Chengdu, China (5 - 7 November 2007)

After a tiring trip, including 4.5 hours transit in Hongkong, I finally arrived at Chengdu. I was surprised since the airport is very big, too big for a provincial capital. But later I found out that this capital of Sichuan province is a major hub for the western part of China. Even people who want to go to Europe now fly from Chengdu, instead of Beijing. Like other big city in China (Chengdu is the 7^th biggest city in China), it has enormous population – more than 10 million people. The 1,200 sq km city (probably a bit smaller than Jakarta) is located in a basin, so it enjoys a mild 4-season weather. Not much rain, not much sunshine, not too cold, nor too hot.

The hotel where I stayed, Shangri-la, is a landmark of the city. The newly-built 35-floor building erects proudly just beside the Jianjin river that runs through the heart of the city. When I entered my room, I was amazed - this is the most luxurious hotel I have ever stayed in. My room, a standard one, is about 42 m2. Very spacious. Everything is high-quality and made of first-class materials. This is the hotel where I have ever stayed which has a wall-mounted 32-inch LCD (but I could not enjoy it because most programs are in Chinese). In short, I was treated like a king ! The hotel surely represents its name: an earthly paradise.

What I expected the most in my first trip to China was its food. Yes, I am a fan of Chinese food. And the organizer of the China-ASEAN USO Forum perfectly filled my expectation, especially during the dinner in the first day of the seminar. The banquet was conducted in a big hall. The course consists of more than 10 (yes, ten!) dishes, each was served one after another. The good thing is that Moslem participants get special halal foods which were a bit different from the main course. There are new dishes (some of them are strange food!) that I have never tried before. My favourite was roasted duck and lamb. The taste...ummm...yummy... obviously different from Chinese food in Indonesia. The hotel also provides a broad varieties of cuisine, from Chinese to western. They even serve salty fish and salty eggs. But somehow I felt that Sichuan foods are not very good for health, since most of them are hot 'n spicy, oily, and salty. Well, I don't stay forever in Sichuan, so that's fine with me...

Another nice thing about Chengdu is that it is easy to find good-looking girls. Pretty face, slim and slender, and white skin. They are everywhere: at parks, on the pedestrians, and of course in the hotel... No wonder our local tour guide boasted these flowers of the city by saying, "If you go to Chengdu now, you'll be sorry for marrying too early"... The bad thing (or was it a good thing – for me especially ?) was that most of these Chinese people (even who work in an international hotel) do not speak English fluently.

During the event we were also taken to a Sichuan opera show. It was actually a variety show; there were a number of different performances. Each performance has its own beauty, but what brought my interest was the face-changing show. Several dancers wore a colourful mask, and during their performance, they kept changing their mask, just by a sudden movement. They did not even touch the mask. I don't know whether it was purely speed or any other things. It is said that this skill is unique to Sichuan people. They did not even allow Andy Lau to learn it -- even though he is a Chinese man.

On the third day, during our field visit, we were taken to a tourist destination in the Dujiangyan city. The location is actually a water irrigation management system built by an engineer named Li Bing in the 2nd century. The system controls the flow of a river that runs through Sichuan basin, and serves two purposes. First is to prevent floods coming to Chengdu, and the second is to provide water for irrigation in the dry season. The unique thing about this system is that it is based on precise calculations of the river bed's physical condition, and the flow control is purely carried out using natural means, with minimal man-made intervention (such as dams, etc).

Okay, enough talks about Chengdu... Next: Hongkong...