I woke up around 4-5am by accident; perhaps because it was still much colder than I was used to. I tried to go back to sleep, but Larry got up soon after, an exclaimed, "I have an epitome! Do you want to hear it?"
Baba, who was only half awake, groaned, "Um... maybe later."
"Why don't you write it down? We'll listen when we're awake," I added.
When I finally got back up, Larry explained, "I thought of a new philosophy. It's called... 'No fear!' So the philosophy is about no fear... don't fear anything."
"Okay..."
"This means one thing you should never fear is if you have no money. For example, one time, while traveling on the US West Coast, I forgot my wallet back at the hotel, which was more than a hundred miles away. But I had no fear in my heart. The first thing I did was look for fellow backpackers. Soon, I met a couple of them, conversed with them, befriended them, and they gave me a dollar. I used that to take the bus. From there, I walked out to the highway to hitch a ride. After a few minutes, a nice German couple stopped for me and took me all the way back to the hotel. Even if I didn't run into them, I'm sure after walking a bit longer, I'd meet someone nice enough who would."
"I see."
"Anyhow, I bring this up because I sensed there was some fear amongst our group. Yesterday, as we were lugging our stuff up here, there was a guy standing out by the bus stop, threatening to check our passes today (both the entrance pass and the bus pass is only good for one day), trying to give us some trouble. And last night, the others from Shenzhen expressed some concern over how we should handle this."
"What do you propose?"
"We should have no fear - just go directly to management and protest!"
And so over breakfast with the rest of the group, Larry addressed the issue some more.
"From what I can tell, those collecting the entrance fees are part of a completely different department than those that check the bus passes. And so the easiest way to bypass the whole thing issue is just to walk, not use their buses at all. However, if you want to use the buses, maybe we can circumvent the checkers by walking to the next stop. After all, since they know there are Tibetans living here and housing visitors, they're all the more vigilant in this area. After all, in the 15 years that I've visited, I've never once actually had someone check my ticket."
He continued, "But what we really ought to do though, is to go directly to management, and protest this inane checking of passes altogether! They charge such high fees, couldn't they let visitors enjoy the park a little longer? After all, how can they expect anyone to see everything in one day? Do they really expect us to pay for a new pass everyday??"
The group murmured in agreement. Larry continued, "After all, Jiuzhaigou Park receives thousands of visitors and generates millions of RMB in revenue everyday. Why are they pennypinching and trying to catch people who love their park so much that they want to stay an extra day or two?"
Once again, we expressed similar sentiment, and Larry boldly forged ahead with the argument for his sympathetic audience. "Furthermore, their greed and drive for wealth has led them to do the unthinkable - with government backing, they have the power and incentives to kick out the native inhabitants of this beautiful land - the Tibetans and the Qiang! They It's time to rise up and speak out!"
Now even the Tibetans, who had stayed silent thus far, gave their affirmation. "They hardly give us any compensation or subsidies," complained Mr. Shi. "Plus, we're restricted in our access in going in and out of the park, as well as other freedoms, like the kind of cars we can buy and use in the park!"
"Don't you have any family or friends who are lawyers?"
"No, we don't know of any."
"Well you do now!" Larry turns to the Shenzhen lawyers and ask, "Is this grounds for a lawsuit?"
"It sure is!" Mr. Kang and Ms. Jin responded.
Everyone laughed deliriously. Larry adds, "See, this is what you need - someone to speak out on your behalf! That's why the American Indians were able to have negotiate those Indian reservations; they had lots of people speaking on their behalf."
Larry continued with his emotional soliloquy, "But you know how many insults these people, the Tibetans, with a proud culture and heritage have endured? They have been wronged so gravely by such injurious and devious people! Their anger has reached so high of a boiling point, that they must have no words to express it! As people with a moral obligation, we must act!"
Everyone left breakfast happy, but as soon as we were done, we only set out to continue our tour of Jiuzhaigou. But as discussed, we decided it was best to avoid the bus stop in front of the Tibetan village and walk up to the next one.
So we followed the waters by the village upstream, past the waterfall to Tiger Lake. The scene there was already beautiful.
We soon came to the next bus stop and walked to the very back, happy that we made it without problems. Suddenly, a voice from the front boomed toward us: "Let's see your bus passes!"
We looked at each other nervously, contemplating whether we should get off or 'fess up. Seeing our uneasy expression, the bus driver continued on, "You can't run or hide! You might as well pay now, otherwise we'll drive you back down, and you'll have to pay the entrance fee as well!"
It was obvious that Dou, Li, and Wei did not want to walk (they were still in high heeled boots, as they had no other shoes), so we ended up each paying an extra 90 RMB for another bus pass. Problem solved.
So we took the bus back up to Five Flower Lake (五花海), where we were yesterday, and started walking back down from there. The day was much warmer and much nicer than yesterday, thus we walked with renewed vigor and appreciation for the scenery.
After passing Five Flower Lake, we continued onto the Pearl Shoal Falls (珍珠灘瀑布), where there was again is that fantastical scene of a river overruning the forest.
It was very similar to the scene back in 2004:
We continued on, and the "river thru a forest" became a standard river:
Around us, and up on the road ahead, were fields of white flowers:
Walking further along, the road wound back into the middle of the forest:
We were now walking along Mirror Lake (鏡海):
By noon, we came upon Nuorilang Falls (諾日朗瀑布), one of the most famous attractions of Jiuzhaigou:
It was about lunch time, but no one was hungry, but we decided to take a bit of a rest, since the girls' feet were starting to hurt again. So we took the bus to Rhinoceros Lake (犀牛海), one stop further down.
While the lake, like just about all the rest of Jiuzhaigou, was also very pretty, it was too big, and we didn't have time to walk around, as we prioritized resting our feet over seeing more of Rhinocerous Lake. Instead, we took a bus down to approximately where Shuzheng Village was, and we walked downstream instead. Looking downwards, we see the water is cut up into several lakes:
However, in the Spring of 2004, there were flowers blooming in this area:
And so we walked across the bridge near those lakes, now around Wolong Lake (臥龍海):
The Tibetan village we stayed at, viewed from across the lake:
However, soon we started paying more attention to our side of the bank:
Caught off-guard by the spectacular colors, I could not help but snap another photo.
And more. So much more.
Soon, we stumbled upon the "Sleeping Dragon" in the middle of the lake:
Which seemed even more clear from this side of the lake than the other side of the lake back in 2004:
We continued on. The scenery was simply spectacular.
And so we walked past not just Wolong Lake, but also Shuanglong Lake (火花海) and half of Reed Lake (蘆節海), though even the beauty of the scenery had a hard time allaying the girls' walking pains. We couldn't help but stop to rest for a bit. It was about 3:15pm, and we still had 1.8 km until we reached the last lake, the Potted Landscape Lake (盆景灘). Sharing some fruits and snacks, we posed for a quick picture:
After another 45 minutes, we finally made it to the Potted Landscape Lake, which was a mini-forest full of these little "bonzai" trees flooded by the river:
Much more colorful than in early Spring, 2004:
Tired, we took the bus back down to the entrance and then a taxi to get back to the hostel, where we would stay for the night. After dinner, we planned, along with both Shenzhen parties, our next step. Since Wei, Li, and Dou were leaving for Chengdu tomorrow afternoon, our choices were limited, and we ended up deciding on visiting the city of Songpan (松潘), and along with it, Mounigou (牟尼溝), a more remote gully also with some spectacular lakes and a majestic waterfall.
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