Chengdu 2-Day Tour: Panda Base & Cooking Class

After picking you up in your hotel lobby at 08:00am, we will drive for about half an hour to Chengdu Panda Base. We will spend whole morning walking around different panda enclosures. We will probably see more than 30 pandas, and even cubs and red pandas.

Then lunch is scheduled after the 2-hour visit in the Panda Base. We will drive to Wenshuyuan Monastery area, where we will have a short walk tour there. We will try the different local snacks like Guokui(Chinese Hamburger), Dandan noodle, Dumplings, etc. After our food tour, we will enjoy the relaxed laid back life by sipping a cup of green tea in the courtyard.

Later, we will move to a nearby local spice market to explore the secret of Sichuan Cuisine. We will take you into an appealing local market to explore it and you'll find or obtain some necessary ingredients or spices that will be used in the cooking class afterwards.

After finishing the spice market, you'll ramble through back streets to the cooking class place, a hidden gem-a traditional Sichuan style courtyard. When you arrive there, you can have a break with Sichuan Gaiwan tea. After that, you'll start the cooking process which will be guided by a professional chef. You'll enjoy the dishes that cooked by yourself with some beers or beverages.

You will drive about 1.5 hours to Dujiangyan City, where take you for an immersive exploration of Chengdu's famed UNESCO World Heritage site - Dujiangyan Irrigation Project. You will visit the famous Dujiangyan Irrigation Project which was built in 256 BC. And it still is playing an important role in the southwestern Middle Kingdom. Those ancient people were so smart and sacrificial that they were able to make a system which have been handled the problems of Water Diversion, Desilting and Flood Discharge for more than 2000 years. That is the reason why Sichuan gains the name as the Land of Abundance.

After our lunch in Dujiangyan city, we will drive about half hour to Mount Qingcheng, the birthplace of Taoism. The mountain is great for a half day trip and also has a ton of temples covering its 36 different peaks. Trekking up and down the mountain takes around 3-4 hours to complete depending on your hiking speed. The hike takes you up the mountain and through many different Taoist temples. The hike is really pretty, and if you go the entire distance you will be led throughout many different remote parts of the forest. We will choose the cable car up and down which makes our hiking much more easier, and the cable up takes us half way up the mountain. 4,134 feet up to the top of the mountain, you'll find yourself at the Laojun Pavilion Temple.

After that we will walk down to the bottom along the same way and meet our driver there, go back to downtown Chengdu, the end of trip.