Jiuzhaigou - Day 2

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.

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.

Jiuzhaigou - Day 1

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.

6am:
The morning air was extremely cold, immediately reminding me of the fact that we're sleeping high above sea level during November in a room without heating. Reluctant as I was to get up, I was stirred when Mr. Guo quietly said goodbye to us all - he was heading back to Chengdu and had to catch the early morning bus. We exchanged contact information, and wished him well. He encouraged us to come visit him in Beijing if we had the chance.

6:45am:
Awakened now, I tiptoed over the cold, hard bathroom floor for my turn with the hot shower. Refreshed, we packed quickly and headed over to the front desk for some breakfast, which the girls were already eating. Baba ordered soup noodles with eggs, tomatoes and pork, but while the three of us slurped our noodles happily, Keiji was looking hesitant.

"Come join us, Keiji!"
"Uh... where are you guys going after breakfast? Are you going to the hotel first?"
"We don't know yet... we're going to figure that out once we get in."
"Ok, I understand. Then I will leave first."

While sad that he decided to go off on his own, we did not want to take up any more of his time.

After our group picture, we said goodbye and Keiji headed out while we finished up breakfast. In a few minutes we were done, and the six of us headed out of the hostel to face the new day.

"So how far is Jiuzhaigou?" asked Baba.
"It's just 800 meters - let's walk it," Larry replied.
"How do we get there?"
"See that bridge over there?" he pointed to the left.



"We just cross it and take a right," Larry instructed. And so Larry was off, walking ahead, when we realized that the girls had not brought packs like us; instead, being from the city, they had brought suitcases and garment bags instead. Furthermore, they were decked out in high heels and makeup - very impressive, as it considerably increased the difficulty level of this outdoor hiking adventure. Baba and I each gave them a hand, carrying the non-wheeled luggage, and we walked swiftly after Larry.

800 meters later...
We reached the park, passing a crowd of people getting off a bus. They looked at Larry and I in astonishment - for we were both wearing shorts in this weather (Larry inexplicably wears shorts all year round, while I grew up in Cleveland). We ignored them and continued onto the entrance after purchasing tickets (which were not cheap: each ticket is 170RMB with student ID or 220 RMB full fare, plus 90 RMB more for the bus pass), where we indulged in a group photo:



"Where are we going first?"
"Let's drop our stuff off at the Tibetan's House first, and then plan from there," suggested Miss Wei, the one who had gone online and organized the trip for the three of them.
"Where is it at?"
She took out her paper printouts. "It says here we just take the bus up to Shuzheng Village (樹正寨), which should be the first stop," she replied.

And so immediately upon entrance, we hopped onto a bus. A guide on the bus addressed the tourists and introduced the park. Jiuzhaigou is of course most famous for its lakes, but its name comes from the nine minority villages in the area, as it literally translates to "Nine-Village Valley" ("Jiu" means "9", "Zhai" is a kind of mountain village, and "Gou" is a gully or valley with streams running through it). Tibetan and Qiang minorities have lived in the area for years, and while some have stayed, many have moved out of the area once given government incentives. While the park has only been open to the public in the last 20 or so years, it has already made it into Zhang Yimou's movie, Hero, during the scene where the warriors battle nimbly on top of the lake.

After a 10 minute ride, we arrive at Shuzheng Village, and lug our stuff up to the top of the hill to the Tibetan's house to check-in. The proprietor was a Tibetan named Mr. Shi (石先生), and he successfully managed to up the price to 50 RMB per person in exchange for nicer rooms. We drop our stuff off, and then tried to plan our next move. Wei pulled out her info sheets.

"According to this, Mirror Lake is best viewed in the morning, and Multi-colored Lake should be seen around noon," she suggested.
Larry didn't entirely agree, but pulled out a map, "Look at this,"



"I'm going to suggest that we go up the right side of the 'Y' first; that's where most of the lakes are at. You won't have time to do both sides of the 'Y' today."
"But it's already 10am, and Multi-Colored Lake is on the other side."
"Hey look, the bus is coming!"

We hurried to the bus, and I ended up going to the left branch of the 'Y' first, to visit Long Lake (長海).

Long Lake is the "Mother Lake," as it feeds most of all the other lakes, as it is the largest lake and lake with the highest elevation in Jiuzhaigou. However, this time around, as compared to Spring of 2004, I couldn't be less impressed. For example:

Long Lake, Autumn 2008:



Long Lake, Spring 2004:



Close-up of Long Lake, Spring 2004:



The ice gives Long Lake a completely different feel. It's even prettier from a side angle:

Long Lake, Spring 2004:



Long Lake, Spring 2004:



While some say the ice looks as if it's "hovering" on top, the ice itself truly looks bizarre - in fact, it looks more like a strange blemish in the photo than anything else.

Anyhow, we were about to move on, when an interesting character started laughing at my shorts:

"I can't believe you're wearing shorts! Aren't you cold??"
"You know, if you don't think it's cold, then it's not cold," I replied.
"Where are you from?"
"We're from Taiwan."
"I've never seen any Taiwanese wear shorts here in this kind of weather..."
"You're probably right... most Taiwanese are exasperatingly afraid of the cold."

He laughed some more, and so I couldn't help but shoot him (with the camera):



11:30
We moved on to Multi-Colored Lake (五彩池):

"Wow! This is absolutely, gorgeous!" Li and Wei exclaimed in unison. Dou concurred, and I had to agree too - here the reverse was true, and my disappointment with this small little lake back in 2004 was quickly erased:

Multi-Colored Lake, Autumn 2008:

Multi-Colored Lake, Spring 2004:



Multi-Colored Lake, Autumn 2008:



Multi-Colored Lake, Autumn 2008:

Multi-Colored Lake, Spring 2004:



Multi-Colored Lake, Spring 2004:




Compared to the spring, the water in the fall has so much more depth and color to it, probably due to the larger overall volume. I suppose in the spring, most much of the water is still frozen (probably up in Long Lake or further up the mountains), whereas it hasn't had time to shrink in size for the winter yet.

From there, we continued downwards by bus, heading over to the right side of the 'Y' in the map.

On the way, we saw the Upper Seasonal Lake (which happens to lack water during this time of the year):

Looking up, we saw that the splendid mountains surrounded us:

And looking up even higher, a magnificent shot of the sky with the sun behind the clouds:

We changed buses at the intersection of the 'Y', and went up the right side, all the way up to the Primeval Forest (原始森林).

As we walked up the trail, we see a disheartened tourist walking towards us from the other direction. He murmured as we walked passed, "Oh my gosh, that place is so far away! You'll never make it! It's so far away that even I had to turn back!" Fortunately, that guy was a wimp, and a few minutes later, we were there:

View out from Premieval Forest:

We took a break and had crackers, fruits, and nuts for lunch, before heading back down. Taking the bus to the next offered stop, we ended up at Arrow Bamboo Lake (箭竹海):



Let's do another quick comparison:

Bridged Walkway by Bamboo Arrow Lake, Autumn 2008:



Bridged Walkway by Bamboo Arrow Lake, Spring 2004:



The water looks deeper in general. Much deeper, in fact:

Arrow Bamboo Lake, Autumn, 2008:

"Let's take a walk around the lake," I suggested.
"Where can we walk?" Baba asked.
"There's a path over there,' I motioned below.



We agreed, and I was happy that we stopped hopping from stop to stop by bus and actually switched into walking around from lake to lake. The day was starting to warm up, and we walked cheerfully on the wooden path. The water was so clear - it was temptingly cool and refreshing.



2pm:
As we rounded Bamboo Arrow Lake (箭竹海) and Panda Lake (熊貓海), we began singing again. This time around, we tried to teach Miss Dou, Li, and Wei a Chinglish song:

Text:
Goodbye,記得我,一天又one day;
Goodbye,記得我,當你faraway.
麻雀singing,
Spring coming,
唱個good song.
Goodbye,請你記得我-o-oh!

Phonetics:
Goodbye, ji de wo, yi tian you one day;
Goodbye, ji de wo, dang ni faraway.
Ma que singing,
Spring coming,
Chang ge good song.
Goodbye, qing ni ji de wo-o-oh!

Translation:
Goodbye, remember me, day after day;
Goodbye, remember me, when you are far away.
Sparrows singing,
Spring coming,
Sing a good song.
Goodbye, please remember me!



They learned with varying degrees of success. In any case, next, we came upon the Panda Lake Falls (熊貓海瀑布):



It seems similar enough to what I remembered from Spring, 2004:



The scenery here was amazing, once again like a river overrunning a forest:



Even looking down at the path ahead of us was a delight:



3:30pm
We continued ahead, until we were at Five Flower Lake (五花海). There was a small tree sticking out in the middle of the lake:



I'm guessing it might have been this same sapling I saw growing out of the water in 2004:



We trudged on, by now the girls were feeling the intense effects of walking in high heels for 6 hours, though I couldn't have felt better myself. They were dying by the time we reached the bridge of the Five Flower Lake:



Which looks very similar as it did back in 2004:



When we reached, and saw the bus stop ahead, we decided to call it a day. It was past 4:30pm, and everyone needed to be officially "out of the park" by 5:30pm.

5:30pm
Having arrived by 5pm, we were hungry and expected dinner to be served on schedule right at 5:30pm. However, it took some prodding for the Tibetans to get around to it. So we first went to examine our rooms, which exceeded my expectation.

Room:

Bathroom:



The facilities were very nice, especially the bathroom. Throw in free dinner and breakfast, and 50 RMB (~$7 USD) is really a bit of a steal.

6pm:



Dinner is finally ready, and what they served was very good. The six of us ate with another couple, two lawyers also from Shenzhen (one pictured above), Mr. Kang and Ms. Jin, who were both from the our same bus. In fact, they were the ones who had moved up when Larry and Baba started singing! Having established newfound rapport with them, we planned some activities for the evening.

The mist had started to roll in.



And the temperature was rapidly dropping, but nonetheless we went for a walk around the nearby lakes, Suzheng Falls (樹正瀑布) and Tiger Lake (老虎海). Jiuzhaigou at night had a completely different feel to it - it was rather dark and completely solitary; there was no one else around, nothing except perhaps the sound of trickling or rushing water as you near the falls. It was also rather hard to capture since there were no lights. We were guided, however, by the bright moonlight.

When we came back, we discovered that the Tibetans had temporarily lost electricity. So while waiting, Larry facilitated introductions between our new lawyer friends and the rest of the group. He started off by introducing Baba:

"Though we met in Taiwan, I did not know him well until he came to China to do business. But when we met up, we went all over the place for a few months, going hiking together, singing songs on the mountains, just like yesterday on the bus. And you know what? Of all the thousands of people I’ve hung out with, I like to sing with him the best… because I sing just a little better than him!

But anyhow, he's actually a very good guy. For example, this time, when we came out today, all you girls had tons of bags, but I just walked ahead... I didn't even bother to turn back and look! Yet he helps... not just him, but his son has to help out as well!

This just goes to say... he's a gentleman. I'm not!
Anyhow, I won’t get into it now, but know that while he has many talents, of course he has tons of faults too, too many to name! I’ll save them for later if he starts to criticize me.”

Next, Larry moved on to me. “Let's talk about his son, Jerry. I first met him when he was 10, visited his house in 1992. Back then, he was really weak! Sure, now he's strong - you can’t tell at all, can you?. But every time I went to his house, we went running. He didn’t like running then.”
“Oh so that's it?” I cut in.
“In fact, we went biking too... before me, he didn't really know how to ride!”
“Yeah right!”
“The only thing I didn't teach him is swimming. His father taught him that, but now he swims faster than me. In fact, when we went to swim in Chengdu, he swam faster than everyone else. This is his father's credit.

But anyhow, he's a very honest guy. A lot of good points, also a lot of bad, but his biggest weakness is that he's bad at army chess! The only time he wins is when his father is the judge!"

We were interrupted by Miss Dou talking with one of the Tibetans. “Hey, when will the electricity come back on?”
“No idea.”
“When did it come on yesterday?”
“Yesterday there was electricity.”
“How long does it usually take?”
“Sometimes half an hour, sometimes half a day…”
“Then maybe another half hour?”
“I think it will be longer today…”
“How much longer?”

The Tibetan guy she was conversing with then walked by, dressed in camoflauge. “Wah! What are you guys doing outside?”
“Hey, why don’t you introduce yourself!” Larry calls to him.
“Introduce myself?”
“Yeah, we try to meet everyone we see, and now it’s your turn!”
“Why don’t we have you sing a Tibetan song?” Wei asks.
“Sing? I can’t sing…”
“No, we don’t need you to sing, just introduce yourself.”
“Forget it. I got nothing to introduce!” The Tibetan guy walks away.

We ended the night sitting outside in our cozy chairs, wrapped in blankets, gazing out at the stars above the mountains. Baba proposed a singing exhibition, and we sang together, out into the open night.