Pandas, pandas and more pandas!

A panda feeding

Despite the weather--light showers and a maximum temperature of 7 C--today was one of the highlights of our trip--a visit to the Giant Panda Research Base in Chengdu. The guide who picked us up yesterday at the airport had suggested to us that we leave early (by 8am) to go and see the pandas so last night we booked a taxi through the hotel concierge to come and pick us up at that time. The concierge had later rung my room and asked if we wanted to book a private car and driver for 200Y for the day. He said that if we took a taxi in the morning we might have trouble finding one to bring us back to the hotel later. We said no to the private car and emphasized that we wanted to take an ordinary taxi. From this part of the trip onwards we will be mainly going on our own steam--not roughing it exactly--but becoming more and more independent.

A blur of baby pandas

So we had an early wake up at 6:30 and a fabulous breakfast. This hotel--at 4 stars--outshines the supposedly 5 star Majestic in Nanning. There still wasn't Jarrah's longed for French toast but there was pancakes and maple syrup which was nearly as good. The whole buffet area was huge with a wide variety of selections including many that Nanning didn't have. The rooms are also beautifully decorated if a bit smaller than the Majestic. But one plus--the beds aren't nearly as hard.

Anyway, after breakfast we returned to our rooms and prepared to go out for the day. We wore skivvies (turtlenecks), fleece vests and pullovers with raincoats on top plus beanies and gloves/mittens. We met the taxi outside the hotel and the driver was a bit chatty. He told us (in Chinese) that we were going too early as the base didn't open until 9 and then he suggested he could drive us around a bit. We declined and decided to just get there and wait outside for it to open. However, when we got there at 8:30 we discovered it was open! Looks like he was trying to increase his revenue. Anyway, the trip was only 35Y. We bought our tickets--a bargain at 30Y each--and entered the park. The panda base is fairly large and it is very pleasantly laid out. We took our time walking around. When we got to the red panda enclosure I found my runners too slippery in the wet to allow me to walk up the paved incline which circles the enclosure. With the other members of my family going on ahead I decided I wasn't going to miss out so I took off my shoes and socks and walked up barefoot. Ohhhh, it was cold and wet on the feet but I achieved my objective.

We continued to wander around the base and finally headed to the nursery--luckily it was just at feeding time so we got to see them feeding the baby pandas their bottles, burping them and later massaging their tummies while they held them over a bin to catch their droppings.

Rough and tumble

Playing in a box

We ate lunch at the only restaurant at the panda base. It was delicious ironboard beef and chicken and cashew nuts. Probably the only mistake we made was to order tea which was served in separate glasses instead of in a pot with small tea cups. The tea we think was 18Y each so that bumped up the bill a bit. After lunch we wandered around a bit more and saw the older cubs, sub-adults and the babies again. We also had another look at the red pandas in a second enclosure. The animals were mainly active and eating, possibly because of the cold temperature. At times our kids complained of the cold. Temperatures like this are something they've only rarely encountered. But we reminded them and ourselves that if it had been a nicer day or a warmer season the park would have been very crowded and we wouldn't have seen half of what we saw today. With the minuses (soon literally) come the pluses.


Our final stop at the base was, of course, the gift shop, where the kids selected their promised pandas. Oh how we wish we could have taken the real ones home. We left the panda base at about 2:30 before heading back to the hotel. Despite the dire warnings the minute we exited the gate we found a taxi there waiting to take us back to the hotel. As it turned out he was a gypsy cab. We bargained with him for the return fare. He wanted 40Y and we got him down to 35Y. As it turned out he got stuck in a bad traffic jam and we ended up getting out of the cab a couple of blocks from the hotel and walking the rest of the way. I think he was relieved about that. The trip probably was worth 40Y because of the traffic.

We went back to our rooms and rested and looked at our photos for a while before heading out to dinner. We walked around a few streets where every shop sold mobile phones before cutting back towards the hotel and finding a Chinese fast food place called CSC. We ate there then did some more grocery shopping in preparation of our train trip tomorrow night. There are a number of beggars around in the shopping area and on the way back we noticed a couple of people sleeping in a covered entrance to the future Chengdu subway system just near the hotel. They were all bundled up for the cold. It's going to get down to 3 degrees C tonight. We've seen more beggars in Chengdu than in Nanning and I wonder if this is due to the earthquake or if Chengdu is just poorer. There certainly is plenty of affluence in China but there is also poverty. I think there are really two or maybe more Chinas. The young people in the fast food place with their mobile phones are one; the less educated older people who are the products of Mao's era are another. They perform many of the service jobs in today's society. Anyway, it's been a long day so I'll have to continue my musings another time.