23 March 2007
Dhahran – Beijing – Dubai – Hong Kong – Chengdu
I knew that this was going to be a good day when I
arrived at school at 9.30. The busses were already
there waiting for us. With a group of 41, there is
always a fair chance that somebody is going to be late
or forget something vital like a passport, so it was
with a sense of amazement that I greeted the last
parent to arrive at 9.59, one minute before the
deadline. Twenty minutes, the passports checked
against the manifest and one or two tearful goodbyes
later and we were off.
The causeway and check-in all went smoothly and fairly
quickly. Having the Chinese visas in the passports
before we set off was a big help. There was none of
the last minute negotiation with check-in desk
official about who does or does not need a visa.
We took over the fast food restaurant in Bahrain
airport and I spent the most I have ever done on junk
food. Some of the boys found items of considerable
interest to them in the magazine store and were quite
excited about their purchases, talking loudly and
indiscreetly. Sadly, or luckily, these were
confiscated by security in Hong Kong, as indeed were
large quantities of shampoo, makeup and deodorant.
Once we had completed business at the transfer in Hong
Kong we broke into small groups and explored the
shops. I really wanted to buy something, anything
really, but couldn’t find anything I wanted. The
students found plenty that they wanted to buy, but as
I had their spending money ….
For lunch we gave everybody fifty HK dollars and sent
them off in groups to find food for themselves. Most
avoided Burger King and Starbucks and went to a
Japanese noodle store.
By the time we arrived in Chengdu we were all very,
very tired. It is always difficult to sleep on the
start of a school trip – there is just so much to talk
about. The aircrew handed out landing cards, customs
cards and health declarations on the plane. It was
quite a task to get them all filled in and checked
before we landed. The bags all arrived intact and on
time and the China Climb team was just pulling up in
the busses to collect us as we came through customs.
We have six China Climb guides with us. They seem
great – all really enthusiastic and keen to help.
The bus dropped us at our hotel – Wen Jun Mansions, on
a street in Chengdu that looks as though it was built
as a film set for a Kung Fu movie. The hotel’s rooms
open onto long balconies that overlook a small
courtyard.
We took dinner at a superb hot-pot restaurant just
down the road. In the middle of the tables there was a
large vat of hot liquid, soup on one side and water
full of spices and chilies on the other. The
waitresses, and a very large number of them there was
too, brought plate after plate of meats, leaves,
mushrooms and vegetables for us to cook ourselves. The
food cooked in just one or two minutes, after which we
trawled it out with chopsticks, dipped it into a bowl
of oil and crushed garlic and then burned our lips in
the hurry to get it down. Everybody is using
chopsticks and doing really well. Huge quantities of
food were consumed.
After dinner we walked briefly around a sculpture park
on our way to the Sichuan Opera. We were a little
early for the performance and so were able to watch
the dancers putting on their makeup and costumes. I
was impressed by the way they could do this whilst
being photographed by 50 people, some of whom were
getting very close indeed.
As we took our seats for the opera, ladies carrying
the most extraordinary teapots came around to fill the
cups that had been laid out before us. Made of
copper, these teapots had meter long spouts, so
enabling the waitresses to serve tea at a distance.
It looked a risky business, with huge potential to
scald the audience, but it was all accomplished
without a drop spilled.
The teapots figured in the first dance performance
too, with two men demonstrating how you could dance
and do acrobatics whilst pouring tea. A strange skill
to develop, I thought, but entertaining nevertheless.
I am sad to say that many of us were so sleepy by this
time that we tended to drift in and out of
consciousness during the show. It was impressive
though, with some superb costumes, music, singing and
dancing in the traditional Sichuan style. There was
also a puppet display, where the master managed to
coax a remarkable amount of expression and very human
emotions and movements from his master. The students
were, I think, most impressed with a shadow display.
Using nothing more than his hands the performer made
shadows on a circular white screen on stage. Birds,
horses, dogs and rabbits that appeared so lifelike
that the audience applauded spontaneously.
As I walked around the hotel to check people were OK
and in their rooms, all was quiet. It was 10.15. The
end of a hard day.
