Chengdu and the Pandas – 1 January 2012

We had, in our party, someone who was willing to pay £130.00 to “hug a panda” so this outing was the highlight of her trip. After a relaxing start and a breakfast that was definitely not 5-star we set of for the panda sanctuary.

We were fortunate to see a group of four adult pandas enjoying their breakfast, a couple of very young ones and then a group of six or so juveniles having a great rough-and-tumble time before they suddenly all disappeared inside their “den”. There were a few red pandas to see and then another few solitary adults which meant we saw probably 20 or so of the 70 pandas at this 93-acre park.

Lunch was again highly influenced by Tibetan foods and we decided that the weirdness factor in the food served to us had increased as the days wore on. But overall, we enjoyed the experience of the varied dishes we had sampled.

There was nothing left now, but the return journey to Beijing, and following the overnight at Beijing International Hotel again, we were enduring the 12 hour flight to return us to London in time for the new working year.