A LOT of rain & a lot of Pandas.....for Nikki's birthday!

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Our guide told us that the ancient Chinese believed that China was created by the first woman on earth, a Chinese Eve (I can’t remember the Chinese name), when Eve got to Ya’an she was so tired from making the rest of China that she didn’t finish building the roof & that is why it always rains in Ya’an, because the roof is leaking.

When we left Chengdu to go to Ya’an you could actually see the weather deteriorating with every passing mile, at one point it was raining so much that it looked misty, when I looked out of the window of the car I couldn’t seen any buildings because of the mist all I could see was the floor about ten feet around the car and the rain coming down around us, this is not what I had in mind for Nikki’s birthday.

As we got closer to Bifengxia Panda Reserve the weather got marginally better & visibility improved a lot, we drove along winding roads to get to the Panda Reserve, I have never seen such dense vegetation and so much rain, I’m from London I see rain all the time so that is really saying something!

At the entrance to the Panda reserve are people trying to sell umbrellas to those silly enough not to bring one, when we entered the Reserve I noticed Butterflies and huge Moths everywhere, we had to take a bus to get to where the Pandas are as the whole Reserve is huge and also includes a Zoo. When we got off the bus I was quite excited about seeing the Pandas, I’m not really an animal lover or at least I didn’t used to be, when I saw that first Panda I was overwhelmed, they are the cutest animals I have ever seen. I cannot put into words how amazing it is to see Pandas and the Reserve is so huge and open they are practically in the wild at the reserve.

We had lunch at a little restaurant near the entrance to the park, lunch was the same as everyday rice, noodles, a vegetable, usually cabbage & if we’re feeling adventurous a meat dish. Now this might sound weird at first but Nikki and I both commented on the floor tiles in the restaurant, considering that Ya’an rains A LOT they decided to use a type of tile similar to that you would use in a bathroom, as people would walk into the restaurant everyone almost slipped over, myself included. Outside the restaurant were huge spider webs, I didn’t see any huge spiders whilst I was there but I’m not complaining, I do not like spiders, although I did see a few moderately sized spiders keeping dry in the restaurant with us.

Walking around it became very apparent that big animals were not the only animals at the Reserve, every so often as you were walking along a concrete footpath you would see a huge Toad, some taking a slow stroll whilst others hopped as fast as possible to get away, as usual Nikki had to have her picture taken with one (she loves animals).

Ya’an is not as touristy as other paces in China but it was definitely high up there with as one of my favourite places in China, it was by far the most peaceful place we went to & it was so much easier to get good pictures of the Pandas compared to the Panda Breeding Centre in Chengdu.

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Comments

[cabochick]

Great Blog!
Awesome! I hope to get there someday. Great blogs about China and nice pictures too!