Why the east gate, and why at dusk
Chengdu is a city that has always turned its back on its river and then, in the last twenty years, turned back to it. The stretch of the Jinjiang at the old east gate is where that reversal is most visible, and it is also where the bridges carry the most history - a stone arch bridge of the Ming, a covered bridge rebuilt in 2003 on a site with a story going back centuries, and the point where two rivers meet. Walking it in the evening, starting before sunset and finishing after dark, is the only way to see the argument the city is making about itself.
Start - the confluence
We begin at the pavilion at the junction of the two rivers. It is a Tang site: this was one of the ferry landings the poets used when they left Chengdu eastward, and it stood for centuries before it was destroyed in the wars at the end of the Southern Song. It lay derelict for roughly seven hundred years and was rebuilt as a twin pavilion in 1989. Standing on it, the whole evening is laid out in front of you.
The covered bridge
The bridge immediately upstream carries a genuine local story. It was originally a wooden bridge called the Long Rainbow; it was washed away by floods in 1744, rebuilt by a magistrate named An Hongde in 1746, and renamed by the people of Chengdu in his honour after he paid for it out of the confiscated assets of a gang of robbers he had caught. The old bridge was a two-storey timber structure - the upper level held images and could not be crossed, the lower level was four metres wide with a two-metre centre track for wheelbarrow men - and it was destroyed by a catastrophic flood in 1947, rebuilt, destroyed again in 1981, and finally removed during the river clean-up of 1996. In its place, a three-arch covered bridge was designed in the traditional manner and completed in August 2003: eighty-one metres long, six wide, built of a pale stone with plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum carved into the railings, two water beasts set on the piers, and a pair of ceremonial archways at either end carrying lines about the two rivers and the single bridge. It is a reconstruction and it does not pretend otherwise; it is also the best-loved piece of built form on the river, and after dark it is the reason people come.
Dinner
Dinner at a riverside table on the east bank, ordered family-style from a kitchen that does Sichuan home cooking rather than hotel food.
After dark - the waterfront
We walk the river path through the old wharf district. The bridge that gives this stretch its name carries the name of a Ming predecessor - a nine-eyed stone bridge of 1593, renamed in 1788, demolished in 1992 - and the modern crossing keeps the name without keeping the structure, which is a very Chengdu arrangement. Along the bank the ferry landings have been reopened for night cruises, and the warehouses and lanes behind them have turned into bars, small stages and food stalls with a river view. Your guide will explain what happened here: this was working waterfront until the river was cleaned up in the 1990s, and the neighbourhood behind it was a market district for four hundred years before that.
We finish on a terrace looking back at the lit bridge, which is where every local conversation about the city eventually ends up, and where most guests find they have understood something about Chengdu that the daytime sights do not explain: this is a place that has been rebuilt many times and has never once pretended to be a ruin.
Walking and pace
Three to four kilometres, flat, on paved riverside paths with railings, mostly after dark and well lit. The vehicle stays with us throughout. Not suitable as a first day if you are jet-lagged, and very suitable as a last night.
Meals
Dinner
Accommodation
Day programme - no hotel night included.
