The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding offers visitors opportunity to have an intimate contact with panda.
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding was founded in 1987, with six giant pandas picked up from the wild. The number has increased to more than 80 now and the base has developed into one of the most professional research bases of panda breeding. At present, the base is engaged in building 4 ecological gardens and a Panda Town based on 800 years of the animal's evolution.
Activities not to be missed
Panda tour
Panda Base offers visitors the opportunity to explore habitats of the giant panda in the Chengdu suburbs. It's hard to find pandas along the trip, but if visitors are lucky enough, they can spot panda's living traces, such as feces and bitten bamboo. This tour will take 2 to 3 days and 1000 yuan per day.
International intern
This activity suits visitors who want to serve pandas by themselves. Participants will work with dietitians to make delicious steamed corn bread, or they can choose to feed and clean pandas' houses with keepers.
Internship fees: 600 yuan per person as a keeper
800 yuan per person working in panda's kitchen
Something surprises visitors
If you visit the panda base, you will find something that surprises you. For example, people have found some pandas with white or brown fur and the fur isn't as soft as it looks. In fact, the fur is hard and greasy, like a raincoat for pandas. But even more surprising is this: bamboo is not the only food that pandas get addicted to, for they also love to eat iron. Sometimes they break into farmers' houses and eat up their iron pans, so the panda is called iron monster. Watching so many pandas at such a close distance is enough to excite all visitors, while some stories and details will surely make them fall in love with pandas.
Recommended route: one-day tour of Sanxingdui Panda Base
Tour itinerary
Take bus to Futou Mountain Panda Base in Chengdu north suburbs at 8 a.m. This base was built to save pandas, so it is call "Panda Family". There is a Giant Panda House, Butterfly House, Young Panda House, wild living area of giant pandas and delivery rooms. It will cost 2 hours to look around. And after the trip, visitors can have lunch in Sanxidui (a 40-minute-way of bus).
In the afternoon, Sanxingdui Museum, which exhibits historical relics of Southwest China's Bronze Age, will end the one-day tour perfectly.
