Spicy Sezchuan

Greetings from scenic Zigong; we're gloriously in the boondocks of Sichuan now.

I’ve gotten rather behind on my writing here, I have to say. This is partially because we‘ve been running around rather furiously， and partly because of trouble finding 'net access （very few computers when you sleep in mountain-side monestaries）. It's funny， I didn’t really have much to say about Yunnan; the province was beautiful, but it‘s a beauty that speaks for itself and must wait for pictures. But Sichuan seems to lend itself more to stories.

But I'll still start off giving the dry travel-list up to know so you know where we are coming from here in Sichuan. We started with an afternoon, a day, and a morning in Chengdu, the capital； during this time we walked around a lot of dull city， some lovely temples， and took a day trip to a touristy old-fashioned town. We then moved onto Emei Shan, a holy Buddhist mountain where we hiked around all the "wrong" parts （where crowds were）thinner and stayed in spartan rooms in temples for two nights. Then we went to see the worlds largest buddha statue at Leshan. Now we have taken the road less paved to Zigong--I’m saying that we‘ve left the beaten path for the heavily abused path （our "2.5 hour" bus trip today took 5 hours due to lack of pavement along the entire 120km road).

As I write, Tara is arranging for us to get a car to the Shunan Bamboo Sea for Tuesday. We are then planning to move on to Dazu， home of thousands of Buddhist carvings， and then to Chongqing to catch a boat down the Yangtze through the Three Gorges. And then...uh...maybe Wudang Shan (home of the Wu Tang Clan), then Xi'an (the old, old capital), then we'll see how much time we have left.

But right now, we are sitting in the business center of a nice hotel in this small and charming city. It's far enough out of the way that the act of white folks buying some buns was able to draw a crowd. Zigong was featured (I think) in the book "Salt" as the region where modern drilling techniques were invented centuries ago; the local salt museum was far more interesting than it sounds. There is also a noted dinosaur museum (in situ at the excavation) that we'll check out tomorrow.

But mostly I am enjoying this city because it is so much the opposite of major Chinese cities. It is small and walkable with old buildings, a riverside, and a thriving pedestrian market all jammed together. The air is breathable even. So we are going to unwind here for a day or two and enjoy the Sichuan food and the teahouses.