Journeying to southern Sichuan Province, one finds himself drowning in the Bamboo Sea, where bamboo offers a feast for every sense.

Our journey to the Bamboo Sea started early one April morning in Chengdu. We followed the Chengdu-Chongqing Expressway and the Neijiang-Yibin Expressway to Yibin - known as the first city along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Then from Yibin, we drove eastward to the Bamboo Sea. The entire trip took approximately four hours to complete.

Stretching from Changning to Jiang'an, two cities under Yibin's jurisdiction, the 120-square-kilometre Bamboo Sea is China's largest primeval bamboo park, as well as one of the country's 10 largest natural scenic spots.

Walking in the tranquil bamboo groves, we heard only birds singing, streams murmuring and the echo of our own footsteps. While our visual senses were overcome by bamboo shoots, which sprout everywhere in the spring season.

Our Changning County guide, a natural authority on bamboo, pointed out: "A bamboo shoot can grow as fast as one or more metres after rain."

Known as the "home of bamboo shoots", Changning produces more than 10 million kilograms of bamboo shoots a year.

At noon, local friends invited us to enjoy a sumptuous meal at a restaurant near the famous Bamboo Sea Watch Tower. The dishes were amazing creations made mostly of the local specialty - bamboo.

Our palates were treated to over 10 distinct dishes, including cold bamboo shoot slices in sauce, roasted bitter bamboo shoots, pickled bamboo shoots, a soup made of the fungi of bamboo's humus, liquor contained in a bamboo tube and rice cooked in bamboo. The price for the meal was less than 400 yuan ($48) - unbelievably inexpensive for city folk like us, who had never before eaten so much "bamboo". We joked that we had become giant pandas, China's national bamboo-eating treasure.

Fully satiated, we moved on to the Bamboo Museum, the only one in China.

This 0.7-hectare museum displays all the species of the Bamboo Sea, ancient bamboo utensils used for military and manufacturing purposes, ancient bamboo totems and bamboo handicrafts. About 10,000 bamboo trees introduced from different parts of the country grow in the museum.

According to local annals, bamboo began to grow in the Bamboo Sea about 3,000 years ago. Since ancient times, bamboo has been indispensable to locals, who still use it to build houses, brew liquor, make tools and utensils for daily use, create musical instruments for entertainment and souvenirs for tourists.

Travel tips

The flight from Shanghai to Chengdu takes about two hours.In Chengdu, a five-hour bus trip will deliver travelers to the Bamboo Sea.

( Shanghai Star May 16, 2002)