10-day Grand Sichuan Tour

Upon arrival at Chengdu airport, be met by your local guide and transferred to your hotel. Free at leisure for the rest of the day.

After breakfast transfer to Leshan to visit the Giant Buddha, on the way visit Huanglongxi Ancient Town. After the visit of the Giant Buddha, transfer to Mt. Emei. If time permits, you will be transferred to visit Baoguo Temple at the foot of Emeishan.

Full day tour to visit Mt. Emei. First you will take a tourist bus for about 25 minutes to the parking lot of Wannian Temple, take the cable car up, visit Wannian Temple, walk through Qingyin Pavilion - the biggest natural ecology reserve area for monkeys, till you get to Wuxiangang parking lot to take the tourist bus down to the foot of the mountain.

After breakfast transfer to Qianwei County, catch the mini steam engine train from Shixi Town to Bagou Town. Later transfer to visit a coal mine. The pit at Huangcun, which was the No. 1 pit of the Jiayang Coal Mine and was abandoned some 20 years ago, is now open for sightseers to venture into and experience the working life of the miners. Dressed as a miner, tourists can get down into the 100m deep pit, searching the history of the first Sino-British joint venture coal mine in Sichuan and experiencing the hardships, joy and sorrow of the workers. Lunch will be arranged at Bagou Town. Take an afternoon train back to Shixi Town. Transfer Back to Chengdu.

Drive to Mt. Qingcheng for a pilgrimage to Taoist Holy Mountain, then proceed to Dujiangyan Irrigation Project to see the aqueduct used for more than 2200 years. Transfer to the Dujiangyan panda base, where you will apply for the necessary permit and sign the agreement to be a panda volunteer. Then you will get the special working clothes, gloves etc. and learn how to be a panda volunteer from your teacher.

Today, you will wear the working clothes and have a happy full-day work in the panda base. Your work schedule will be:

08:30 Clean the panda's house/garden.
10:00 Put the fresh bamboo into the enclosures for the pandas' breakfast.
11:00 Watch the pandas' activity and help the scientists to collect their behavior data.
14:30 Feed the animals with bamboo bread, apples and carrots. Then free the pandas in the enclosure and watch their activity. This time you may help the veterinary to do the medicine care for the pandas.
16:00 End the job.

Full-day work with your teacher in the Panda Base. Return the working clothes and gloves. Enjoy dinner with your teacher and then get a volunteer certificate issued by China Panda Protection and Research Center. In the evening, drive back to hotel in Chengdu .

Today, first you will be transferred to visit an old town called - Shangli Old Town. Then transferred back to Chengdu (about 3 hours). Your guide will escort you to visit the Jinsha Ruins & Museum, then you will visit a large vegetable and meat market and other local markets if time permits.

Today you will visit the Qingyang Palace, which is the oldest and largest Taoist temple in the area, and it is also designated to be a key national temple of Taoism by the State Council; Du Fu's Thatched Cottage, which is an idyllic 24-acre (97,000 m²) park and museum in honor of the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu at the western outskirts of Chengdu, adjacent to the Huanhua Xi, (Flower Rinsing Creek); the Jinli Old Street to mingle with the locals, drink tea at Local Teahouse, learn to play Mahjong. In the evening watch Sichuan Opera at Shufengyayun Tea House. Dinner will be arranged at a hotpot restaurant.

After breakfast transfer to Chengdu airport and fly to your next destination.