On both my second and fourth mornings of my time in Dujiangyan 都江堰 I headed out to the Chengdu Field Research Center for Giant Pandas, or more commonly known, Panda Valley 熊猫谷. I had only planned to have one visit here, but after looking through some of my pictures and having only seen a small glimpse at a few ‘big-name’ pandas, I decided to use my extra time for a second visit!
Panda Valley has the distinct ‘Chengdu Panda Base‘ entrance building shaped like a panda, I love it^ There is a ticket booth here like at Chengdu Base, however unlike with Chengdu Base tickets, I found I could book my entrance ticket via the WeChat app without any issue and my passport became my ticket. The price is the same as Chengdu Base and is 55RMB. So I did this on both occasions and also on the same day as my visits, so there was plenty of availability. The base is located just a bit outside of Dujiangyan centre, but closer than the Dujiangyan Panda Base – I took a DiDi to get there on both visits and it always cost around 18-20RMB each time and journey time was 15-20minutes depending on traffic. In terms of visit duration, my first visit lasted around 4 hours and my second visit was a shorter 2 hours. This is the smallest panda base I’ve been to and has the least number of pandas (although still plenty to see of them!). Online it lists there being 12 pandas, but I think I saw 14 and there were some spaces which were empty so there may have been additional pandas in there but who were just off-show or in their inside space while I was there.
Being outside of the city, alike Dujiangyan Panda Base, Panda Valley is built on a hill – the front portion by the main entrance is flat, but you work your way up the hill which peaks at the end of the base (on the left on the above map). It’s also worth pointing out that there are no golf-cart-style buses to transport you through the base here but the paths are all paved/tarmac so it’s smooth underfoot. Navigation is easy, you really can’t get lost! The base is newer, with construction starting in 2010 and opening to the public in 2015, but it also is more geared towards shorter visits – there aren’t a lot of amenities here. There is only one small cafe area selling drinks and ice creams (and perhaps one savoury option but I didn’t check out the cafes), but there are plenty of toilets (and very nice ones at that), and also a small but very well-stocked gift shop at the exit of the park.
One of the things I really liked about the base was that there were very clearly less big groups – I only saw a handful of tour groups and they weren’t large like the ones going to Dujiangyan Panda Base or Chengdu Panda Base. There also weren’t any school groups (I was only asked for a selfie once, it was great XD), which kept the visitor numbers at quite a manageable level. It really felt like a relaxing experience to see pandas, which is more unusual now than it used to be for sure. At each of the viewing areas there was also a security guard stationed, they made sure everyone was following the rules, keeping quiet, not having flash on their cameras, and not throwing anything over the fences/walls. They were also providing information about the pandas, telling guests the panda names if they hadn’t seen the info sign and giving extra information – when I was at one of the yards with a returned panda from Spain, a guest asked the pandas name and he provided it then said the panda was born in Spain, the guest was overjoyed because she was Spanish! At a yard with 3 pandas in it, the guard also could easily identify which panda was which, which I was super happy about as one of these pandas was one I was wanting to see.
The park itself is very beautiful and peaceful, really comparable to a botanical garden except there’s pandas to see around^ While it’s on a main road, there is quite a bit of a walk from the main entrance up to the main body of the park and the first panda yards, keeping it quiet and serene. And there are plenty of other animal species to see too, especially plenty of birds and I even saw black swans and a white peacock. At the furthest end of the park there is even a small temple which was also a peaceful place for contemplation. There was also an Education Village to check out, this was an indoor area between the No2 and No3 houses which provided a good base of knowledge about pandas, which was in both English and Mandarin.
There are 4 different houses to see giant pandas in – the Breeding Centre, No1 Giant Panda House, No2 Giant Panda House and No3 Giant Panda House – and then also the free-roaming red panda area where there are a number of red pandas to also see which I think is a nice addition. I will post about each of the giant panda sections in the upcoming posts, but first, the red pandas!
Red Pandas 小熊猫
The red panda area is located at the very back of the park on the right side of the main path. The red panda area is gated, so they’re not completely free-roaming, but they have complete access over the paths that you walk on throughout their large area on the hillside. You enter and immediately the decked route weaves up the hillside – it was pretty exposed to the sun on this path, so there were only a couple of red pandas in this area and they were tucked in the shade, but very close to the public. At the peak of the hill of the red panda space there was a large viewing platform looking out across most of the park which had several educational info boards about red pandas – I really liked this but it was all completely in the sun, so people weren’t really hanging around here, nor were the red pandas. And then you work your way down the back of the enclosure and hillside, this was quite shaded and where most of the red pandas and people were – you can see in the pictures below how busy it was, but this was the peak busy-ness that I experienced in the park. There were also security staff throughout the walkthrough red panda enclosure making sure everyone abided by the rules and no-one disturbed the red pandas. I was surprised that they were all super close even when there were a lot of people around. The red pandas are definitely worth a stop if you’re visiting Panda Valley!
