Chengdu, China

Our fantastic organizational skills have once again landed us behind schedule. We - still- find ourselves in Chengdu, China, waiting for a flight to Lhasa, Tibet. Sadly, we've had to scrap our plans to take the pressurized, 48 hour train ride. It's booked solid. The ride up to Lhasa's 3900m would've been an unforgettable trip, but an impossible one this time around. Train or not, our trip to Tibet, aka The Rooftop of the World, promises to be fabulous. Here's hoping the altitude sickness doesn't keep us down too long.

Chengdu has been an interesting place to be, if not a little cold. It's been hovering near freezing at night. In itself that's not too cold, but I've spent 2 years acclimatizing to temperatures in the 30s and certainly no colder than 12C. I generally start bitching around the 15C mark. Consider that, then consider our hostel is unheated. An open air. What I'm saying is that we're freezing our subtropical asses off and embarrassing Canadians the world over. I imagine Tibet will abruptly jolt my body back to its Canadian reality.

So Chengdu. Good place. It's an interior, southwest city of 4 million , probably mid-sized by Chinese standards. In contrast to Kaohsiung, Chengdu actually has sidewalks. In theory I'm sure they're for pedestrians, but in practice they've become an extra lane. Oh well. We've spent some time wandering the streets and have managed to navigate our way through cars, taxis, tuk-tuks, rickshaws, bicycles and scooters without getting hit, which is at least moderately impressive. Our foray into Sichuanese food has been both a success and a failure. It all tasted great, but I regretted every last bit when it began to rot my insides. If I can't handle Chinese food, it'll be interesting to see how long it takes before Indian kills me.

Giant pandas are the unquestionable highlights of Chengdu. The Sichuan province, where Chengdu is located, is home to 85% of the world's giant panda population. They're surprisingly playful, incredibly cute, and always eating. Bamboo is the snack of choice and they have an insatiable appetite for it.

Chengdu's next biggest claim to fame is the Wenshu temple, honouring Buddhism's wisdom reincarnate. The ground's are large, impressively well kept, and comprise the largest green space I've seen in 2 years. The temple is known for its vegetarian restaurant (very good) and its tea house. The tea house was one of the more comical experiences we've had to date. This twitchy little Chinese lady pulled out a chair, and without asking, sat down. She proceeded to explain that she was looking to practice her English. Fine by us. Unfortunately her speaking, while limited, has developed beyond her comprehension. She didn't talk TO us, but AT us. She did this for about half an hour, filling the awkward silences with an even more awkward, loud, high-pitched laughter, and occasionally prodded us to ask her questions she wouldn't understand by repeating "please...please...please" until we finally relented. The tea house and this lady were difficult to get away from. She wasn't keen on leaving us (until she randomly jumped up and literally ran away) and the man with the kettle wasn't keen on letting us drain our cups. Every time we took a sip he was there to replace it with fresh, hot water. Countless cups of tea and 2 very full bladders lately, we pounded our last cup and ran like hell.

Our week long stay, which was supposed to be 3 days, has been relaxing but uneventful. We're looking forward to our 5am wakeup call for our Tibet flight tomorrow. We've passed the time with some great people, most of whom are also stranded, awaiting transportation to their next destination. The situation may not seem optimal, but the unlikely company makes it all worthwhile. It's hard not to revel in my nomad life when I sit around a fire, speaking French to a Belgian, English to a Canadian, while across from the Swedes speaking Swedish and the Danes speaking Danish, until we all finally switch to English to discuss our next adventures: trekking at Everest, Bangkok, Hawaii, California, India, California, Nepal...