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Published: December 17th 2009
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Happy Pandas
Young pandas performing the breakfast ritual. They are placed on a platform with their bamboo branches, so the tourist can take proper pictures of these lazy animals. After our trip in the gorge and the decision to change our travel plans (delay Myanmar, first Tiber/Nepal), we've decided to change also one other thing: we took a plane from Kunming to Chengdu. The distance was approx 700 km, or at least that's what we've thought, cause the total time in the air was one hour. So actually we don't have a clue. But flying with the Chinese is actually funny. Before the boarding procedure there is a neat line, but once the gate opens the nice queue vanishes and a big mob tries to enter the plane at the same time. But surprise - surprise: everybody went actually to their assigned seat. The flight was non-eventfull....
In Chengdu we found our hostel and apparently there was only one top-bunk available: not optimal, especially knowing that it was ~23:00 hours. But the solution was actually PERFECT: sleeping in the DVD room. So they gave us a discount on the 'room', free decent coffee and when we woke up, we just put in Finding Nemo in the DVD player and continued slumbering on the couches on which we'd slept. Our lazy waking up was only disturbed by the Dutch couple
with whom we're planning the Tibet trip. They took a plane to Chengdu in the morning and were apparently already in the hostel for some time as they had taken showers and were planning their breakfast. Ok they were active and we not: So what?
Panda Sex Centre
But Chengdu is reknowned for the Giant Panda Breeding Resource Centre, what in reality is just a Panda sex centre, as Pandas are being bred here. Ok, very cuddly amimals, but they sleep at lot..... Therefore we went there one day in the morning at 8AM, hoping to see some feeding going on. And actually we were lucky. The panda cubs were being fed and made to pee (really funny, by scrubbing the baby-panda's belly the caretakers make them pee so then later on they don't make a mess in their basket) and the teenager-pandas (age of 2-5 years) were 'fighting'. All nice and cool, but too many pictures were taken and after 1.5 hours it actually starts to get boring. It's more like a nice zoo with only pandas (2 kinds: the famous black-white ones and the lesser known red pandas (which look more like a raccoon....). And in
One more panda
Hello tourist! case you're wondering: no we didn't see any panda fornicating.
The Big Toes
But that day we had an active day. Cause after the Pandas we went to Leshan, to see the giant Buddha, which is cut out from a riverside mountain. At the main gate they force the tourists to buy the combo ticket of 160 RMB, so we just walked away. Later on at a different gate we could buy a 90 RMB ticket, which really made us happy. However, later on we found out there were no ticket checks anywhere, so we could have wondered around for free... whatever...
FYI: when we applied for the Chinese visa in Lux, we submitted a travel plan, which included Leshan. We were told that Leshan was not allowed and that our permit would not be valid for Leshan. I really do not have a clue why it was not allowed, especially since we've also requested Chengdu at that time, and that was allowed. According to my knowledge nothing had happened in Leshan... Weird.
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