add anything, whereas I got the spicy variation with extra meat and beans. The intestines were wasted on me as well.
Boy, what a good breakfast that was! Sweat started pouring out of every hole whilst I emptied my bowl. Francesca did a surprisingly good job also! Furthermore, Jacqueline complimented us both on our chopsticks-skills – they have surely improved over the last month! I filled up on my bowl and some of Francesca’s left-overs. The meal was followed by a drive through more of Chongqing, revealing what an enormous city we’d entered. Construction abound, grime-covered high-rises all around, and people everywhere you look. It was no wonder driving to the bus station took another 30 minutes. After finally arriving there, finding a spot to park and discovering the well-hidden entrance to the station buying a ticket was the logical next step. Jacqueline got them for us, reminding me that it’s a million times easier getting a ticket for anything in China if you’re Chinese.
Before the bus would leave – just before midday – Francesca and I still had some time to kill. Jacqueline left for work, promising to pick us up later that day if we’d just call her. Francesca felt she hadn’t filled up entirely on the noodles. The McDonald’s near the station offered the perfect solution in the form of a take-away chicken sandwich meal. We returned to the boarding hall to find out our bus was ready to leave. Our tickets were checked, but directions to the bus were rather lacking. Luckily an older teenager standing behind us helped out and made sure we made it onto the right bus. The drive to Dazu was pretty scenic, but became memorable for an entirely different reason: the girl that had helped us came over to us and handed us a note, telling us that Tang Xiaoyan, a 7-year-old middle school student, wanted to be our friend. Friendly as we are, we sent a note back. We also looked around for a young person behind us, but spotted nobody in that age-range. However, another note came back with a phone number and the request to stay in touch. Francesca and I had dozed off during the latter half of the drive and missed the young girl’s departure from the bus. Arriving in Dazu, the mystery remained unresolved.
Onwards with our rock carving adventure! A taxi-driver nodded affirmatively when I told him where to go and drove us straight to the entrance of Baodingshan. Guides were a little expensive, but we had no choice and hired one to take us around. In addition to that we had to get tickets for the park, as well as an electric car to take us to the carvings proper. They sure make tourist attractions expensive business in China!
Our guide told us the carvings had been made during the Song Dynasty during the last decades of the 12th and the first half of the 13th century. One monk named Zhao Zhifeng sponsored the entire process. The first carvings soon appeared in our sights, welcoming us to the area. Turning the corner after the short greeting gave us the first real ‘wow’ in a long time. An entire cliff-face of several 100 meters was covered in smaller and larger carvings. We passed our first Buddha, followed by a gigantic lion, and entered a cave. Francesca and I were amazed to see the statues still held color! We tried to ask our guide what materials had been used to make the paint, but she sadly couldn’t help us to a satisfying answer. We admired the 12 Bodhisattvas along with 3 Buddhas in the "Cave of Full Enlightenment" for a while before continuing.
Outside several scenes with water buffaloes and their herdsmen told us that the “Ritual Site of Buffaloes” had been carved to show the difficulties a Buddhist monk might face on the path to enlightenment. Some herdsmen were enjoying the work of a flutist, whilst others had obviously indulged in too much alcohol. The buffaloes represented the monks’ hearts, pulling away from Buddhist goals. An impressive 10 carvings followed over a stretch of nearly 30 meters.
A long niche a few meters further up the path introduced us to the “Guardians of Buddhist Law.” They’d been put there to "guard the ritual site and subdue monsters," as the sign read. Sadly, some of the guardians had been severely defaced, leaving us to imagine what they’d once looked like. The gigantic “Buddhist Wheel of Life,” on the other hand, left little to the imagination. Yama, the Lord of Death, held an 8 meter high wheel, filled with 90 statues of people and 24 statues of animals. The scenes vividly depict the Buddhist beliefs of Karma and retribution.
The “Three Saints of the Huayan School of Buddhism” along with another 119 much smaller Buddhas were a little less impressive, but did show the skill involved in making an elaborate carving such as this. The Saint on the left was holding a 500 kg stupa, which it’s managed to keep up for over 800 years now. A following cave was supposed to reward us with one of the highlights of Baodingshan. Sadly, the gold Avalokiteshvara (Goddess of Mercy) and her 1007 golden arms were under renovation… Still, we could fathom what the carving must look like by putting together the pieces we were able to see. It was still pretty impressive to watch all the golden hands on the wall.
Once outside again we did get to see something awesome. An enormous carving showing “Sakyamuni Entering Nirvana,” reaching a length of 31 meters and a height of 5 meters, lay sprawled out in front of us. We learned that the sculptors had left parts of the body of Sakyamuni ‘in the rocks,’ to leave the actual size of the Buddha to their imagination. Francesca and I had our mandatory photo shoot with the giant face and some other statues in front of it. The tour continued with the “Nine Dragons Bathing the Prince,” a relatively small carving in a pond, with a young prince Siddhartha being wet by the never-ending flow of water from a dragon’s mouth.
The “Niche of the peacock King Sutra” had been damaged (and repaired), leaving us with a rather sad concrete replica of what once had also been a detailed and striking carving. Our guide led us onwards to the “Niche of Parental Love Sutra,” with 10 carvings depicting 10 stages in life, and how parents can show their love for their children throughout the years. The enormous “Sutra of Amitahba and His Pure Land” left us baffled once again. It’s supposed to represent the happy world of Buddhist paradise, the saints that protect it, and the tests one has to complete to reach it.
A little more gruesome, but no less remarkable was the “Niche of the Nether World,” where 18 different carvings show the many layers of Buddhist Hell. We spotted people getting gored, getting boiled, being beheaded and much, much worse. Hell hadn’t been intended to be the end of the carvings, but as funding ran dry in the later stages of construction the final niche, the “Ritual Site of Liu Benzun” had not been completed. However, since it hadn’t been finished it left researchers with a great way of finding out how the sculptors made their art. A final test awaited us, to see if we would have good luck and a happy life. We had to stand in one spot near a character on the wall, close our eyes and spin around 3 times. After completing these steps we had to reach out for the wall: touching the character meant great fortune, missing it meant bad luck. I managed to succeed on my first attempt whilst Francesca took two tries to reach it as well.
Since we’d paid so much for the guide Francesca and I made sure to see an ancient temple near the carvings as well. We passed several awe-inspiring and colorful Guardians on our way to the Jade King, a 3 meter high statue of a Chinese God. Impressive, but the Chinglish on the signs outside was much more amusing. Another hall held a 3 meter high Buddha, followed by a hall with the Buddhas of Past, Present and Future. 5:00 PM was fast approaching and Francesca and I wanted to be back in Chongqing for dinner with Jacqueline. Our guide arranged a driver back to the bus station where we were just in time to catch a 5:30 PM bus. We arrived in Chongqing just past 8:00 PM and were picked up by our host.
Jacqueline asked us what we wanted to eat – we answered that we’d be happy to eat whatever she wanted us to try. Francesca and I were taken to one of the hip areas of Chongqing, the ‘Paradise Walk,’ where we were surrounded by youngsters enjoying the enormous shopping mall. Parking was a problem, but as we reached the restaurant it proved well worth it. Jacqueline ordered us an enormous table full of her favorite foods. One dish she ordered was a surprise, but tasted succulent. We both tried our best guesses, coming up with ‘some part of some fish’ as our best answer. Pretty close as it turned out: we were eating fish lips! Some giant fish they must have been! Other dishes on the table were spicy chicken, sliced jellyfish, mushrooms wrapped in battered shrimp, Chinese cabbage in oyster sauce, a special rice dish and a mushroom soup. So much food! By 10:00 PM the table was pretty empty and our bellies REALLY full. We were also the last remaining customers so we left for a drive through Chongqing at night.
Jacqueline showed us the artsy opera house and the science & technology center, as well as the lightshow on the other side of the river. Pretty neat, but since the day had been really long Francesca and I longed for our wonderful bed and asked Jacqueline to drive us home.
The next morning Francesca and I woke up even later than the day before. Jacqueline had a day off and took it equally easy. Besides, we really had to get our act together to finalize our trip to Tibet. It was past 2:00 PM when we finally sat down for lunch. We ate some great buns with peanut butter and a tasty tomato soup. Whilst eating Jacqueline told us a little more about herself: she’d studied business in Canada, after successfully applying for two prestigious design schools (interior design had been her dream), but being pushed to study something else by her parents. Now, she finally got to do what she wanted and ran her own successful business. Looking around the house we could definitely tell why!
An hour later Jacqueline offered to show us Chongqing’s old city. We needed to go into the city anyway to get train tickets to Chengdu for the following day, as well as some help purchasing medicine to help us deal with impending Acute Mountain Sickness (a well-known problem for travelers to Tibet). With those two acts soon out of the way we were free to walk around the crowded area named Ciqikou. The town was at one time an important source of chinaware and used to be a busy commercial dock during the Ming and Qing Dynasty. Nowadays it only attracts droves of tourists. Our arrival added to their tourist experience as the ‘Laowai!s’ and pointing fingers engulfed us. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see the architecture and try some local snacks.
At the end of our tour of Ciqikou, Francesca spotted a souvenir she’d gotten herself the last time she was in China as well. I bought both her and Jacqueline a “jelly-filled piggy that squishes flat when you throw it at something,” as Francesca later described it. After a bit of driving and walking around we arrived at a shopping and dining area near the river. Jacqueline took us into a different part of the city, where we came to the Chongqing Food Street. Two small stores about halfway through the street had an impressive queue, so we went to check it out. The first one sold an appetizing list of items such as chicks-on-a-stick, roasted chicken-heads, and many much worse-looking snacks. The second store, however, sold a local spicy noodle dish. I had to buy a ticket and stood in line for a while to get my meal. Jacqueline warned me it’d be spicy, telling me to get ready to start sweating. I sat down and started eating, unaware of the locals that were surely looking at me. The two girls stepped back whilst I quietly ate and dripped sweat from every pore, thoroughly enjoying my meal.
Dinner would be another Sichuan and Chongqing specialty: ‘huoguo,’ better known as hotpot. Sadly, I was the only one really eager to eat this – the girls felt for something a little less volatile. When we heard we’d have to wait for 45 minutes for a table that sealed the deal: we were going somewhere else. Francesca promised me I’d still get to try a hotpot before we moved on to Tibet.
Around 9:00 PM we were back where we had started the evening. This location had once been the start of Chongqing a long time ago. The government later replaced the old buildings with newer versions in the old style and filled them with shops and restaurants. We walked around for a while, admiring the many stories and neon lights. The complex even included a man-made waterfall! All the ambulating had made us rather hungry, so the only Subway in town – which Jacqueline loved – became our solution to our lack of food. We discussed going to a bar for a drink, but knowing that we had to get to Chengdu the following day we chose to go back to our temporary home and get ready for departure.
Our final day with Jacqueline and her parents we finally got to meet her old folks. Jacqueline’s mom had been studying English, but found it very difficult and couldn’t converse with us yet. Her father didn’t speak any English and seemed content with smiling at us. Francesca and I were invited to join the family for a brunch before our departure and of course we gladly accepted. The table was filled with corn, roasted peppers, 1000-year-old eggs and some sweet and sour pork. I hadn’t tried the eggs yet, but found them quite edible. Jacqueline’s mother even showed me how they’re made: normal eggs are covered in a thick layer of a special mix of sand and other ingredients and then left to dry for a few days. Interesting!
Around 1:00 PM it was time to say goodbye to our gracious hosts and their awesome dog. We were sad to leave and really wished we could’ve stayed longer. Alas, Tibet was waiting and we needed to keep moving. Jacqueline drove us to the train station, where we were just in time to join the seething masses queuing to get aboard the bullet train. We gave her a big hug and went through security, ready to explore Chengdu.
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