Jiuzhaigou - Local colour and the vivid hues of the lakes
Next stop was Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan; this is a national park in the far north of the province that is famed for its bright blue lakes - famously used in the ‘Hero’ for Flying Snow’s final resting place and the water top fight of Nameless and Broken Sword.
We flew in, via a stop in Chengdu, over rugged snow capped mountains that pushed through the cloud, which gave us an exhilarating and, when it came to the final decent, downright alarming view as the plane banked and weaved through the fast approaching and suddenly very desolate looking peaks. Once the plane was on the runway and taxiing to its stand you could look back at the peak that seemed to lie directly in the flight path for landing aircraft. The airport is at 3000m, so even once you are landed there is still about 1000m of decent to do before you get to the park and its surrounding village. This was about an hour and a half drive across frost touched plains of grazing yak and winding mountain roads. At the steepest point there is the Jiudaoguai, a 9 cornered switchback of hairpin turns that feel more like a rollercoaster than a road.
This area of Sichuan is populated with a high proportion of Tibetans, who’s distinctive houses and Buddhist stupas, often be-draped in 5 coloured prayer flags we passed along the way - Jiuhaigou in fact means ‘9 Tibetan Village Valley’.
We were staying in the Sheraton Resort, which had a number of restaurants, bars, a pool and games room and even a small theatre where they had a nightly performance of Tibetan, Qiang (another local ethic minority) and Sichuan folk dances, songs and festival sports. This was the evening’s entertainment; we were treated to a number of performances such as a rather hypnotic drum-and-chant lead dance where the dancers wore head covering mask of yak and deer, in front of a stage wide LCD screen that flashed various bits of hallucinogenic Buddhist imagery.
We then also had a bunch of guys in yellow long sleeved shirts doing a dance that seemed to consist of kicking, running in circles doing ‘airplane arms’ and generally waving their hands around as if being attacked by a swarm of invisible bees - but judging from their faces this was about as much fun as you can have with your long sleeved clothes on. After this much more graceful performance by girls in blue similar sleeved dresses (think beginning of House of Flying Daggers) dancing in a synchronised way very evocative of the lakes and waterfalls of the park on the screen behind them.
We also had a number of songs crooned at us by various guys in Tibetan dress, which usually consists of knee high leather boots, baggy trousers, embroidered shirts and a thick fur lined coat tied double around the waist, a little like you would a hoody, that became a little like a thick short skirt. Oh and a mullet.
There was also a very suggestive dance performed by milk maid using churns that involved lots of hip swaying, booty jiggling and rather fondly pumping the shafts up and down, while occasionally stopping to coyly taste the ‘cream’. In the UK this would have left much of the audience coughing politely, but in China apparently it much more accepted to wave the provided plastic hand clackers like a mentalist.
We had another frantic performance from the long sleeved guys, this time in red, in front of lots of fire that made the previous one seem like a warm up before the finally of all the performer coming back to the stage wearing a different costume, a sort of catwalk showcase of the various different dress of the region.
The next morning we wrapped up warm to head to the park itself; at the entrance we met an Australian couple who we shared a taxi with, who were being previous day veterans of the park were veritable experts of the best way round it. The park is made of three valleys in an uphill Y shape moving away from the entrance; we took the parks very frequent shuttle bus up to the top of the right hand branch before walking down to the join and taking the bus to the top of the less sight intensive left side, and back down to the join again and then walked most the length of the ‘base’ valley to the entrance. In all we much have walked about 14 - 16km but as the park is so spectacular we hardly felt it - until we got back to the hotel.
The park’s main attraction are a series of stunning lakes of a crystal clear vivid blue water; many of these are fairly shallow so that you can see the pattern of fallen trees and weeds that criss-cross them, or are so tranquil and still that they act as massive mirrors for the blue sky and tri-colour forests that surround them. Being November, the riot of colour that the trees are in autumn had mostly past, but there was still a scenic mix of evergreen, golden and red tinged maples which set of the turquoise and royal blue of the water stunningly. Between the lakes there are a number of waterfalls; some small burbling affairs that make their way over shoals of rocks and between small trees while others are wide and towering torrents of water that roar white and gushing over rocks into plunge pools that turn the milky and like the jade that the Chinese are so fond of. All of this is crowned off by snow capped peaks that were mist free and visible on such a clear bright day.
The whole park is exceptionally well laid out; with the hop on-hop off buses that link all of the major sites, and extensive wooden boardwalks it is easy to see such a huge area in a day, and with little difficulty but the nature of the views mean that you will want to linger and even come back time and time again to see it blanketed in snow and the waterfalls frozen solid in winter, or covered in the soft pink of cherry blossoms in spring, or the almost over-saturated colour frenzy of the autumn leaves.
The park is the sort of place that certainly encourages the use of hyperbole and tends to cause a shortage of superlatives, but trust me, all the praise is completely justified; I think in this case a picture certainly tells a thousand words, so please check them out. All of these pictures are direct from my camera - there is no photoshopping or colour level adjustments so all the seemingly magic mushrooms colours are completely genuine!
Following our day at the park we met up with our Aussie friends Terrance and Jenny for dinner; Jenny is originally from Shanghai and speaks Chinese which enabled us to explore the local restaurants close to the hotel for some excellent Sichuan food. We had some Yak with fungus, and a huge lavish fish (as Manchester’s Red’n’Hot restaurant calls it) which I chose from a tank outside on the street, which was then rather unceremonially murdered by pavement bludgeoning in front of us. However ignominious its end it was delicious, and I thanked it for its sacrifice by eating till I made myself nearly sick.
Pictures:
Jiuzhaigou
We flew in, via a stop in Chengdu, over rugged snow capped mountains that pushed through the cloud, which gave us an exhilarating and, when it came to the final decent, downright alarming view as the plane banked and weaved through the fast approaching and suddenly very desolate looking peaks. Once the plane was on the runway and taxiing to its stand you could look back at the peak that seemed to lie directly in the flight path for landing aircraft. The airport is at 3000m, so even once you are landed there is still about 1000m of decent to do before you get to the park and its surrounding village. This was about an hour and a half drive across frost touched plains of grazing yak and winding mountain roads. At the steepest point there is the Jiudaoguai, a 9 cornered switchback of hairpin turns that feel more like a rollercoaster than a road.
This area of Sichuan is populated with a high proportion of Tibetans, who’s distinctive houses and Buddhist stupas, often be-draped in 5 coloured prayer flags we passed along the way - Jiuhaigou in fact means ‘9 Tibetan Village Valley’.
We were staying in the Sheraton Resort, which had a number of restaurants, bars, a pool and games room and even a small theatre where they had a nightly performance of Tibetan, Qiang (another local ethic minority) and Sichuan folk dances, songs and festival sports. This was the evening’s entertainment; we were treated to a number of performances such as a rather hypnotic drum-and-chant lead dance where the dancers wore head covering mask of yak and deer, in front of a stage wide LCD screen that flashed various bits of hallucinogenic Buddhist imagery.
We then also had a bunch of guys in yellow long sleeved shirts doing a dance that seemed to consist of kicking, running in circles doing ‘airplane arms’ and generally waving their hands around as if being attacked by a swarm of invisible bees - but judging from their faces this was about as much fun as you can have with your long sleeved clothes on. After this much more graceful performance by girls in blue similar sleeved dresses (think beginning of House of Flying Daggers) dancing in a synchronised way very evocative of the lakes and waterfalls of the park on the screen behind them.
We also had a number of songs crooned at us by various guys in Tibetan dress, which usually consists of knee high leather boots, baggy trousers, embroidered shirts and a thick fur lined coat tied double around the waist, a little like you would a hoody, that became a little like a thick short skirt. Oh and a mullet.
There was also a very suggestive dance performed by milk maid using churns that involved lots of hip swaying, booty jiggling and rather fondly pumping the shafts up and down, while occasionally stopping to coyly taste the ‘cream’. In the UK this would have left much of the audience coughing politely, but in China apparently it much more accepted to wave the provided plastic hand clackers like a mentalist.
We had another frantic performance from the long sleeved guys, this time in red, in front of lots of fire that made the previous one seem like a warm up before the finally of all the performer coming back to the stage wearing a different costume, a sort of catwalk showcase of the various different dress of the region.
The next morning we wrapped up warm to head to the park itself; at the entrance we met an Australian couple who we shared a taxi with, who were being previous day veterans of the park were veritable experts of the best way round it. The park is made of three valleys in an uphill Y shape moving away from the entrance; we took the parks very frequent shuttle bus up to the top of the right hand branch before walking down to the join and taking the bus to the top of the less sight intensive left side, and back down to the join again and then walked most the length of the ‘base’ valley to the entrance. In all we much have walked about 14 - 16km but as the park is so spectacular we hardly felt it - until we got back to the hotel.
The park’s main attraction are a series of stunning lakes of a crystal clear vivid blue water; many of these are fairly shallow so that you can see the pattern of fallen trees and weeds that criss-cross them, or are so tranquil and still that they act as massive mirrors for the blue sky and tri-colour forests that surround them. Being November, the riot of colour that the trees are in autumn had mostly past, but there was still a scenic mix of evergreen, golden and red tinged maples which set of the turquoise and royal blue of the water stunningly. Between the lakes there are a number of waterfalls; some small burbling affairs that make their way over shoals of rocks and between small trees while others are wide and towering torrents of water that roar white and gushing over rocks into plunge pools that turn the milky and like the jade that the Chinese are so fond of. All of this is crowned off by snow capped peaks that were mist free and visible on such a clear bright day.
The whole park is exceptionally well laid out; with the hop on-hop off buses that link all of the major sites, and extensive wooden boardwalks it is easy to see such a huge area in a day, and with little difficulty but the nature of the views mean that you will want to linger and even come back time and time again to see it blanketed in snow and the waterfalls frozen solid in winter, or covered in the soft pink of cherry blossoms in spring, or the almost over-saturated colour frenzy of the autumn leaves.
The park is the sort of place that certainly encourages the use of hyperbole and tends to cause a shortage of superlatives, but trust me, all the praise is completely justified; I think in this case a picture certainly tells a thousand words, so please check them out. All of these pictures are direct from my camera - there is no photoshopping or colour level adjustments so all the seemingly magic mushrooms colours are completely genuine!
Following our day at the park we met up with our Aussie friends Terrance and Jenny for dinner; Jenny is originally from Shanghai and speaks Chinese which enabled us to explore the local restaurants close to the hotel for some excellent Sichuan food. We had some Yak with fungus, and a huge lavish fish (as Manchester’s Red’n’Hot restaurant calls it) which I chose from a tank outside on the street, which was then rather unceremonially murdered by pavement bludgeoning in front of us. However ignominious its end it was delicious, and I thanked it for its sacrifice by eating till I made myself nearly sick.
Pictures:
Jiuzhaigou