Advertisement
Published: October 12th 2007
Edit Blog Post
It's been an interesting two days. I'm in Wenchuan at an internet cafe ($0.30 per hour!!!) waiting for my bus to Songpan.
So I headed to Miyaluo on Wednesday morning. Miyaluo is a small town that a driver at the Sim's recommended to me. He said that the fall foliage there is incomparable to anywhere and that the leaves were already turning colors. The travel agent at Sim's organized a bus ticket for me, recommended a hotel, etc. Also, Miyaluo is North of Chengdu, somewhat on the way to Jiuzhaigou and I'd have to transfer busses. Miyaluo was not included in my LP book, which concerned me a little, and I also searched the web pages (English) and couldn't find much. However, all the Chinese people knew about this place... thinking back it was maybe too aggressive for me to go to a place that I didn't have enough English resources on.
I got to the Chadianzi bus station in Chengdu and immediately scanned the waiting room with other backpack travelers. I sat next to two guys that looked like serious travelers - carrying sleeping bags, walking sticks, wearing boots, NF jackets, etc. I started to talk to them
and they were both going to Miyaluo! Perfect. One guy had maps and a whole entire plan! I asked them how they were going to go from Miyaluo to the scenic valleys, and he suggested that we gather some more people and rent a driver and car together for two days! Perfect, I thought.... I'll tag along! 😊 One guy, mid-30s from Shenzhen, one guy from Chongqing, mid-20s.
Anyway, Miyaluo is less than 300 km away, but it took forever and a day to get there because of the horrible roads and a lot of stops. I was a little confused about the bus system when CL and I rode from Hangzhou to Huangshan, but I have a better idea why the bus stops in the middle of nowhere to pick up passengers on the street. The bus was packed - 5 people were sitting/squatting in the aisle, some people had groceries, including one lady with a big bag of chives. You can imagine how much I loved smelling the mixture of odors. Oh, not to mention people smoking on the bus... They played King Kong on the bus, which I thought was pretty funny. Everyone was really into
it.
So the first part of the ride was pretty... and then as we got closer to Miyaluo, there was a lot of construction everywhere - they were building electric plants along the river and the entire area was covered in grey dust... a lot of the trees were dead. The entire area up to Miyaluo has been destroyed... very ugly. Pretty disappointing...
We get to Miyaluo 7+ hours later, and hear that the a lot of the nearby valleys have been polluted as well, and may not be worth going to. Darn. I realized that spending two days wasn't going to be worth it, so I then ask the driver how do I go forward towards Jiuzhaiguo. He gave me this route: go to Hongyuan, change to Luoergai, then head to Songpan/Jiuzhaiguo. Those are tiny towns, and I'd have to stay overnight somehwere. Ummm? Did the driver really think that I was that capable?
So Shenzhen and Chongqing guy wait for me to get off the bus and we go look for hotels. They too, are really disappointed and say that they will only stay one night and continue to move forward. So we see some
rooms and decide to stay at his hotel - 40 rmb a night. Yes, that's about $5 usd. It was liveable, but not my idea of comfort. The toilet was a squatty and the shower was in the center of the bathroom which drained into the toilet. Gross. There was no heater in the room, but a heating pad was provided. Woohoo!
The three of us find 5 other people who were on the Chengdu bus at the same hotel. We all decide to walk through the one street town together and find a place to eat. We decide to all rent a car the next day and go up the mountains to see if the view is better. Miyaluo is almost 3000 m. I take diamox, just in case.
We eat at spicy hot pot place - which was a little ick too me. Flavors are too spicy and weird for me. I am convinced I ate something bad too because I felt queasy afterwards... but then wasn't sure if it was just the altitude. At night my stomach was churning so I was pretty sure it was something I ate.
Shenzhen guy, Chongqing guy, Shanghai
Miyaluo
Tibetan house guy (mid-60s) and Sichuan girl (mid-20s) coordinate to hire a car up the valley to see if there is anything worth seeing.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.502s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 17; qc: 69; dbt: 0.4098s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb