The mountains and cold weather!

September 3 2008
I grabbed a cab around 720 and met Rick, drove to the bus station up north and bought our tickets. The bus was nice and uncrowded so I swiftly drifted off to sleep, aided by my ipod. I woke up as the road became rough, about two and a half hours outside Chengdu. We had hit the earthquake zone. We were traveling northeast and took the eastern way around the epicenter of the earthquake. The roads were torn up, hit by rock slides, bridges knocked out and temporary ones caused severe bottlenecks. We made it to Pingwu in five and a half hours, passing tons of blue-roofed temporary housing. Pingwu lies in a valley in the Minshan mountains, on the way to Wanglang and Juizhaigou. The Minshan mountains form a bridge between the Tibetan plateau and the Sichuan basin.

Once we arrived, we made contact with the local office for the reserve and then ate some lunch. We eventually found a hotel and dropped off our bags and it was too late to visit the temple so we decided to scout out a hike. We climbed up a ramp through the forest on the hill behind our hotel and made our way to a small temple, surrounded by refugee housing. We found another trail from there, a staircase climbing the ridge. Five pagodas stood along the way and after about an hour of climbing up the hill we reached an electricity tower. An old man came up with us, who lived on the hill among his fields. I'll post a picture of the terraces in the hill. Also, a guy selling magazines marched up with us, talking with Rick a lot. He also thought I looked like an immigrant because I'm tan.

At the top, the old man left us and we talked with another old guy leading his bull. We walked down the mountain road and asked the magazine-seller to come have dinner with us but he refused. We got dinner at a Hui/Sichuan place and then went back to the hotel room to sleep. Pingwu is a city of 20,000 people and tons of refugee housing. They're the buildings with the blue roofs. The air was cleaner and cooler (slightly) but not too much higher than Chengdu.

Saturday we woke early and ate baozi (dumplings) and walked around to the temple (pictures posted). We caught a bread car (a van) to a Baima village on the way to Wanglang. The Baima are a minority subgroup of Tibetans. They are known for bright dress and have recently tried to develop tourism in the region but the earthquake has been terrible for them. We waited in the village for twenty minutes trying to hitch a ride, then decided to start walking. We walked along the road for 45 minutes before hitting a dam and climbing up the hillside. We saw a car and hailed it, got a ride all the way to the reserve compound, a little under two hours more in the car. We rode along an artificial lake in the mountains, created by the dam in 2003. It had beautiful green water, lying in the lee of the green, forest-clad hills. Rick and I were very glad we caught a ride.

On arriving, we found the park empty and the employees largely unhelpful: no nature guide, no advance notice we were coming, etc. So it seemed there was a disconnect in communication between the office in Pingwu and the park employees. Oh well. We hiked a short eco-trail and came back to our room.

Wanglang is interesting in that it was created in 1965 as a nature reserve, making it one of the oldest in China. Wanglang sits between Juizhaigou and Huanglong, both National Parks and UNESCO World Heritage sites. They are far more popular tourist destinations than Wanglang and the three parks sit on the spine of the Minshan mountains in a unique eco-system in the world.

WWF helps provide some of the funding and surely had an influence in the eco-trails. Unlike most nature trails in China, an eco-trail is made of wood, not concrete, and when trees fall over the path, they are left to lie there and decompose. This is pretty cool for the ecosystem but a bit of a pain when having to crawl under fallen trunks. The park was wet from days of rain but a lot cooler, about 65 in the forest during the day. The trees are mixed-conifer forest in the valley, as it was partially logged earlier this century. The forest felt a lot like the Pacific Northwest.

We ate a quiet dinner with the employees, no other guests, played some cards and went to bed early, reading and then sleeping for a long time in the quiet, cold mountain air. Our room was awesome, 60RMB per night, with a great bathroom (better than in our apartments in Chengdu), tasteful wood furniture, separate bedrooms and electric blankets on the beds. The beds were also super comfortable.

On Sunday we ate lunch, then got a ride to the end of the valley, where we saw the craggy mountains, hiked a couple trails and then walked about 10 km along the road back to the compound. It was a tiring afternoon and we were glad to eat a good hot meal. We saw a vole, horses (the Baima have grazing rights in the park), a lot of birds and a field-mouse. The forest at the end of the valley is virgin forest. Most of the tall conifers are over four hundred years old. We had dinner back at the lodge, played some cards and saw the stars, then slept like the dead.

Monday we ate lunch then paid a guy to drive us past the Baima villages and to a main road. We hitched a ride in a cabbage truck back to Pingwu. It took about 2 hours and I read the whole way, following the same river that ran as a stream through Wanglang. In Pingwu we walked around a while, ate some corn with some local farmers and chatted with them, mainly about boxing, then at dinner and got a massage. After that, to bed in an awful hotel room (but only 30 RMB for the night).

We grabbed the bus yesterday, overcrowded and lots of Chinese puking both on and off the bus. We got back to Chengdu around 2, then cabbed home and played soccer at 530. My electricity was off in the building, so I went over to Alex's before soccer. We beat the Chinese pretty well and had a couple French guys play for the first time. We grabbed a beer at the Leg and Whistle afterward and had pasta from next door (not bad), then I went over to Alex's after a shower and watched True Romance.

This morning I got up and took the bus to the university to get my books and schedule. It went well, I met another American who will be in my class and then walked back towards home. It'll take about 20-25 minutes on the bus and 30 if I walk so I'll be looking into buying a bike soon. I grabbed a coffee and chatted with Terry at the Coffee Beanery, then came home. I watched Hot Rod, which was pretty funny, then got my work schedule: 6 to 9 pm, Monday thru Friday at Web. So it'll be rough but I'll make enough money and stay on a serious schedule during the week. Unfortunately, no more Tuesday soccer for me but I'll still have Saturdays. I guess you've gotta work sometimes. More updates as things progress, but I'm excited for a week with structure. Maturity.