Next is a little of a mixed post – there are also red pandas living at the Dujiangyan Panda Base in the Linze Garden area, so I made sure to visit them on this trip. Then the next area to see giant pandas is the Shuangnan Garden, so sharing one of the individual pandas I saw there, Mu Ye, who I saw on my last trip as well:
The other pandas I saw in the Pan Pan Garden area were Yi Ran and her twins – I saw a lot of mums with their 2023-born babies on my last trip, but Yi Ran wasn’t one of them, so this is a new trio for me. Since my visit, CCRCGP have released the list of names for the 2023 and 2024-born babies, so these cubs are called Rui Xi 瑞喜 and Qiao Yi 乔怡. Yi Ran is now 12 years old and is an experienced mother, she first gave birth in 2017, then had cubs in 2019, 2021 and then these twins in 2023. These cubs are both males and were born in August 2023, making them around 1.5 years old. I stopped by in the morning and everyone was sleeping, then came back a few times, around lunchtime and closer to the end of the day and those second times saw both Yi Ran and one cub up and about. I got some lovely pictures of Yi Ran, but seeing a cub chasing a pigeon was an absolute highlight (no pigeons harmed)! Despite being in one of the first yards you come to in the base, it was always very quiet here, really only a few other people watching at any one time.
First pandas in China of the trip! Always starting with the Pan Pan Garden area because it’s the first one you come to when you enter – unless you are taking the internal tourist bus. I have posted about this section before from my last visit, so I won’t write much, but there are 5 yards here to see pandas in – on this trip 3 of these held individual adults, 1 held two youngsters together, and the final held a mother and her 2 cubs. I didn’t see a lot of one of the individuals, Mei Xi, but I did spy everyone else living in this garden!
For this trip I decided to make Chengdu my base for the week and take daytrips out to see pandas from there – and all making use of public transport rather than having a friend take me or booking a driver/guide. It’s all really definitely possible, but for me it definitely felt easy because I’m relatively experienced in travelling around in China. So lets chat where I heading to see pandas on this trip – I took these daytrips on 3 consecutive days:
