We arrived into Chengdu on the flight and collected our luggage. Unfortunately, someone else from the plane had transported some shellfish which had then leaked onto the other luggage including some people on our group so we were greeted with lovely fishy smelling bags!

We got our transfer to the hotel from the airport and dumped our bags and headed out for lunch. After food we visited a Taoist temple near the hotel which has a bronze statue of a ram in it. Apparently if you touch the goat in the same place as you have pain, your pain or ailment will be healed. We went back to the hotel to shower and use the Internet (our last chance for nearly a week) and then we met up for dinner.

The group went to a hotpot restaurant for dinner which is a Chinese specialty in the area. Chinese hotpot is kind of like a fondue where you cook thinly cut meat, vegetables and dumplings in a flavoured soup. An interesting experience! After dinner we went back to the hotel, again, there were no bars nearby, and had a few drinks there before bed.

Wednesday was panda day!!!!! We were up early (so excited, it was almost like Christmas) to head to the panda breeding centre for when it opened. First of all we headed to a couple of the enclosures to see the pandas. They are more active in the morning so we weren't disappointed. We watched them for a while, climbing trees, wrestling with each other and relaxing and then went to the nursery. We were so lucky, there were about 10 young pandas in the nursery and were just so cute! We could only see them through the glass but they were just adorable sat in the cot, like baby teddy bears!

Then it was time for the highlight, a chance to cuddle a panda! It was an expensive thing to do so only four of the group did but wow was it worth it. We all felt nervous waiting to do it, like waiting to meet Santa or something. We had to wear shoe covers and gloves and then queued up for our turn. The panda was called Yang Zhou and was about one year old. He was quite happy sitting there as he was fed treats the whole time and we each sat next to him for a cuddle. Without it sounding ridiculous, he was just like a giant teddy bear and had such a cute face with lots of expression. It was just over too quickly but it was worth it.

We finished off at the breeding centre with seeing some red pandas (they look a lot like racoons) and got back on our bus for the next transfer. We travelled about three hours to get to Leshan where there is a giant Budda carved into the mountain side. When we arrived we first got some lunch and then went to the entrance of the mountain. We climbed up the side path until we reached the top which was level with the budda's head.

Where the Budda is carved, is a point where three tributaries of the river come together and therefore the water is very rough there. The story goes that a monk was concerned about this and so thought if he built a Budda at this point that would calm the water. Actually what happened was that the rock that fell into the river from the carving changed the course of the river and so calmed the water.

This Budda is the largest outdoor Budda in the world and is 71 metres tall. It's face is repainted every few years to maintain it as it is made of sandstone and therefore is naturally eroding. It also took 90 years to complete and the original monk didn't see it finished. We walked down to the bottom of the statue and then back up the other side.

We got back on our bus and our final transfer to where we were staying, this time in a monastery not a hotel. It was very basic accommodation but quite an experience to stay there. We got ourselves into our rooms and headed into the town for some dinner. Emeishan is about 700 metres above sea water and in the mountains so it was a lot colder than some of the other places. After dinner we headed back to the monastery for some drinks and then to bed but in loads of layers of clothes as the rooms had no heating and were basically the same temperature as outside.

Unfortunately I had been coming down with a cold anyway so the following morning although I did get up to do the hiking I went back to bed and slept but it did make me feel much better. Once everyone came back from the hiking (including seeing some monkeys) we had a few hours of free time. We walked around the monastery to see some of the rituals and chanting and also relaxed a bit, then later we went to the local hot spring pools. This was great as it was virtually empty of people except us. We went into various pools of different temperatures as well as coloured and flavoured pools. Even one that looked and smelt like red wine. Very relaxing and helped clear my cold a bit more. After the hot springs we had dinner and a few drinks then off to bed.

Friday is a long day of traveling. First a public bus and then we board our ferry for the Yangtze river cruise so continuing our Internet free week.