From China (6)

Dodgy internet connection..... but here goes .....
Sunday 14 April - in Chengdu
If this is Sunday, we must be in Chengdu!

We disembarked from the Yangtze cruise on arrival in Chongqing.    Although Chongqung is a big city, apparently there's not too much to see (apart from the pollution) and the pandas were calling, so we were loaded into a bus for the 5 hour trip, mostly on a very good expressway (tolled), to Chengdu - home of the pandas.   We'll see them tomorrow, but tonight we saw the Sichuan Opera - a bit different and very interesting:    amazingly quick changes of masks and even costumes, puppets, fascinating music and terrific acrobat.   More details to follow....

Prior to this, obviously our meal was Sichuan, which makes extensive use of chillis.    We loved our meal!   Yes, there were one or two dishes which were on the hot side, but the cooking doesn't use chillis merely to blast the taste buds - it's much more than this.   We must follow this style of cooking up when we return!

In the meantime, it's an early start tomorrow to see the pandas and then get the flight to Xian.