Travel broadens the mind: Chengdu, Leshan, Xian and Macao for single horizon

I'm tired & thirsty

by siwild

Article by China_Tours

Talking about my experiences, I have to write about my new China week trip I had at the beginning of April. April is renowned in China for being one of the finest month for traveling, as the weather is one of the best one: not that much rain, mild-cool weather and lush sceneries. This time, my plan was to visit some China top cities and scenic spots I never had the chance to see: Chinas preserved Giant Panda, Leshan Giant Buddha (largest in the world) and Xian erracotta Army. So excited with the idea of the 2 weeks break the company gave me for a special person coming to visit me, I started to plan this trip 1 month prior to departure for I wanted to get the best prices for flight tickets and hotels deals. Having lived in China for one year and speaking Chinese (well, not as a native of course but I get by), I already have a good deal of individual travel experiences so I preferred to travel again as an individual for this April trip so that I could see by myself how everything works and feel free during this special holiday.

Based in Guilin, the trip I designed by myself first took into account the flight tickets fares amount and the final cheapest way was to start by heading to Chengdu, capital city of Sichuan Province. Naturally then, the tour plan was fixed: Guilin-Chengdu-Leshan-Xi'an-Macao-Guilin, a loop tour including flights and buses transportation for one week was just created! Flights booked, hotels also soon after (I could have really good prices indeed), I had to choose and get informations about what to visit in each city and how to get there as I was not part of a tour group organized by a travel agency. As an English Editor in VisitOurChina, I already knew the top highlight things to do so this is kind of easier even if I checked again to make sure I was not going to miss something gorgeous on my way. With the dream I had to see pandas in their native homeland, Leshan Giant Buddha and Terracotta Army, the trip plan enriched with other famous attractions in each location. Thi! s first step prior to my trip was such an interesting and exciting thing that I couldn't help thinking about it all the time! With some advices about fees and bus transportation from Sandy and my English Department team, I could end up with the best preparation ever. Friendly and professional as usual, they gave me the best recommendations in every city that for sure ended to be so helpful during the tour. Having always traveled on my own except with a university tour in 2007, I decided for this time to book a one day Xian seat-in coach tour with VisitOurChina, an opportunity for me to enjoy the Terracotta Army at its best point and have plenty of informations from the guide during the tour. Everything fixed, weeks passed and the D-Day finally arrived: departure!

Day 1 Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding

The flight from Guilin to Chengdu spent smoothly and lasted for 2 hours. Arrived at the airport, airport shuttle buses making the way to the city-center were at travelers' disposal. Check-in at the hotel and diner done, the upcoming night was the one before a great week. The first day in Chengdu, was Panda day! We visited the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, an unforgettable visit I'll keep in mind all my life! We decided to arrive early in the morning (around 8:30 a.m.) for seeing the feeding and the pandas still moving in their parks. So interested by seeing first baby pandas we headed to this part of the center park conveniently indicated everywhere by signs.

By the time we arrived in front of the nursery, so many tourists were already there looking at the park enclosure where we, at first sight, didn't see any pandas at all. What or where were they looking at? Well, to the top of the trees! Cute baby pandas were sleeping in their enclosure many trees, like Christmas balls in a Christmas tree. This was such a wonderful and funny thing to see! They seemed to be so well hanged at their tree, and slept so deeply that it was just impossible not to smile in front of! this sc enery. In the enclosure, other baby pandas were active, busy with looking for the best place to sleep in a comfortable way.

On nearby enclosures were standing adult pandas having their daily breakfast. Seeing them eating bamboo was like a day dreaming. They were so dedicated and precise in the way to start their bamboo dish that we could just but display a smiling face again and again. The center was also composed of tourist attractions such as the center's Panda story cinema broadcasting the life of the animal, restaurants and lakes.

The afternoon in the center park was then the opportunity to see the Red Panda, smaller than their giant black and white brothers but cute in the same way. Looking at them was a pleasure for eyes and heart. After having visited every corner of the park, we finally left the site for coming back to the city center of Chengdu by taxi.

Day 2 Leshan Giant Buddha

On our second day, our trip headed to Leshan Giant Buddha, which is at a 2-hour bus drive from Chengdu. Tickets paid at the bus station, we took the coach for arriving in Leshan by noon. The visit of the site took us the all afternoon as we wanted to see everything and the site was such a big one. We started the visit by visiting the Wuyou Mountain & Temple where stands the newly discovered Giant Sleeping Buddha, another large-scale Buddha carved into the cliff on the opposite part of the Giant Seated Buddha itself. The mountain's temples were so awe-inspiring that we stayed breathless in front of the beauty of the place we were standing in.

The temple was made of different giant Buddhas holding different name and position in the religion. Every corner was a marvel and we couldn't help taking so many pictures of this gorgeous scenic spot, unfortunately, not that much visited by foreign tourists who usually start the visit directly by the Giant Buddha in itself. For us it was the ending sightseeing of our visit, like a holy reward waiting for us.

After climbing the many sta! irs to t he temple, we headed in the other part of the site where stands the Giant Buddha. On our way, the mountain was flourishing with many teahouses and temples where tourists can relax for a while during the visit. Finally we arrived at the Leshan Giant Buddha proper! One word: awesome! The site is just awesome!! There, we were standing by the left side of the Buddhas face like two little dots in the middle of nowhere, like nothing in front of such a human masterpiece. The view was impressive and the serene-looking Buddha was facing the Dadu, Min and Qingyi rivers with Mount Emei far away into the horizon. Enjoying the site at its best point, we climbed down the cliff to have another view over the Buddha and feel its 71 meters height. The impression was gorgeous, the Leshan Giant Buddha is so impressive and grandiose that we better understand why it is classified at UNESCO.

Hiking on the Lingyun Mountain after spending some time in the Buddha site, we then headed back to the first entrance we took, visiting on our way the Southeast Asian Buddhist sculptures present in the park near to the temple. After such a great day and again 2 hours drive back to Chengdu we had a good sleep!

Day 3 Chengdu city, Wenshu Temple and Teahouses

The last day in Chengdu before our next flight to Xi'an spent in visiting the city in itself and its most famous scenic spots. The first step was Chengdu Tianfu Square where stands the statue of Chairman Mao Zedong, an important area of the city. Surrounding the place are disseminated many parks and their teahouses where old people spend their afternoon drinking tea and playing Mahjong. We had some time to visit People's Park and its Monument of the Martyrs of the Railway Protection Movement on our way.

Day 4 Xi'an Terracotta Army and Banpo Museum

Arrived in Xi'an late in the evening, the night was short for preparing for such a day we had in the Imperial city of Xi'an. Yes, Xi'an, I couldn't believe at first that I was in one of the most important ! cities o f China. This first day visiting the city was the one that we booked with VisitOurChina for visiting the Terracotta Army and the Banpo Neolithic Village. Accompanied by 4 other tourists coming from USA, Argentina and Australia, the day was full of cultural informations about Xi'an and its history. Our English-speaking guide was just awesome, speaking in a really good language level and telling us a lot about her city, its history and culture.

Our first stop of this one day seat-in coach was the one in Banpo Museum. Despite being less impressive than what I thought in the first place, this museum was a charming way to discover the Neolithic history of Xi'an where people lived already 6000 years ago. Our guide explained us a lot about the way of life of this Yangshao culture matriarchal community while we were visiting the indoor pits where we could see the places where stood houses, pots and ancient tombs.

The visit is done after one hour or so, our little bus took us to an unexpected place where everyone was just pleasantly surprised: a little Terracotta statue factory. The visit was of great interest for us as we learnt about the secrets of modeling and making the statues, seeing the statue molds, raw materials and the factory's many different size Terracotta soldiers and horses statues. The place was impressive and of interest I could never have expected. Thanks to it we learnt about how telling the difference between the soldier, officer and general statue as well as the way it was created in ancient times for the imperial mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.

After lunch, our group headed to the top attraction of our day: the Xi'an Terracotta Army! Our group's way to the site was of a 5-10 minutes' walk filled with many souvenirs shops where mini-representations of warriors and horses were sold. Our guide made us do a 10 minutes stop to see the man that discovered by chance this world heritage site in 1974. An impressive meeting with a man that contributed to making Xi'an an even more impor! tant cit y in the world. Divided into 3 different pits, the site of Terracotta army was crowded with tourists from all over the world.

Chinese and English signs everywhere, we first walked until Pit No.1 that is the biggest one and where the most important amount of warriors and horses were found. Before entering, I just took a second for realizing where I was on the point to go, breathe and opened my eyes