After a rather sleepless night on that rock hard bed, we gather for an early breakfast. You can tell that we are off the normal tourist beat. It’s quite an experience to eat a fried egg with chopsticks. Arlene comes up with an innovated solution, she makes an egg sandwich.
We spend the morning back at Bifengxia Panda Reserve. The highlight is to suit up in blue surgical drape, complete with plastic gloves and shoe covers, and to go into one of the panda kindergartens to play with the baby pandas. We go in small groups for about 6 minutes of playtime. Paul and I feed bamboo to a quiet cub sitting on a wooden platform. The babies’ fur is surprisingly coarse. When we are about to leave, one of the smaller cub throws his paws around my ankle. I’m not sure if he just wants to play or he misses his mom. The keeper gently extracts him from my ankle and holds him as I leave.
It’s interesting to see how various people react to the cubs. Some are very intimidated by the animals. Others appear overly aggressive with them. Cindy, everyone decides, is a secret panda whisperer. She seems to have a calming effect on her chosen cub, who happily sits in her lap eating bamboo shoots. She missed her calling. I think that she would have made an excellent veterinarian.
We go back to the hotel for lunch and then take a short tour of the Bifengxia National Wildlife Park. It is one of the stranger tours I’ve been on. Our bus takes us through three multi-acre enclosures, housing lions, sun bears or tigers. The bus is fitted with iron slats, where you hold food on slim bamboo skewers through the slats. The animals come up to the bus and take the food. The cats, especially, move suddenly and almost attack the bus, which causes some of the passengers to scream every time they reach up for the food.
After that, we return to the panda reserve so that some of our group can purchase more “play time” with the panda cubs. Again, Cindy impresses all of us will her animal handling abilities.
Back to the hotel and our uncomfortable beds. Our guide has requested a couple of extra duvets to pad the bed, which makes it marginally more comfortable.
The room has now a different parade of bugs, some of them quite pretty. Fortunately, none of them seem particularly interested in us, so if they leave me alone, I will leave them alone.
