30 April, Chengdu to Luobiao
Boxianju Binguan 100CNY

Last night, on the eve of China’s most popular public holiday, we wandered down to Chengdu’s Tianfu Square, which divides Renmin Street into North and South, is serviced by a Metro station, and is watched over by a large white statue of Chairman Mao, right arm aloft. In preparation for International Workers’ Day (May Day), the square, surrounded by modern highrises, has been decorated with red and yellow flowers.

The residents of Sichuan province like their food hot. After our walk, we dined at a pavement restaurant not far from our hotel on a VERY hot and delicious stew comprising prawns, pork, onions, celery, potato, and much, much more. This we tamed with sweet corn made sweeter with a sugar coating prior to cooking.

A long day for us today. We took an early bus to Yibin (four hours), then smaller buses to Gongxian (one hour), a coal mining town on a river, and Luobiao (two-and-a-half hours), our intended destination. Between Yibin and Luobiao we travelled a narrow, rural road, the towns through which we passed crowded with people journeying home for the long weekend. The terrain was hilly and green, the farm terraces edged with grey stone walls. In Yibin we had to take a local bus from the north bus station at which we were dropped to the smaller, less organised south bus station from which we had to continue our trip. There we stood in a long queue and could obtain tickets only for a bus departing 90 minutes later. We crossed the road for a late KFC lunch returning 30 minutes prior to departure. When we could not find our bus number on the departure board, we showed our tickets to an official who gestured us out the door and positioned us to one side of a group of people standing in the loading area. Shortly a bus pulled in and we were ushered into it and seated before anyone else was allowed to board. In Gongxian, the ticket seller shook her head when we asked to buy tickets for Luobiao, waving us simply to the back of a ragged line of waiting passengers. Soon thereafter an official approached us and took us to the front of the queue, again boarding us as soon as the bus arrived. We have no idea why we were given preferential treatment, but assume it is simply because we are foreigners. Whatever the case, we arrived in Luobiao at least an hour earlier than we had anticipated when we departed Chengdu this morning.