It’s always an exciting moment to arrive at the rally start hotel, especially after our rather gruelling journey to get here. A Shangri-La – what joy after Guangzhou. We were reacquainted with old friends, packing the cars, having convivial dinners and there has been time to replenish my confiscated items. When I went through China Trains’ security at Guangzhou, one of my bags was searched and sunscreen, dry shampoo and another hair product were removed. Through a translation app, the girl showed me one word – hazardous. Who knew that sunscreen was a dangerous item? I really must be more careful.

Chengdu has an enormous central shopping area with every designer brand you’ve ever heard of, and some more besides. Although, it was strangely empty. I went into one 5 story mall that was all marble and glitz with Gucci, LV, Prada etc. that had very few people. I did see some Tibetan monks staring through the window of Burberry though.

Yesterday, we all had to go for a medical to get our Chinese driving licences. A bus took us off to a hospital at one of the cities 14 universities for the checks. First off was an eye test of sorts. We had to sit on a chair cover each eye, and say the direction of the M type character, all done through a translator. Then, we had to sit with our hands splayed in front of us to be photographed. They need to see that you have all your digits to hold the wheel, presumably. Getting the rally rabble in order is not an easy task and it did not run smoothly. Mainly, because the computer kept breaking down. Opposite the hospital there was a grubby, but characterful restaurant where we all sat outside drinking tea and coffee until the first part of the process was finished. It took so long that our leader, Liz organised lunch there for us.

Next to where we were sitting, there was a live fish tank. Periodically, a boy would come with a tiny net to try to catch a very large fish. He flicked the hapless fish out of the tank and then bludgeoned it with a stick. He was not very good at either process and the poor flapping fish did not have a quick death. Fish was not ordered for our lunch after witnessing the drawn out murder, but they did serve us a tasty feast of lots of vegetables, egg and pork and refreshing ale.

Then, it was off to the police training school to get our licences. We sat in a classroom and a very jolly policeman with lots of stripes and stars on his uniform greeted us and told us to obey the rules, without saying what they were. We had to go up in twos to sign a couple of documents and then two girls were laminating our licences. The policeman was having a lovely afternoon with us and beamed constantly whilst taking lots of photos. My licence appeared to have a photo of someone else, it certainly didn’t look much like me. We also received a Chinese number plate for the cars and that was it. We were all legal to drive in China. It had taken eight hours to get that lot done. We all agreed that it had been a fab day though. Lots of chat and laughter and weird stuff to witness. Perfect.

Last evening, we went to a special restaurant with a show, that was really rather good. About 32 courses of excellent Schizaun food, that could have fed a 100 people – we left far more than we ate – and some very skilful and entertaining performers.

It’s 6 am now and I have to get up because this morning I’ve organised a visit to the Panda Research Centre. I was disappointed that a couple of crews did not wish to go. How can you come to Chengdu and not see pandas? I won’t embarrass them by naming names but Jumbo and Dom (oops) how can you miss out on that?

More later.