---
title: "Paws & Prayers — A Volunteer Morning with Four Homecoming Pandas, Then the Village That Reveres Them | LyrikTrip"
description: "A full day in the hills of Jiuzhaigou county: a volunteer shift at a reserve that hosts nobody else that day, then a Baima Tibetan village — a welcome ceremony, two national-heritage dances, and dinner in a family's own kitchen."
type: "experience"
source: "film"
url: "https://www.lyriktrip.com/de-DE/experience/jiuzhaigou-pandas-and-baima-village"
canonical_url: "https://www.lyriktrip.com/de-DE/experience/jiuzhaigou-pandas-and-baima-village"
locale: "de-DE"
alternates: {"en-US":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/experience/jiuzhaigou-pandas-and-baima-village","en-GB":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/en-GB/experience/jiuzhaigou-pandas-and-baima-village","zh-CN":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/zh-CN/experience/jiuzhaigou-pandas-and-baima-village","zh-TW":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/zh-TW/experience/jiuzhaigou-pandas-and-baima-village","de-DE":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/de-DE/experience/jiuzhaigou-pandas-and-baima-village","fr-FR":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/fr-FR/experience/jiuzhaigou-pandas-and-baima-village","es-ES":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/es-ES/experience/jiuzhaigou-pandas-and-baima-village","it-IT":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/it-IT/experience/jiuzhaigou-pandas-and-baima-village","x-default":"https://www.lyriktrip.com/experience/jiuzhaigou-pandas-and-baima-village"}
---

![A giant panda at close range, keeper's hands just in frame](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f0cacbee5843.webp)

Jiuzhaigou county · One day, booked on its own

# A morning closer *than anywhere else gives*

One day in the hills of Jiuzhaigou county: a volunteer shift at a reserve that takes nobody else that day, then an afternoon in a Baima Tibetan village for a masked dance that is running out of dancers.

- Where: Jiuzhaigou county, northern Sichuan · Aba prefecture · roughly 430 km north of Chengdu
- How long: 8–9 hours on the ground · Best taken as part of a Jiuzhaigou leg, not a day trip
- Altitude: A low valley · No acclimatising needed — unlike most of Tibetan Sichuan
甲午海

LyrikTrip · a standalone full-day experience

## Paws*& Prayers*

- 8–9 hours
- The reserve closes to everyone else
- National heritage dance
- Low valley, no altitude

## What you get

### One day, *and two things that are genuinely scarce*

### You'll see

- **The reserve closed to everyone but you** — no crowd at the fence line, all morning
- Giant pandas at close quarters, at the hour they are actually awake
- The **zhou** masked dance — lion leading, then ox, tiger, dragon, leopard, snake, rooster
- A Baima village going about an ordinary afternoon around it

### You'll eat

- **Dinner in a village family's own home**, from what they cook for themselves
- Potato ciba, pounded with the household that makes it
- Nothing catered, nothing laid on for a group

### You'll hear

- Keepers explaining what the morning's work is actually for
- That the dance went onto China's **first** national heritage list in 2006 — and that fewer people can perform it each year
- The household's own conversation, kept moving both ways by your guide

### You'll take home

- A morning of real volunteer work, not a photo stop
- Footage of a dance with a finite number of performances left in it
- **One part of the morning we keep for the booking call**

## Act I — What changed

![A panda enclosure with visitors along the fence](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d2016ceb6d20.webp)

![A panda behind a wire fence at a research base](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/129e0dac564d.webp)

![A forested valley in the mountains of northern Sichuan](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9b91e47d49b8.webp)

Volunteering with pandas used to be *the* thing to do in Chengdu. Dujiangyan, or Wolong.

Then photographs of visitors feeding pandas went round online, and the criticism landed on the bases rather than the visitors. Feeding stopped. Close contact stopped.

The programme shrank. *The price did not.* So we went north.

## 01 — Four of them

![A giant panda, close](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/87b9e9fa1afb.webp)

08:30 Retired home

### A reserve with its own lake

Wujiao reserve · Jiawuhai · pandas home from abroad

The reserve sits inside Wujiao nature reserve in Jiuzhaigou county, ringed by mountains, with its own lake — Jiawuhai — and old forest around it. Several giant pandas live here in enclosures built to imitate the habitat, and the place runs as much on conservation and science education as on visitors. On the busiest day of the last national holiday, Jiuzhaigou's main scenic area took over 41,000 people. This valley took a fraction of that.

## 02 — The shift

![Cut bamboo stacked ready for feeding](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6e89ef5d2a64.webp)

09:00 A real volunteer day

### You work the morning

Bamboo · food prep · cleaning · care

Gear on, keepers' briefing, and into it: cutting and carrying bamboo, preparing food, cleaning enclosures, then the care itself. Mornings, because that is the only part of the day a panda is reliably awake. Every step is on the keepers' terms, with a keeper beside you throughout.

## 03 — The place to yourselves

![A quiet enclosure with nobody at the rail](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/edc16e934c96.webp)

09:30 Volunteer days are closed days

### Nobody else is booked

No day-trippers · no fence line to fight for

On a volunteer day the reserve takes no one else. There is no crowd at the rail, no queue for a viewing window, no one asking you to move along. Four pandas, their keepers, and you — which is a large part of why the drive north is worth doing at all.

## 04 — Closer

![Gloved hands scrubbing down the enclosure rail, brush and basin at the ready](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/a71411a712cd.webp)

11:00 How near, exactly

### Nearer than anywhere we know

And that is all we will put in writing

The closeness the big bases had to rein in still exists here, under the keepers' supervision. Exactly what that means on the day is something your guide tells you one-to-one when you book — keeping it off a public page is part of how we protect the reserve, and part of the agreement that lets this run at all.

## 05 — The Baima

![A mountain village of timber and stone houses in a low valley](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/60a7052e072f.webp)

14:00 Not the Tibet you pictured

### A Tibetan people most visitors never hear of

Low valley · no acclimatising · their own dress and customs

The Baima are a Tibetan group who barely register in the public imagination — their dress, their food and their customs all sit apart from what people picture. The practical difference for you is altitude: they live low, in a valley, so getting there costs you nothing physically. You arrive, and there is a welcome the village lays on itself.

## Why they dance it

![Masked dancers performing in a mountain village square](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6c8021ae7c60.webp)

What the masks actually are

### Twelve animals, *and a lion leading them*

The dance is called *zhou* in Baima — it means auspicious mask dance, and in Chinese it is usually called the dance of twelve animals. It went onto China's very first national heritage list in 2006, filed by Jiuzhaigou county.

The lead dancer wears a lion, king of the beasts. Behind him the masks come in fixed order: ox, tiger, dragon, leopard, snake, rooster, then two small demons and two large ones. Seven, nine or eleven dancers, depending on the occasion.

It comes out of a belief that everything in the world is alive and has a spirit — a fusion of Di-Qiang and Tibetan culture, and one of the last living traces of the ancient *hundred beasts dancing*. There are three sets: one for the gods and the mountain, one for the village square, and one for going door to door wishing people well.

Fewer people can perform it every year. Nobody in the village dresses that up: what you are watching has a finite number of performances left in it.

## 06 — Their kitchen

![A home-cooked meal laid out on a table in a village house](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c8abf6a0c709.webp)

17:00 The part that matters most

### Dinner in someone's house

Not a banquet — what the family eats

You eat in a village home, at the family's own table, from what they cook for themselves. Your guide sits in and keeps the conversation moving both ways — what is on the plate, how the household runs, what is different about how each of you lives. It is the least performed hour of the day, and generally the one people talk about afterwards.

## Why go this far

### You can volunteer near Chengdu. *We'll book it, honestly described.*

The bases around Chengdu

- No feeding since the policy change
- No close contact since the policy change
- The price stayed exactly where it was
- Shared with whoever else booked that day
- Chores at a distance, pandas behind wire

This day, in the north

- Close-quarters care, keepers watching every step
- Volunteer days are closed to everyone else
- Four pandas retired home from zoos abroad
- A Baima village afternoon, arranged with us alone
- One part of the morning we keep for the booking call

## The day, unrolled

### What the day is made of

Morning north · afternoon in the valley

![A young panda in the greenery](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3196e533afe1.webp)

**The four**熊猫 · home from abroad

![A stand of living bamboo](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f2e6e5ccc98a.webp)

**The shift**竹子 · a real morning's work

![A keeper crouched inside the enclosure with a feed tray, a young panda beside her](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4a6797f575a2.webp)

**The keepers**饲养员 · every step on their terms

![A clear lake in the valley](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/991ddffb9979.webp)

**The valley**河谷 · low, easy on you

![Timber houses stepping up the hillside](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d6e3cdbfd1da.webp)

**The village**白马村寨 · named on booking

![A masked dance before the whole village](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/cd86602501c3.webp)

**The zhou dance**咒舞 · national heritage

![Dishes crowding a family table](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9ac069fbd514.webp)

**The table**家宴 · what they cook for themselves

## Designer's note

“In the end guests ask one thing of pandas: to be as near them as they can get. When the big programmes had to rein that in, we drove north and found the one valley where a reserve — and a village — would sign with us alone. The morning is for the pandas. The afternoon is for the people who got there first.”

Charles Yang · LyrikTrip travel designer, Chengdu

## Practicalities

- Duration: 8–9 hours, one full day
- Morning: Reserve — volunteers only that day
- Afternoon: A Baima Tibetan village
- Altitude: Low valley — no acclimatising
- Exclusivity: Arranged by us alone; agreement first signed 2024, renewed for three years
- Names: The village is named when you book
- Booking: At least two weeks ahead
- Not going north?: We'll arrange the Chengdu-area version, honestly described
## End card

![The mountains above cloud at the end of the day](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1018dbc7ed86.webp)

### Book *the day*

One full day on its own. Tell us a date and we'll confirm the reserve's volunteer schedule.

[**Start planning](/contact)

## Sources

**图片来源 · Image provenance**

本页照片为**图库占位**。熊猫、竹子、家宴为 Unsplash 通用图，**不是甲午海那四只**。村落、面具舞与河谷取自 Wikimedia Commons，是**四川藏族影像但并非白马藏族**——白马人有独特的白色毡帽与雄鸡羽饰，公开图库里几乎没有，只能实拍。

本页图库图内容已逐张核验；后续如获供应商实拍，可按图位替换。

- [closeup photo of green bamboo sticks](https://unsplash.com/photos/closeup-photo-of-green-bamboo-sticks-xScd4RblFy8) — Bennett Dungan · Unsplash License
- [brown bamboo sticks on brown wooden table](https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-bamboo-sticks-on-brown-wooden-table-IPuuhSmsFIc) — Victoria Priessnitz · Unsplash License
- [V Pat of Dosmoche Festival at Leh Palace 2018 201802](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:V_Pat_of_Dosmoche_Festival_at_Leh_Palace_2018_20180213_124755.webm) — Sumita Roy Dutta · CC BY-SA 3.0
- [Jiuzhaigou Valley 2002-09-12 03.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jiuzhaigou_Valley_2002-09-12_03.jpg) — — · CC BY-SA 3.0
- [white and black panda on brown wooden fence during d](https://unsplash.com/photos/white-and-black-panda-on-brown-wooden-fence-during-daytime-e3mu-MTj7Xk) — Lukas W. · Unsplash License
- [Zookeeper feeding prairie dogs in enclosure](https://unsplash.com/photos/zookeeper-feeding-prairie-dogs-in-enclosure-ttOusm4hUWE) — po yu · Unsplash License
- [A person in blue gloves feeding a small animal throu](https://unsplash.com/photos/person-feeding-animal-through-green-fence-GxCIrNFUuTc) — Florian Steffen · Unsplash License
- [1 jiuzhaigou valley wu hua hai 2011b.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_jiuzhaigou_valley_wu_hua_hai_2011b.jpg) — Chensiyuan · CC BY-SA 4.0
- [Ham dance at Deskit Monastery.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ham_dance_at_Deskit_Monastery.jpg) — WikClick · CC BY-SA 4.0
- [A feast of various chinese dishes on a round table](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-feast-of-various-chinese-dishes-on-a-round-table-gICKoQgQALs) — jason hu · Unsplash License
- [a panda bear on a wooden bench](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-panda-bear-on-a-wooden-bench-cQ5GnddiiPA) — Yosuke Ota · Unsplash License
- [A panda cub covers its mouth with its paw](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-panda-cub-covers-its-mouth-with-its-paw-fa3tXbXvee0) — Erik Esly · Unsplash License
- [wildlife photography of black and white panda](https://unsplash.com/photos/wildlife-photography-of-black-and-white-panda-A57EhRpsvyI) — Damian Patkowski · Unsplash License
- [a panda bear sitting in the grass near a bamboo fenc](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-panda-bear-sitting-in-the-grass-near-a-bamboo-fence-jrp1ipVB6AY) — Abdelrahman Harfoosh · Unsplash License
- [A black and white panda bear sitting in the grass](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-black-and-white-panda-bear-sitting-in-the-grass-0LyKU_uiDNI) — Sid Balachandran · Unsplash License
- [Various traditional chinese dishes on a dark dining](https://unsplash.com/photos/various-traditional-chinese-dishes-on-a-dark-dining-table-MCFVnCQw8A0) — jason hu · Unsplash License
- [Lake in Jiuzhaigou.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lake_in_Jiuzhaigou.jpg) — MSK · CC BY-SA 3.0
- [1 jiuzhaigou valley shuzheng village panorama 2011.j](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_jiuzhaigou_valley_shuzheng_village_panorama_2011.jpg) — chensiyuan · CC BY-SA 4.0
- [Jikayi, Zhonglu, Danba county.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jikayi,_Zhonglu,_Danba_county.jpg) — Marym1718 · CC BY 4.0