China Day 10 - Panda Sanctuary, Sichuan "Snack" Lunch and Local Park
We had a full day again today. Started out visiting the Giant Panda Sanctuary. The pandas are simply beautiful creatures to watch and so totally adorable you just want to jump inside the enclosure and hug them. While we were there the weather was rather threatening with dark clouds and thunder, so some of them were moved inside by the park rangers and we had to see them in their inside enclosures where its harder to take pictures. We watched some young cubs playing with one another and in another enclosure watched a mother and baby playing together. The baby climbed up on one of the structures, rolled around for awhile, then climbed down, but hung in mid-air for a few minutes on the downward climb as if not sure what to do next! It was highly entertaining! We also saw "red pandas" which are not actually bears at all, but members of the raccoon family. Also very cute. We saw a film about the breeding program they have here in the panda sanctuary, where they have been quite successful at breeding these rare animals and it is no small feat to do so. They try to get the pandas to mate naturally, but the girls can be fussy, so when the girl pandas reject the boys that the breeders have brought in for them (as happens with some regularity apparently!!) then they use artificial insemination methods! Often the females give birth to twins. In the wild, the panda mothers who have twins just ignore one of them because they can't care for more than one cub at a time, so the second one dies. In captivity the twins are cared for by the veterinary staff and are rotated in to the mother alternately so she actually does care for both and then they are able to have both survive. We saw a newborn in an incubator and it was amazing to see how very tiny it is. Hard to imagine that those big bears start out so very, very tiny.
After the pandas we went to lunch at a great restaurant where we were served a variety of Sichuan "snacks", mostly dumplings and various noodles with spicy sauces. We also had about 4 regular dishes in addition to the extensive "snack" menu. We rolled out of there stuffed to the gills! The food was delicious and all of the items served are indigenous to this province in China.
After lunch, we walked through the local park, the Chengdu version of Central Park. It was a lively Sunday afternoon, with folks out dancing, singing, hanging out in the various tea rooms and walking through the lovely grounds. Our guide took us to the part of the park where the "matchmakers" sit, and we saw long rows of notices posted on poles put there by parents of young adults who are not yet married, looking for a mate for their adult child! This is an old Chinese practice and is important to parents of unmarried adult children who want to get a good match for their son or daughter. Our guide, who is 26 years old, said the younger generation hates this process and don't like it when their parents do it, but obviously a lot of parents still attempt to arrange marriages for their adult offspring over protest! Instead of online dating they have "park signpost dating" here! After our walk through the park we took a local bus back to our hotel, which was fun as it got us mixing with the local Chinese.
Tonight we have an early-ish dinner so that we can get back early and get to bed early. We are leaving for Tibet tomorrow morning at 5:30 AM! We have to have our checked baggage ready to leave by after dinner this evening so we're all in the throes of packing/repacking yet again for the next leg of this journey. We've all started taking our Mountain Sickness meds because we are going to go from being practically at sea level, to an elevation of 12,400 feet when we get off the plane in Lhasa tomorrow, which can wreak havoc with the body. We're pounding down gallons of water today because being fully hydrated is important to minimize the effects of the altitude. Its very hot and humid here again, so we're looking forward to much cooler temps in Lhasa and way less humidity. Its going to be quite a contrast to the extremely hot temps we've been enduring so far on this trip.
I think I'll have access to the internet in Tibet, but am not absolutely sure. I also think even if we have it, it can be intermittent, so if you see no posts for a day or two, that's probably why! If I can post, I will but not sure till I get there. Of all the places we're going on this trip, Tibet is the most spartan and rustic.
Today's pics include the pandas, some shots of our lunch feast and the "matchmaker section" of the local park!
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