Travel with Kevin and Ruth: Welcome to China... country number 75 for us!

Monday, June 22, 2026

Welcome to China... country number 75 for us!

First time flying with Loong Air. They're classified as a low cost airline, yet they include both carry on and checked bags in their prices. And they give you a meal. I was a little worried about cramped seating for the four and a half hour flight from Bishkek to Chengdu, but the only extra legroom seats they had were bulkhead, and I don't find them much better because you can't truly stretch out anyhow.

But for four and a half hours, I survived. Any longer than that and I would want better seating.

Managed to get a couple of snoozes in, and it went by pretty quickly. We arrived at Chengdu's Tianfu airport at 7:15am.

Sunrise at 32,000'.

Our first view of China.

It was 22C (70F) and raining when we arrived.

Immigration was fast and easy. As Canadians, under a special agreement we are allowed 30 days visa free until December 31st of this year. This is why we took advantage of that to travel now.

The terminal is new and spotlessly clean.

Decorated with a lot of these lantern things.

Chengdu is all about the pandas!

We always try to take public transportation to/from airports. For Chengdu, you can take high speed train, metro, or bus. We chose the metro option because we had lots of time and the price was cheap. And it was so easy and efficient to use.

We had to take three different trains to get to within a km of our hotel. Very easy to follow directions, with almost all signs at least partially in English. The metro trains themselves are also spotlessly clean, with police wandering the trains. And fast... at one point we were going 140 km/h (87 mph). But that's nothing in China where the high speed long distance trains often pass 300 km/h (186 mph).

We walked to the hotel, and arrived at around 9:50am.

Entrance to the Hanshi Hotel.

The Hanshi Hotel is known as a "museum" hotel. There are a lot of authentic pieces decorating the lobby, hallways, and rooms.

The hotel lobby.

We knew we were still early, and expected to be able to leave our luggage until our room was ready... but we didn't have to, because our room was ready. Nice!

The girl at the desk didn't speak any English, but they have a special tablet and microphone setup that you just speak into and it does the translation immediately.

When the elevator doors open on the second floor.

You see this piece.

Our door is on the right... room 1220.

The facilities. This is a step up from the Buhanka!

The bed itself is a museum piece!

This plaque is on the wall beside the bed.

I think the telephone is actually more modern than it looks.

View out our window on a wet morning in Chengdu.

We are paying 202 yuan ($42 CAD, $30 USD) per night for a 4 night stay. And it includes breakfast! Oh, and it includes laundry too!

We relaxed for a while and we had a nap before heading out to explore the neighborhood.

We came across this pedestrian only area with lots of shops and food stalls.

We found a place to have some lunch. They were all locals in there, and it was a bit confusing as to how to order the food. But eventually, the guy at the cash noticed us and waved us over. He used his phone to tell us that it was easiest to take a photo of the food pictures on the wall, and he would order it for us.

I did better than Ruth, and ended up with pork curry and rice. She had some kind of beef and rice dish, but it was okay. The curry was quite good though. I forgot to take a photo. Lunch cost 48 yuan ($10 CAD, $7 USD) for the two of us.