The next morning, I came across someone slightly more prepared than me; although, even if I had a tent, in pitching it I probably would have chosen one of the many places I saw more suitable than a traffic island.

After almost two days on a train, I finally arrived in Chengdu, just in time to take a bus to the airport and meet Shu-ling. Our first stop was the Chengdu Panda Research Base. They were doing the same thing as when I last visited a few years ago, eating:


There were a lot more little pandas than last time I visited. As with most animals, they play pretty rough, chomping down on each other's skin to invoke screeches.


The larger pandas play rough, too; although sometimes, the way they play is as if they're half excited, half asleep.


It doesn't take much playing before they flop down on the nearest branch and snooze off, again.

Leaving Chengdu, we went south to visit the sacred Mt. Emei. I'm glad this was my second visit, since this time the entire area was enveloped in mist and rain, so there wasn't much to see except the hordes of greedy monkeys harrassing tourists, and the roaming tourist protectors, who walk around with long poles and slingshots with which to keep naughty monkeys from stealing too much stuff. (These pictures were taken from low-quality video clips I shot.)
Despite the occasional whacking or stoning, the Emei monkeys do pretty well for themselves; they even get to drink bottled water.




A large variety of medicinal ingredients are sold on Emei mountain. Note: ingredients may also be used as pillow.

 

After Emei, we passed through Leshan to glance at the Great Buddha, another thing to add to China's list of biggest things in the world (stone Buddha statue). The experience was slightly less appealing than my first visit it in 2000, most likely a result of the rain pouring onto me and my broken $1 umbrella. (Although, the evening we stayed in Leshan we filled up on some of the greatest tasting malatang (³Â»¶¿S) ever! (It's like spicy hot pot, only better.))

It was time to turn around and head back to Chengdu, and I didn't want to finish off this trip south of the provincial capital having seen nothing I'd never seen before, so on the way back we stopped at a town called Jiajiang, where there is a relatively overlooked "Thousand Buddha Cliff." Yet another of those Buddhist carving sites, although this one a bit more modest in scale:



Unfortunately, like Buddhist carvings everywhere in China, most have lost their heads.


The statue on the left started looking like that only after he saw what they did to his friends.

 

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This trip actually began in Guangzhou, where I had to wait a day before I could get a train to Chengdu. There is nothing worse than paying for expensive accomodation (anything more than a couple dollars is expensive), so without any in sight, my first night was spent on a bench at the waterfront. Except for the welcome cool breeze coming off the water, it was completely silent at three in the morning, perfect opportunity to read a book.

Later I did actually get some sleep, but was woken up at dawn by the sound of old men slowly swimming by in the river, and greeting each other as they arrived in their skimpy bathing suits before slipping into the water.