An opal lake, a long lake and a blue shoal

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Geo: 33.13, 103.55

So yesterday started with a bright and early dash to the bus station to buy tickets for JiuZhaiGou. As it's the off season, I was in luck - do a google search for how mad this place became during the October holiday! 9.5 uneventful hours later (there were only 8 of us on this bus!) and I arrived in JiuZhaiGou. Not that the journey wasn't beautiful, we drove through valleys surrounded by tiny Tibetan villages and people on horse/donkey back, I saw my first (what I think was a) yak and beautiful mountains and lakes. This was also an area affected by the 2008 earthquake so we drove past former bridges sliced in half, huge chunks of roads in rivers and fallen, never repaired, power lines. Anyway, on arrival I had my general quest for somewhere to stay. As luck would have it I met two foreigners who didn't speak Chinese and who wanted help. I went with them to their hostel and ended up booking a bed there and then. Now, the nice people behind the desk gave me a free upgrade because I helped them translate to the couple (I knew all the hard work would pay off sometime!) and I ended up sharing a room with a Chinese piano teacher. I wondered around and found a noodle place for dinner and all was going well until the owners son asked me to marry him... I also had my first taste of yak- for those who are wondering, it came on a stick and was similar, but nicer than pork.

Roll on this morning. A group of us that met last night agreed to meet and visit the park together so bright eyed and bushy tailed we went to buy the (hugely expensive!) tickets. All bought and sorted we took the bus (there's definitely a theme of Chinese national parks and buses!) to the highest point, about 3000m above sea level, and began our day. It was freezing cold at the top and the altitude made it hard to breathe. JiuZhaiGou is considered to be one of the best sights in China; says a lot for a country about the size of Europe! Google it- the pictures will not do it justice. As we walked down the mountain we passed by the clearest, bluest/greenest lakes I have ever seen, super colorful trees mid-way through the autumn color change, huge snow-capped mountains and the best natural waterfalls I have ever seen. The group of people I met (all Chinese and a music teacher, a nebular weapons specialist, a Canon engineer and a Ford car engineer, in case you were wondering!) were wonderful fun so it turned into a great day. Betweenus we have about 1000 photos to sort through so it'll be a while before some materialize on Facebook/ Wechat (sorry Mum!). Once we reached a lower point, we took a bus back up to the top of the second fork and begun here descent again- this time passing by tiny, fish-filled glacier lakes and local wildlife. I was so overwhelmed at how clean the air was that I couldn't stop taking huge gulps- not great when you're at a high altitude! My description, however Chinglish it sounds, cannot do this place justice - go visit yourselves and see!

Tonight was spent having dinner with some more travelers (yes, yak was on the menu again. I'm quite a fan!) I'm leaving for Chengdu tomorrow morning and unfortunately we all have separate bus times but will be meeting up in Chengdu tomorrow night. I'm excited to be back in some semi-warm place and to drink real (well, Starbucks!) coffee again!


Now I am going to make full use of my electric blanket heated bed and bid you all a happy Monday!

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