Great experience with Panda's and cooking! - My friend and I had a fun and relaxing day out with our guide, Ocean! Thank you :) The pandas were adorable and Ocean was always able to find us the best viewing spot. We then had some local Sichuan snacks and noodles while enjoying some tea. It would have been better to have more time to sit and chat but we had a meal to prepare. The market tour was interesting and Ocean introduced us to all the different vegetables, meat and spices that are available. And to top off the day, we made an amazing meal! I would definitely recommend this tour with Chilli Cool China!

Wonderful adventure; great guide - Our guide was "Ocean." She was engaging, very knowledgeable, and speaks excellent English. She knew everything about the Pandas. She took us to the nunnery for a fascinating vegetarian lunch with the nuns. She took us on a tour of a local produce market and explained it all to us. At the cooking school we made dumplings from scratch. A wonderful experience!

Great day viewing Panda's and cooking - I had a great time with Lance getting to see the pandas, be sure to find the cute little red ones. We then had lunch at a temple, checked out the local market, and went back to the Chilli Cool to cook an amazing meal. The cooking portion was great and easy to follow the steps.

Fun day panda + cooking class - My wife and I did the one day panda + cooking class. The panda base is meant to be pretty easy to get to yourself but for not much more money you have a guide to show you around, answer questions, and take you through a great route of the park instead of constantly checking the map :) After the pandas we had a super filling and yummy lunch at the Buddhist nunnery. Unfortunately the head monk was off so we missed their normal ceremony but the meal was great. Tea at a local tea house after. Then the actual cooking class bit starts! Weet up with others that were just doing this part. Walking through the market to smell and taste little bits. We each got a personal mission to do - ordering something or finding something. Great fun. Then more tea, and the actual cooking! Bit of chopping, explaining ingredients, and frying it all up to make three dishes that we shared after. Fun comparing yours to others and the chef's! I think we beat him on one :) Our guide Ocean was really good too. Super cheery and helpful! With us the whole day. Overall really fun outing. Even a little gift at the end. Well recommended.

Fantastic experience! - We booked the Panda and Cooking Class experience with them. In short: We had an amazing day and highly recommend you to book your trips with this company (group size: max. 6 people, we were just the two of us). In long: Our day started with the pick up at the hostel at 7:30 am (you must go early because the pandas get feed in the early morning and afterwards they fall asleep). Winter, our guide (his English is really good) welcomed us and explained the day itinerary. The driver took us then to the Panda Research Base. We spent like 2.5h to 3h there. We saw baby pandas (100g+), younglings (30-50kg) and adult pandas (150kg). Winter provided us with a lot of information about the pandas and guided us through the park. After the Panda Research Base, we drove back to town. Winter showed us there a fantastic bakery because we told him, that we like sweets. Then we went for lunch in a nunnery. This alone was a remarkable experience because usually there is a lot of noise and leftovers in Chinese restaurants. In here, none! The nuns even remind you to eat up. Our next stop was a traditional tea house. There we had some great tea and talk with Winter about the Chinese culture. After that we went to the local food market. He showed us there some local vegetables and stuff. We also tried some spices and made some dumplings there (we ate those after the cooking class). Then we went to the restaurant. The chef showed us there how to prepare tofu, pork belly, and eggplants Sichuan style. Winter translated between the chef and us. After the class we ate together and received a very useful gift. Winter also helped us in a personal matter after everything and organized us a taxi back to the hostel. As mentioned above we had a perfect day. We can highly recommend Winter and his company. We definitely will book another experience package by them if we return to Chengdu. Thanks again for the great day and all the insights in Chinese culture!

Best experience in China! - This tour was the big highlight in my trip to China. Everything was perfect! Starting with the pickup in the hotel right on time, the visit to the Panda breading center was fantastic because the driver new exactly were to go without loose to much time inside the park that is really big. After we had lunch in a nunnery, what was a great cultural experience. The visit to the market and the cooking class were really fun, I learned much more than i expected, and all the food was great. A chapter apart was Ocean my sweet chinese guide, she is incredible!!! With perfect english and extremelly knowledgeable about everything related with chinese culture , traditions and of course food. In the market she explained about all the products and had patience to help me shop for chinese products. A real sunshine!! I would like to go back to Chengdu just to make this class again and again!

Enjoyable day but overpriced and nothing extraordinary - It is a shame to leave a 3-star review, especially when the guide was very friendly, but weighing everything up this is what we think it’s worth. The pluses: - Super friendly and attentive guide - Overall enjoyable day - Fun gift at the end The minuses: - Value: all activities except the panda base and cooking course would’ve been extremely cheap to arrange yourself compared to the premium you pay through the tour. You don’t save money by doing multiple activities in one tour. - We were asked beforehand if we would mind if 2 people joined the cooking course part of the tour (making it non private). We did not mind this at all, except for the fact that we ended up having to share a wok, basically cooking half the dishes each. There should’ve been a wok per person. - In general the cooking course is very basic. The chef did not speak English so there was hardly any explanation of the dishes and a lot of the chopping and grinding had been done for us. -private car in the description is just a taxi, most of the tour is walking (which is fine, but don’t expect to be driven to places by your guide). Tips for the organisers: - Lower the price, or improve the quality of the first half of the tour. - The cooking course can be improved. The market visit is fun, but the cooking part is very limited for people that know how to cook. Perhaps some information about Szechuan cooking, letting the people do more of the cooking and offering a variety of dishes to choose from. (From the many cooking courses we’ve done, this should definitely be achievable for that price).