Chengdu

Heading further south and west to Chengdu: somewhere that Chris hasn't already been for a change, so finally a chance to explore somewhere new!

Our timing being in China isn't great: it's the summer holidays so everywhere is full and it's hot. On a couple of days this week it's been 36°C, feels like 42°C.

Still, turns out Chengdu lives up to its reputation as being a chilled out city and we were lucky to be staying in a very nice youth hostel right on top of the metro station, with some great street food stalls around us, so we could spend a very comfortable week enjoying a cheap and easy quality of life.

We'd planned to stay 5 nights and extended once we realised there weren't any seats on the train until Monday, which we weren't unhappy about.

So had a week being able to chill out and see things in a lazy fashion. A large part of the reason we went to Chengdu was Elli's enthusiasm for Szechuanese food, so we went for a hot pot on the first night which was a delicious though also totally overwhelming experience which resulted in a burnt hand and a need to lie down. And we did a half day cooking class with the very enthusiastic and informative Jerry who introduced us to all sorts of weird ingredients we'd never even conceived of (like fermented tofu, or "tofe", as he calls it). Mostly we rejoiced in the amazing street food, and ate a lot of bao, eggs boiled in flavoured broth, grilled skewers and noodles.

Sichuan is home to the majority of China's giant panda population, so one day we took the train out to the Dujiangyan Panda Base. We were glad we travelled out beyond the local one, since we saw the smallest crowds we've seen at a tourist attraction anywhere in China, and got to wander round several times visiting all the bears, which included black bears and red pandas (or the lesser panda, as they are unfortunately named) as well as giant pandas. They did a lot of napping in trees and in shady spots and did an impressive job of carefully demolishing large piles of bamboo with great intent.

We were also delighted to find out that Chengdu is home to the largest building in the world measured by internal floor area - the Global Center, which contains a shopping mall, water park and hotel. We had a fun if confusing day there getting flashbacks to the days that we spent in Kuala Lumpur getting lost in cavernous shopping malls.

Special mentions must also go to Mr Lee, the blind massage practitioner who Elli not only managed to communicate with but also got the best massage of her life for 70 yuan, and the fantastic seamstress who fixed Chris' broken pockets and sewed new ones into Elli's trousers.

We hit the road again with deeper pockets, in at least one sense anyway.Read more