Wenchuan City

The tale of my Sichuan travels is written as a continuous story and starts on the entry "In Chengdu" on Nov. 5th, 2008. For context and continuity, feel free to start back at that point and read on forward first if you have not already done so.

We got back to Yang Shiu Mei’s (杨秀妹) house, and she asked us if we wanted to stay for a meal. We said we best be going, and got our stuff together. Waving goodbye, we headed out and passed through the blue temporary shelters to get back on the road to hitch a ride to Wenchuan (汶川).

We were not on the road that long before we managed to pull an empty bread van over.



The driver was a fellow going to Wenchuan anyways, but he still wanted some compensation. Larry bargained hard, and due to the driver's low bargaining power, we ended up paying 10 RMB per person.

Just as we were about to get in, we spotted the woman who gave Larry and apple earlier in the day and waved to her. She waved back and wished us a safe journey.



The road to Wenchuan, which was 44km away from Maoxian (茂縣), was full of sore sights.



Destruction was everywhere. There were ruins of former buildings:



Houses which have been bashed in by the rocks that fell down from the mountains during the earthquake:



Some of the landslide have yet to be cleaned up:



Even as the mountains threatened to slide further down:



The driver started talking (in fairly good Mandarin) about the damage done by the earthquake:
"Actually, the city of Wenchuan itself isn't in such a bad shape."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. The reason they called the earthquake back in May the Wenchuan Earthquake is because of the damage that happened in Wenchuan County. The countryside is where the majority of the damage is, not the county seat."
"Where is the worst damage located?"
"It's in a town called YingXiu (映秀), a town about 50 km south of Wenchuan, on the road to Dujiangyan (都江堰). YingXiu once had tens of thousands of citizens. Now it has been reduced to a population of just 7,000, most of them killed by the earthquake. The city is just about completely destroyed, as is the Zipingpu Hydropower Plant (紫坪鋪水庫), which they are now rebuilding. Not too far from YingXiu are the mass graves where they buried the corpses."

Larry looked out the window at the mountain, and noticed that there are still rocks tumbling down. They are small rocks, but it just goes to show that the region is not completely stable yet.

The driver picked up a few more people along the way. There was a couple, and then a mother & child. The child loved to sing, and she sang a couple songs, inappropriately loud.

We continued on, and after an hour, we neared Wenchuan. The ubiquitous blue temporary shelters were here too, on the side of the road:




Wenchuan, like the driver said, didn’t look all that damaged.



There were banners hanging in the streets, thanking the people of Guangzhou for their help:



Most of the buildings looked sound, but there were a few that were marked as unsafe:



We finally got to Wenchuan, and as we got off, a man approached us.
"Are you folks looking to go to Dujiangyan?"
"Perhaps... what are you offering?"
"Are you looking to get there today? You know, today is an even numbered day, which means that the flow of traffic only comes from Dujiangyan up to Wenchuan."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah they regulate it because there are still areas that are just too dangerous to allow higher capacity traffic to go through. As a result, they alternate the flow of traffic every day. However... if you really need to get there today, I can have connections that will let me borrow a special permit to cross... but it will cost you double."
"How much is that?"
"Probably a few hundred RMB."
There was no reason to pay extra to head down early. "I think we'll stay in Wenchuan for the day then."
"Well let me know if you'd like to go tomorrow."
"Alright. We'll see."

So next, we decided to find a place to eat. On the way, we passed by a very strange sign, advertising some beef intestines soup.



Beef intestines soup, for those of you unfamiliar with it, can actually be quite good; however, even we were unsure why there was a picture of a weird girl on the banner. It was very strange.

I saw a rabbit meat noodle shop, but we ended up going to the place next door. I decided to order the rabbit noodle soup anyways and have them bring it over. The noodle soup was very good – had very good noodles, and was plenty spicy. Furthermore, the food at the place we were actually eating at was quite good.



Regardless of what the driver had said, we couldn't help but still be somewhat surprised at the fact that we had not met any starving refugees, and instead, was gently delighted by how enjoyable our first meal in Wenchuan City was.