Wednesday 20th October 1999

Such a busy day. Did a lot and finally organised my itinerary for the next few days, or so I thought. Up at 9:30AM and goodbyes to Sophie and Vaughan with email exchange. Returned bike to Paul then took the 11:20AM bus to Leshan.

I didn’t have the ‘death executioners’ seat today on the bus. » Read more: The Two Shans

Tuesday 19th October, 1999

So, up so early it was still dark and had some breakfast. Then got on my posh red mountain bike which had previously been hanging on the wall of the Oasis and cycled through the rush hour fumes and dust to the Panda Sanctuary. I got ‘15 minutes’ lost but no big problems, I basically didn’t turn off the main road soon enough. I stopped at a petrol station and asked the attendant the way but they akin to some marshans staring at another guy cleaning a van. They didn’t say a word back to me, just stared as if I was the alien, all a very weird experience!

I some how was allowed into the sanctuary for free, although I had to pay ¥1 to lock my bike against the fence. The Panda’s looked kind of cute and cuddly but they were too lethargic to be very interesting or attention grabbing. The park was huge with bamboo growing everywhere (I wonder why!) but there seemed to be no general order about things and I kept walking around in circles and meeting the same groups. There was a Danish family there and the children seemed so excited and an Israeli girl called Lolita Naneenah (or whatever her name was) who was so nice with beautiful long hair but she talked soo much!

I saw seven pandas overall including a ‘Lesser Brown’ fox like Panda and some babies in an incubator which wasn’t so natural and made my stomach turn. I wander if any of them live in the wild any more or if they’ve all been poached.

I thought the cycle ride back would be easier but got a little lost again on the huge and dusty streets coming back into Chengdu but then recognised the bridge over the river. I bought a bike bell for the bike and as a present for Paul, which came in very useful when the roads got busier with stupid cyclists stopping in the middle of the lane for no apparent reason. It’s really strange how they just suddenly hop off their bike and stand there. I got lost even more looking for an email cafe but eventually found one for ¥3 an hour and stayed nearly two hours. I felt very sweaty and dirty cos of the bike ride and needed to change my clothes. Back at the hotel I met Eric, who is Sophie’s friend, who had separated to travel by himself up near Tibet, where Sophie thought it was too cold to go, or something. The three of us had dinner together in a local Chinese place near Oasis, then guess what stopped by Paul’s for a few beers and a some socialising. I changed rooms so Eric and Sophie could share the room together (how thoughtful) but then got so confused in the middle of the night because I thought Jenny was USA Paul who would’ve overslept and missed his flight to Lhasa. Weird.