Chengdu, China, June 2016

Dag 32. Chengdu

I dag brugte vi dagen i Chengdu, nogen siger at det er Kina’s 4. største by. Vores guide startede med at sige at der var 1.5 mill mennesker her i byen, men vi har nu fundet ud af, at her bor ca 14 mill personer, og det kan mærkes på trafikken. Vi bor i centrum af byen, så det er ikke sjovt at komme ud og ind til hotellet.

          The BMW staff busy taking pictures - BMW personalet havde travlt med at tage billeder.

I dag skulle Louis og Janet have deres BMW til service, så det var første stop. Louis blev ved bilen og vi andre kørte ud til en Panda Zoo. Desværre kom vi lidt for sent på formiddagen. Pandaer kan ikke lide varme, de bor normalt i bjergområder hvor det er køligt, så midt på dagen ligger de og sover i A/C rum. Vi så dog de røde pandaer udenfor, de fleste sov, men en enkelt spiste gulerødder.

                                                             Panda Park

Så hentede vi Louis igen og kørte til et kæmpe supermarked, hvor vi fandt en Domino’s pizza til vores frokost. Supermarkedet var sjovt at se, u-ha en masse mennesker og en masse larm, godt jeg ikke skal handle der til hverdag, kunne slet ikke koncentrere mig om at finde noget i den larm.

Om aftenen var vi på indisk restaurant og spise sammen med Bing (vores kontakt hos Navo tours)

Click on the photo to see the pictures
Click på billedet for at se vores album

16th June Chengdu

In Chengdu, our first stop  today was to get Louis’s BMW serviced. After a nervous drive through traffic, we finally reached the work shop, and they were very happy to see us. Everyone that worked in BMW, came out and took pictures of both our cars and welcomed us, like royalty. It is the first time a BMW is doing a trip like this.

                                                       BMW Chengdu

Left Louis at the service centre, and left for the Panda Rehabilitation Centre.

After driving through town for 35 km, we finally found the Panda Rehabilitation Centre.

This an enormous park, where you can either walk around, or be driven by a shuttle tourist bus. We of course choose the tourist bus to burn some calories. So hop on, hop of, for us.

Every Panda which were in their A/C enclosure, was a pathetic sight. Surrounded by zillions of Chinese, all screaming, and trying to take pictures. We walked through another park, where we saw the Red Panda in their natural habitat. A bit of a disappointment, as it was a warm day and we had reached late, so the Panda’s were lazing around and were not active.

                                                  Red Panda - Rød Panda

                                             Sleeping Panda - sovende Panda

We headed back to pick up Louis, from BMW, and decided to have pizza for lunch at a Chinese supermarket, which was another exiting experience.

It is worse than a mish mash of an Indian market, and a supermarket. They have vendors with microphones, strapped on their heads, trying to sell or demonstrate their goods. This together with everybody trying to fight over everything, created such a noisy environment, that we just left. No more Chinese supermarket for us.

Back to our hotel, we were invited out by Mr Bing from Navo tours. We had dinner at an Indian restaurant, and Mr. Bing had taken a bottle of whiskey along, which we polished of. A combo of Indian food, single malt Whiskey, and eating with my fingers, was a perfect ending for Chengdu.

Back to our hotel where we meet quite a few Chinese kids, that wanted to take pictures of us with our cars.