Chongzhou is only an hour away from Chengdu by bus, but the climate makes it feel a lot farther; both times I've left a gray, smoggy Chengdu to arrive in a warm, bright Chongzhou. My friend Z____ came along with me, and after class we walked around taking pictures.
There's an ancient town called Jiezi (the "z" is pronounced almost like "ts", and the "i" at the end is sort of like "ə", the generic unstressed vowel) not far from Chongzhou, so that afternoon we decided to take a bus there. And we would have taken the bus, if there had been one. Instead, there was a line outside the bus station, and every ten minutes a van would pull up in front of it. Then an attendant would oversee the cramming of as many people as possible into the van (short of sitting in another person's lap). I was lucky; because of my height they chose me to sit shotgun.
We drove for about half an hour down dusty roads that were mostly under construction. Suddenly, the traffic got extremely crowded with pedestrians, cars, and motorbikes, and we started to make our way through some kind of open market. A few times we stopped unexpectedly to let somebody in or out--I couldn't figure out how the people standing on the side of the road communicated to the driver that they wanted to get in the van, or how they knew the unmarked, unremarkable silvery-gray van was the right one.
After the crowded market, the scenery quickly turned green and rural. The road was lined with tall, straight trees, and behind them were fields of yellow rapeseed flowers and intermittently an old, brick farmhouse. But this only lasted about 15 minutes, and then everything was under construction again. We came to a gigantic intersection where equal numbers of buses and tractors were lumbering around, kicking dust into the air. This was the stop. When we got out of the van, the driver told us that Jiezi was just a short distance up ahead. We could have taken one of the motorized pedicabs that were waiting around, but after riding down a bumpy road for the better part of an hour we opted to walk.
In retrospect, we should have taken the cab. For about 20 minutes we walked down a gravel road with no sidewalk, dodging mud puddles and the continually passing, continuously honking trucks that carried over-sized loads of sewer piping and other construction materials. The ancient town is being expanded into a luxury resort. Immediately around the town, the architecture at least is trying to mimic the old style. A little farther out, everything looks modern. On a fence, behind some people digging with shovels, there was a red banner that Z____ translated for me as "Never forget the policy."
The real "ancient town" is only a few blocks of buildings in the middle of all the mayhem, but once you get there it's surprisingly peaceful. True, the streets are full of tourists (though I might have been the only foreign tourist that day), but the absence of cars on the narrow, carved stone streets, and the profusion of outdoor tea houses with people dozing in their chairs, and the generally relaxed manner of the locals makes Jiezi feel like a decent place to live. The main street runs parallel to a wide river. Branching off from the street toward the river are numerous, narrow side roads with quiet guesthouses, and at the end of each there is at least one tea house where you can sit and look across the river at the bright green hills on the other side. Actually, when we were there, this experience was somewhat diminished by the heavy tractors that kept driving up and down the river, which had been made temporarily shallow so they could build a new bridge.
Looking out the entrance of a restaurant (hanging meat overhead)
Making sesame-peanut candy in front of the shop
Steamed buns--brown sugar, black rice, sesame filling, meat filling, ...
Medicine shop
The first section of the main street
