We woke up to a warm humid morning, headed down to breakfast then out to meet our guide. Today was Panda day. We were worried the inclement weather may cause the pandas to seek shelter, and we wouldn’t see them.
We arrived at the research station, and followed the pathways user an arch of bamboo trees. It didn’t take too long to find our first panda perched up in a tree.
A few minutes later another panda arrived, and then a few more. We had timed it perfectly, the pandas had just eaten and it was rest time. Pandas eat upwards of 40kg of bamboo per day, it takes about 16 hours to find and eat this. To allow it to digest they need to rest, evidently pandas are not lazy, they are energy efficient!!
We saw an number of pandas of different ages from 1 month through to many years. It is worth reading about what happens at the research station, through their efforts they have turned the decline of the panda population in the wild into a small increase. Currently there are only around 1500 in the wild, 300 in captivity including 140 or so at this research facility. Once finished with the pandas we had lunch and headed out to the railway station four our trip to Chongqing to join our cruise. Once on board we had 3 questions to answer, were we vegetarian, what’s our next destination and would we like to upgrade to a suite (very good price sir!!). We succumbed very quickly to the offer after he showed us the cabin we had booked. The new one was twice the size with a work area, sofa and bath tub!!
Food, Glorious Food
Time to Digest
Where’s my Back Legs?
Mother and Cub
Same Mother and Two Cubs
Panda Kindergarten Four of the Pandas are 3 month old, the one in the pink box is 1 month old.
Red Panda
We traveled on the high speed “Bullet Train” cruising at 295Km/h
High Speedwe
We were picked up at the station by our guide and driver, and driven off to the port. Unfortunately both entrances to the port are closed for construction, meaning a 200m walk to the boat. As this provides such an inconvenience for us poor tourists the tour company hired a porter to carry our cases!! I was a little too embarrassed to take a photo, but instead of using a trolley the porter had a 5ft bamboo pole and hooked the cases to either end and carried it across his shoulders!
Although the boat did not sail until 21:00 we were allowed to board around 17:00 which gave us plenty of time to freshen up.
The downtown area of Chongqing was beautifully illuminated as the pictures below show.
The Blue Lines are Cranes at Construction Sites
The Green Building is in the shape of a boat (at least it is in the imagination of its German Architect. The building changes colour, and as we moved away the shape of a boat could be seen from certain angles
Following in a Nautical Theme… Sails on Apartment Buildings
Being an American based cruise company there is a lot of English speaking people on board, much easier on the ears!! The boat is the largest on the Yangtze river at 10,000 tons and 400 passengers.