You may have the perfect itinerary planned for your next big trip, but plans can change. This can lead to interesting and unexpected experiences that can add variety to your trip and enrich the photo collection you bring home. My recent trip to China was no exception.

The group I traveled with had travel ambitions beyond our planned itinerary. These extra trips led us to walk amongst the clouds on a glass bridge, see pandas having breakfast in a bamboo grove, and visit a giant Buddha statue carved into rock.

Giant Pandas

Giant Pandas are considered national treasures in China. They are also listed as a threatened species. Thanks to conservation efforts, the Giant Panda has not been endangered since 2016. Pandas are at risk primarily due to reproductive challenges and the fact that they cannot digest meat.

Their diet consists exclusively of certain types of bamboo. To get maximum nutrition from their food, pandas have to eat almost constantly and limit their movement to conserve energy. Watch pandas munching on breakfast in the following video.

Another interesting factor that affects pandas’ survival is the flowering cycle of bamboo. Bamboo blooms only once every 40-100 years. As bamboo expends all its energy flowering, it subsequently dies. This would be fine if almost all the same species of bamboo did not bloom at the same time worldwide. At a given moment, an entire bamboo forest can disappear. Then, it takes years to regenerate.

You can observe pandas in natural environments in several reserves in western China. However, a more accessible option is the Giant Panda Museum in Chengdu (大熊猫博物馆).

If you visit the Giant Panda Museum, be prepared for crowds. It’s a good idea to have a lens with a wide zoom range. Once you find a good spot among the crowds, you might have trouble changing lenses comfortably. For traveling, I prefer the compactness of the Nikon Z50 with an 18-140mm lens.

A Buddha in the Rocks

It was raining heavily all morning and it looked like it would rain all day, so we changed our plans at the last minute. Leshan [Le-shan 乐山市] is a bit to the south and home to a giant Buddha statue (71m) carved into the red rocks. We arrived at the station. Since this route was not part of our itinerary, we weren’t able to pre-purchase tickets online. 

The marathon search for the train ticket counter ensued. Train stations in China are often expansive and sprawling. You can end up walking kilometers just to find the correct ticket counter. There are only a few counters that serve foreigners, and they are not always well-marked.

After 40 minutes of wandering, we finally found the counter we needed. We stood in three different lines because there were many people in line. We seemed to be getting closer in one line, but just as it started to look promising, the counter closed for technical reasons. Luckily, we were able to buy tickets in the second line. But the lady at the counter had trouble copying our names from our passports. Finally, with our tickets in hand, we caught the high-speed train to Leshan.

We bought tickets for a boat that travels down the river along the massive red rocks. You can also take a walking path and explore the rock-carved path around the carving. You can appreciate the sheer size of the carving more on foot. However, if you want to get the entire Buddha in one frame, a focal length between 35-50mm and 50-100mm for close-ups on a full-frame sensor is needed.

The photo with a close-up of the head below shows the effect of panning on the left side of the rock at a shutter speed of 1/100s.

After about 20 minutes, a massive Buddha carved directly into the rock appears before us. Its big toe is as big as a person. After returning to the shore, we looked for a way to continue to our accommodation in the mountains west of Chengdu, not far from the Giant Panda National Park.

Instead of returning to the high-speed train, we tried asking the locals for directions. It seemed like a good idea since we hoped they might give us a ride on their minibus. However, they only took us to a bus stop. There, we continued by bus, which ended up taking about three times longer.

Already tired, we began to worry we wouldn’t reach our accommodation by nightfall. As we left the station, a taxi driver stopped us and offered us a ride. I showed him the Chinese name of our hotel. The man offered a great price in the comfort of a Mercedes. With the GPS on my phone running, I trusted he knew where we were going. It was evident that he had never been to this area before, but he managed to find our hotel.

It was one of the most luxurious hotels we stayed at on the entire trip. The price included a lavish breakfast and access to the local spa. Ten pools with varying temperatures were just what we needed after our Buddha expedition.

The glass bridge

There are several glass bridges in China, but none were directly on our route. I found one, but it meant taking a risk and deviating from our itinerary after returning to Beijing. Everything had to go exactly according to plan. We only had 30 hours left. In this time, we had to reach the mountains two hours away, stay the night, get to the glass bridge, and return early enough in the morning to catch the high-speed train back to Beijing.

Immediately after getting off the train, I managed to arrange a van that would take us to the mountains and bring us back the next morning to catch the train. Perfect. It seemed like our plan might work. The agreed-upon price was reasonable. An important lesson: If you can, pay a deposit and then pay the remaining amount later.

Upon our arrival, we were immediately taken to the police station. It took some time to understand what was happening and it was a pretty wild experience.  The hotel could not verify our passports, so the local police had to do it.

The police couldn’t understand why we were spending less than twenty hours in an area where people usually stay for 3 to 4 days. They couldn’t grasp that we had limited time and were rushing to catch a flight home. Fortunately, thanks to the hotel owner, who spoke fluent English, they managed to help us and everything turned out well. They let us into the mountains and returned our passports by morning. It was a close call.

We left our things at the hotel and quickly went to the mountains. Even though they were covered in mist and barely visible, the goal was clear.

Rainy weather is more suitable for an action camera, especially when crossing a glass bridge. However, a camera with a larger dynamic range and a graduated ND filter lets you capture beautifully rendered clouds and details hidden in the shadows of the valley.

As we approached the glass walkway on the side of the peak, the clouds eventually cleared. We carefully walked on the transparent panels and experienced some amazing moments. After a while, you get used to walking in the clouds and can begin to enjoy the views.

Before dusk, we managed to climb the steep stairs to a hilltop temple. On the way to the top, we were once again covered in clouds and it started to rain. The temple was above the line of clouds, and we literally found ourselves in heaven.

After a while, it started raining again. We set out for a quick descent to the river valley. We walked through a gorge between red rocks.

There were countless waterfalls, bridges, and fords over the river around us. Treading carefully, we reached the end of a beautiful and slippery trail ending in a tunnel of Wisteria vines.

It was worth having my camera ready. I had only a few seconds to take the photo below. At first, I wanted to wait until the girl was out of the frame, but then I realized she made the shot perfect. I quickly crouched down to the right level and hoped that the shot wouldn’t be too blurry.

In the evening at the hotel, we had a long and engaging discussion with the owner. In the morning, her family prepared an excellent breakfast for us. Fortunately, no further complications arose, the driver kept his word and waited for us at the agreed-upon location.

I have one more trip to a mountainous region that has called me for some time. I set out alone to one of the sacred Tibetan mountains. One thing is for sure, there will be no shortage of adventures.