Chengdu is Panda City - Every possible product has a picture of a Panda, even cigarettes have a Panda brand. Yet another huge city, masses of people and an enormous statue of Mao, in the main square. The hostel (called Mr Panda) was located centrally and guess what, our ubiquitous Frenchman (Medhi) turned up for the fourth time on our trip (he may be a stalker) We went to see the Pandas, which was good but perhaps not worth travelling through half of China for. However, they were pleased to see us and we exchanged e-mail addresses and they may visit us on their next trip to the UK (they rarely get out of London on their trips)

We decided to get out of the city and travelled to a Taoist temple, located at the top of a mountain. It proved to be quite a climb, so we thought it a good idea to stay the night. The restaurant closed at 4:00 pm, so a very early dinner (chicken bones in a chilli sauce - our worst culinary experience) and the tourists left at 5:30pm. It turns out we were the only residents except for the Monks, a few staff and some random animals - mainly miniature dogs and watching them trying to climb steps was our major entertainment for the evening. Spending the night in an empty Temple at the top of a mountain is a truly surreal experience - The beds were damp but offset by electric blankets and we survived the night. The next morning was glorious sunshine and we were alone at the top of the mountain - Brilliant - Every cloud does have a silver lining.

On the next day we braved the local bus system and travelled to LeShan, where a huge Buddha is carved into the rock face (ala Mt. Rushmore) which was very impressive but yet again more climbing.

Back in Chengdu, we met some Dutch travellers (Rene and Anke) who we had befriended on the Trans-Siberian Express, a few weeks back and after a happy reunion we were ready to move on to our next adventure via a 27 hour train journey.