Day 14 – Mountain Drive to Jiuzhaigou Valley

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Today was a driving day so we started off with a hearty breakfast of hand-pulled noodles with black bean sauce. We had to cover 400km of mountain roads in order to get to the Jiuzhaigou Valley. It was for refreshing to not have had to climb mountains on foot since this time we drove up with the open top down, to the border between Sichuan and Tibet and a maximum height of 3,100m before heading down to our destination. As luck would have it, we only had one puncture today, in the support car. The Landcruiser is supposed to be an ultimate off-road vehicle, but with two flat tires in two days compared to the MX 5’s one, I am beginning to think that the MX 5 might just be the ultimate roadtrip car. We’ve covered 4,100km in 14 days, and aside from yesterday’s blowout, the car has not once skipped a heartbeat.

At Jiuzhaigou, I checked into the cheesy Intercontinental which kind of reminded me of the tacky hotels in Hawaii with Tibetan dancing and singing in the lobby. Had dinner at the hotel, and an early night for tomorrows trek into the valley.

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