Whilst almost every weekend in Hong Kong is hijacked by protests in recent months, what do do in the weekend becomes somewhat limited. Instead of always hanging out in Stanley and Repulse Bay, we decided to spend our last weekend in Chimelong Safari Park in Guangzhou for a change. I had low expectations before going there, turned out it’s better than I initially thought. I severely underestimated the scale of the resort and park, to the point that I think 2 days 1 night aren’t even enough to explore both the safari park and water park.
Where is Chimelong Safari Park and What’s around it?
Chimelong Safari Park is part of Chimelong Tourist Resort, it’s regarded as the best safari park in China and it houses over 20,000 rare animals of more than 500 species, including 10 giant pandas, 50 koalas and 150 white tigers. 1/3 of the safari park is wild animals section where you can either self drive or hire a buggy car (capacity: 10 people) for private tour (1 hour). You can also take cable car to have an overview on animals in the park (1 hour).
Chimelong Tourist Resort is located at Panyu Avenue in Guangzhou city. It operates 8 subsidiaries: Chimelong International Circus, Chimelong Water Park, Chimelong Safari Park, Guangzhou Crocodile Park, Chimelong Paradise, Chimelong Hotel and Xiangjiang Restaurant.
We stayed at Chimelong Hotel for a night, the hotel price already includes tickets for Chimelong Safari Park (worth $4xx per head) and Chimelong Water Park. If you’re planning to stay here, do avoid public holidays. And if you wanted a more kid friendly hotel, you can choose the Panda Hotel as an alternative which is located a few minutes away from Chimelong Hotel. I personally can’t stand looking at cartoons wherever you go, and I think Chimelong Hotel is good enough for us (a family of 3).
The Chimelong Safari Park is rather similar to the zoo in Singapore, except that the one in Chimelong is much bigger and that private buggy car tour is possible. Below are some photos I took at the park.
A friend of me asked if the animals are well treated, well I think they are (see below photos at the safari park) but some people may not like the fact that some flamingos and white tigers are placed around the hotel as some sort of display.
These are the flamingos right next to the restaurant at Chimelong Hotel…(see below)
How to get there?
The fastest way to get there is via the high speed train from HK West Kowloon Station to Guangzhou Nan Station (i.e. Guangzhou South station). The travel time is only 50 minutes, covering a running distance of 142km (88 miles). A second class seat ticket costs about RMB 215 or HKD 239. Once got off the train, it takes only 10–15 minutes taxi ride to arrive Chimelong Park.
What to eat?
Gosh, there’re many restaurants within just the Chimelong Hotel. There’s White Tiger buffet restaurant, Unicorn Restaurant (Chinese cuisine) and a few others.
Do not feel that you’re bound within the resort, it takes only a few minutes on taxi to get out of Chimelong resort and explore Guangzhou city. We tried a really good Thai restaurant, which is called Mulian.
Name of the restaurant: 木莲 — 地道泰式冻腌（长隆店）
Address：汉溪中路时代E-Park汉兴中路6号
What else?
There’s a huge Kids Fun Zone at the basement of the hotel, I love it.
There’s also a swimming pool in Chimelong Hotel. If going to Chimelong water park is too much of a hassle, then you can take the closer route to the swimming pool but note that it’s the hotel’s policy for everyone to wear a swimming cap.
I also went outside of the resort to do a massage late at night. The city itself is really a restless city that many shops and restaurants are still opening at 10pm.
Things to Note:
- You better have WeChat Pay or Alipay, which are sometimes the only channel to pay for things in China.
- You better have DiDi app if you want to order a taxi.
- You better have DaZhongDianPing app if you want to order a take out.
- You better have Baidu map app if you want to navigate where you are and where you’re heading to.
