How do I get around Chengdu?

Your first problem in Chengdu is not which train to catch but how to pay at the turnstile. The city runs on Alipay and WeChat Pay for everything from metro gates to street-food vendors on Jinli Ancient Street. Cash gets turned away at convenience stores, and ticket machines at metro stations default to QR code scanning. International visitors can now link a Visa or Mastercard to Alipay before departure. Do this setup on stable WiFi at your hotel, not in the arrivals hall at Shuangliu Airport where the crowd noise and weak cellular signal make the process time out. Once Alipay works, it also unlocks Meituan and Hellobike shared bicycles at 1.5 CNY per 30 minutes. These orange and blue bikes sit on every other block in Jinjiang and Qingyang districts, filling the last-kilometer gap that the metro leaves.

Chengdu Metro is the primary mode. The system runs 13 lines, and the 3 stations you'll use most are Tianfu Square (Lines 1 and 2 intersect beneath the 1968 Mao Zedong Statue), Chunxi Road on Line 2 for the Taikoo Li shopping district, and Xiongmao Dadao on Line 3 for the Panda Base, a research facility open since 1987. Fares run 2 CNY to 10 CNY depending on distance, roughly $0.30 to $1.50 at current rates. Trains start around 06:30 and last departures leave terminal stations between 22:30 and 23:00. Station signage is in English and pinyin, which helps, but the in-car announcements cycle through Mandarin first and English second, sometimes clipped short. Mind you, the air conditioning alone is worth the fare in summer when sidewalk temperatures hit 35°C with humidity above 70% pressing against your skin.

DiDi is the ridehail app. Uber left China in 2016 and merged its operations into DiDi, so forget about Uber, Grab, or Bolt here. Download DiDi before arrival and set the interface to English. Metered taxi flagfall is 8 CNY during the day, 9 CNY after 22:00, for the first 2 kilometers, then 1.9 CNY per kilometer after that. A DiDi ride from Tianfu Square to the Panda Base, about 18 kilometers north, runs 40 to 55 CNY ($6 to $8). That said, rush-hour traffic on the Second Ring Road can double trip time between 17:00 and 19:00, and the Third Ring Road is worse. Worth noting, DiDi's English-language interface shows your destination in Chinese characters to the driver, which works for major sites. If you're heading to a residential compound or a restaurant off the main roads, screenshot the address from Gaode Maps (Amap) rather than typing it in English.

Walking works well inside Chengdu's tourist clusters but not between them. The stretch from Kuanzhai Xiangzi (Wide and Narrow Alleys) south through Renmin Park to the Temple of Marquis Wu covers about 3 kilometers on flat, shaded sidewalks, with the numbing tingle of Sichuan peppercorn drifting from open-front restaurants the whole way. Chunxi Road and Taikoo Li, roughly 2 kilometers east, have wide pedestrian streets. Weekend crowds spill past vendors grilling squid and piling spiced rabbit heads onto paper plates at the edges. Between these walkable pockets, Chengdu spreads flat and wide. The blocks between the Second and Third Ring Roads offer few pedestrian crossings, and sidewalks narrow to shoulder-width beside 6-lane arterials thick with electric scooters that make no sound until they're beside you. In winter, the damp 5°C cold of Sichuan's basin turns even a 10-minute walk from Wenshu Monastery to Wenshu Yuan station on Line 1 into something you'd rather take the train for.