A Family Trip to the Land of Pandas and Crystal Lakes

My wife and I took our ten year old daughter Mia to Chengdu for a week. She had been begging to see giant pandas for years, so this trip was mostly for her, though we were pretty excited too.

Our first afternoon was free, so we walked through the Kuanzhaixiangzi Alleys. They are old streets with traditional courtyard houses, now filled with tea houses and craft shops. Mia found a shop selling panda themed everything, hats, backpacks, keychains, and she immediately picked out a fluffy panda hat with little ears. She wore it for the rest of the trip, even indoors.

The next morning we went to the Panda Base. We got there early to catch the pandas during their most active time. The bamboo forests were quiet and green, and we walked along the paths past the enclosures. The pandas were everywhere, some sitting on the ground munching bamboo with their teeth, others rolling around on their backs like big fuzzy balls. Mia pressed her face against the glass of one enclosure and stayed there for ten minutes, watching a baby panda tumble off a wooden platform and roll down a small slope. It got back up and did it again. We all laughed. Another panda was lying on its back, holding a bamboo stalk with its paws and chewing lazily while staring at the sky. Mia said it looked like she felt on a Sunday morning. We spent a good few hours there, and Mia didn't want to leave. She made us buy a panda plushie from the gift shop, which she named Bamboo and carried everywhere after that.

That afternoon we took a long drive to Jiuzhaigou. It was a bumpy ride with lots of mountain roads, but the scenery along the way kept us entertained. We checked into our hotel near the park entrance and went to bed early.

The next day we entered Jiuzhaigou National Park. The bus took us up to the highest point, and we decided to walk down along the boardwalks. The water in the lakes was unlike anything we had ever seen. It was impossibly clear and bright, in shades of turquoise, emerald, and deep blue, so vivid that they didn't look real. Mia kept asking if someone had dyed the water. We walked past lake after lake, each one more beautiful than the last. At Five Colored Pool, the water shimmered in multiple hues, blue, green, yellow, all in the same small basin, with fallen tree trunks lying at the bottom like submerged sculptures. Mia stood at the railing and stared down for a long time. She said it looked like a swimming pool for fairies.

The waterfalls were just as impressive. Nuorilang Waterfall was wide and powerful, with water crashing down over a broad stone ledge, sending up a mist that caught the sunlight and turned into tiny rainbows. We walked along the paths and let the spray cool our faces. Mia wanted to take a picture with every single waterfall we passed, so I ended up with a hundred photos of her making funny poses in front of rushing water. We also saw the Mirror Lake, where the surrounding mountains reflected so perfectly on the still surface that we couldn't tell where the water ended and the sky began. Mia pointed at the reflection and said, "Look, two mountains!" The whole day was just walking and staring and not believing what we were seeing.

The next day we visited Huanglong Scenic Area. It was a bit of a climb, and Mia complained about her legs after the first hour, but the views kept us going. The travertine pools at the top were amazing, layer upon layer of stepped pools, each one filled with bright turquoise water that overflowed into the next like a series of natural bathtubs. The Five Color Pond at Huanglong was different from the one in Jiuzhaigou, more shallow but with even brighter colors. Mia knelt down and dipped her fingers in, then pulled them out and looked at them like she expected the water to stain her skin. It didn't, but she said it felt magical.

We drove back to Chengdu that evening and had one free day before flying out. We used it to sleep in and eat a big brunch at a local restaurant. Mia was still wearing her panda hat, and Bamboo the plushie sat next to her on the seat. My wife and I looked at each other and agreed it was one of the best trips we had ever taken as a family.