So, finally making it back to Dujiangyan Panda Base 都江堰中华大熊猫苑! I visited here in both my November 2016 and 2017 trips, so it’s been 6.5 years since I was last there or even in the city. On this trip, my friend who works for the base picked us up at our hotel and very kindly took us to breakfast at the base’s staff canteen and then brought us into the base between 8:30 and 9AM which was just after opening. It was pretty busy with many coaches lined up in the parking lot already. As my friend took us in, I’m not sure the price for this base, but I would expect it to be similar to both Chengdu base and Panda Valley of 55RMB. It was a Tuesday on our visit and it was super busy, the scenes were what I’d expect of a weekend more than a weekday, but most of it was down to the many groups of school students visiting. Unfortunately, two westerns are a big deal, so at some points we were more popular than the pandas with the school kids all wanting to take pictures with us – I don’t mind it for the most part (and could practice some of my Chinese as well), but we are also there to enjoy the pandas and it was getting a bit stressful after a while. The tour groups of adults didn’t stay long, they seemed to just do a quick lap of the base before leaving (we saw people leaving as we were coming in!), but there was then another wave of new tour buses arriving around lunchtime, so it was quite a constant flow but overall quieter in the afternoon as the school groups had also left at this point.
The base has 4 main areas, or gardens, to visit. In the past, all 4 had giant pandas living in them but now 1, Linze Garden 临泽园 has just red pandas and a black bear. That leaves 3 across the base which are spread up the mountainside – it’s a hilly base, there are some tourist buses which can transport you around some areas, however I’ve not used them and always just walked (be aware, pedestrians are sharing the road with the buses so you have to be careful). The first garden is the Pan Pan Garden 盼盼园, where famous Pan Pan used to live until his death in 2016, the next garden is on the right up the road and is the Shuangnan Garden 双楠园, and the final garden is further and at the very back of the base, the Diequan Garden 蝶泉园.
The base is similar to Ya’an Bifengxia Base in that there aren’t a lot of amenities here – outside the main gate were a row of stalls selling anything and everything with a panda on it, but inside there isn’t a lot. There is a gift shop that you exit the base through which had quite a nice selection of items, but in terms of food there were almost no options, it was really just ice cream. But cute ice cream at that, with both giant panda and red panda options available (of course, I had both^). So if you plan on staying several hours, definitely take your own snacks/lunch with you, but overall the base is not huge, it can easily be seen in 2-3 hours, so can probably be done easily without needing a sit down lunch. Also similar to the Ya’an Bifengxia Base, here you also cannot view the pandas in their inside enclosures, nor are there areas where visitors are inside/under cover and viewing the pandas
On our visit it was very hot, we entered the base between 8:30 and 9AM, and had lunch (in the staff canteen) around 12PM, so had a break indoors for half an hour. Then it was time for ice cream number 1 and back to the pandas (ice creams were 20RMB I think). Had ice cream 2 a few hours later and managed to find some shade to sit in. We left around 3PM after browsing in the shop – by this time many of the pandas were inside in the heat of the day, so there wasn’t a lot to see and we felt like we’d had a good amount of time. Leaving the base, we took a DiDi back into the city centre and it cost approximately 20RMB with around a 30min journey.
Pan Pan Garden 盼盼园
The Pan Pan Garden is just a short walk from the entrance of the base and here there are 5 different enclosures. At the time of my visit there were a total of 8 pandas living here, 3 individually, one set of two young sub-adults, and one mother with her twins. The outdoor spaces are very large and those with young pandas had plenty of climbing opportunities (trees and built structures). There was also a lot of foliage which was nice, I definitely prefer this look to something more bare, but sometimes it can make getting photos more challenging. The viewing spaces along the paths were also abundant, there were plenty of spots to see the pandas, and the view is uninterrupted, there is no glass at this area to need to look through, it’s just over the walls (smaller children may need a hand seeing, but just don’t put them on the wall itself, this is not allowed and security will tell you off).
Jun Zhu 郡主
Jun Zhu 郡主 is the first panda you will come across in this area. She lives in a large enclosure on the left-most side, and there is viewing most of the way around the edge. She is now almost 21 years old, so is perhaps going to soon enjoy retirement from the breeding programme. She has links abroad now – she is the mother of Xin Bao 鑫宝 who was born in 2020 and has this year moved to San Diego Zoo. Jun Zhu was a very beautiful panda to watch, she wasn’t out when we first approached her yard, but very soon she came out from inside and settled in at her pile of bamboo for breakfast. We saw her a few times over the visit and she was eating every time! The concrete base for the bamboo was also mostly in the shade, so she could keep cool. The name signs only include a small bit of information about the pandas in English, but this one says she is a beautiful bear and I really have to agree, she’s very photogenic^
Fei Fei 妃妃
Fei Fei 妃妃 is the second individual panda in this area, she is in the second to last enclosure in the area which is quite long and thin. This one also has some different height elevations, sloping down away from her indoor space – where you are pretty much at eye-level with her. Fei Fei also has connections to the international pandas, she is the older sister of Tian Tian 添添 (male) who lived at Smithsonian National Zoo until last year (and who now also lives at the Dujiangyan Panda Base albeit in an off-show area) and really I think you can see the resemblance. She was pretty active when I saw her, she went from eating to having a wander around her yard, then back to eating. In the early afternoon when I was watching her she even had some carrot and panda cake which she seemed to enjoy. Her sign says she … . One interesting thing is that I remember this is the exact enclosure that I saw Tai Shan 泰山 in in November 2017, whose father is Tian Tian and thus is her nephew – it’s a small world^ Sadly at the time of writing, Fei Fei hasn’t been doing so well in her health, so I hope she is starting to do better 🖤🤍
Hua Mei 华美
The final solo panda in this area, and occupying the final yard in this garden is Hua Mei 华美 who is a very famous panda. She was born in San Diego Zoo in 1999 and was the first surviving cub in the US, so she is now almost 25 years old. She moved to China in 2004 and was a successful part of the breeding programme, becoming a mum to 14 cubs! One of those cubs is well known internationally too, Hua Mei is the mother of Hao Hao 好好(born 2009) who lives at Pairi Daiza. I didn’t really see much of Hua Mei on my visit, she seemed to prefer a quieter life, choosing spots to sit in further away from the viewing path around her yard but also the area that was mostly in the shade. She’s super cute and certainly didn’t look her incredible age at all!
