7 Days Ultimate Panda Tour for Panda Fans: Chengdu Dujiangyan Wolong Bifengxia

Chengdu Panda Base

Dujiangyan Irrigation Project

In the early morning, drive for about half an hour to Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center, the home to giant pandas, where you will catch pandas' feeding time. At present, totally about 150 giant pandas and some red pandas are raised in the base. You can see the cute pandas strolling, eating bamboos, playing with companions, climbing on trees or just falling into fantasy quietly, leaving tourists a shadow figure. Also, you will see some lazy pandas still sleeping. In the baby room, you can see the new-born baby furry pandas out of the glass windows. Remember be quiet and don’t open flashlights when taking photos of them. In Giant Panda Museum, you will learn the history and living habitat about giant pandas.

After lunch, we will drive from Chengdu to Dujiangyan, a county neighboring Chengdu, to see the world famous Dujiangyan Irrigation Project. Dujiangyan is a great engineering paralleled to the Great Wall in the civilization history of China. In 256 B.C., Li Bing, the governor of Shu of Qin State, led the residents to build the weir, which is the only oldest grand water conservancy engineering in the world so far that piloted the water without a dam. Yu Zui, Feishayan and Baoping Estuary are three projects inseparably interconnected, addressing problems of automatic bypass flow, desilting, and water inlet control of the river in a scientific way, turning Chengdu into a land of abundance for thousand years.

Stay overnight in Dujiangyan

Dujiangyan Panda Base

Feed Pandas in Dujiangyan Panda Base

In this special day, you will get a rare chance to have an intimate contact with giant pandas in Dujiangyan Panda Base as a volunteer.

In the early morning, your tour guide will pick you up from your hotel and then drive to the Dujiangyan Panda Base. In the base, you will get a uniform, gloves, and a volunteer’s card. Your guide will introduce you to the professional panda keepers who can speak simple English. Your guide will also be there all the time to help you to translate and take memorable photos with the adorable pandas.

During your work, you need to clean panda enclosures. Panda keepers need to supply fresh bamboos to these national treasures three times each day. The pandas usually eat only 30% of the bamboo, wasting 70% of it. You will need to sweep out the leftovers, replace it with fresh bamboo, and clean out the feces. Besides, you also need to feed pandas, offering them panda cakes, apples, and carrots four times a day. The panda keepers will show you how to feed a panda with your own hands at close proximity.

In the noontime, you will have lunch and take a rest in the base. You will also see a special documentary (40 minutes) about how the shy pandas mate, give birth, grow up, and are returned to the wild.

In the afternoon, you will continue your work to do more cleaning and feeding, and learn to make panda’s cakes. The bamboo you supplied in the morning will have become dry by the afternoon. You should remove and replace it with fresh bamboo and then feed the pandas with some more panda cakes and apples. Having fed the pandas with panda cakes, aren’t you curious as to how they are made? It is time to make some panda cakes with your own hands. The ingredients will be prepared in advance. Get creative about the shapes of the cakes.

At about 4:00pm, your volunteer work will end and you will receive a certificate for this unforgettable day. Say goodbye to the pandas you take care of. Your guide will escort you back to your hotel in Dujiangyan.

Stay overnight in Dujiangyan

Wolong National Nature Reserve

Wolong National Reserve Park

In the morning after breakfast, we will leave Dujiangyan to Wolong, about 60km northwest of Dujiangyan. You’ll spend 1 hour 12 min on the way before arrival.

Known as the home to the Giant Panda and a precious bio-gene bank, Wolong National Nature Reserve is a heaven for people who love giant pandas. Among all the panda bases in Sichuan, it has the most amount of panda and was listed in UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve Network. Being different from other regular zoos, Wolong Panda Reserve provides wild natural environment for pandas so that they would never be kept in cages. While touring in the reserve, you may come across cute pandas accidentally. There are several zones in the reserve according to different functions like Baby Panda Zone, Sub-adult Panda Zone, Breeding Zone and Wildness Training Zone. Now, Wolong Panda Reserve is focused on reintroducing pandas to the wild now.

After lunch, we will finish the panda tour in Wolong and drive to Bifengxia in Ya’an. It’s a 2.5 hour drive during which you can have a rest on the car.

Stay overnight in Bifengxia

Bifengxia Panda Base

Bifengxia Gorge

After breakfast, we will begin our tour of Bifengxia Panda Base. The base is right in the beautiful Bifeng Gorge Scenic Area. With dense forest, clear air, humid weather and numerous waterfalls, the Gorge is a heavenly state for giant pandas.

The panda base is divided into three regions, namely the Returnees Panda Area, the Panda Nursery for baby pandas and Baixiongping Area for adult pandas. Tourists can take the eco-bus to each area. In panda kindergarten, you can see how fluffy baby pandas are fed, tended, and taken care of. The base has a vast area for pandas habitation and hence the pandas here are scattered all over the Leopard Mountain, Bi Tang, Bai Xiong Ping, and a lot of constructed indoor areas. In fact, Bifengxia is the largest outpost of Wolong and the largest eco park for pandas in the world.

When you have finished panda sightseeing in the base, we will continue to enjoy the natural scenery of Bifeng Gorge. With ninety percent of its territory covered with forest, this ecological tourist recreational resort is a natural oxygen bar and a nice place to avoid summer heat. It consists of two valleys forming the letter “V”. Wandering around the flagstone path, you can visit numerous waterfalls and ponds like Huanglongxia, Tianxian Bridge, the natural miniascape, the waterfall with thousands of terraces, Bailong Pond and Qinglong Pond, etc. Every waterfall is distinctive in its shape. Some plunges with great momentum while others are delicate in natural shape, streaming out of the rock tunnels gently, forming a fresh water curtain in front of you. The cool and humid climate in the gorge will completely soothe your nerves and make you embrace the nature.

Stay overnight in Ya’an

Biggest Sitting Buddha Sculpture

Leshan Giant Buddha

After breakfast, we will end the Bifengxia tour and head forward to Leshan Giant Buddha 124 km away. This biggest sitting Buddha sculpture in the world is located in the Lingyun Temple at the confluence of three rivers. The grand Buddha was completed in 803 AD of Tang Dynasty after 90 year's construction, about 71- meter in height, shoulders 28 meters wide, head 14.7 meters long and 10 meters broad, and total of 1051 chignons of hair are clustered on it. Each chignons is as big as a round table. The Buddha was carved on the cliff of Lingyun Mountain in order to suppress the flood. Tour guide will take you to walk along the path built on the cliff face of the hill from the top of Buddha’s head to his toes, or you can choose taking a sightseeing boat from the pier to the water surface in front of Giant Buddha to watch the huge Buddha from the river.

After tour, be transferred back to your hotel in Chengdu downtown.

Stay overnight in Chengdu

Today is free for you to have a rest in hotel or explore Chengdu at your leisure until we will transfer you to the airport or train station for your next destination.