The final area at the Dujiangyan Panda Base to visit Shuangnan Garden 双楠园 which is on the right of the main path and around half-way through the base between the Pan Pan 盼盼园 and Diequan Gardens 蝶泉园. Here there are 5 enclosures for pandas, however really only 3 of these are visible – the fenced off area in the above picture has all the viewing of the 4th enclosure, however if the panda is out in the yard and in the right spot you would be able to see across another yard to see it. The 5th one you can’t see at all. On my last visit in 2017, the fenced off area wasn’t at this spot as I remember getting up to the front viewing windows of at least the 3rd yard into the area, whereas now you can’t. You can also see the fence on the right of the picture blocking the window into the indoor area for the associated enclosure, again I’m sure I was able to look into this on my last visit. I completely don’t mind this, it gives the keepers space to work without being watched all the time and also some quiet off-show space for the pandas – I only couldn’t see the name plaque for the panda in the 3rd enclosure because it was in the staff-only space.

This was one of the most popular spots at the whole base – everyone wanted a glimpse of Le Le 叻叻, the cub who was born in Singapore and who only recently travelled to China! Le Le was born in 2021 at the River Wonders, Mandai Wildlife Reserve and in January 2024 made the trip to China to start his independent life. Although not too independent because he has roommates in his new home in the Diequan Garden 蝶泉园 of Dujiangyan Panda Base. I’m not sure I’ve seen them pair an overseas-born returned cub with other cubs before, but he is still quite young at only 2.5 years old on his return, and most cubs this age in China are living with other young ones. His roommates are twins, male Qing Zai 青仔 and female Qing Bao 青宝 who were also born in 2021.

The Diequan Garden 蝶泉园 is the furthest away area at the Dujiangyan Panda Base and has 5 different panda enclosures, at the time of my visit a total of 8 pandas were living here. The most popular inhabitant of this area was Le Le – he was born in Singapore in 2021 and moved to China in January 2024, but more on him in the next post! This area ended up being quite busy, lots of the school groups were here (so another round of photos and telling them where we were from) and there was also a small snack stand selling drinks and ice creams, so many people were crowded there. In the end I didn’t end up seeing two of the pandas who were in this area, Nong Nong 檂檂 and Su Yang 苏阳 were preferring their indoor spaces this time. These two are relatively young males of almost 4 and 5 years old respectively. There are a lot of cute videos online of both pandas that you can check out, so I’m a little sad I didn’t see them.

The most popular pandas in Pan Pan Garden were definitely Ji Fu 吉福 and Chun Yu 春雨! These two are super cute cubs and were so entertaining, everyone was stopping to watch them and get pictures. These two must have been a new addition either to the base or to just this enclosure because there was no signage for them at all – luckily we passed by a keeper who my friend knew and we asked what the names were. So really not much information, but they have been featured in a few videos/social media posts recently. Ji Fu is the daughter of Cui Cui, and a quick search online tells me she was born in August 2022 (so almost 2 years old on my visit), and holds the record for the heaviest cub being born in captivity at 270.4 grams! Apparently Ji Fu likes to take her bamboo up into the trees to eat, which is exactly what I saw, it was adorable. I believe I saw her mum Cui Cui on this trip but at the Wolong Shenshuping Base (content coming soon^). Chun Yu is the daughter of Qiao Qiao, and it seems like Qiao Qiao was originally a wild panda and was brought into captivity, and was then sent out to breed with wild males, and brought back in. Chun Yu is a product of that and was also born in August 2022. These two also are the focus of one of the livecams on the iPanda website, if you are lucky you will be able to spot them!

To tell these two apart – Ji Fu is the one with a little tuft on her head, and Chun Yu has a more square-shaped head (so the internet says, I didn’t just make it up^).