We always thought a city with 21 million inhabitants (9.5 million in the urban area) would be a wild concrete jungle, with stinking traffic chaos, dirty and confusing. What a positive surprise! Despite the many people, Chengdu (but also Xi’an and Beijing) is very organized, clean, and graffiti-free, with smooth and quiet traffic (almost only e-cars and e-motorbikes), a clean and efficient subway, and extremely, extremely safe. A walk at night along the park is no problem.
City of the Pandas
Chengdu is known for its Pandas and the Panda advertising on those gigantic 3D screens. But there is also nightlife, bars, restaurants along the river, and everything with very colorful lighting.
Feeling well in Chengdu
We also tried one of those classic massages in a spa. Everything was very professional and had a refined ambiance with tea, TV, and fruits. (Price €36/90 min. per person)
Caution: Chili
Here in Sichuan, the food is spicy. We had “Hot Pot” again, but this time hot and spicy. We were only half as brave and took a combination of spicy and less spicy. Thank goodness, because the spicy one was barely edible – for us 😉