Chengde is a relatively small place by Chinese standards – it’s a city with only a million or so inhabitants located 4 hours north of Beijing by train. OK, a very slow 4 hours – even the express seems to crawl at 30mph or so most of the way… But this is our first exciting venture into mainland China outside the Capital Beijing. Which is actually a bit scary, as not many people here speak English, and Chinese is VERY difficult for us to say even a few words correctly. It’s a tonal language – use the wrong up/down/flat/up-down/whatever intonation when saying a word and you change its entire meaning... Nightmare. Even saying ‘Thank you’ is difficult, and asking ‘How much?’ virtually impossible! Oh, and to make matters worse, at this point our reading of Chinese characters involves deciding whether it’s a nice simple squiggle or a nasty complex one, and trying to imagine the character as a man with a funny hat or a house or something. As you might imagine, this method doesn’t work well if you’re in a hurry. I hope this gets easier!
Chengde however was worth the effort. Its main attractions stem from the fact that Emperors used to come here as a summer retreat from Beijing – it’s relatively high in the mountains and so stays cooler (Gary liked this, I froze…). And of course, it was customary for the Emperors to live a life of simplicity out here in the sticks – their palace was therefore modelled after a Manchu village apparently. But a village with 200 odd rooms, umpteen numbers of servants, and a walled landscaped garden a few kilometres in radius with beautiful lakes and deer roaming freely around. Just like the common people lived!
But it was nice to wander around. The gardens were particularly good – again, like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, they are built on a huge scale. They don’t do things by halves in China. The lakes have wonderful islands linked by sweet little bridges with Chinese Gates, and little complexes of pagodas, halls and covered walkways like the shores. Very idyllic, particularly as deer still wander freely and are happy to come close to tourists in search of titbits.
Another nice thing about the Imperial sponsorship of Chengde is that a large number of impressive Buddhist temples were built to the North and East of the town. And again, in a typically Chinese fashion these temples are big. Huge. One temple complex has over 60 buildings, the largest of these looking more like a fort than a temple. Which is great as you can explore them more or less freely.
The only downside we found to Chengde was food – we simply couldn’t find a restaurant that wasn’t either a tourist group trap (i.e. gimmicky, overpriced, and with no menu on display) or a fast-food joint. The Rough Guide to China was particularly unhelpful here – after saying ‘you can eat well in Chengde’ it listed only one restaurant (miles from where we were staying) and then miss-directed you to a vague area where apparently there were ‘lots of overpriced but OK tourist restaurants’. As I said, really helpful. Anyway, at least the starvation only lasted two nights, and we are now on our way back to Beijing, where the food is great!
Chengde however was worth the effort. Its main attractions stem from the fact that Emperors used to come here as a summer retreat from Beijing – it’s relatively high in the mountains and so stays cooler (Gary liked this, I froze…). And of course, it was customary for the Emperors to live a life of simplicity out here in the sticks – their palace was therefore modelled after a Manchu village apparently. But a village with 200 odd rooms, umpteen numbers of servants, and a walled landscaped garden a few kilometres in radius with beautiful lakes and deer roaming freely around. Just like the common people lived!
But it was nice to wander around. The gardens were particularly good – again, like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, they are built on a huge scale. They don’t do things by halves in China. The lakes have wonderful islands linked by sweet little bridges with Chinese Gates, and little complexes of pagodas, halls and covered walkways like the shores. Very idyllic, particularly as deer still wander freely and are happy to come close to tourists in search of titbits.
Another nice thing about the Imperial sponsorship of Chengde is that a large number of impressive Buddhist temples were built to the North and East of the town. And again, in a typically Chinese fashion these temples are big. Huge. One temple complex has over 60 buildings, the largest of these looking more like a fort than a temple. Which is great as you can explore them more or less freely.
The only downside we found to Chengde was food – we simply couldn’t find a restaurant that wasn’t either a tourist group trap (i.e. gimmicky, overpriced, and with no menu on display) or a fast-food joint. The Rough Guide to China was particularly unhelpful here – after saying ‘you can eat well in Chengde’ it listed only one restaurant (miles from where we were staying) and then miss-directed you to a vague area where apparently there were ‘lots of overpriced but OK tourist restaurants’. As I said, really helpful. Anyway, at least the starvation only lasted two nights, and we are now on our way back to Beijing, where the food is great!
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