Panda Paradise

My main reason for holidaying was to visit and volunteer at Wolong panda reserve. I spent 8 days in Tibet as my side trip before heading to the neighbouring province of Sichuan. Chengdu is the biggest city there and Wolong is 4 hours drive out into the beautiful moutainous countryside. There were 10 people in my group from all over the world, Australia, England, Holland, the USA and Switzerland. We had all signed up and paid our money to volunteer our time and energy for the pandas. I am not sure how much value we added in terms of work but our financial contribution was most appreciated. We had a day to wander the reserve and check out the 60 or so pandas residing there. We stayed at the Panda Inn, a very nice hotel on the doorstep of the reserve itself. The work that we provided was basically cleaning up after the pandas (yes, these hands - gloved mind you - have touched panda poo!) and feeding the pandas. Their diet as you are probably aware is bamboo, different varieties and they also have a baker on staff to make panda biscuits! The biscuits are a mix of bamboo, rice, corn, veges and vitamins, they taste similar to rye bread and the pandas love them! I took a tonne of photos, I hope I was able to capture the moods and expressions of these gorgeous creatures and do them justice. I also got the opportunity to have my photo taken holding one while sitting on a bench. But as this was not nearly sufficient I also took the opportunity to go into one of the enclosures for play time with some 9 month old panda cubs! We were blessed on our second day with the birth of panda twins, two girls born to a panda called Ye Ye (Chinese for sunshine). It seemed a little too perfect that this was the only day of our trip that we actually saw the sun! It was a truly rewarding and satisfying experience, these animals are just too beautiful for words! I was very sad to say goodbye to them, and also to the lovely new human friends that I made there.

T'rrific Tibet

On Thursday 30 August I took off on the train from Guangzhou to Lhasa. The scenery as you will note from the photos did not disappoint! I was one of only a handful of foreigners on the train, so it was a very interesting and different experience. It took over 50 hours for us to reach our destination but I managed to sleep in my middle bunk quite successfully and the views kept me occupied most of the time. Lhasa itself was an awesome place, so full of colour and culture! I visited the famed Potala Palace (home to the Dalai Lama), monestaries, temples and spent some time noseying around the back streets and markets soaking everything in. Tibetan food is delicious, even the yak was pretty good!! I made lots of new friends at the hostel I stayed at too. In some ways Tibet is very similar to Bolivia (this was also the general concensus among fellow travellers). I think a large portion of the population are have nots, so this is why it felt the same as Bolivia. The country is very rich in culture but very poor in so many other ways. The people are extremely generous however. The Chinese population where I live has a penchant for staring, a cold, careless, curious stare but the Tibetans in contrast stare with great kindness and even get embarassed if you catch them looking. I was most impressed by this beautiful place and hope to get back again soon!!