The land of Abundance Words Ron Gluckman Photography Luke Duggleby China’s Sichuan Province: more people than Germany and more superlatives than… almost anywhere. We explored it in the new Volvo XC60 R-DESIGN 02 03 XC60 in china othing breeds superlatives like often called the Chicago of China. Chinese know Chongqing as one of Fiery as the name suggests, a vat of home, in the exclusive Fragrant Garden China’s Sichuan Province. Chongqing, its Others liken it to Detroit, a mainland the furnace cities, as much for the chilies simmers with mind-numbing gated community in the leafy outskirts southwestern dynamo and now an Motor City. Perched along the Yangtze blazing heat of summer as the peppers. Brandishing chopsticks, we dip of Chongqing. Now she has over 300 indpendent prefecture, is the world’s River, Chongqing ships goods to renowned cuisine. Spicy doesn’t really in various meats and vegetables, and restaurants, and no city in the world may largest, fastest-growing city. This Shanghai and around the globe, thanks capture the true scope of Sichuan food, are quickly soaked with sweat. It’s a soon be safe from this one-woman metropolis of 34 million people seems to to the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s savored worldwide in countless Chongqing staple in countless street Global Warming; she has opened spawn new skyscrapers, freeways, entire biggest construction project, completed Szechuanese restaurants. Laden with markets and talk of the town – literally. outlets in North America and Australia, districts in an eye-blink. Yet just hours a few years ago. Chongqing also sits at chillies, the real kick actually comes In local pubs, conversation is heated, and plans further expansion. from this frantic city, as big as Belgium the confluence of a network of new from the tiny but potent Sichuan but few punters argue the merit of He Yongzhe is now a homegrown and more populous than Canada, roads and railways, hub of the Go West peppercorn. Fuchsia Dunlop, the first football clubs; talk is always which sensation. She employs 25,000 people. winding roads snake alongside snow-fed scheme, a plan to develop the Chinese westerner to graduate from Chengdu’s hotpot is hottest. Hence, there is no Several villages do nothing but farm streams through pristine valleys, then interior in an ambitious push that recalls prestigious Institute of Higher Cuisine, bigger Chongqing celebrity than He chilli for her operation, which uses scale hills thick with alpine forests. America’s New Deal, only vastly more and author of Land of Plenty: A Yongzhe, the Hotpot Queen of China. 5,000 tons per year. “Hotpot has put And we’re in the perfect car for this ambitious and expensive. Treasury of Sichuan Cooking, explained She started with a small corner Chongqing on the map,” she says. mission. Our Volvo XC60 is superbly Superlatives cannot convey the to me the intricacies of Chinese stand. “We only had three tables at first,” Our bellies are still warm from a suited to conquering in comfort some of staggering development of this sky’s- cooking. Sichuan chefs, considered she says, when we meet at her lakeside gluttonous hotpot feast when we depart the toughest turf in China, purring up the-limit city, as I have been reminded China’s finest, not only style dishes with curving roads that climb treacherous over the dozen years I’ve tracked its distinct slicing skill, they catalog food as switchbacks to the very Rooftop of the transformation. On one visit to the to texture and even the feeling as it World – rugged plateaus bedecked with world’s largest motorcycle parts factory, slides down one’s throat. Such The flavor of Nfluttering Tibetan prayer flags at heights I wandered down a ramp into the yard exactitude extends to a system that above 4,000 meters. We picked it up next door and inadvertently discovered classifies dishes according to a handful Sichuan peppers outside the Volvo factory in Chongqing, the world’s largest door maker. of tastes, like sourness or bitterness. Sichuan peppers claim one category of translates as their own, a distinct flavor that justifiably translates as “mind-numbing.” ‘mind-numbing’ That’s the feeling we share as we tuck into Chongqing’s volcanic hotpot. 02 03 XC60 in china Left: Chonqing market. Below: a monk climbs the steps by Leshan’s Buddha. Opposite: the grand gateway for those doing it the lazy way Chongqing early the next morning, up nearby Mount Emei. Some believe bound for the southern reaches of Dafo was designed as a kind of spiritual Sichuan Province, China’s largest, until lighthouse, both to bless and alert Chongqing was given independent passing boats on the Dadu He and Min status as a municipality a dozen years He rivers, which crash together at the ago. Combined they have over 115 Buddha’s enormous feet. million people. By itself, Sichuan’s Even the emperor of China was population of nearly 85 million is bigger expected to hike up the 3,100m summit than that of the world’s 14th largest to sacred Emei-shan. Pilgrims and country, Germany. backpackers do the circuit over several The bustle of hotpot city quickly days, as trails pass scores of temples cools in the big chill of the countryside. and shrines, scattered amongst flowers, Gone is the haze of construction, forests and rather pesky monkeys. Most spaghetti coils of new freeways and visitors take advantage of a road that sky-rising glass towers. Farms are ends near the summit. Even so, after a dotted with cottages, roofs curved and cable car cuts through the mist that tiled in traditional Chinese manner. The seems to constantly hug the mountain, landscape becomes hilly, sometimes it’s a good hour of huffing and puffing in carpeted with bushy tea plantations. the noticeably thin air to the peak. Our destination is Leshan, a We start early planning to picnic at charming but nondescript Chinese river the top, but are soon sidetracked. He town – at least until 700 years ago. Kaiguan, our guide from Chongqing has Then, city fathers began carving a never been near Emei. Yet, he’s hillside Buddha. Building big must be in Sichuanese, so intuitively senses that the Sichuan blood. Dafo, the world’s restaurants on the way serve some local biggest Buddha stands 71 meters tall. specialty. Soon we are devouring dishes Legend attributes the original like Bamboo Shoots and Fried Meat, concept to Haitong, a revered monk and Braised Chicken with River Sponge. drawn to the circle of holy sites spiraling All are so fresh we concur that it is the best meal of the trip. At least, until our descent the following day, when we feast on mounds of wild mushrooms. Stuffed, we stagger up to the Building big is in the Sichuan blood. Leshan’s Buddha is 71m 02 03 XC60 in china summit, where there are stunning views seen. Yet Kevin prefers to marvel at our have been built to withstand warring down sheer slopes, a rustic hotel, and Volvo expedition “My father has the tribes and siege, yet even experts little to do except adjust to the crisp air same car, and last year, he drove to Emei cannot say when or why these evocative and speculate about tomorrow’s sunrise. himself,” he notes, saying Volvo in the watchtowers were built. Emei’s mist sometimes produces odd Chinese pronounciation “Wo-Wo” and Residents offer scant illumination phenomena at sunrise: a colorful halo with such gusto that it becomes an after we hike for hours to tower towns projected around onlookers. anthem for the journey. unreachable by road. Mao Dao, 60, who We are all in a jolly and expectant From Emei, the going gets rough, lives in a 200-year-old house beside one mood as we tour the temple at the but rewarding. We descend nearly of eight towers in Mou Lou Cun village, summit of Emei, which shares World 3,000m, then climb steadily into the insists they date back 1,000 years. Yet Heritage Site status with nearby Leshan. western mountains of Sichuan. This is his son Ze Ren Zha Xi, a part-time guide As I practice my basic Chinese, I attract a the home of the Kham, a rugged who leads us to the top, maintains the crowd that includes a television crew Tibetan people living at such extreme towers are only half as old. They do from Chengdu, and Kevin, who studied in elevations, the plateaus are said to be seem to be a throwback to the medieval Calgary, Canada. Yang Xu, the gorgeous perched on the Rooftop of the World. era (and indeed the only similar towers TV reporter, is amazed to hear that we Shaggy yaks give the terrain a fairytale in the world are the medieval towers of are bound for distant Kangding the next look, as do the distinctive trapezoidal San Gimignano in Italy). day, and the stone towers of Danba, pressed-Earth houses of the villages. From Danba, we want to reach which she has heard about, but never Nothing prepares us, though, for Chengdu, but nobody is sure of the our first glimpse of the Danba towers. distance. Guessing it is a six, or eight- Standing 30-60m, they tower over the hour drive, we depart at dawn, but don’t houses like Redwood trees. Some have four, eight or even 13 corners. With tiny lookout windows at the top of a series of interior stairways, they are thought to Climbing onto “The Rooftop of the World”. The “High Pass” in Sichuan’s western mountains between Danba and Chengdu 02 03 reach Chengdu until 4am the next day.