"Pandatastic!"

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Ok, so I know that it's been ages since we last did an update but you just don't know how challenging it can be to do certain things in this country sometimes! The hotels charge a fortune for the internet and the internet cafes are on the 4th floor of some seedy looking building and 'Internet Cafe'  is generally written in Chinese characters and so we don't even know which seedy buildings they are situated in! Crazy. Anyway, we have now ended our more 'classy' tour and are back to 2* hotels with cheap internet which is much more us and better for the wallet! So, I'll try and backdate some of our entries.

Chengdu is the captial city of Sichuan province - the home of spicy, hot and sour foods. We had particularly chosen to visit this city as the province is also home to a large number of the 1,500 pandas left in extinction and there is a breeding centre for them not far from the town. We were quite overwhelmed by the city when we arrived...it's home to 13 million people...a medium sized city by Chinese standards. Our first day there was a free day (which was quite good as I was feeling a little worse for wear - tummy not loving the Chinese food). In the evening we were taken to the Sichuan opera in the centre of the city. This was quite amazing and far more impressive than the shows you would see at home - Nick likened it to a pretty awesome 'Royal Variety', minus the Queen of course. It was lots of small sketches of acrobatics, puppetry, comedy, opera in fantastic costumes, fire breathing and singing.

he was sitting with his belly out, munching on loads of bamboo!

On day  2 we took a day trip in the car and drove 2 hours to visit the 'Big Buddha' at Leshan. The Buddha is the largest sitting Buddha in the world and is carved into a rock on a large lake in the city. It was quite impressive although we struggled to see it well through the intense moisture and humidity that hung in the air.

On day 3 we had the tour highlight - going to see the pandas at the Panda breeding centre (see link below). It was fantastic, they had pandas of all ages and whilst some were dozing when we got there (so cute with their floppy legs) some were very active and gave us some good entertainment. There, we managed to get the typical feasting panda shot (he was sitting with his belly out, munching on loads of bamboo!) and two others were play fighting and so we stood and watched them for quite a while. We also got to see one panda in an incubator that was only 14 days old and he was soooo tiny! Great fun. Photos will be suplied as soon as we can get them uploaded- nowhere has disk drive in China!

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/sichuan/chengdu/panda-breeding-and-research-center.htm