May 25, 2018
Flight: Chengdu, China (CTU) to Lhasa, China (LXA); Air China economy
Hotel: Gangjian; Lhasa, China
We arrived about 5:15AM and had a longish walk to immigration. Entry was easy and as I exited to the waiting area the courier was already there waiting. He took a photo of me and the permit (I guess to prove he delivered it!) and took me over to the other terminal where I checked in for my Lhasa flight. It was barely 6AM and I still had 6.5 hrs wait before the Lhasa flight. I had researched some other places to see in Chengdu if the panda visit didn't work out. The metro station was right there in the terminal and by 6:20 I was already on the way (7¥). I had to change to Line 3 at Taipingyuan which was super quick as there was already one waiting. It took about 50 minutes or so from the airport to Panda Avenue (Xiongmao). The metro wasn't too busy and it was interesting to see all the locals. The Chinese are on their phones more than Americans! My last trip to China was in 2007 before smartphones really took off.
From the metro there is a shuttle that runs to the Panda Breeding Center, but it didn't start running for another hour. I didn't see any taxis but there was a rickshaw waiting but a group of other westerners got in it. I started walking towards the center (which was further than I expected, about 4.2kms). Luckily another rickshaw pulled up and gave me a ride the rest of the way for 15¥. Arrived at the entrance right at opening time at 7:30 and there was already a long line of locals and foreigners waiting to buy tickets (58¥). The morning is the best time to visit as that is when the pandas eat and are more active.
The park has several kms of trails leading to the enclosures. You can pay extra for shuttle buses that run around the park. I started walking behind one of the groups and got to the Red Panda enclosure just in time to see one slink off into the foliage. The enclosures are a decent size and lush with greenery. I continued up the hill to another one of the enclosures and caught sight of my first panda lazing in a tree. The main groups hadn't caught up yet so had a few minutes of quiet. There were some younger pandas (Jing Jing & Ni Ni) playing in the next enclosure.
Finally reached the top of the hill all sweaty. It was warm and humid and hadn't had a shower since Austin. Here there were 5-6 adult pandas all having breakfast of bamboo sticks. Was amazing to see so many of them all in one location. You can actually pay to hold a baby panda but it's crazy expensive ($300) for barely two minutes.
The tour group hordes finally started arriving. It was about 9AM so I figured I'd start the walk back down the hill and head back to the airport. At the gate there was a line of taxis waiting but no one spoke English and they didn't understand my trying to say metro station in Chinese. A few people pulled out their phones with voice translation app but even then they didn't understand. Eventually I just got out the GPS and pointed where I wanted to go. Fare was 15 ¥ so the same as I'd paid for the rickshaw! Even with walking down the hill and communication delay I was back at the metro station by 9:30. The metro was busier now and I had to stand most of the way back to the airport. At security they wanted to check my Tibet permit. The airport was busy but they had probably 15 security lines open so it was quick and I was in the Air China lounge by 10:40AM, with still 2 hrs before the Lhasa flight.
The Air China lounge was huge and they started serving lunch at 11AM. About 11:45 I headed over to Starbucks to get my last caffiene fix for the next week. The flight boarded about 20 minutes late. The flight was about 2.5hrs and got a good view of the snowcapped peaks as we were approaching Lhasa. No issues on arrival and I walked outside to meet the transfer driver. He was there waiting with an older American woman. We started chatting about travel and places we'd been. She'd been in China for several weeks already and was heading on the overland trip to Nepal. We were staying at the same hotel. The drive from the airport to Lhasa took about 40 minutes on a brand new expressway. Weather was nice and warmer than expected for the altitude (12000').
Air China Lounge, CTU
AirChina Y CTU-LXA
We passed the impressive Potala Palace on the way through town. Arrived at the hotel and had a look around, there is a cafe/balcony on the top floor. I started feeling the altitude now though, combined with the travel I ended up just going to my room and passing out.
