Chengdu Travel Guide - A frosty November trip to Laba He

Chengdu Travel - We've just come back from another trip with a mother and daughter ex-pat team from Beijing. They wanted to see some real live wild Sichuan animals - so where better to go than Laba He Forest Park. We'd driven past the park a couple of days before this trip was due to begin - then it was grey and overcast - but not too cold. However when we arrived last Monday the temperatures had suddenly started to fall - we were in for a chilly visit.


we spent a night in one of the Park hotels - they have electric blankets on the beds - but our guests still felt cold during the night. In such situations its best to ensure that the Hotel provides extra blankets - especially if you have Children.
The next day we were all up and ready for our walk - and as you can see from this pic the lower parts of the park were free from frost and snow.


Here we are enjoying the fresh-air.


However it wasn't that far up the path that we encountered the frost-line - a bit further on and their was a light flurry of snow.


In this pic you can see how the autumn colors contrast with frosty conditions slightly higher up.


Here we come to the end-point of our walk (about 3 km up the track - we adjusted the length of our walk to suite the stamina of our smallest traveler) - although cold the conditions make for a wonderfully scenic landscape to enjoy this kind of nature you need to have warm clothing. After or walk our guests wanted a warmer destination - so having a good transport can also help in these kind of weather challenging situations. We drove them to Leshan and the Big Buddha.


Pine forests in in a frosty setting.


We were lucky enough to see animals - here's a Samba deer that we photographed the night before the walk. The park has an illuminated night viewing area - where animals are attracted down with feed. These deer are quite tolerant of humans so it's possible to get quite close. Since there were very few other guests we were the only ones viewing. Getting to see interesting stuff in China outside a crowd is always a big plus!!!!
On the way to the viewing are we also bumped into a Great Indian Civet Cat, which was patrolling the side of the road. During the trip we twice ran into sizable troupes of Short-tailed Macaque.


Here's an amusing looking character - a Collared Owlet. These are tiny Owls - but the other birds didn't take too kindly to its company - they were busy mobbing this tiny hunter - trying to drive it away.


A picture that sums up the trip - a Black-faced Laughingthrush singing in the snow.