Gap year travel in China

By Kate Lee

Our gap year travel had taken us all over the world - backpacking across most of Asia. But arriving in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, with its smog, blaring horns, motorbikes and neon adverts came as something of a shock. When you are on a gap year you want to experience things that are totally different from life back home, and this was certainly different!

Chengdu was much much bigger than we had anticipated so we had to navigate our way around by public transport which was fun. Every journey costs 1 yuan (about 6p - great news for backpackers on a budget) and armed with a map it’s quite easy to know where you’re going. On our first ride, we had a conversation in Mandarin with a young guy and he wrote us a “Welcome to Chengdu. Have a nice trip” in Mandarin on a card.

Our food in Chengdu consisted of a very Chinese McDonalds (actually filled to capacity with trendy young things), Sichuan hotpot and ”mapo doufu” which is spicy tofu that blows the roof of your mouth off. We’ve heard rural dentists also use the spice as an anaesthetic. I kid you not.

The main attraction in Chengdu is visiting the Giant Pandas (if you can see them over the crowds of Chinese tourists) and they were pretty cute. The centre actually runs a really successful breeding programme although no pandas have been released back into the wild. Again there is some controversy over whether this is the best way to continue with conservation or whether more money should be put into protecting the last remaining wild pandas’ environment (there are only about 1000 left in the wild) or working more on programmes to release them back into the wild. Fortunately the pandas left are well protected. If someone is found guilty of killing a panda it’s the death penalty.

We also visited a beautiful temple where we had our ears cleaned professionally whilst drinking green tea (yes, at the same time) and we climbed up an extremely touristy Taoist mountain, Qingcheng Shan, complete with wafty Chinese plinky music coming out of fake rocks and bizarre signs along the way such as warning you “not to stride” (could be dangerous!)

Chengdu and the Pandas was definitely a gap year experience of a lifetime.

Gapwork gap year travel advice:

If you are concerned about the ethical implications of visiting a site on your gap year travels, then do your research before you leave. Taking a gap year and travelling to different places will be a great experience, but be aware of your impact as a tourist or traveller. If you want to get involved with volunteering abroad or conservation projects on your gap year, take a look at Gapwork's gap year conservation pages or community development sections.

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