The final section!
Day 12: Chunxi Road
Chunxi Road is the main shopping street in Chengdu, and after a lazy morning we walked there along the river where I feasted on a (very tasty) chicken burger from homegrown fast-food chain Dicos. Most days took us along the river at least a little bit, in fact, and it’s a lovely one. Some stretches are quiet, others are filled with people, and at some points there are bags full of fish and buckets of turtles all over the place. I regret to inform you that we did not cross the road to investigate the ‘Chicago street food’ joint. But talking of food: that night provided another rare break from Chinese when we discovered a Thai/Vietnamese place inside the anime mall, and I savoured the beef brisket curry!
Day 13: Chongqing
Chongqing! I have to be honest and say that this city made it into our itinerary thanks entirely to the YouTube recommendation algorithm, which threw me so much of a totally crazy, multi-dimensional urban futurescape that I had to see it for myself. Chongqing is unusual in that it’s a directly-administered municipality, so not part of any province, and has a total population of over 30 million although the city itself is ‘only’ around 23 million. It’s also between 1 and 1½ hours away from Chengdu by high-speed train, of which there are many each day, so apparently it’s quite common to commute between the two.
Unfortunately Randi wasn’t feeling well on the morning of our day trip, so I left her to rest and recuperate in Chengdu while I joined our private guide, Chris, for a whistlestop tour of the sites. I had booked a tour with Chris before we left and he was exceptionally helpful in listing all of the possible things which we might want to see around the city and then crafting a bespoke itinerary – highly recommended if you’re looking for someone to take you around!
In our planning we had jokingly referred to Chongqing as the ‘dystopian megacity’, so I was surprised to find that it was actually very green. We started at the famous Kuixinglou Square, which feels like it should be on the ground floor until you walk over to the edge, look down and discover that you’re actually 22 storeys high. I’ve never been brave enough to hold my phone out over a sheer drop, so my video is much less compelling than all of the other ones you can find on YouTube and TikTok, but rest assured it is a very strange and cool experience.
Our next stop was the equally-famous Liziba monorail station, where the train passes through – and makes a stop in the middle of – a residential apartment building. For convenience, this would surely put all other homes to shame!
The rest of our tour included the tranquil E’ling Park, the central Jiefangbei Square, the remains of the ancient city walls and the retro socialist dormitory buildings of Minzhucun. According to Chris, this is a favourite spot on the tour for Eastern European tourists who feel nostalgia – at least on behalf of their parents – for a ‘labour village’ constructed to house workers for the state-owned motorcycle factory next door.
During the economic reforms of the 80s, the factory was closed and has since been demolished and replaced by a luxury shopping mall. The residential buildings survived, however, and the neighbourhood has since been revived with plenty of people milling about when we were there. It’s a fascinating historical contrast to the implosion of the USSR, which we know was studied very closely by China’s CCP as a ‘what not to do’ guide to their own survival.
Once the tour was over, I wandered by along the ‘Mountain City Alley’ – which sits high up alongside the Yangtze River – until I came to the ruins of an old French hospital, where the basement has recently been rediscovered and evacuated. In Chongqing, even their archeological ruins exist over multiple levels!
Then I headed back to Chengdu with lots of stories from Chris to share with Randi, who was thankfully feeling better enough to join me for dinner before walking home beside Chengdu’s own beautiful river.
Day 14: Tianfu Greenway & Livehouse
I’ve already talked about the Tianfu Greenway last time, so the short version is that we went back and rode some more! We almost didn’t: it was very hot outside, but cycling turned out to be way more cooling than walking. This section started at the ‘Global Center’ [sic] on a section of Metro where all of the stops have names like Hi-Tech Zone, Financial City and Incubation Park. The scenery was lovely.
That night we also wanted to visit another live music venue again before leaving China, so we did so after eating dinner at a trendier-than-usual fusion restaurant which somehow offered mango beer! It was a lively Friday night and a few live musicians were playing outside along the river, which we enjoyed before heading to another indoor livehouse venue. This was less cutesy than the area we discovered in Beijing – and for the first time we actually noticed a few other Western tourists floating around – but the vibe of the music was chill and relaxed. It was a great sorta-final night of our holiday… ‘sorta’ because our flight wasn’t actually leaving until 1.45am on Sunday morning, so we still had one more day in Chengdu…
Day 15: Last Day in China
After checking-out of our hotel, we headed to the Wenshu Monastery area for lunch for a noodle place which Randi had been wanting to try. Sadly, some mystery ingredient in a few of our meals in China had occasionally been giving her a mild allergic reaction and today this struck again – nothing serious, but requiring an emergency second lunch!
Afterwards we returned to Tianfu Square and stumbled half by accident into the (free!) Chengdu Museum, albeit sadly too late for the special exhibition on Sherlock Holmes which had recently ended. I didn’t find the main exhibits particularly enthralling – and did not even consider trying the new special exhibition on flutes – but as we sat in the café, we did have the lovely experience of two Tibetan teenagers approaching us and asking if it was OK to chat for a while. We agreed, of course, albeit through the medium of translation apps on each side.
In fact, they were not particularly interested in our lives (totally reasonable!) but were clearly experiencing their own form of culture shock in Chengdu and mostly wanted to show us lots of photos and videos of their homeland. They did ask us if we found things in China to be expensive, so the costs in Chengdu were also clearly on their mind. It was an unexpected reminder of how vast and diverse China itself is.
We had a final dinner at the Thai/Vietnamese place – they remembered us, so we clearly stand out. Then we collected our bags, said goodbye to the view from our hotel and rode the metro to the airport. An airport procedure I’ve never seen before: after checking in your bags, wait for 3 minutes in a separate area in case your name appears on a screen for some sort of additional security check. After 3 minutes have elapsed with no activity, you’re free to go.
If you’ve made it all this way, thanks for joining us on our China explorations. We’re so lucky that we were able to go, and it has ticked off a huge item on my travels wishlist. Although I am going to have to restrain myself from purchasing a scratch-off map of Chinese provinces and trying to visit them all… 😉
Again an awesome adventure to share this with you