Katie and I negotiated the Shanghai subway; quickly becoming absorbed by the crowds that besieged the Main Shanghai Railway Station. We stood; obvious, amongst the local crowd of well-dressed holiday makers, looking somewhat bedraggled and bent, like a pair of overburdened pack animals. Fortunately, boarding our train turned out to be straight forward and relatively easy. I don’t know why we harboured negative expectations akin to horror, regarding our accommodation for the next thirty-two hours, especially given our experiences of China thus far. Ignorance, or perhaps memories of past experiences on trains, in other Asian countries, coloured our unromantic associations. I’m not sure if we felt embarrassed or relieved when we discovered our ultra-clean and comfortable facilities.
People continued to stare at us, which we never quite came to terms with, as we didn’t look like Brad and Angelina, nor were we anything like a novelty, with so many other international travellers in attendance. If anyone can explain this phenomena, I’d be grateful. Despite the fact that we travelled in a carriage of local people heading home from holidays, we and everybody else in our carriage become an impromptu family. People who had never before met, just naturally become friends. Such is the nature of the Chinese people!
After a restful sleep, we awoke to see central China rushing by. Hour after interesting hour of Hubei, Chong Qing and Sichuan landscapes; each dotted with many tiled brown-earth villages, surrounded by terraced fields of rice, with jagged limestone peaks towering above; spectacular against the vivid blue of a sky devoid of pollutants.
We arrived in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province and the gateway to the Himalayas, only slightly frazzled. Saying goodbye to our family of travellers, we left the station and worked our way into a square teaming with noisy Sichuanians. It’s still a delightful shock to be amoungst so many people. We also felt a little groggy. Being that long on a rocking train, ran akin to arriving at port, after a long sea voyage. From here we jumped a taxi to Sim’s Cosy Garden Hostel, which turned out to be the best hostel either of us has ever stayed in and tried to get a feel for the city. Our area contained many old, grey looking apartment blocks, smattered with the occasional new housing development and a lot of westernised shops and office buildings. I know, it sounds dreadful, yet the overall dullness seemed to magically transform itself into Parisian-like avenues, due to the beautiful trees and plants that lined almost every street. 
The next day we set out on a pre-arranged tour of the ‘Panda Research Centre’ and because we didn’t even consider a raincoat, it began to pour. Actually, it didn’t just rain, it fell down in torrents, as soon as we left our vehicle. What a wonderful turn of events. The rain felt terrific and turned out to be a real boon. Pandas don’t enjoy heat and like us, enjoy a good soaking, so we were treated to a great viewing of these seriously cute animals, who played and rolled about eating bamboo shoots. Many years earlier, I stood in queue at Taronga Park Zoo in Melbourne, to see two visiting Chinese Pandas. Suffering the heat and flies, I shuffled along in a queue for over two and a half hours, only managing to see a tiny bit of black and white rear-end amongst the grass. As you could imagine, this previous experience made our day with the wet Pandas all the more special.
That afternoon, we headed into some funky looking alleys to find a place for lunch. We were accompanied by Rudy and Nathalie, from Nimes in the south of France. By the time we chose a restaurant, we were all wet through and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. When it came time to order, there were no menus, no English speaking staff, or no pictures to go by. After some ridiculous attempts at communication, we dragged the waitress with us, as we walked about the tables, pointing to meals that we hoped tasted as good as they looked. Frowns became smiles, which grew into good natured laughter. Our arm waving and comic-strip gesticulating eventually resulting in a range of meals that tasted sensational, although to this day, I have no idea what they were.
Our stay in Chengdu came to a close with another interesting dining experience. That evening we went for dinner with a French family at another non-English speaking restaurant. We all agreed to share a fish hotpot, but were forced to choose the poor bugger; a live sturgeon, from the giant wall of fish tanks at the front of the restaurant. We spoke no real French, they spoke no real English and neither of us spoke Chinese, which culminated into the same humorous arm-waving attempts at communication.
Often, great travelling memories come out of awkward situations. We’ll never forget the fun and frivolity we experienced with the people and wet Pandas of Chengdu.
Ken "Charlie" Grace 