21-Day China: Pandas, Chongqing & a Yangtze Cruise

Terracotta Army 秦始皇兵马俑

Booking

Required — opens real-name, booked online in advance. days ahead on Golden Weeks + peak-season weekends

Last entry

17:00 peak season (Mar 16–Nov 15) · 16:30 off-season; Lishan Park stops admission ~17:00

Ticket

¥120 flat, all year (students ¥60; under-16/65+/disabled/military free)

On a passport

Real-name, passport required. Official bmy.com.cn accepts a passport; the WeChat mini-program needs a Chinese phone, so many book a Trip.com tour that bundles the ticket. No third-party platform is authorised to sell the museum ticket itself.

Getting in

Bus 游5 (Tourist 5) from the East Square — the only official tourist bus; touts offering a "cheaper ride" are fake vans. Get off at the last stop (兵马俑).

Full Terracotta Army guide

Jinli Ancient Street 锦里

Hours

Street open 24 hours; shops and snack stalls 09:00–22:00, bars later

Ticket

Free

Lights

Lanterns come on at dusk and switch off at 22:00. Dusk in Chengdu is late on the clock: about 20:00 at midsummer, about 19:50 in mid-August, about 18:05 in midwinter. The half hour after they light is the blue hour, when the sky still has colour behind the lanterns.

Full Jinli Ancient Street guide

Kuanzhai Alley 宽窄巷子

Hours

Alleys open 24 hours; shops, tea houses and stalls keep roughly 10:00–22:00

Ticket

Free

Lights

No published schedule — the lights track dusk, which in Chengdu means about 6pm at the winter solstice and about 8pm at midsummer. The blue-hour window is the thirty minutes as they come on, while the sky still holds colour.

Full Kuanzhai Alley guide

Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding 成都大熊猫繁育研究基地

Last entry

clearing starts 18:00 (March–October) and 17:30 (November–February); the Panda Tower stops admitting at 16:30. The number that actually decides your day is not any of these — it is the 12:00 boundary between the two tickets.

Ticket

¥55 — one price, but see the session split in the hours block; the morning and afternoon tickets cost the same and are not worth the same

On a passport

A passport is an accepted booking and entry document — the operator names it alongside mainland ID, the HK/Macau and Taiwan permits and the foreign permanent-residence card. Two catches, both physical: you must carry the original document you booked with, and a QR code on its own does not admit you. The over-60 and other free tiers are verified against Chinese-issued certificates, so budget the full price. Booking through Ctrip is an authorised channel rather than a workaround.

Getting in

Line 3 to Xiongmao Avenue (熊猫大道), the station named for the SOUTH gate — leave by exit A and take bus D025, 198 or 198A to the Panda Base stop. This is the gate with the car park and the coaches, so it is also the queue.

Heming Teahouse 鹤鸣茶社

Last entry

no gate and no ticket — the park itself is open around the clock

Ticket

Free — both the park and the teahouse. You pay by the cup

On a passport

Nothing here needs an app, an ID or Chinese: you sit down, someone comes over, you point. Cash works. This is the least-friction cultural experience in the city, which is exactly why it lands so well with foreign visitors.

Getting in

Metro Line 2 (also Line 17) to People’s Park (人民公园), exit B — the station sits 270 m north of the teahouse, Amap-measured 2026-08-11. The teahouse is inside the park on the lake shore.

Full Heming Teahouse guide

Leshan Giant Buddha 乐山大佛

Status

The Nine-Bend Plank Path (九曲栈道), the historic descent, is closed for dangerous-rock remediation with no reopening date announced; the descent to the feet runs one-way down the Lingyun Plank Path (凌云栈道) instead. ⚠️ Note the naming trap that follows from it — Chinese sources still call the descent "九曲栈道" out of habit, so a 2026 write-up describing queues on the Nine-Bend Path is describing the Lingyun Path under the old name. Separately, the river cruise moves pier rather than stopping when the water drops: from around mid-November the Jiazhoudu pier by the north visitor centre closes and boarding shifts to the Wuyou dock at the southern end, while the ¥2 cross-river ferry (the 巨型睡佛 sightseeing line) does suspend for the season. Departure times shift with the water level and the weather all year, and heavy rain closes the scenic area outright.

Booking

Required — opens a rolling 7 days — the seventh day ahead is released at 18:00 each afternoon. There is no longer window to plan into, so advice to book ten days out for a Golden Week cannot be followed.. ordinary weekdays go 2–3 days out; weekends from May to September and the whole of the summer holiday need most of the 7-day window. The 09:00–11:00 slots are the first to go, often within a couple of hours of the 18:00 release. When the daytime ticket is gone the scenic area's own fallback is the night session, which is capped at 3,000 a night and is much easier to get.

Last entry

admission stops at 16:30 in peak season — two hours before the gate closes, and the number that actually governs a late arrival. The night session stops admitting at 21:30. Arriving after about 13:00 in peak season leaves too little margin to queue for the cliff descent and finish it.

Ticket

¥80 for the hill ticket (游山票), flat year-round — it covers the Buddha, the cliff descent, Lingyun Temple, Wuyou Temple and the Mahao cliff tombs

On a passport

Budget the full ¥80. Unlike Mt Emei — which does give individual foreign passport holders half price under its own concession policy — Leshan publishes no individual foreign-national tier, and the half price it does publish is for children and students. Two exceptions worth checking against your own case: Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan permit holders have had half price at both mountains since 1 May 2025, and for 2026 the scenic area gives inbound tour GROUPS (including HK/Macau/Taiwan groups) 50% off both the daytime hill ticket and the night Lingyun Hill ticket, outside Spring Festival, 1 May and 1 October. Bring the physical passport either way — the automatic gates do not read foreign passports, so entry is through the staffed lane.

Getting in

54 departures a day, first 06:15, last 21:49 (12306, sampled Sat 2026-08-22). The C intercity services are the cheap end — ¥27 on the 06:15 and 06:34 — and the G and D trains run ¥51–54. ⚠️ Two departures a day are not this journey at all: G8739 (11:00) and G8743 (18:53) reach the same station the long way round via Tianfu airport, Zigong and Yibin in 2h40 and 2h54, at ¥199 and ¥173 — roughly four times the fare for three times the time, under the same origin and destination.

Full Leshan Giant Buddha guide

Dujiangyan Irrigation System 都江堰

Status

The waterworks run year round and the site does not close seasonally. Two things do interrupt it: whole-day closures during summer rain on geological-risk warnings (check the official account the night before), and the separately ticketed evening session, which is a different product on a different clock — a day ticket does not admit you after hours.

Booking

Required — opens Online real-name reservation with a timed entry slot, compulsory year-round and reported to have been reinstated on 2026-02-04. Four windows a day (08:00–10:00 · 10:00–12:00 · 12:00–14:00 · 14:00 to the day’s cut-off), bookable up to 15 days ahead through the 「青城山都江堰」 or 「悦游都江堰」 WeChat accounts or an authorised platform. The two scenic areas run separate allocations: a combo ticket still needs a slot booked at each. ⚠️ This SUPERSEDES the 1 July 2024 relaxation that dropped advance booking on ordinary days, which our own pages carried until 2026-08-11.. Daily cap 48,000 (the operator’s May 2026 figure), spread across the four windows. In the summer holiday the social layer reports booking 1–3 days ahead as the working habit and same-day slots often gone; the on-site window reopens only when online demand trips the scenic area’s warning threshold, which is not something a visitor can plan around

Last entry

Peak (roughly March–October): ticket sales stop 17:30 and entry stops 18:00. Winter (1 Nov – 1 Mar): sales stop 17:00, entry stops 17:30, gate closes 18:00. ⭐ Qinyan Tower, the high viewpoint, stops admitting at 17:30 — earlier than the park. A day ticket must be out by 20:00 and does not cover the separately ticketed summer night session.

Ticket

¥80

On a passport

The booking system takes a passport as the document type, but the automatic gates read mainland ID cards only — foreign visitors go through the staffed lane and a member of staff checks the physical passport. Bring the document itself; a photo is refused. Same procedure at both scenic areas.

Getting in

The Chengdu–Dujiangyan intercity line. Xipu is a cross-platform interchange with metro Line 2, so you never leave the system; a few services run direct from Chengdu East. Ride it to Lidui Park (离堆公园站), the branch terminus.

Full Dujiangyan Irrigation System guide

Sichuan Opera at Shufeng Yayun 蜀风雅韵

Last entry

there is no late entry worth having: the face-changing and fire-spitting are set pieces inside a running programme, not a loop. Arrive 30–40 minutes early if you want the tea, the ear-cleaning and the backstage face-painting, which are most of the reason to pick this venue over a theatre.

Ticket

¥80–260 by seat tier — 壹品 VIP ¥260, 贰品 ¥180–200, 叁品 ¥140–160, 加座 ¥80–100; the mid-tier seats people actually book online run about ¥188–268

On a passport

What separates the rungs is not just distance from the stage: the top tier comes with the covered tea bowl, snacks and a costume-wearing photo, the middle with tea and a snack, the cheapest with tea and melon seeds. Nothing about the show needs Chinese — face-changing, fire-spitting, hand shadows and the rod puppets are all visual — so the cheap rung is not a compromised experience, it is a smaller one.

Getting in

Line 2 to Tonghuimen (通惠门), exit E, then about 400 m along Qintai Road — the venue sits inside Chengdu Culture Park and the box office address is given relative to that exit (Amap, 2026-08-10)

Full Sichuan Opera at Shufeng Yayun guide