Sichuan Hotpot!

A link to the Swindian post on my experience can be found here

Himalayas - Almost Tibet

A few days ago, I was at a conference in Chengdu, which is the fourth largest city in China and the largest in Sichuan Province. It has a population of 7m people in the city and 14m in the suburban area. At the end of the conference, I managed to squeeze out some time to take a short flight up to Song Pan county, Which houses the fabulous Huanglong and Juizhaoguo Parks.

We stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel in Juizhao which was quite a unique property. A large greenhouse type structure welcomed you as you walked in the main doors - this housed the restaurants and shops in the hotel - before you entered the main building with the lobby and rooms. Public areas were super cold!

Jiuzhao Huanglong

Day 1 - Huanglong (Yellow Dragon)

Landed after a 40 min flight. Temp change from 19C to -2C. As I walk up the airbridge, I feel the lack of oxygen at 3600 m. Lily and Hongtao are with me.

We drive about an hour and a half to Huanglong cable car station, picking up water bottles and oxygen canisters on the way. The station is at 3100 m and takes a quick 4 mins to drop us at 3500 m. Form here we have to walk (one way only) to where the colored mineral pools are first visible and then walk back to the base station.

Our guide tells us that he has a dodgy knee and will not walk with us. We set off on a very well designed wooden platform in the forest. One way only. No turning back. We are told that the distance is about 11 km and will take us 4+ hours. Right.

The first stage is just walking through the forest until we get to a clearing. We have two options: cut across a flat or walk up to the top - that's about 430 m long and a vertical height of about 150m. We are not pussies, but I do feel the lack of oxygen. We have not had time to acclimatize, having landed at 7.15 AM and taking the cable car at 09.15.

(An interesting story about the flights into this airport - legend has it that 9 of 10 flights here are delayed, and one is sent back. Bad weather. We were lucky - a clear day and on time arrival)

So this is a waterfall which has managed to form colorful, mirror like pools as it flows down the mountain. There is a series of these pools of different shapes and sizes as we walk down. No doubt the colors come from the minerals in the rocks.

There is no end to the number of photo opps. But the walk down is a long 3 hours or so. We have not had breakfast and I buy a Snickers bar for energy. In sequence my knees, thighs and then my feet hurt. Fortunately not all together.

By now the park is very crowded and we are dodging people for the photos as well as the walk itself. We are out at about 2 pm and the wait to get the cable car is now 2 hours. Good thing we got here early! Many people are walking up the path that we are walking down. I doubt they will walk all the way to the top.

As we come to the bottom, the sound of traffic has never been so welcome.

We stop at a dhaba for lunch and then the drive to the hotel is about three hours. I sleep, as do my companions.

I have a monster headache as I walk into my room. Must be altitude sickness. A bad dinner buffet is followed by a long foot massage. Time to go to bed.

You can find the Wikipedia link to the park here and one of my 150 photos below.

Day 2 - Juizhaoguo (Valley of nine villages)

Lily tells me this morning that her iPhone suggests we walked 17 km yesterday. I guess that's possible in 4.5 hours.

We have to leave at 9 am for Juizhaoguo but delay it to 9.40 due to heavy traffic.

This park is quite different. It's located between 2300 & 2600 m with abundant forests, lakes and waterfalls. The nine villages refer to the nine Tibetan villages contained in the park, all of which are now commercialized.

The park is huge enough that we have to take the park bus to travel between the scenic viewpoints but not big enough for China. I am told that there are 60,000 visitors at the park today since it's such a nice Saturday (we really got lucky yesterday and today - I was told multiple times that people come here again and again and don't get such nice weather!). I spot one western person the whole day.

The crowd behaviour manifests itself in fighting for photo opps and getting into the bus - the latter reminds me of Calcutta buses! 450 buses don't seem to be enough.

We are in the park for about six hours before heading home. I have seen plenty of lakes and waterfalls. Autumn colours blanket the hillsides and we even see snowy peaks as cotton candy clouds lazily drift past.

Lily tells me that we have walked 11 km. I am bone tired but it's been a terrific two days.

We round off with dinner comprising of Sichuan hotpot. An experience to remember. It's my second hotpot on this trip. Details of the first one are on the Swindian blog.

8 PM and I am back in my room. Some random work including writing this and I will soon be in bed. Long day ahead tomorrow - four flights to get home. Hopefully the first one is not delayed.

Once again, the Wikipedia link is here and one of the photos I took is added below. Neither this or the earlier photo was touched up. The colours are natural.