Keith Jones, Adventures with Wild Animals
Close animal encounters
Rub noses with a gray whale,  Pet a Giant Panda Bear,  Snorkel with a shark!

October 27: Depart from USA, crossing the international dateline to arrive in Beijing on October 28.

October 28: Arrival in Beijing. Check into the 3 star Hademan Hotel which is located near Tiananmen Square close to the heart of the City. Dinner will be an adventure all its own as we join together for our first meal in China! Because this is Beijing, Keith prefers to stay at a more modest hotel so that we can become more quickly immersed in the Chinese culture.  Beijing 4 & 5 star hotels tend to isolate their guests from the culture. Most have restaurants featuring foreign food, rather than spotlighting the local cuisine. And of course food is an important part of the Chinese cultural and social experience.  We chose our hotel to avoid some of this while maintaining the luxury feel.

October 29: We visit the Great wall today. Be sure and pack at least one pair of comfortable walking or sports shoes in your bags. There will also be opportunities for shopping and just wandering around the city this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon as well.

October 30: We will tour the Forbidden City and see some of the 9,999 buildings that make up this 600 year old complex. Later we may take a rickshaw ride through part of the city if the weather is nice. There will be time in the afternoon for some private exploration and shopping if you want.

October 31: Today we fly to Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan Province. We will continue to travel today, by car or van to Wolong, where the Giant Panda Preserve is located. We will check into the Panda Inn, the best hotel in the area and the closest lodging to the Panda Preserve. Don’t take our word for it, here’s what the Frommer’s travel guide has to say about the Panda Inn
……this pleasant inn has close connections with the Giant Panda Breeding Center, conveniently nearby. Rooms are well maintained and clean, and pleasant views through picture windows make up for the bland interiors. Although there's no town to explore …the inn has the best restaurant in town.

November 1: Visit the Panda enclosure and the Ecology Museum in the morning. Today we sign in for our work experience. In the afternoon those of us with energy to burn will hike into the Yingxiongou Valley looking for wildlife and to admire the scenery far from the city crowds.

November 2 to 5: We begin our working with the Giant Panda experience today. We cannot say for certain what our work chores will consist of. We will have an English speaking Chinese mentor to show us how to do our chores. This work can include bringing feed to the mature pandas, feeding babies, cleaning cages or any of the many other chores that need to be taken care of. In the course of this work we will come in close contact with the Pandas. Nobody will be required to do any work they don’t care to do. Actually working inside isn’t required to do this trip nor to experience an up close encounter, but it will greatly enhance the experience.

November 5 to 8: This is Keith’s premier journey on this Panda tour, the following four days will not be a part of our regular itinerary, but are here as a special bonus. To kick off our panda tours Keith wants to find and photograph a wild giant panda, living in its natural habitat. This will not be an easy task and is something only a handful of living Westerners have had the joy to experience. Wild sightings of Giant Pandas are rare. As this note is written the last reported sighting by a Chinese villager, from high in the mountains, was turned in 25 days ago after he had trekked from his village to a neighboring village. This segment of our journey takes place in the remote highland forests above Wolong, at an elevation of about 6,500 feet. Each day we will hike (trek) through the forests and along pristine mountain streams and rivers as we search for a wild panda in its natural habitat. While the wild Panda encounters are rare, Keith has always had good success in finding the animals he is looking for. A combination of experience, detailed planning and a lot of luck have always been with him on his adventures. He has high expectations that his luck will continue with the wild Panda search. Our accommodations during this portion of the tour are in what once was the Panda Research facility. It has been converted to a hostel, where we will eat dinner and sleep.

November 9: Today we return to civilization. We leave Wolong and drive to Chengdu where we will spend the next two nights at the 4 star Prime Hotel.

November 10 & 11: We’ll have time to explore Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province. On the 11^th we return to Beijing. What might we do? The Sichuan Opera, world famous for the quick changing masks is high on our list. Here’s what one visitor had to say about the Opera.
One of my most enjoyable activities in Chengdu was attending a Sichuan opera… our guide took us backstage to meet the players, and we drank delicious jasmine tea and watched the performance, while our guide translated. It was fabulous! It was pretty low-key as operas go, and the music was punctuated with loud cymbals and the oboe and Chinese violin. and the singing itself was sometimes so loud and shrill as to be a bit scary, actually... but I thoroughly enjoyed it! The depth of emotion portrayed in the expressions and the voices, the beauty of the language and the humor in the story, the realness of it all.... I wanted it to go on forever!

November 12: Free day in Beijing. A chance to make last minute souvenir purchases or to see that one special thing we missed on our way to Wolong.

November 13: Today we ride to the airport and fly home. Once more we cross the international date line, this time gaining a day back and arriving in the USA on the 13^th.