05/09/18 As Chengdu is famous for its panda research centre, that is where I am going today. Unfortunately, the weather was very bad, heavy showers all day, but with 26 degrees so it won’t be cold.
I arrived before 10am and it was raining so bad everyone was trying to find cover everywhere in the park. The enclosure entrances, the toilets, the movie theatre… I ended up at the park’s café with some peach tea to dry a little and wait for the storm to be over. By 2pm, the rain became drizzle so I could continue exploring. But I found the park experience terrible, because many paths leading to pandas were closed to the public, the red panda nursery was closed because many females were pregnant so no access to the public either, and none of giant pandas were outside as they suffer from the heat so they were kept in small rooms behind a glass (even though today was rainy and not hot). So they make visitors walk 3h across the entire park (unless you pay extra for an electric taxi) to see nothing. I was very disappointed as the red pandas were not visible, the giant pandas were all sleeping in 3 small smelly rooms behind a dirty glass, and the park directions were terrible. I learned more on a recorded BBC documentary about the centre and the pandas played in the café than the park itself. Miserable day. On top of that, my dark blue shoes tainted my feet so bad I could not get the colour off, as they were drenched in the rain. I wonder how many other people are in the same situation, as many others didn’t have anything but an umbrella to protect them. I had my cape but I realised it is not waterproof at all so it was not really helping either.
I still learned a few things like there are only 1864 pandas left in the world. 60% of the ones born in captivity come from 4 male pandas only and the research centres and zoos across the globe sometimes use a panda sperm bank. Their decline is due to environmental reasons as their land gets smaller as humans grow urban areas and destroy forests. It also started with the fact that pandas were given as political gifts to other countries and became popular so many rich people came to China to take a panda and bring hom home. In the early 90’s a policy was created to stop the political gift practice.
A panda eats daily 23-40kg of bamboo shoots, 10-18kg bamboo leaves and 17kg bamboo stalks. Not all types of bamboo are good for them and they spend a lot of time in the wild selecting the ones they think is good among the edible ones. One panda in particular was sent to Atlanta hoping he would breed with a female then returned to China on a private VIP jet. His return was celebrated with a welcoming crowd.
The work done in the centre is really great, as the female pandas have a 50% chance to give birth to twins, they only take care of the strongest baby, by nature so the staff takes care of the second one and alternate the feeding time to ensure both babies have what they need to survive. Researchers don’t know that a female panda is pregnant until she gives birth and the gestation period can vary from a few months to almost 2 years so it is really hard for them to know whether their work is successful before the birth. Newborn pandas are really small compared to the adult size and look like baby mice.
After the park I went back to the city and for dinner, I went to a local noodle restaurant and ordered what seemed to be beef, vegetables and rice. I took it away to the hostel which was more comfortable to eat, and realised it was not beef at all ? some kind of odd-shape meat tasting like liver, floating in a hot soup. I ate the mushrooms and greens from the soup, the pickled pieces on the side and the rice. I don’t know what the meat was, and I don’t want to know!
06/09/18 This morning I took the train to Yichang, a stopover to Zhangjiajie. I keep hoping that I will have some free space on the train as I am visiting less popular cities, but when the ‘small’ city has the population of the entire kingdom of Belgium, no chance to find an empty train.
The hostel was very close to the train station and was supposed to be an international youth hostel next to a garden. Well it was more like an apartment cut in 3 rooms in a poor residential building, with no running water in the toilet and no shower. The hosts do not speak a word of English but are very friendly and willing to help. And there is a wire floating on the ceiling with little flags from different countries of the world. I guess this is the requirement to call the place international ?. As there were no signage or directions to get there, the hosts were waiting outside the building waving at me when I got close enough. They gave me a business card in Chinese to confirm I was in the right place, the translation seemed close enough to be right – ‘Little Joe’ instead of ‘Joey’s Garden International Youth Hostel’. ? But it looked ok so it was alright for 1 night. Booking.com, this one is not really up to your standards. I got the visit from my friend the cockroach who was dying on the bedroom’s floor. It reminded me of Australia, and Vanessa who cried the first time she found one.
