Chengdu

Well 24 hours away from loading up to head back to the rooftop. Yesterday Bethany and I rode a bus for 13 hours to get back to the big city of Chengdu famous for it's panda breeding center. My trip is ending with a good reminder of where I have been and what I am going back to. For the past week I have had the privilege of spending time with a friend in his hometown. His town, village would probably be more accurate, is perhaps what my city looked like a couple decades ago. His family was very hospitable and they all were constantly feeding and making sure I was comfortable. I was just blessed to be able to be there at all. The drive was long both ways, but the scenery was breathtaking. Trees, mountains, bamboo, i fell asleep and woke up in a postcard. However the coldness was not from a postcard.

On the way there we stopped in a city named Kanding. The only open restaurant was a fast food chicken place called Dicos, but that friend chicken never tasted so good. The hostel we stayed at had traditional Tibetan bed and was freezing, however they had electric blankets! So that made sleep very possible. The next morning at 6:30 we walked to the bus station to try and get a ticket. The ticket counter told us to wait and wait. And finally (about 2 mins before the bus was going to leave) they let me buy a ticket. I am not sure why I had to wait, or what the reason was, but when we both got on the bus we discovered we had the last two seats. And later we found out that the bus just started that morning. If we had come a day earlier we wouldn't hve been able to buy a ticket! Wow.

more to come...