June 18-19, Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan, China

Jiuzhaigou (9 Village Valley) is China's most popular and I believe oldest national park.  It's location in the very north of Sichuan province makes access a bit tough but that doesn't dissuade the crowds.  The ticket prices are the highest of any attraction in China at 320RMB per day but still the hordes descend on the place.  The scenery is supposed to be compelling and almost everybody says it's worth the price and the hassle of dealing with massive Chinese tour groups.  I mentally braced myself for the exorbitant entrance price and prepared to enter one of the most intensely touristed places in all of China.  Actually it wasn't all that bad.  Less-than-stellar weather kept some of the punters away and the scenery was certainly amazing - it would have been simply jaw-dropping to come here before the place was developed to the level it has been (and back when you could, legally or otherwise, just go off and hike on your own and camp in the valleys) but the way the park has been preserved is for the most part world-class, and I can commend the Chinese on a job well done (this is one of the very few places in China that I cannot be very critical of - they have in all honesty done an excellent job of presenting and preserving the park).  Development in the 2 main valleys has been very strictly limited to a very few areas - this is a very nice change from the normal Chinese approach of building hotels and shops all over mountains, valleys and other formerly natural areas.  One thing that shocked me (in a good way) was the almost total lack of litter - of course it's due to a fastidious pick-up team not public training, but the result certainly the cleanest and most pristine place I've been in China - cities, parks and remote mountains all included.  The much-hyped scenery lives up to it's reputation too.  The waters are crystal clear like no others I've ever seen (certainly not in China), the waterfalls and lakes beautiful, unique and unlike any others I know of, the variety of colors breathtaking and the fact that the entire valley floors are basically flowing rivers amazing - there's almost no dry land anywhere so the network of state-of-the-art raised walkways provides access to some stunning spots that would be otherwise all but inaccessible.  The only complaints I'd make are of course the ticket price, the total inappropriateness of the smoke-belching fleet of "green" (in color only) buses (these are essential for park access since the place is over 25km from end to end but must be changed to gas or electric or some honestly green means of propulsion - black diesel smoke just doesn't fit in with a green image) and the almost total lack of access for independent camping.  I suppose the ban is to limit the impact on the land, but if rubbish management were enforced (like by fining people), people were trained to respect the waterways, and campsites were provided and their use enforced I think this would be a really great way to experience the park's unique environment.  Right now the only way to legally camp is to take a 600RMB per day ($100USD) guided tour.  If I go back I am seriously tempted to simply ignore the rules and take off on my own.  Some photos of the highlights are below.

June 14-17 - Songpan, Sichuan, China

The bus ride from Chengdu was one of the longest I've had to endure - 11 hours in the back of a hot bus on super-bumpy roads.  Yuck.  Songpan town isn't much to write home about but the 3 day horse trekking trip we arranged was good fun, if not very serious in terms of the riding done or distance covered.  The scenery enroute to "Ice Mountain" was of green river valleys and quaint farming villages and the mountainous area we reached at around 4300m was quite spectacular.  On the way back we checked out one of the larger Tibetan temples - this place was covered with inscribed stone tablets in the beautiful Tibetan script and surrounded by hundreds of metres of prayer wheels - these people are certainly devoted to their religion!  The horses performed well, carrying us and our gear over some pretty rough terrain (they're very impressive in their ability to power up steep hills at a sustained pace - powerful animals), but it was more a case of them simply carrying us and following the leader than us actually having to do any riding - zero skill required! (which was good because I've basically never ridden before).  We camped for 2 nights in decent tents and had all our food provided by our guides.  The food wasn't great - pretty bland and mostly veges and breads - but survivable.  The guides seemed to want to do less riding and more sitting round at camp, so our days weren't long, but this was more of a blessing than a curse because the wooden saddles these guys use aren't exactly comfortable!  In all it was a nice intro to horse trekking at a relaxed for-the-tourists pace, but a good experience in all.  Something a bit more hardcore would definitely be fun - perhaps in Mongolia some day?

Yum, tomatoes with sugar and bread for lunch...I gotta get to Europe for some proper food!

June 10-13 - Chengdu area, Sichuan, China

From Danba we took a long bus ride to the Sichuan's capital of Chengdu where I parted ways with England (he had to make a visa run to Mongolia) and set off the next day to explore the famous Emei Shan and Leshan Giant Buddha.  Luck was not really on my side for the mountain (again - I don't know what it is but mostly the weather has been crappy for my climbing expeditions to the famous mountains in China) and I climbed in misty/drizzly conditions, stayed in very basic accommodation on-mountain, saw a non-sunrise and climbed down the next day. I did manage to get a few decent shots between the clouds and at some of the nicer temples on the mountain.  A bit disappointing frankly - but at least I can say I've been there, right? 

My brief couple of hours at the Leshan Giant Buddha were interesting if very touristy.  Actually I think the dodgy weather was keeping people away, thank god and the place wasn't too crowded at all (the infrastructure for dealing with big crowds - queuing pens essentially - made me very glad it wasn't busy).  The Buddha certainly is big (71m tall), and an impressive sight.  The large collection of copied carvings from all over China not so impressive.  I'm glad I went but I can only take so much of these intensely touristy places at one time.  From there I bussed back to Chengdu and headed out the next day to Songpan for some horse trekking.

June 8-9 - Danba, Sichuan, China

The next stop after Kangding was the charming Tibetan area of Danba.  As you will see from the pictures the architecture in the area is very much in a Tibetan style.  We hiked around the area for a day, checked out some crumbling towers, entered a closed (and collapsing) village chief's house on a rock, a cool pagoda area, helped some locals built their roof (carrying dirt and stones on their backs to the rooftop), rescued an old lady's escaping calf and got a pretty good feel for the place I think.  I would have definitely liked to explore for a couple more days but we had to keep moving on to Chengdu.

June 7, 2010 - a bit of a crazy night in Kangding with some of the locals

We were on the lookout for a bit of a party and we found it - and ended up drinking and karaoke-ing into the small hours of the morning with some locals (actually a couple of different groups of them) and waking up feeling pretty crappy...but we had a good time!  I personally would have loved to have recorded our drunken karaoke duet rendition of the Beatles 'Hey Jude' but had not the presence of mind to make the recording (not surprisingly considering my state of inebriation).

Way too long between posts, way too much to catch up on, again

OK well I'm really getting behind on this blog thing...hmm. Well the last month has been pretty hectic to say the least and has seen me travel all around the NW of China, across through central China, up to and around Beijing for a week and finally fly to Munich, Germany.  I'm writing this from my friend Chris's place in Germany unfortunately using a German keyboard with all kinds of crazy changed-around punctuation and when i try to type a Y I get a Z (why those 2 keys would be inverted in a QWERTY keyboard I have no idea - they use a QWERTZ keyboard here...odd).  To more important matters, I'm not going to have much of a chance to update things in a big way but I'll post some pics at least.  Enjoy.