Chengdu

20th-23rd May 2014      0km on bike

I’ve been really feeling like I needed a rest day, as I’ve been riding and changing flat tyres for two weeks, non-stop.  So arriving in Chengdu with the opportunity for a few days rest is very welcome and a chance to recharge, along with sort out some administrative & maintenance items on the bike.

I spent the first morning in Chengdu hunting for the Ducati dealership, as I was hoping to buy some oil to do a service on the bike.  The taxi dropped me at the wrong location and I wandered for an hour before calling Ducati and asking them where they were.  They handed the phone to an English speaking customer who happened to be at the store.  After explaining my situation, Lion suggested that I come around to Ducati and he would help me find what I needed.   On arrival at the Ducati store, Lion proved to be a genuine brother and we hopped on his Ducati for a ride to his house where we picked up another helmet and then took his BMW 1200LC GS for a ride out to BMW Chengdu (who I couldn’t find on the Internet)

At BMW I picked up a new oil filter, but they didn’t have the oil I needed, so Lion called another friend, who had the oil and would deliver it to my hotel that evening!   Lion and friends made the day.  I would have been hunting all over the city for hours had he not fortuitously been at the store and ready to help.   After a lunch together, I headed back to the hotel, sorted out my spare tubes that had been sourced by Melinda at NAVO and took a walk around Chengdu.

Chengdu is a great city, despite it’s huge size and population of 14M people, there are plenty of trees and the government has done a good job of planning the city, and making it liveable.  They even built a metro network in only 4 years.  The speed of development in China is absolutely mind-boggling, new roads, cities & infrastructure all just pop up in amazingly short periods of time.   Chengdu has a reputation for the most beautiful and friendly women in China, and in my short time walking around the city, I can see why the city holds that title.

I spent the next couple of days exploring the panda breeding and research centre, along with the once ancient town of Huanglongxi, which has been turned into the usual tacky tourist trap, selling the same crappy souvenirs from shops styled to be centuries old, but built last year. It’s a shame all the ancient towns have been converted (destroyed) in this way, in the pursuit of money.  They all look the same.  Some of the backstreets retain some of their original feel, and I tried to spend most of my time exploring the old lanes.