Thumbs Up (mostly) on Chengdu

I was very impressed with Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan Province, when I visited there recently. The people were friendlier and lived life at a slower pace than in Shanghai and other cities I've visited in China. The local food was much more to my taste and I found the spicy, non-greasy "mala" tingly numbness caused by the Sichuan Pepper very pleasing. Even the Western restaurants I found there (the Book Worm, Grandma's Kitchen, etc) were as good as any Western eatery in Shanghai. If you've been reading this blog lately you'll know that I was rather underwhelmed by nearby Chongqing. How two cities so close together could be so different is puzzling.

The only thing that disappointed me about Chengdu were the bathrooms in its otherwise modern airport. There were only two western-style toilet stalls in the entire airport - and none of them, Western or squat, came with toilet paper or clothes hook. This was true even in the international section of the terminal where people getting off the flight from Paris were destined to find no relief. To make matters worse, the floors and walls of the stalls were filthy. Apparently, in lieu of toilet paper one client decided to do some "finger painting". If a lone traveler were fortunate enough to have toilet paper with him then the only way to use the squat toilets would be to hold his bags and overcoat over his head as he attempted to squat and avoid falling into the pit. Under these circumstances I suppose worrying about toilet paper is more or less a moot point.