Chengdu Itinerary 6 Days: Pandas, Leshan Buddha, Sanxingdui and Dujiangyan

About 1h30; the park is free and tea at Heming costs 20 to 30 yuan, served until the evening. It is the right plan for arrival day: you sit in a bamboo chair, get your tea in a lidded bowl, and a flask of hot water stays on the table for refills.

Ear cleaners walk between the tables with their metal tools; the service is optional and paid separately. In the rest of the park, locals dance, sing and play mahjong all afternoon.

About 1h30, free, a 15 minute walk northwest of the park. These are three parallel alleys, Kuan (wide), Zhai (narrow) and Jing, restored with Qing dynasty courtyard houses.

Zhai is the most commercial and the busiest. Step into the teahouse courtyards and walk the streets around it, such as Xiaotong, where the neighbourhood is still residential. Have dinner there or head back to your hotel area.

About three hours, 55 yuan. From March to October morning entry starts at 7:30, and from November to February at 8:00. Book up to 14 days ahead through the official channel or Trip.com with your name and passport number, and bring the original passport: the same rule applies to every real name booking in China.

Go early because that is when the pandas eat and move; by around 10:00 they are asleep. Head straight to the adult and cub enclosures and leave the museum for later. The red pandas roaming in the trees are a different species and worth the stop.

About 1h30, free. From the panda base take a taxi or the metro back to the centre, about half an hour. It is the best preserved Buddhist temple in Chengdu and still active, with monks, incense and worshippers in the courtyards.

Have lunch at the monastery’s own vegetarian restaurant, where tofu stands in for meat, and a tea in the courtyard teahouse. The surrounding streets have Buddhist supply shops and snack stalls.

Quick stop, 45 minutes, free, 2 km south of the monastery at the corner of Chunxi Road. The giant panda clinging to the IFS facade is the classic photo of modern Chengdu; it is best seen from the open rooftop terrace on the top floor.

Across the street is Taikoo Li, a low rise shopping district built around Daci Temple, which still works in the middle of the shop windows.

About an hour, free, a 20 minute walk from IFS down to the river. The three arched covered bridge is a reconstruction and lights up in gold after dark, reflected in the Jin River.

The best photo is from the south bank, a little downstream. The promenades on both sides fill up at night, and it is a good place to end the day with a hotpot nearby.

A good half day, 72 yuan, with a timed booking and your original passport. The fastest route is the train from Chengdu East to Guanghan North, about 30 minutes, then an 8 km taxi to the museum. There is also a direct tourist bus from the centre near IFS for 25 yuan, about 1h30.

The new building, opened in 2023, holds the bronze masks with protruding eyes, the heads with gold masks and the bronze sacred tree almost 4 metres tall. Nothing like it has been found elsewhere in China, and nobody knows for sure who these people were. Allow two to three hours for the main hall alone; the audio guide costs 50 yuan.

Quick stop, one hour, 10 yuan, in the west of the centre on the way back from Guanghan. It is the largest Taoist temple in Chengdu, with courtyards and halls full of worshippers burning incense.

Look for the bronze goat in the main hall: it combines features of the twelve Chinese zodiac animals, and visitors rub the part of the statue that matches their own ache. Next door is the Culture Park, with an open air teahouse and the Shufeng Yayun theatre, which stages Sichuan opera in the evening, face changing included.

About 2h30, 80 yuan from March to October and 60 yuan from November to February. Take the intercity train to Dujiangyan, about 40 minutes from Chengdu, and a taxi to the park entrance.

The system was built around 256 BC and splits the Min River into two channels without a dam, using a stone point called the Fish Mouth, a spillway and a cut in the rock that sends water to the plain. Without a map or guide it looks like a pretty river; read the signs in order, from the Fish Mouth to the bottleneck, and cross the Anlan suspension bridge.

The whole afternoon, 80 yuan, 20 minutes by taxi from Dujiangyan. The front side is the one with the temples, the back side has the long forest hikes; on a day combined with Dujiangyan, stay at the front.

Climb the stone steps between bamboo and waterfalls to the Cave of the Celestial Master, and use the cable car to gain height if you want to reach the top. Return to Chengdu by train from Qingchengshan station, and check the last departure before you start climbing.

About three hours, 80 yuan, which also covers Wuyou Temple and the Mahao cliff tombs. The bullet train from Chengdu to Leshan takes about an hour, and from the station it is another 20 to 30 minutes by bus or taxi to the north gate. From April to 7 October the park opens at 7:30, and at 8:00 the rest of the year.

The Buddha is 71 metres tall and was carved into the cliff between 713 and 803 to calm the meeting of three rivers. You arrive at the head and walk down the nine turn stairway to the feet; on weekends the queue for the stairs takes over an hour, which is why you need the first train of the morning.

To see the whole Buddha from the front, boats leave from the town pier and cost 70 to 150 yuan depending on the vessel. They do not stop, they just pass in front of the statue.

About an hour, already covered by the Buddha ticket. From the feet of the statue, follow the path and the bridge to Wuyou hill, less than 1 km south. It is an active Buddhist monastery, much calmer than the Buddha side, with a stone pagoda and a hall of hundreds of arhat statues.

The park’s south exit is right there. Have lunch in town before the train back: Leshan is famous for bobo ji, chicken and vegetable skewers served cold in a chilli broth.

About 1h30, 50 yuan. It is the memorial temple of Zhuge Liang, the strategist of the Three Kingdoms period, and of Emperor Liu Bei, whose tomb is in the same complex.

The halls hold statues of the ministers and generals of the Shu kingdom; even without knowing the story, the garden is worth it. Do not leave without walking the red wall corridor between the bamboo, the best known photo of the place.

Quick stop, 45 minutes, free, right on the east side of Wuhou Shrine. It is a pedestrian street rebuilt in the old style, with red lanterns, craft shops and snack stalls.

It is pretty and touristy, with tourist prices: use it for a last snack and souvenirs, then head to the airport. Tianfu is about an hour away by metro or taxi, so leave with time to spare.