Next section: People who would like to be pandas

From Beijing we then took a sleeper train to Chengdu in southern China - a whole 28 hours long. It was actually quite comfortable, we listened to many podcasts and read a lot. (René started reading Harry Potter again and is sometimes barely responsive)

Arriving in Chengdu, we quickly took public transportation to our hostel in a cozy eight-bed dorm. On the rooftop terrace with a wonderful view of Chengdu, we enjoyed a beer, or maybe three. We met a very nice Australian who was traveling through China with his daughter and a French woman who had been traveling in Australia before, but could hardly speak English.

The next day, we spent strolling through the parks of Chengdu. Many people were dancing, feeding koi fish, fishing (!) goldfish in the pond, or strolling through the created nature with their whole family. Since China had a problem with high air pollution for a long time, parks are now designed to create air corridors and allow exhaust fumes to escape easily.

The next day was packed with tourist attractions. So we got up very early to go to a panda reserve. We shared a taxi with Mikel, a Dutchman, and a nice Israeli woman with a very difficult name to remember. We got along so well that we decided to go to the feeding of the bears together.

On the way to the enclosures, you can already see many pandas, or at least people who would like to be pandas. Panda ears and stuffed animals are very popular with the Chinese women in particular. When you watch the real pandas eating, you can understand the hype right away: the black and white bears are living the dream, as René put it so nicely. They lie on their backs and shovel bamboo into themselves, make a lot of mess and still look cute. So, almost like humans. But just almost. Unfortunately, pandas are not so willing to reproduce, at least in captivity. The male doesn't really know where the too short penis belongs, the female turns irritably from one side to the other, and in the end both are frustrated. However, when it finally works, very cute little bears are born, initially without fur. In nature reserves, the mortality rate is less than 1%.

After our visit to the pandas, we went to a temple. In Buddhist temples, you usually get something super delicious vegetarian, and it's also cheap and usually all you can eat. But in the temple in Chengdu, it was even especially good.

After our temple trip, we returned to the hotel and realized that we had gotten up so early that the whole day was still ahead of us. So we sat down with Mikel on the rooftop terrace and philosophized about - well, about what exactly? It was about the theory of relativity, so also about time and somehow also about religion.

With smoking heads, we then went to the Chinese opera in the evening. We had booked the package without the traditional tea, but someone messed up something and behold, we had tea galore and even some nuts. The show was simply incredible, with many strange sounds, colorful outfits, and even wooden puppets. Especially the mask show and the shadow play were absolutely captivating. A visit to the opera should definitely be planned during a visit to Chengdu!