Nepal to Chengdu (11/10/19)
It was all travel drama today.
My flight to China was scheduled around noon so I had the chance to take a cold shower organize all my stuff. The hostel set me up with a taxi to the airport - which actually turned out to be a very social encounter. The driver had energy to spare and we chatted for the whole ride, which was pretty long with the morning traffic. He was learning English and liked having a chance to practice while I had a bunch of questions about the city that he was happy to answer. He actually invited me to stay with him and his family the next time I’m in Nepal. Actually, scratch that. He adamantly insisted that I come back to Nepal and stay with his family, and wrote down his contact info so I would be able to find him in like five years. I honestly didn’t expect that level of like aggressive hospitality but I did find it flattering.
When we arrived at the airport he made sure I promised not to let anyone carry my bags for me since apparently its very common for people to hold your bags at ransom. We parted ways and I went to find which line of people I belonged in, which took a solid 30 minutes of asking around to do. Once I was finally in the proper line, I ended up waiting for nearly 2 hours before I even got close enough to see the security gate. I think just due to the sheer number of people being funneling into a single bag check. At that point I was kind of panicking since my flight was scheduled to leave in 15 minutes and I was easily another 30 from the front of the line. So I flagged down someone in uniform and pointed to my ticket time and my watch. They got the point and escorted me to the front of the line and then showing me to the proper gate. As it happened though, the time for my flight came and went without any announcement and I was left waiting for some sort of clarification. I even checked with the folks seated near me for someone on the same flight and was a little relieved that I found someone else in my position. After a little while the loudspeaker announced that the flight was delayed for a half hour … then an hour … and then finally that it was time to board, but at a different gate. Like 40 people all stood up at that point and we shuffled out onto the tarmac and onto our plane.
The flight was going to be long one, like 8 hours on planes with a layover plus customs. I killed the first leg of the journey watching Netflix on my phone but eventually turned it off to preserve battery, since I wasn’t sure I’d be able to charge it during the layover or the second flight, and napped. When we touched down in China we had to go through customs and damn was it a pain. They had everyone in a massive hallway that funneled through a dozen customs gates, with extensive instructions written on the walls. What surprised me was that everyone had to register their thumbprint to pass. And of course there was an issue scanning my thumb so one of the folks had to come over and smush my hand into the scanner to no avail. Eventually they had me smudge my thumb with some inkpad and then it worked but it took like 15 minutes during which I was just standing there holding up the line.
After that ordeal we were seated in a waiting area that had chargers and a snack stall. I considered buying an instant ramen bowl, but I couldn’t figure out where people were getting hot water to cook it from, and it was also like $20 usd, so I stuck to the snacks I had packed. The second flight was much more comfortable and I was able to sleep most of it before touching down in Chengdu at around 9pm local time. There was a lot of signage and it was easy to find my way to the ATM and then subway. I tried to figure out the ticket machine for a little while but was having trouble. A passerby offered to help but I declined partially out of exhaustion and partly because I didn’t know if he’d ask for money for doing so. Looking back I definitely should have said yes since I had to deal with those machines over and over. I eventually gave up and located a staffed kiosk that nobody spoke English at but printed me out the proper ticket after much pointing to the map. Fortunately the entire subway had colored arrows painted on the floor for each line so it was super easy to find my train and get to my stop, which was about a 15 minute walk from my hostel. They got me checked in and I set my stuff down in my room, which was essentially a dorm room with 4 bunks and lockers. The whole place had a really cool vibe with ceiling drapes and paper lanterns as lights, plus a pretty big common room that was very friendly.
After getting settled in I wandered around the nearby street until I found a small open-air restaurant. I sat down and they gave me a menu entirely in Mandarin before pointing to a big pot behind the counter and asking “noodle?” to which I gave an enthusiastic nod and thumbs up. This was my first dish in Sichuan and hot damn was it good! Super spicy, tons of garlic and hot pepper flavor, and it made my whole mouth go numb which in turn made drinking water tingly. At the time I thought I was having a reaction to the food but afterwards I figured out that’s just what Sichuan peppercorn does - it activates the tactile receptors in your mouth and makes it tingle like when your arm falls asleep. I devoured my bowl, drank in dry, and then retired to my room planning to sleep like a log. I didn’t really have solid plans laid out for Chengdu yet and needed to work on my grad school essays tomorrow so I wasn’t particularly concerned that I fell asleep at like 4am.
