We took a train from Xi´an to Chengdu. It lasted 16 hours, arriving at Chengdu at noon. We also bought the “soft sleeper” tickets for this train to have our beds and the room. There are also international and national flights to Chengdu.

Since we slept in the train the 3 days before arriving to Chengdu, we chose a comfy hotel: Ibis Chengdu Chunxi Road Hotel.

After 16hours in the train from Xi´an and going straight to our hotel to leave our bags, we took bus 6 to go to the main bus station (2km from our hotel). Once in the station, we bought the tickets for 45¥ (one way) to go to Leshan. After 2.5 hours we arrived at Leshan and took a taxi for 30¥ to go to the Leshan Giant Buddha. There is also a bus that goes from Chengdu directly to the Buddha for 56¥ but we didnt have enough time to wait for it.

We arrived at 16:00 to buy the tickets and went directly to see Leshan Giant Buddha. Amazing. Zero queue, and we spent 2 hours inside the park. Besides our crazy tidy schedule, we were really lucky to arrive in the afternoon to Leshan, because we ended up avoiding the long queue to go to the base of the Buddha. After the visiting, we took a taxi to the leshan bus station to then take the last bus to Chengdu at 19:00. 

After 2 hours we arrived at chengdu and took bus 28 to go to Jinli road, that is like hutong but a little more posh, and we had delicious wonton soup for dinner with rice noodles.

Taxi to come back to the hotel was 16¥.

We took a taxi for 36¥ from our hotel to the Panda Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, arriving at 9:00am since we read it is better to go early in the morning when they haven´t eat and are more active. Since it was summer time, it is also better to go early because if it is too hot they take the pandas inside with AC. Entry cost 58¥. 

We were there for 3 hours, in a rainy day which actually made us feel in the jungle with the humidity and the environment. We took a car to go up hill for 10¥ and started our visit from the top.

There are also some coffee shops inside where we actually had a good coffee (rare in China).

We went back to our hotel by taxi and walked down to the IFS mall (10 minutes walking) and ate in what they call “food republic” or food court. It has lots of Chinese food places that look very clean and a little fancy but with regular prices, just perfect to say good bye to Chengdu with a hotpot before going to our last stop: Guilin.

To go to the airport we took a taxi for 62¥ (including toll) and last 40min.

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Extra: “How and what to pack to China“