CHENGDU

ARTS & CULTURE

The cuisine of the southern Chinese province of Sichuan is well known for its chilli peppers. In the regional capital of Chengdu, chillies are not only thrown into the wok but also into hotpots: fondue pots filled with broth, in which everyone cooks their own food. Placed on restaurant tables, a hotpot dinner is the height of sociability.

ARTS & CULTURE

Hewn from rock, the Giant Buddha of Leshan is something special. The world’s largest sitting Buddha statue, 71 metres tall, is so enormous that his fingernails are bigger than the height of a person. Sandwiched between 2 rock faces, he stares calmly over the water at his feet and at the sacred Mount Emei. This Buddha is an icon that will take your breath away.

NATURE

The Miyaluo landscape is at its most beautiful during autumn, when the leaves of the maple trees turn a deep red. With a surface area of 3,000 square kilometres, this is China’s largest ‘red forest’. Mountain streams of melted ice water and bubbling hot springs lend the region a natural beauty, which can be deeply appreciated during a mountain walk.

NATURE

The giant panda is the symbol of China. Once spread across the entire country, these bamboo eaters are now confined to the uninhabited forests of central China. If you’d like to see one, your best bet is to visit one of the breeding centres around Chengdu, where information and knowledge of the pandas are gathered and from where the creatures are eventually returned to the wild. The most famous centre is the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

ARTS & CULTURE

The Sanxingdui Museum, located in the city of Guanghan just 40 kilometres from Chengdu, lies in a quiet setting among the hills. However, several thousand years ago, these same hills were part of the city wall that surrounded a Bronze Age city. The Sanxingdui Museum displays a rich collection of finds from this lost civilization. The ghostly masks in particular speak to the imagination.