Chengdu, Bifengxia and playing with pandas

Last week I had the opportunity to go to Sichuan and visit a couple of different places there. First we went to Jiuzhaigou, a UNESCO world heritage site and well-known scenic spot. Since the pictures of that half of the trip are on my friend's hard drive, I will cover that later.

The second half of the trip we went to Chengdu. The first day we drove two and a half hours outside of the city to Bifengxia, a beautiful valley in the mountains where some of the pandas who lived in Wolong Panda preserve were relocated after the earthquake while Wolong is rebuilt. Once we left the city, the drive was beautiful in spite of the rain--lovely bright yellow fields of rapeseed flowers and lush green young rice fields. Rapeseed oil is a major export for the Chengdu area; rapeseed oil is used in making Canola oil. For those of you who might not know, "Canola" is an amalgam of Canada and oil. Rape oil just doesn't have the same ring, you know? And for those of you still under the misconception that rapeseed oil/canola oil is a bad thing, go here .

As we drew nearer to Bifengxia, mountains appeared, their peaks swathed in mist and clouds.

The bus slowed as we climbed switchbacks into the mountains. At one point as we neared the park entrance, we had to stop because of a roadblock.

The camels are leftovers from a zoo that operated in the area a few years back. Apparently the zoo has closed down, but a few leftover animals still linger--including our road blocking camels!

Once we reached the park we left our bus behind and got on a park bus. This was the second time I had encountered this in China's National parks--private vehicles aren't allowed into the park, you must ride the park busses. This seems a very sensible way to control vehicular traffic and pollution in popular scenic areas--I think the US should look into this for our popular scenic areas like Yosemite and Estes Park. I've sat in long traffic jams in both of those places!

We got out at the main visitors center with the intent to hike up the valley to where the pandas are located. The valley is quite deep--to get there you could take an elevator (only in China would you find an elevator in such a remote location!) down 23 flights, or as we opted to do, walk the stairs. It took almost ten minutes to go down the stairs, but we were warmed up by the time we reached the bottom!

There was a lovely waterfall at the bottom, and the view was awe-inspiring. The trail was cement-pavement and stairs, as so many popular trails in China are-I guess due to the huge volumes of traffic on them. The trail wound along the valley's left side, hugging the cliffs following the stream up the valley with numerous lovely green waterfalls along the way. It was raining off and on, and if not for the attractive plastic ponchos most of us had splurged 5 rmb for, we would have been completely soaked. It was cold too--but hiking kept us warm.

We climbed up to a temple dedicated to Nuwu. Legend has it that the Bifengxia gorge was created by Nuwu, and her surprisingly voluptuous figure is seen in paintings and statues throughout the park. We then walked across this bridge-the gaps between the leaf-shaped stones were only about a foot, but strangely disconcerting.

Reaching the top of the valley, we had to wait at a bus stop as the only way up to the pandas was along a narrow mountain road, too dangerous with the rain and busses. This cute old lady was selling snacks and this cute pup was begging for them from us.

Then we had to take golf carts up to the panda enclosures--by now we had cooled down from our hike and it was COLD. There were only a few pandas out--most of them opted to stay inside the cement dens inside their enclosures. A few hung out in trees--how they manage to sleep without falling out is beyond me!

We were all pretty cold and wet by this point. This Chinese woman came up with an ingenuous way to stay dry--I guess she didn't have anything of value in her purse.

This cute baby was in the little store that sold souvenirs and most importantly, hot drinks!! Tea and coffee of course, which I don't drink--but I can always get kai shui (hot water).

We were all really happy to get back on our warm bus for the ride back to Chengdu!