Upon arriving in Chengdu one get’s the feeling that you may have left China behind somewhere and you’ve stumbled into Chinatown in some Italian city. Everyone seems smartly dressed, the roads are clean, the streets and avenues are wide with trees, and designer shops like Louis Vuitton and Prada line the streets… in fact the only thing that makes me still feel in China are the people and the signs - oh and the big Mao statue right in the centre of the main square.
Chengdu is a bustling, wealthy city in the South-West of China. For those of you that don’t know it’s famous for three things: it’s stunning surrounding natural scenery; it’s food, the famous Sichuan spices and hotpots; and it’s adorable pandas.
I was here to see pandas and chew bubble gum - and I was all out of gum.
Day One I had no plans and I’d met a New Orleans girl called Lane and so we took a nice little excursion from Chengdu to Leshan, a non-panda related trip. Not too much going on but there’s a nice park and a giant buddha that are worth visiting; and we wanted to see just how giant you could get a giant Buddha.
Yea, it was pretty big! I sized myself up to be about as tall as one of it’s finger nails… one of it’s smaller fingernails.
The next day we headed to the famous Panda Breeding Center to meet these loveable bears. We latched onto the back of a tour and explored the grounds of the park for the rest of the day. Most tours try to do it in 2 or 3 hours but you easily need 4 or 5. The breeding centre gave me a taste and a passion for these large and amazing animals and we wanted to see more!
Recently a whole host of baby pandas had been born and we got to see them all sleeping, I think they’re only a few weeks old.
There was also a nice enclosure where they had dozens of Red Pandas roaming around. This was a way for you to get close, but not too close (as they can be very aggressive).
We loved seeing them so much that we went on a wildlife excursion to a place called Bifeng the next day (highly recommended) where you can spend the morning hiking through a natural gorge, alongside waterfalls to a wildlife centre for pandas. The hike from the car park is accessed via an elevator to the base of the gorge and the hike is about 7km.
They have pandas of all ages here, and the teenagers are especially tenacious - they like climbing up and hiding in trees, eating lots of bamboo and attacking their siblings (or their mum if the siblings aren’t there). I’m glad I did both the breeding centre and Bifeng gorge and would recommend both yet Bifeng does require a lot more time (a full day).
Anyway, I could post pictures and talk about pandas all day, the other reason I was here was to meet up with Rocky, a fellow Cryptographer from the University of Bristol who had moved back home to China and was now living the life of a family man.
The day was spent seeing the sites of Chengdu: the high-tech zone where Rocky works; the world’s largest single building (it has it’s own beach inside); the wide and narrow streets; and of course dining on the famous Chengdu Hotpot!
It was great to see you again Rocky!
Here are my photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/14859193@N07/sets/72157636277659925/