Chengdu isn't on every first-time China itinerary, and that's a mistake. While Beijing and Shanghai fight for your attention with imperial palaces and futuristic skylines, Chengdu quietly offers something neither can: a city where the food is world-class, the pace is human, and there are actual pandas.
I've been three times. Here are the ten things that keep pulling me back.
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is the only place in the world where you can reliably see dozens of giant pandas in a semi-natural bamboo forest setting. Entry: 55 CNY (~$8). Open 7:30AM-6PM.
The nursery section (best August-December, when that year's babies are small enough to be uncoordinated and hilarious) is the highlight. Baby pandas fall off logs, wrestle each other, and roll down small hills with zero dignity. Adult pandas eat bamboo with the focused intensity of someone solving a crossword puzzle.
Arrive before 9AM. Pandas are most active during morning feeding and nap from about 10:30AM onward. Take Metro Line 3 to Panda Avenue station. Allow 3-4 hours.
I use "survive" deliberately. Your first Sichuan hotpot will be an endurance event. A bubbling communal pot arrives, its surface entirely covered in dried red chilies and Sichuan peppercorns. You cook thinly sliced meats, vegetables, and tofu in this volcanic broth. Your lips go numb. Your eyes water. You keep eating.
Haidilao is the famous chain — expect 80-120 CNY/person and a 1-2 hour wait without reservation (they give you free snacks and nail painting while you wait, which is surreal). For the real local experience, try Xiaolongkan or Shu Jiuxiang.
Order yuan yang pot (half spicy, half mild) on your first visit. Start with "slightly spicy" (wei la). "Medium" here is most people's "extreme."
Heming Teahouse in People's Park is Chengdu's most famous teahouse, and the ear-cleaning service is its most Chengdu experience. A professional cleaner approaches with a set of thin metal tools, and for 30 CNY spends 10 minutes scraping, poking, and vibrating tuning forks near your ear canal.
It sounds terrible. It feels incredible. It's been a Chengdu tradition for centuries. The tea itself costs 15-30 CNY and you can sit all afternoon. Around you: mahjong games, card tables, couples dancing, and elderly men taking naps in bamboo chairs.
Forget the tourist restaurants. The best dan dan noodles in Chengdu cost 8-12 CNY from stalls with no English menu, no website, and no interest in your Yelp review. Thin wheat noodles, chili oil, ground Sichuan peppercorn, minced pork, preserved mustard greens. Each shop's ratio is slightly different and they take it personally.
The stalls along Yulin Road and Jianshe Road are where locals eat. If there's a queue of people in work uniforms at 7:30AM, you're in the right place.
Bian lian (face-changing) is Sichuan's signature performance art. Performers wear colorful painted masks and swap them instantaneously — sometimes five or six masks in seconds — using a technique so secret it's classified as national intangible heritage.
The best dedicated show: Shufeng Yayun Opera House in Culture Park (150-320 CNY, nightly at 8PM, 1.5 hours). Shorter performances happen for free at Jinli Street and some hotpot restaurants. It's genuinely impressive — I've watched in slow motion video and still can't figure out the mechanism.
Okay, you can't actually cycle there — it's 130km away. But the high-speed train from Chengdu takes just 1 hour (54 CNY to Leshan). The 71m Buddha carved into a cliff face where three rivers meet is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of those things that's bigger in person than in photos.
The staircase descent alongside the Buddha gives you the scale — his toenails are the size of dinner tables. The queue takes 1-2 hours on weekends. The river boat (70 CNY) gives a frontal view without the stairs. Entry: 80 CNY. Allow a full day.
A restored Qing-dynasty pedestrian street alongside the Wuhou Shrine, packed with red lanterns, traditional snacks, shadow puppet theaters, and Sichuan opera mini-shows. Free to walk (Wuhou Shrine next door: 50 CNY).
Go after 5PM when the lanterns glow and the street food peaks. Must-try: san da pao (bouncing rice balls with brown sugar, 10 CNY), dragon wontons, and cold rabbit (leng tu'er, a Chengdu classic, 30 CNY). Allow 2-3 hours.
The birthplace of Taoism, a sacred mountain 68km from Chengdu with ancient temples connected by forested paths. Front Mountain entry: 80 CNY. The climb takes 3-4 hours round trip, or take the cable car (60 CNY round trip).
Combine it with the Dujiangyan Irrigation System (80 CNY) — a 2,200-year-old water management system that still irrigates the Chengdu Plain. Both are UNESCO sites and comfortably done in a single day trip.
Chuan chuan xiang ("skewers of fragrance") is Chengdu's street food at its most democratic. Choose your own bamboo skewers from refrigerated displays — meat, tofu, mushrooms, lotus root, organs, whatever — they cook them in a communal spicy pot, and you pay 0.5-2 CNY per skewer.
A full meal of 20-30 skewers costs 30-50 CNY. The stalls along Yulin area serve until late. Sit on a plastic stool on the sidewalk, pile up your empty skewers, and order cold Tsingtao beers (5 CNY). This is peak Chengdu nightlife for me.
This is the Chengdu experience that guidebooks mention but tourists skip because it doesn't photograph well. Find any teahouse (they're everywhere). Order jasmine tea (15-30 CNY). Sit in a bamboo chair. Watch people play mahjong, gossip, nap, or read newspapers. Do this for 2-3 hours.
In any other Chinese city, this would feel lazy. In Chengdu, it IS the culture. The locals call it "bai" (摆) — to sit, to chat, to let time pass. In a country that celebrates hustle, Chengdu celebrates the opposite. And honestly? After two weeks of intense Chinese city travel, an afternoon of doing nothing in a Chengdu teahouse was the best day of my entire trip.
Chengdu won't assault your senses the way Beijing or Shanghai will. It'll seduce them. The food is sharper, the pace is slower, the pandas are cuter, and the teahouses are more addictive than they have any right to be. If your China itinerary doesn't include Chengdu, you're missing the part where China is actually fun.
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