Giant Buddha and Lovely Pandas

After a lot of confusion at the train station and a sad goodbye to our cabin friends, our guest house eventually collected us and took us to our pre-booked room (The first one of the trip). We checked into Sims Cozy guest house a very comfy spot with all the help a traveler needs available. It was quick and easy to book our outings over the next few days to the Panda sanctuary, Leshan for the Giant Buddha and the Tibetan markets. We took several taxi's around town exploring the temples, markets, antique shops and Tibetan quarters.We reserved a spot on a tour out to the panda sanctuary. However when we realized that 50 others had done so as well we had to take action. We managed to loose the tour on arrival allowing us to wonder the park on our own. A good move. We sat watching the Giant Pandas for hours, climbing trees and taking a swim. The center is well laid out and the pandas have all the space they need and a great bushy environment. They are not so clever and would climb a tree to the point where the branches would break causing the panda to fall several stories to the ground. This would send the rangers into a panic and they would come running to check the valuable and rare creatures were ok. Panda sanctuary in Chengdu is a must-see. We were fortunate enough to see the nursery area where infant and newly born pandas where raised with care. Red pandas made an appearance as well and were a great little extra to the day. Liff secretly liked them more than the big ones. On our last day of our China trip, we decided to take a jeep with 4 other travelers to Leshan. A 3 hour drive from Chengdu its a spot where the largest sitting Buddha statue in the world resides. at 71m its massive and far larger than we expected. Here too half of china had decided that today was the day they wanted to see it and we struggled through hours of long ques to finally climb down the narrow rock cut staircase down into the valley to find him. A mission well worth it as the Buddha was HUGE! We wondered the misty forests surrounding the Buddha sweating something chronic. We once again experienced the humidity of south India in full force.