Chengdu - The Giant Pandas and the People
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2007
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33
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Trip End
Oct 22, 2007
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Chengdu,
China
Friday, October 5, 2007
It was a real morning of "Oohing" and "Aahing" for us and all the rest of the visitors to the Giant Panda Breeding Centre.
First we saw the 2 to 5 year olds having their breakfast which was hilarious. They sat in a row, sometimes as if on a reclining chairs, chomping away at their bamboo. It had got too much for one of them who had climbed up a tree and gone to sleep.
Next we were introduced to the babies which were soooo cute. There were three babies, twins born in July and the third in August. They were lying side-by-side in a cot / playpen and were fast asleep. It is very impressive to see how well the centre looks after these animals, starting from hand-rearing the babies all the way to having the giant adults in their natural habitat style enclosures.
Then it was time to meet the adults. They ranged from medium-Giant Pandas to HUUUGE-Giant Pandas and were keeping themselves busy by eating, sleeping or, in one case, one was pacing up and down doing his / her morning exercises :-) We spent ages rushing between the different enclosures as the different giants woke, showed themselves, made some noise, ate bamboo or did anything else to excite all of us tourists. Actually it was not too overcrowded as apparently the Chinese are quite blasé about their Pandas even though one of them is the official mascot of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
Giant Pandas - 2 to 5 year olds
Our guide says it seems to be a bit of a case of "they are here so we could see them any time if we wanted to".Finally we got to meet a new species to us, the Red Panda. They are related to the Racoon family and actually look very little like you would expect a panda to look. They are quite small and, in some cases, have very long and bushy tails. They are also really cute animals to watch so they, like their giant cousins, had us rushing continuously from one side and enclosure to the next and back again. As expected we were quite snap-happy and have been quite circumspect in what we have published.
A sight we really enjoyed throughout the visit was the reactions from the children. Their reactions to all these animals were easy to understand and enjoy even across the language barrier.
Then we were treated to another delicious Sichuan lunch. This one included local Dali beer and something we were not so sure about, sweet dumplings. As we had told our guide about our dietary requirements she told us to avoid the pork-filled savoury dumplings. The sweet ones were a bit gooey and not as tasty as the veggie dumplings we have had before so, after a taste, we moved them gingerly aside.
Our flight out to Lijiang was only at 20H15 and our itinerary said we had an afternoon of "free time". Our guide thought we may like to go to the "walking street" to have a look at the shops. Well, aside from the fact that we are not great shoppers, it was SCARY!!! In London and New York the locals think Oxford Street and Fifth Avenue are the shopping streets of the world. Think again! Sichuan province has just less than 10% of the Chinese 1.3 Billion population and greater Chengdu is home to around 10 million of them, most of whom were out shopping on the "walking street"! Not only that, every shop had music blaring out of it at the pitch that would make any night-club proud. We managed one circuit up and down with a stop at the bank to exchange some money and that was it, Annie's crowd tolerance was beyond beaten so we made a hasty retreat to a park where we could pass some more time before heading off, via the usual supermarket stop for water and provisions, to the airport for our flight to Lijiang.
It was a really late arrival and unfortunately our travel agents had disregarded our request for a hotel in the Old City, preferring to put us in a big faceless Chinese hotel. It was too late to change but we told our guide in no uncertain terms what we wanted. Let's hope for a good result tomorrow.
