Chengdu, China: Sugar panda

Chengdu has partially redeemed the country of China after our bad experience in Xi'an. There hasn't been any rain, temperatures are cool, and the crowds are not as bad as long as you stay away from the main shopping areas. We even found some quite-passable western restaurants and got our Mexican and American food cravings (partly) satisfied. But Chengdu's big attraction is the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base. They have about 40 giant pandas and a whole bunch of red pandas there, in quite nice settings compared to the relative squalor of the panda enclosure at the Beijing Zoo. We even got to pet the giant pandas and hold the red pandas (for a fee, of course--the Chinese are good capitalists these days). Check Dylan's Travel Rat blog for the details of our time with the pandas. Here's a picture of Loey with her new best friend:


Today we went to People's Park, where we found a lot of families on outings, enjoying the holiday week. We were on a mission to find animals made from melted sugar, we all enjoyed eating them, and Dylan wanted to keep her rat forever.


Tomorrow we're off to Tibet for a few days. It wasn't a place we thought we would be able to go to, but with further research (we had enough time and money) we are able to go! Loey and I (Andy) are both feeling a strong tug to the mountains, clear skies and low population density of Lhasa. Must be our Montana background. We're just hoping that the sudden gain in elevation (to 3500 meters / 12,000 feet) doesn't cause any serious health problems [touch wood].