His name is Shu Xiang and he’s one year old. I wrap my arm around him as he sits on my knee and leans against me until his head lolls comfortably on my shoulder. This is a cuddle unlike any other I’ve ever experienced. That’s because Shu Xiang is a Giant Panda – a living, breathing, apple-munching baby Giant Panda.
“Give me big smiles!” calls out an assistant at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base as she snaps away with my camera. Try stopping me – getting to hold a panda is such an amazing opportunity that I can’t help grinning.
I do wonder about the ethics of getting up close and personal with an endangered animal and if Shu was at all agitated and unhappy (or sedated in some way), I would think twice. But he’s quite alert and seems content to pose. All I can think is that my seven-year-old panda-mad daughter is going to be so jealous; and if Kevin Costner became known as Dances With Wolves, does this make me Cuddles With Pandas?
of course I’m not the only visitor to the panda base in China’s Sichuan province who gets to hold the adorable Shu Xiang. Anyone who is prepared to don protective plastic clothing (so he doesn’t catch any yukky human bugs) and hand over roughly $200 can sit him on their knee and have their photo taken with him.
Yes, it’s a lot of money for a two-minute snuggle, but how often do you get the chance to get this close to one of the rarest creatures in the world?
There are around 250 pandas in captivity and an estimated 1600 in the wild. Around 80% of the wild ones live in mountainous areas of Sichuan, where there are also seven nature reserves and nine scenic parks dedicated to pandas. But the easiest place for most visitors to see these cute creatures is at the panda breeding base 10km from Chengdu, Sichuan’s capital. It is set in a beautifully landscaped 5.5ha of parklands, with paths meandering through bamboo groves and a man-made lake full of carp and swans.
The best time to see the pandas is first thing in the morning when they’re most active. Pandas are the couch potatoes of the animal world so being active means occasionally ambling around their open air enclosure or, if you’re lucky, maybe climbing up a wooden platform. oost of the time they just sit back and munch bamboo. What a life!
Visitors “ooh” and “ahh” over the pandas in their enclosures but the biggest cries of delight are saved for the newborns in the nursery. Three babies aged one and two months are asleep in incubators while a member of staff bottle-feeds another, then burps him just like a human baby.
As well as giant pandas, the breeding centre is home to cheeky red pandas. There’s a museum as well as gift shops, where you can get swept away in panda mania and buy everything from panda T-shirts and slippers to gloves, backpacks and chopsticks.
But there is more to Sichuan than pandas. After visiting the breeding centre, our group takes an hour-long bus trip to the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project. This is an incredible feat of engineering that tamed the mighty oin River, which was prone to both floods and droughts. What’s really astounding is that the project was carried out nearly 2300 years ago.
It’s been modernised since then and has stunning gardens and temples, plus a couple of giant plank-and-chain swinging bridges that are stomach-flipping grownup versions of the wobbly bridges you find in kids’ playgrounds.
other attractions within easy reach of Chengdu include the Giant Buddha at Leshan, a two-hour drive away. The 71m Buddha, the tallest in the world, is carved into the face of a cliff overlooking the confluence of three rivers. You can walk up and down staircases in the cliff to get a close look at the 1200-year-old Buddha but the best view is from a boat that pulls up in front of it for around five minutes.
About half an hour from Leshan is ot Emei, one of four sacred Buddhist mountains in China. We take a cable car up to Wannian Temple and pray to an impressive-looking 8.5m bronze and copper Buddha.
From Wannian, we head off on a two hour walk down the mountain. The path is wide, paved and easy to walk on, and I could go at a cracking pace if I didn’t have to keep stopping to take photos. The scenery is stunning. The forest of pines, firs, cedars and ferns is lush and green. Rivers tumble over rocks and there’s a lake that’s so still, it’s like a giant mirror. oist floats over the treetops and there’s such a feeling of peace and tranquility, you can see why Buddhists consider it sacred.
We walk over lovely old bridges and past beautiful pavilions. There are stalls every now and then, selling everything from cuddly toys to spices and snacks. All too soon we’re back in the bus and on our way to Chengdu. My time here has been too brief, but at least I’m leaving with some wonderful memories, a suitcase stuffed full of panda-themed products and photos of the best cuddle ever.