Featured Categories
Browsing

Panda Valley

The 5 PANDA BASES in Sichuan Province – a summary on visiting + what’s next when you’ve seen it all!

I can finally tick off the list seeing all of the Panda bases in Sichuan Province, or more specifically in the Chengdu area! When I had the dream of seeing all the bases, I don’t think I intended to see them all on one trip, but that somehow managed to happen (although I’ve seen some on multiple previous trips too) – and I think it was completely worth it. When I was first looking up about seeing pandas in China, and even on more recent trips, I could never really find one resource that covered all of the bases – or even where they all were, especially somewhere that wasn’t a tour company. So hopefully this is something I can contribute to with this post summarising all 5 of the main giant panda bases in Sichuan Province that you can reach from Chengdu – covering the pros and cons of each, perhaps helping you figure out what might be the best option for what you want to see of pandas!

Continue Reading “The 5 PANDA BASES in Sichuan Province – a summary on visiting + what’s next when you’ve seen it all!”

No3 Giant Panda House @ Panda Valley, May 2024

And the final panda area in Panda Valley is the No3 Giant Panda House! Here I saw two more pandas, both were outside on my visits, but there were also indoor areas – this was a good spot for a break, it was in the shade and nice and cool, plus plenty of spaces to sit down (there aren’t a lot of benches throughout the rest of the park). And it was quiet, there were only a couple of other people also enjoying the space when I was there. Onto the pandas:

Continue Reading “No3 Giant Panda House @ Panda Valley, May 2024”

No2 Giant Panda House @ Panda Valley, May 2024

The next house in Panda Valley is the No2 Giant Panda House where another three pandas live – this was the one house where I didn’t really see much of the pandas, and actually is the only one where I’m not completely sure which pandas I did see! There were no signs on the inside enclosures, and I saw a panda in here on both days but I think it was the same panda. Then one outside yard had signs for 2 adult pandas, but I only saw 1 in here (it seems unlikely that two pandas of that age would be together in yard), and the second outdoor yard I didn’t see any pandas in! But hey, at least I saw some pandas XD

Continue Reading “No2 Giant Panda House @ Panda Valley, May 2024”

Mei Lan (Rou Rou) @ Panda Valley, May 2024 (No1 Giant Panda House pt.2)

The third and final panda to share about in the No1 Giant Panda House is of course Mei Lan 梅兰, also known as Rou Rou! She is a particularly famous panda because of her adorable round face and has a huge fandom on social media (you can find so many videos online). She is now 8 years old and was born to mum Mei Bang 梅浜, who was born overseas in Wakayama Adventure World, Japan. Alongside her round face, she also has quite distinctive golden fur. She is also well-known for her fondness of pumpkins, which I just think is so sweet, I was a little sad there was no pumpkin for her to eat when I was there! She is described as being active and lively, and enjoys interacting with her keepers. On my first visit, I only saw her sleeping on the platform, so this was a good reason to come back for my second visit to try and see her awake.

She was born at the Chengdu Panda Base in 2016, which means I likely saw her in the nursery when I went in 2016 and then in the kindergarten in 2017 (she may be in the final picture in this post) and 2018 before she moved to Panda Valley in December 2018. I completely didn’t realise this before now, things are really coming full circle now that I’ve been travelling to China over several years.

Continue Reading “Mei Lan (Rou Rou) @ Panda Valley, May 2024 (No1 Giant Panda House pt.2)”