Chengdu is quite a nice and liveable city - filled with friendly people, green streets, good air quality, and great food.

Today’s priority was to get my bike serviced and checked up at the Ducati dealership, and to check out the city. We are staying on the outskirts of town, as motorcycles are not allowed in the city centre of Chengdu. It is eerily quiet near the hotel (the staff mentioned that this was because it is in a business district, so no one else really lives here).

Thankfully this is not too far from where Ducati is based, and hopefully makes for a quick exit from the city tomorrow.

The mandate for Ducati was: (1) check everything, and change everything necessary, and (2) change oil (has been 6000 KMs since Phuket), and I’d been chatting to them via Wechat after the help of our wonderful tour guide company.

Sandeep and I with the Ducati crew

Then it was a beeline to an older part of town, Yuling Street, where I’d found (or rather, ChatGPT had found) a cafe with: “third wave coffee, a nice grinder, and good atmosphere”. This was Aires Coffee, which was run by an eccentric (quite clearly a coffee nerd). He roasted his own beans in small lots, had a huge variety to choose from (tailored to individual preferences). In the back I was very impressed with his grinder setup. An EK43, a Ditting, one other tall rectangular grinder that looks very commercial, and what looked like a large flat burr grinder (similar but not the same as the Lagom 01).

Coffee served was a Panamanian Gesha, Yellow Bourbon, and an iced coffee which was a bit darker and more fuller bodied. Excellent cups.

Then; lunch, a noodle shop just around the corner. Super good food.

“This looks like it could kill and unprepared stomach…and pleasure a prepared one”

The afternoon was spent exploring the shrine of Liu Wei and Zhugeliang of the Three Kingdoms period. What struck me most from the visit was that the lands I had been riding were ancient. The battles of the three kingdoms and all other happenings of the millennia of Chinese history have been occurring in the lands I am transiting through. This is quite a unique experience for me; not much happened in Australia or Dubai in the way of storied history more than 300 years ago. It is fascinating to look at monuments to ancient history in the places where they happen. [I guess this is also the case in Europe, but something feels different about China; perhaps the amount of time I’ve been riding in nature and parklands makes me feel closer to the land, vs an urbanised European city].

Wuhou Shrine to Liu Wei and Zhuge Liang

Then we were invited to dinner by our really helpful tour company - thank you for all the help QS, Echo, and Maggie!

Kiat and I with the QS, Echo and Maggie from Adventure Ride China

I feel a bit sad to be on the move again tomorrow; it would have been nice to spend more time here and develop some familiarity with Chengdu, but alas, adventure (and my relatively tight itinerary) awaits!

Tomorrow; halfway to Hanzhong!

Some stats:

• 19 KMs travelled
• No fuel added
• 1 unique interaction
• 37.5g coffee consumed