7 Days Dujiangyan Panda Volunteer and Chinese Culture Tour

Dujiangyan Panda Base

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 to the 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 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 and drive back to your hotel.

Stay overnight in Dujiangyan

Tea-Picking in Dujiangyan

Girl Picking Tea in Dujiangyan

Today, you will spend a tea culture day in Dujiangyan. In the morning, your guide will pick you up and send you to the Panda tea plantation for a visitation, and then you will experience tea-picking under the guidance of staff. In the noon, you’ll have a break and have your lunch in the plantation during which you can ask some questions to the staff and learn more about Chines tea.

After the rest, you will be taught how to prepare the tea and finally enjoy the fragrant tea to end your tea culture experience journey. In the afternoon, a face changing show is prepared for you to appreciate the magical Sichuan cultural and artistic treasure.

Stay overnight in Dujiangyan

Dujiangyan Irrigation System

Qingcheng Mountain

In the morning after breakfast, we will go to see the world famous Dujiangyan Irrigation System during which you can have a short break on the vehicle. Dujiangyan is a great engineering paralleled to the Great Wall in the civilization history of China. It 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. In over two thousands years, the ancient weirs have lead surging Minjiang River into the vast Chengdu plain, creating a rich and beautiful “heavenly state”where people control the water. Climbing on the Yulei Pavilion, you will have a bird’s eye view of the whole Dujiangyan project.

In the afternoon, we will climb Qingcheng Mountain, right in the behind of Dujiangyan. Known as “the most tranquil place”since ancient times, Mount Qingcheng was the origin of Taoism of China with thousand stairs leading to tranquility. The ancestral mountain and ancestral hall in Tianshi Path has gathered the essence of Taoist culture. In 2000, Qingcheng Mountain was identified as World Cultural Heritage and the first batch of national 5A scenic area. With mountains in four sides, the hills, brooks, valleys and temples are hidden in the lush woods. You will obtain inner peace and embrace the nature in this tranquil mountain.

Textile Dyeing DIY

Liu Manorial Museum

In the morning, drive from Dujiangyan to Anren Ancient Town in Dayi County. You will learn the traditional Chinese textile dyeing technique and have a try for dyeing DIY , which will be great fun. After lunch, we will visit the famous historical site & museum in the ancient town -- Liu Manorial Museum. The Liushi manor was initially built in the end of Chinese Qing Dynasty and was completed in the late Republican period. It had been the residence of a Chinese landowner in Republican period (1912-1949). In 1958, it was transformed into a museum to represent politic, economy, culture and residential buildings of Chinese semi-colonial and semi-feudal period.

The buildings combine Chinese and western architectural styles together, not only embody the characteristics of Chinese feudal mansions, but also absorb the unique feature of western castles and church buildings. In the museum, more than 27,000 pieces of cultural relics and collections are housed, among which 15 are listed as national first-class cultural relics. It’s one of the important historical sites and representatives of modern Chinese society. After sightseeing, we will drive back to Chengdu.

Stay overnight in Chengdu

Taichi Learning

Jinsha Site Museum

After breakfast, we will experience another essence of traditional Chinese culture, Taichi. As a traditional practice, it has extensive and profound connotation, mixing Confucianism and Taoism together, reflecting the core concept of Chinese culture. In the bamboo park, you will learn how to practice Taichi from a teacher to experience the Chinese Yin and Yang philosophy contained in it.

In the afternoon, you will continue your Chengdu sightseeing for a half day. You can learn the past of Chengdu 3,000 years ago in Jinsha Site Museum. It was built on ruins to protect, study and display Jinsha culture of Chinese Shang and Zhou Dynasty (1600 BC - 221BC) and ancient civilization. In the museum, Relic Hall was constructed on the site where large scale of ritual activities were held in the ancient time. It’s the most completely preserved sacrifice remains in China with the biggest number of relics. When you are touring in it, don’t miss the golden band with Sun and Magic Birds which is now the logo of Chengdu.

And finally, we will move on to Wenshu Temple built in Sui Dynasty. It’s the most frequented temple in Chengdu. The temple was constructed in the style of traditional western Sichuan buildings and conserves many precious cultural relics and ten thousands of Buddhist scriptures and literature. Every day, there are many people coming for worship of Buddhas and praying. Strolling in the temple, quaint buildings and diffuse incense can make you forget you are in a hustling downtown and obtain inner peace. It’s said one of the Buddha statues in the temple is in charge of helping people realize their dreams. Pray to this Buddha sincerely, your dream will come true within three weeks.

Stay overnight in Chengdu

Today your tour ends. You will be escorted by our tour guide to airport for your flight to next destination or home.