Again, sorry for the delay in getting this out been a busy month! We snuck in a trip to London to celebrate Valentine’s day which I might put a post up about shortly. But, here it is our last real day in China. Pandas. Check out the other posts for a recap on our amazing trip. 

Our final proper day in China. The end of a massive trip which inspired, entertained and exhausted us. I still don’t feel like I am finished with China and I keep finding new things I would love to see and do so I hope I get to go back for a third time!

Anyway, back to Panda day. Yup. Pandas!!! We had an earlyish start of 8:30 am but it was worth it. Our hotel was close to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding so we arrived shortly after 9am, collected our tickets and headed into the massive reserve to find some panda’s.

Our guide was very used to the site so helped us to negotiate our way round getting every opportunity to see these wonderful creatures. Top tip – arrive early, it is so worth it. A) there are much less people (which is saying something in China) and B) the panda’s are much more active.

We learned that the older panda’s get the more unsocial they become, so they start off in groups and as they get older they get their own pens. I was a little concerned that the reserve might not be as good for the panda’s as I hoped but my worries were unfounded, they obviously love the pandas and the facilities are perfect for them. Yes it would be better if they were all in the wild but right now this is as good as it gets and that’s just fine.

The pandas were in separate sections of the reserve depending on their age, baby pandas, 4 month olds, sub-adults (teenage) and adults.

We were lucky enough to be able to see two baby girl twins in the nursery who were so adorable I could have watched them for hours. We made our way round the park doing 2 loops of some sections to ensure we got our fill of pandas. It really was one of my favourite parts of this whole trip.

We grabbed an early lunch in a restaurant which appeared to have opened early just for us. Yet again the food was wonderful. After that we caught a flight to Shanghai before departing early the next morning for home.

I am still digesting this trip months on (along with the 3000 odd photographs we came back with.) I’ve enjoyed the series on the BBC for Chinese New Year which has shown some of the wonderful cultural and interesting things which can be experienced in China.

I hope it’s opened up the eyes of some of the people we know as to why we chose to visit this epic country. Although it wasn’t my favourite trip of the year (Uzbekistan nabbed that) it was a once in a lifetime….or maybe twice?

Where else would you recommend in China? I fancy Hong Kong and the Yellow River – any thoughts?