Pandas! - Chengdu

One of the main reasons that we decided to go to Chengdu was to visit the Panda Research Institute. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to see such a large number of pandas in one area. We arranged a tour with the hostel that we were staying at. We woke up at about 6:30 and went to breakfast at the restaurant that was attached to the hostel. The restaurant had a nice western breakfast in which we were able to get eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast! At around 7:30 we were led by a worker of the hostel to the "van" that would be driving us to the reserve. When I say van I mean a vehicle that makes a mini cooper look quite large but it can somehow fit 7 people inside...

The ride was the usual Chinese style craziness with the driver being more concerned with honking his horn as much as possible and watching the road as little as possible. Once we exited the highway onto the surface streets it felt as though we entered into rural Mexico. The buildings looked as though they were taped together with whatever materials they had around and everything with filthy. We finally arrived at the reserve and we were the first car/van/micro-machine in the parking lot. To say I was excited would be understatement. Usually Ashlee is the one who one who walks ridiculously fast and I am always trying to catch up to her (as Adam can attest to from his experience walking around Spain), but not today. The guide led us through the front gate and to one of the first pens. We had arrived so early that they hadn't let the pandas out of the cages yet. We peered around and we were able to catch a glimpse of them sitting in their cages waiting to be released so that they could go eat. Needless to say the camera instantly came out and the picture taking began and it didn't stop for the next 3 hours or so.

The guide then ushered us to the next pen area but we were reluctant to leave where we were but he insisted. We made our way to the next pen and it was well worth it. We were rewarded with the sigh of several 6 month old pandas tromping all over the place. You couldn't help but smile and laugh as they were so so cute. They are also some of the clumsiest and most uncoordinated creatures that I have ever seen. The are constantly falling over, slipping off tree branches, and rolling around. We spent the next hour just watching these little pandas do what they do and of course taking a lot of pictures. We then took a quick walk over to take a look at the adult pandas. It is amazing how large the adult pandas get and its even more amazing how much they can eat. They munch through huge piles of bamboo like it is nothing.

While observing the adult pandas the guide came back an uttered some words in Chinese and indicated that we should follow him. We followed him back over to the youngster side of the area. It was now feeding time for the little guys which would turn out to be the highlight of the trip. Each panda had to be fed a bowl of some sort of breed made milky looking food/formula. The hilarious part was that the several staff members had to attempt to try and corral all of them, in which there were about 15. The pandas were dispersed all over the area with a good portion of them stuck up in the various trees. The little pandas seem smart enough to know how to climb up the trees but they don't have the ability to climb back down. So we spent the next 20 minutes watching the workers attempt to "rescue" these pandas from the high up limbs. It was non-stop comedy routine that I will never forget. There was one little one that managed to get himself way up in the tree and was just not having any luck getting down. They were banging the food dishes down and constantly yelling his name but to no avail. The one worker then took it upon herself to attempt to try and climb up tree after the panda. After a good 10 minutes or so and many close calls of the panda almost falling out of the tree he was rescued and put to eat his gruel.

After about three hours our guide indicated that is was no time for us to get going. We took a quick stop at the panda museum on the way out before boarding our little van for the "interesting" ride back into town. I took close to 300 pictures at the reserve and would gladly go back at anytime to see pandas.

Pictures of the Panda's will be added when China unblocks the site.... cross your fingers...

Email Blogging Test

Since China has kindly decided to block our blog I am testing a new way to post.

-Chad