We were up at 06:00 and for an early breakfast ate some of the offerings typically enjoyed by the Chinese at the start of the day. For us, cold noodles, oily pickles, steamed buns and rice soup make for an uninspiring breakfast and we’d been hoping for something like porridge or even corn-flakes! The supermarkets sell no cereals as far as we could find but oatmeal (rolled oats) is available. However most breakfast menus do include hen or duck eggs, usually boiled.
It’s interesting to note that in China unlike Australia, you seldom see obese people. This may change gauging for the inroads being made right across the country by KFC, McDonalds and similar fast food chains.
After breakfast we had a private minibus to take us to the panda park which is about 45 minutes away in a northern suburb of Chengdu. The 08:00 traffic was frighteningly chaotic and the adherence to road rules seemed non-existent. The number of overloaded motor bikes having ‘near misses’ was scary.
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding occupies 100 hectares of beautifully manicured hillside parklands with paths meandering in amongst the numerous trees, gardens, lakes and bamboo forests.
This world renowned ecological research base was established specifically to conserve the endangered giant panda and red panda species. As a sanctuary it has proved to be very successful and it has received honours from numerous international groups.
Giant pandas are naturally solitary animals that live in the remote bamboo forests in mountainous regions of China. Much of the giant pandas’ habitat has been encroached upon by humans and with the numbers of pandas in the wild diminishing, they are now regarded as a critically endangered species.
Within the research base is a veterinary hospital where techniques in artificial insemination have proved to be very beneficial in the breeding of pandas.
Throughout the park are many viewing areas where tourists can view pandas of various ages from small cubs to adults. The typical scene is one where a solitary panda is sitting next to a heap of bamboo sticks and eating continually. An adult typically will eat about 40 kg of bamboo a day and then produces 32 kg of faeces suggesting that they only take in about 20% of nutritional value.
Panda cub
Adult females usually produce two offspring per pregnancy but in the wild one cub usually dies soon after birth. This is partly due to a very short gestation period of only 4 to 5 months resulting in the cubs being born prematurely and the tiny cubs are so weak and vulnerable. Pleasingly, in this panda park they have been able to supplement diets and with there being a hospital for sick animals they have significantly increased the survival rate.
Within the base there are presently about eighty pandas of varying age; they live for about 60 years. The hand rearing of the pandas means that they are not able to survive on their own and subsequently are not released back into the wild.
In addition to the giant pandas there is also a good deal of conservation work being focussed on the smaller but equally attractive red pandas. These tree climbing pandas have a fox-like face and a long bushy, striped orange tail.
Red panda
Red panda
We then returned to Chengdu and had a traditional Chinese ‘hot-pot’ lunch and then went strolling through the nearby hutong area where silversmiths were the most prominent artisans.
Hot pot lunch
Street scene, Chengdu
At around 18:00 we caught a bus to the Chengdu airport which is about an hour away from the town centre. Needless to say the traffic was at its worst and we spent a good deal of time just stuck in a traffic jam with people honking horns and everyone getting frustrated.
Our flight to Lijiang was on time and took about ninety minutes. At around 23:00 we arrived at our accommodation having been driven from the airport in three vans which had definitely seen better days. Our bags were jammed in behind the back seat and when we went over a bump doing 40 km/h the back door swung open and upwards and if it wasn’t for the quick action from the girls on the back seat, our luggage would have tumbled out onto the road.
The Jinyuan View Guesthouse is located up a narrow alleyway about 100 m from the road and at the late hour and at an altitude of 2400 m, carrying our heavy bags up steps meant a tiring end to the day. Our room seems clean, spacious and comfortable and even has a ‘sit-down’ toilet.
At midnight we looked out our door and could see stars in a clear sky above; now that‘s something we haven’t experienced for a while!