Day 2- Chengdu to Hailuogou

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Geo: 32.2, 106.07

Hello and welcome to my to my first (and possibly last!) attempt at blogging. 

I decided it would be good if I actually tried to keep a record of this trip so that people (and myself!) believe that its happened!

So today was day 2: Chengdu to Hailuogou (a glacial national park) in Sichuan province. 

The day started easily enough- the usual sitting in a bus station not really knowing where / when your bus leaves, followed by finding people going to the same place and pretty much stalking them to make sure you're in the right place before finally having the usual battle to claim your ticketed seat on the bus. 

This bus journey was going to be a long one - about 8 hours in total. There's something pretty terrifying about traveling through the mountains on a half made road, tyres spinning as the driver tries to over-take cement trucks on blind bends with a steep drop down a gorge into a river on one side. Still the absolutely stunning snow-capped mountain range and tiny traditional villages did a little to calm my fears. This was also helped by the guy sitting next to me speaking some of the best English i've ever heard a non-native speaker speak - it was my lucky day! After he asked to read my book (trashy romance- he wasn't too impressed and any pretense at being cultured I could have made fast disappeared!), he then proceeded to tell me that he was an architect moving to this region to spend 2 months building bridges/roads and houses all in the name of development. He had one tiny backpack and said that there would be no tv/computers, only a phone for company- it led me to wonder how UK people would cope with this kind of life. Not very well I fear. 

Arriving at this tiny mountain township where it seems few foreigners make it to, I was pounced on by heaps of people wanting to offer me a room for the night. Thankfully I was saved by a Chinese girl also traveling alone who wanted to room with me. She seemed nice and I was happy for someone to be lost with. After wondering into few hotels (no hostels here!) that all said they could not take foreigners I began to think I was in for a night on the street. Eventually we found a nice hotel overlooking the mountains inside of the park and they've offered to take us up to see the sun rise and to organize all of our tickets/bus travel - I love China! A quick walk through this town (a minority village to be PC) and we stumble upon a government worker from Beijing who spoke perfect English - I was very relieved at this point, i'd spoken solely in Chinese for a long time as the girl speaks almost no English! He took us to dinner and introduced me to some NGOs in the area- watch this space!   

Tomorrow I will be walking on a glacier! Woop! 

Pictures to come once I figure out how to upload some!

Over and Out/再见！

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