Mornings with the Pandas in Chengdu

I have not blogged for a long time because me and Joel went for a 3 week holiday to Japan and China. After coming back to Australia, I spent a few weeks getting back to my daily grind and now that I have settled I will try and write about our amazing trip. I might not be able to write it in order of the itinerary but here we go..

On our last 2 days in China, we were in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province. We arrived in Chengdu via the high speed train from Xi'an. I planned for us to go and see the pandas at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding or Panda Base for short. It has been created to imitate the natural habitat of pandas for their rearing and breeding. This base takes care of other endangered animals such as black necked cranes, white storks and etc. There are other panda bases in Chengdu but I chose this because it is the nearest (because of its location, it is the most crowded!)

I've read a lot of blogs and one of them suggested not to go with the group tours as they leave the city late and when you arrive at the base, there will be tons of people and most probably the pandas are asleep already. It is said that giant pandas generally spend most of their time sleeping. Therefore, I did not bother to look for tours.

We woke up early and tried to get there by 9am. We asked the hotel staff's help to hail us a taxi. We paid about 60 RMB for the 10km journey and upon arriving, saw heaps of crowd already! Talk about trying to beat the crowd LOL. As with all tourist attractions in China, we had to line up to buy the tickets. Adult ticket is 58 RMB.

Upon entering, some people were lining up to ride the free shuttle that would take you directly to where most of the giant pandas are. We ignored that and just followed the general crowd. The map of the base makes it look huge but walking through the area is not that bad.

There were bamboos on the sides that kept the area cool and shady anyway. I even felt that I was back in Japan!

The first pandas we saw were the red pandas. They were so cute! We had the right timing when the carer came to their area and fed them. They were eating and getting food from the bucket while the carer cleaned their space.

We also saw pandas sleeping on top of the tree which was cute!

Also, a panda playing while his mum is sleeping. The young panda was so playful that it climbed up and down their tree house which made for a great crowd entertainment.

The crowd was becoming thick as the tour groups have arrived. We decided to do a bit of people watching by sitting on the benches that are on the sides. I saw people were selling panda headbands or accessories inside the base.

We would have stayed longer but we had to go back to our hotel to check out. Before we left, we didn't forget to check their gift shop for a souvenir.

Goal achieved for our last day in China! We then headed to the airport via the metro line for our flight bound for Australia. Thank you for reading and 'til next blog!