Working in Guangzhou: Jiuzhaigou

Well the name is hard to spell and even harder to say, Juizhaigou. Something like ‘gee’ ‘zha’ ‘goo’. From a beauty viewpoint, Juizhaigou is the highlight of our trip. From a height viewpoint, it takes your breath away. The airport is at 4200 meters (2.6 mile high), over twice as high as Denver. When you get off the plane you have to stop to get your equilibrium back, the world is spinning a bit. If it hits you to much you can get oxygen at the airport! Near the airport we stopped for a photo opportunity at Snow Ridge. Marsha is with our guide, Henry. Henry is Tibetan. He has four names, one each in: Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese and English. His language skills are self taught.

The majority ethnic group in Juizhaigou is Tibetan. We knew the world changed when we had pigeon and yak meat for lunch. Yak meat tastes like a mixture between beef and mutton. Pigeon tastes like a small duck. Both are good. In this area of China they eat much more potato (grown locally) than rice. Yak and mutton are their main meat proteins. The locals consider it an insult to the ancestors to eat fish.
But we are here for beauty. We were happy when we were told we would go to the five-colored pond. Never did we guess we would have to walk over 3800 meters (2.4 miles) with around a mile increase in altitude to reach it. Our guide, Henry, thought it should take us around 2 hours to reach the top, I don’t know what he was smoking.

We walked and walked and rested and rested. A hundred meters at a time.

The climate is so cold that the rhododendrons are blooming in late May!

Finally the half way mark. Marsha had slightly more trouble with the altitude than I did. Around half way up, we gave in and bought a bottle of oxygen. A couple of whiffs every hundred or two hundred meters made the going easier.

Two thirds of the way up we passed some blue streams. We asked Henry if the top was any better. He said yes, we kept walking.

We had many opportunities to stop and sit with other Chinese tourists on our way to the top. [So many wanted to get a picture with me, I joked with Henry that he should ask for 5 Yuan a picture.]

Three and half-hours later, we reached the top! [Henry told us that only thirty percent of Chinese tourists make it to the top to see the five-colored pond.]

We did reach the top and the scene is as beautiful as we were told. The main attraction is five-color pond over calcium hills. I have only seen similar situations in Pamukkale Turkey and in Yellowstone National Park near the Roosevelt Hotel. In Pamukkale the area is maybe 50 meters wide, here it was hundreds of meters wide. In Yellowstone it is in a hot spring; here it is over cold snow fed waters. Hopefully the pictures show you the beauty. The pictures do not overstate the vividness of the colors. I could not bend down to take pictures because each time I did, I got dizzy. There is not much oxygen at over 3 miles high.

Coming down was much easier; we did it in under an hour.

The next morning we went to Juizhaigou Scenic Park. It is a Chinese national treasure. There is a long paved road in the park, which takes you past several major lake chains, a couple of major waterfalls and another five-color lake. No private vehicles are allowed in the park. For 280 Yuan (35 USD) you get to enter the park and take buses between destinations. This is by far the most expensive park we have visited in China, yet most of the tourists are Chinese nationals. There are a lot of visitors.

We thought this would be an easy day, just get on and off the buses and take beautiful pictures. Well the beautiful picture part was correct. The bus dropped you off, then you walked up or down a lot of stairs and across a significant number of meters to reach the desired site. The park cannot be seen in one day, so we just had a sampling. The five-color lake was not as spectacular as the five-color pond we saw the previous day. It is not in a calcium field. However, the waterfalls are spectacular. The largest one is over a football field high and at least twice as wide. Yes, we took the steps to see it from all levels. The walking was not as hard in this park, no one needed oxygen.

The last morning in Jiuzhaigou we visited a Tibetan monastery. The Buddha’s are made of wood without gold covering. In Tibet, a monk is a student; a llama is a teacher.