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Published: November 3rd 2010
Right, onto Chengdu with the sole purpose of meeting a very cuddly native of China, no not Jackie Chan, the Giant Panda. Chengdu, the provincial capital of eastern Sichuan, was originally a printing centre and its claim to fame is that it was the first place to produce paper money. Today there is a lot of evidence that its love of paper money has gone from strength to strength if the shops and the general affluence of its citizens are anything to go by.
On arrival in Chengdu the first thing we noticed was the weather - warmish, well enough that we could pack our woolly hats and gloves away at last - hurrah. The second thing we noticed was that we were definitely underdressed for our 5 star hotel - the Minsham. Even though we had paid for a room in the slightly less posh annexe behind the lovely hotel we were surprised by how nice it was and, even better, we were allowed to partake of the free breakfast the following morning. OMG the first decent breakfast we have had since we arrived in China. The only shame was we could only physically eat so much before we
Panda Brekkie
& lunch & dinner & supper ....had to head off to catch the bus to the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base. Now all the advice we read said the best way to get to the Pandas was to take the no. 902 tourist bus. Well it was certainly cheap, as everyone said, but what the advice didn’t say is that it takes about 1 ½ hours to reach its destination as it seems to stop at every other waste paper bin in the city. The research centre opens at 8am, the Pandas are most active before 10am as after that they are exhausted from all that eating they do, and the first bus leaves at 8am - so doing the math that meant we would see ½ hour of the Pandas before they fell into a stupor. We had to be back to the hotel to check out at 1pm, so after a while on the bus, when we realised that it was going to zigzag through the city and stop at least 27 times, we started to get a bit worried that we would only see comatose Pandas - urgh.
Eventually we arrived at the research centre and ran like crazy things to get
to the adult Panda enclosure just in case they were still having breakfast. Wow, they didn’t disappoint one little bit, they were happily munching their way through their bamboo breakfast without a care in the world. They were so close and there was no glass between us and them how flippin fantastic was that. After oohing and aahhing for a while we headed off to see some teenagers. Because, as we all know, teenagers have real trouble staying awake for too long we were not hopeful - and yes there were three of them all cuddled in a little heap happily sleeping off the bamboo breakfast. Never mind they were still wonderful. Then on to the nursery and well, who doesn’t love a cuddly baby animal. Guarded and behind glass they were taking absolutely no chances on the little lovelies catching any of our nasty human germs, but could they be any cuter - no. There were five of them, four absolutely zonked to the world and one energetic one who kept trying to get up but kept slipping on the slippery floor. We were ushered past the glass just in case we wanted to stop and take a photo
(absolutely prohibited), enough time to for some more oohs and aahs and then gone. A brief moment but fantastic nonetheless.
As our short time was rapidly running out we had to decide what we wanted to do next so a short visit to the Red Pandas, a distant relation of the Giant Panda, enabled us to see another beautiful animal close up. Somewhat smaller than their giant cousins, about the size of a domestic moggy, they were beautiful colours. Not sure why they are classed as Pandas as they don’t really resemble them, but they are also apparently related to the raccoon, which they look a bit more like. What they do share with the Giant Panda is their loss of habitat due to deforestation - not a great thing to have in common! At their enclosure we could watch them lazing in the trees and munching their way through their breakfast. Much keener to be photographed a few of them were even gracious enough to pose.
After that a short visit to another adult compound, where all the action seemed to be. We stayed here for a while laughing at the antics of one of the Pandas
Easy does it
It's a long drop who had decided to climb an impossibly thin tree and sit on its even more incredibly thin branch. Although that in itself was quite impressive, it then decided that to come down it was going to do it head first, by twisting itself all round the tree, hang on by its back legs and just generally look that it was going to fall down any minute. It was difficult to keep the camera straight to get some photos we were laughing so much. Eventually it managed to get to the ground safely much to the delight of the onlookers. What time-wasting creatures, we could have stood and gazed at them for hours. Unfortunately for us we found that we had to get a move on to catch our bus back to the hotel.
Whilst waiting for the bus outside the centre we started talking to an American chap and a couple from Israel. As the waiting became quite lengthy we were starting to wonder whether the 902 would turn up so the American, who spoke a bit of Mandarin (hurrah) managed to negotiate a fee for us all to squeeze into a taxi. Took us about 20 mins to
Mind the Stump
doesn't look that comfy get back to town, as compared to the marathon journey out. We wish we had known this before we left as we would have paid for the taxi, got to the centre as it opened and enjoyed the Pandas for much longer. A sign in the centre says it can take about 5 hours to get round everything they have including the museum, cinema etc. We can’t comment on what the rest of the stuff was like, but to stand gazing at the Pandas for a bit longer would have been great.
After checking out and leaving our baggage with the concierge, we had a couple of hours to kill and decided to have a walk down to Tianfu Square and Renmin Park. Unfortunately the square was closed and guarded, obviously someone important was in town - we wondered if it could be Jackie Chan (not sure why I seem to be obsessed with Jackie Chan at the moment)! So we continued on to Renmin Park, normally free entry but typically there was a flower show so there was a charge to get in. Not sure what constitutes a flower show here, but the displays were pretty poor. However,
Look out below
it could end in tears the human displays more than made up for that. Firstly we came across some guy trying to teach a couple disco-type dance moves, they were bad. Then there were some people doing gentle forms of aerobics to music, various different types of karaoke Chinese style and badminton matches. But the best of all was the promenading. People were walking along a red carpet a la cat-walk stylie. We joined the throng of bemused spectators, luckily we were not the only ones who thought it was highly amusing, for a moment we were concerned we might offend if we started laughing, but everyone seemed to be having a great time and they certainly didn’t mind us having a quiet chuckle and taking lots of photos and some video (have a look).
Dragging ourselves away from the floor show and we were on our way to the airport and our flight to Guilin. To our dismay the flight was delayed, along with about 80% of all the flights that day, so we found we had an uncomfortable wait ahead of us. In typical Chinese fashion when a flight was called there was a general scramble to the gate with much pushing
Party in the Park
just a spontaneous tea dance and shoving with sharpened elbows. A disagreement with some passengers who had managed to miss their delayed flight (go figure) saw a throng of interested onlookers converging on the poor flight attendant - just like a playground fight we expected the shouts of “fight, fight, fight” (in Mandarin obviously) to erupt any minute. At last we were away from Chengdu. A short stop but seeing Giant Pandas close up and personal was a fabulous experience and definitely worth the detour.
Luckily customs didn’t check too thoroughly though or they may have confiscated the baby Panda in my rucksack!
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Anna
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I want one!
Awwww, how cuuuuuute!!! Why weren't you allowed to take pics of the baby ones? Glad you managed to steal on instead!