We took another night train from Xi'an to Chengdu and this was probably our best night train yet. As its the school holidays we were lucky that we got a train ticket. Thanks to Tony (from Beijing), we bought all our train ticket up till now in Beijing. We got on the train and straight away noticed that we were the oldest in our carriage! I thought, everyone's about 18 on here...this is going to be the party train! Unfortunately it wasn't...we had a good time though as all the students were eager to chat to us both and practice their English. They were all interested in where we've been where we're going and gave us lots of tips about Chengdu. They even tried to teach us some more Chinese! The biggest bonus about this train journey was, there was no spitting, snorting, snoring (except from me according to Hilary)..Basically, no one being rude and ignorant. It really gave us an insight into the more modern China. We're beginning to realise that the young generation of China are not like our first experiences in Beijing.

We arrived in Chengdu, where we stayed for 5 nights. We seemed to spend a lot of our time, like we did in Xi'an, trying to get our next train ticket from Chengdu onto Guilin with no success. So we had to bight the bullet and get our first internal flight. Chengdu is in the Sichuan province. If you've ordered a Chinese before, you will have seen Sichuan on the menu under all the spicy food. The main thing to do in Chengdu is to go to The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. We booked the trip through the Hostel, as you need to get there pretty early. We arrived at the Panda centre around 8am, just in time to see the Panda's having their breakfast. The park is huge and there are lots of different sections to see them. We went and saw the sub-adult panda's first. There were about 6 or 7 of them, just lounging about chomping on bamboo. I do have to admit they are very cute, but you can't help thinking, are they real? They really do look like it's a midget inside a panda costume! We walked around the rest of the park till lunch time spotting lots of sub-adult, adult and giant panda's. You need to get around in the morning really, as it gets too hot for the panda's after a while and they all head back indoors where they have air con! One thing I did notice about the panda's is how lazy they are. They all just lay about..they still look more alive than the one in Tokyo did though (I still think that one was dead!). It is quite funny when you're looking for them in each section then all of a sudden you see a massive panda at the top of a tree that doesn't look like it can take its weight! We also saw some red panda's while we were there. Don't know why they're called red panda's. They just look like ginger dogs mixed with a bit of racoon in them!

We really enjoyed the Panda research centre and were surprised how many are there and how close you can get to them.

In Chengdu, we also went to see the biggest statue in the world of Chairman Mao. They say the world, but I can't imagine there's one outside of China. To be honest, it wasn't that big. The statue JB Priestly in front of media museum in Bradford is bigger!

We also went to the people's park. It was mental here. The park itself wasn't that big, but its basically where all the crazy people go! As soon as you walk into the park you're greeted by a wall of noise. There were some kids practising their street dancing with their ghetto blasters going. They didn't even have any slick moves..I was tempted to show them a few of mine. But they didn't care who was watching. They were all just going for it. Then you walk 5 metres and there's some old boy and his wife with a huge speaker and karaoke machine just singing their hearts out, right next to them is another couple with a karaoke machine singing at the tops of their voices! Then right next door to each other, you have full brass bands all playing different types of music at the same time. The whole park was full of bands, karaoke machines all right next door to one another playing whatever they wanted as loud as they could! It really was crazy town!

The famous local dish in Chengdu is the hot pot (along with rabbits head!). Not the kind of hot pot that Betty serves up in the Rovers Return though. It's a big vat of oil full of chilli's, pepper corn seeds and mustard seeds that is on a cooker in the middle of your table, a bit like fondue. Then you cook your own food in it. We turned up at one place which was recommended to us by our hostel. When we arrived all the waitresses started giggling at the two westerners, and acting shy and embarrassed as none of them wanted to be the ones to serve us. One eventually was brave enough and tried to talk us through the menu and what to do. We didn't have a clue! She recommended ordering 6 dishes per couple. So we ordered Spinach balls, bamboo shoots, tender beef, lamb kebabs, streaky bacon & squid. It all comes on individual plates and you have to cook it yourselves in the big vat of spicy oil. We didn't have a clue what we were doing and we made a right mess. There was oil everywhere! A waitress showed us, that when you've cooked a piece in oil, you then dip it in some more oil, sesame oil, coriander and garlic before you eat it. It was certainly an experience and was a good laugh as it was obvious by everyone's faces that we were probably doing something wrong. Plus no one else's table seemed to have made as much as a mess as we did. The food was good though and annoyingly you kept losing bits of food in the vat of oil as you couldn't find what you'd put in!

While in Chengdu, we also met up with Dan and Kate. A couple we'd met in our hostel in Beijing. It was good meeting up with them again for a drink and getting some tips off of each other and exchanging a few stories about what we'd been up to in China so far.

We had to get the train from Chengdu to Chongqing as that's where we were flying from onto Guilin. There was another couple who were also flying from Chongqing on the same day but an earlier flight. Bryan and Sara. So we headed to Chongqing with them. They'd also stayed at the same hostel as us in Xi'an and when chatting to them, we found out they were staying in the same hostel as we'd booked in Guilin...I think they are following us...and taking the best rooms...and wanting seek revenge for having a squat toilet in Mr Panda.

A few things we learned about Chengdu:

• Panda's don't look real
• Its the home of spicy food
• Panda's are very cute
• Chinese are exhibitionists and love to sing
• The biggest statue of Mao isn't that big