After Taiwan, I flew to Chengdu, China on May 27 . I was a little nervous, as I had heard that travel in mainland China is not super convenient or easy. Western apps and websites may not work, Chinese apps may not work without a Chinese phone number, and everything in China — namely payment and transportation — depends on apps.
Additionally, the visa situation in China made me a bit worried. I was not on a proper tourist visa, and obtaining one with a US passport is a major pain. I could, however, enter the country on visa-free transit, which would allow me to be in one city for up to 144 hours so long as I don’t leave that city and depart to a third country after China. I hadn’t met anyone who had done this, and I couldn’t find that much info online, which made me nervous.
When I got to the Taipei airport and gave them my details and plans, they called the airline HQ, who then calls Chinese immigration to essentially pre-clear me to enter the country. I asked the airline guy how it works. When I arrived to the Chengdu airport, someone immediately met me at the gate and walked me over to Chinese immigration to fill out some paperwork, answer some interview questions (via translator), and give them all my flight and accommodation details. They even called the airline and my hostel to confirm my bookings were valid. The whole process took over an hour, but it was largely painless. Once I got to my hostel, which was crazy nice, I found that my apps sort of worked, which was not a huge deal. I was excited to be in China.
I spent about half my time in Chengdu just walking around, exploring the city, and taking in being in China. Chengdu felt super modern and brand new. It was sparkly clean with enormous sidewalks. Very nice to walk around. Lots of flashing signs and panda apparel, since visiting the pandas is the main attraction here. The roads were quite full of cars, buses, motorbikes, and people, but the roads were so quiet. Pretty impressive for a city of around 20 million people. Every vehicle was electric. It was a little eerie. There was hardly any English written anywhere (restaurants), and no one spoke any English except for the staff at my hostel, so I used a translation app everywhere.
My friend Silvia was there at the same time, which was great. Lots of exploring around Chengdu. Nice parks, pretty streets, big buildings
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We took a day trip to see the pandas at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. It’s very popular for tourists, but it wasn’t too crowded when we visited. That’s all relative for China, since it was still pretty busy and China is insanely crowded. It was a huge complex that takes all day to walk around, with each panda having tons of space and privacy if they seek it. This is the research center that partners with the National Zoo in DC on panda research, which was cool. There were quite a few giant pandas and many red pandas too. I had a blast.
The next day, we also took a trip to the nearby town of Leshan. We took a short and very fast train there.
We thought it would be a quiet, small town compared to the huge and bustling city of Chengdu. Turns out Leshan is still a city of 3 million people.
We came to Leshan to see this park filled with Buddha statues. This includes the 8th- century Leshan Giant Buddha which is carved into a cliff face. The park was huge, gorgeous, and filled with incredible statues. The giant buddha itself was also pretty amazing to see. Everything in China is just… huge and grand.
We had some pretty delicious food in Chengdu too. Food from this province of China (Sichuan) is maybe my favorite food in the world.
I loved Chengdu! I thought China was such a weird, modern place filled with a zillion people. It was pretty frustrating at times, but so different and fascinating that every day was a net positive. It was far easier than it could have been, and I was eager to return.
Amazing photos and experience!
Looks like an amazing trip!