Journey to the Motherland part 5 - Jiuzhaigou

Jiuzhaigou (and HuangLong) 19 July to 22 July


Ok after a rather lengthy hiatus from writing about my China trip.. i am back to write on one of my favourite parts of the trip, Jiuzaigou. The name directly translated refers to the nine village valley, so named after the nine different tibetian tribes that are native to the area.

As with many locations in china, this place is rather inaccessible and requires a decent amount of traveling to get to the place. From Chengdu, if i remember correctly, it takes about 9 hours one way to get to the place... and this is where i got my first taste of 'extreme driving' in china.

You see, the roads we were traveling on were interwining through mountain passes and they only had two lane, one for both directions. With Jiuzaigou gaining popularity in china, traffic on this road can get pretty crowded. At times when both directions are pilled up with tour buses going at speeds of around 70 km per hour, it gets pretty nerve racking..



But anyway, after some hair raising moments, we managed to stop for a toilet break and opporuntistic chinese business men, herded some wild yaks and brought to the rest point in hopes of making some quick moolah for picture opportunites..



Being cheap, i pretended to film surrounding mountains and lakes while catching white yaks in action. Almost got caught by the man a couple of times. haha.


So back on the road again... onwards to jiuzhaigou when our bus decided to break down on us. Having issues with its brakes... half the bus was filled with smoke and the brakes were dangerously close to snapping... So we had to take break and stop along the road...

It was bloody dangerously with a stalled vehicle on the road with fast buses turning around the curb.. man i tell you it was scary watching the bus horning and flying by us.. Because our lane was occupied.. the buses had to drive in the lane with the opposite direction to get pass us... and the thing is.. most buses did not bloody slow down!!! There were a couple of times, the buses on both directions were face to face on the same lane.... barely missing each other on the overtake.... i mean what the hell?? i wonder how this people get by each without having a freaking heart attack...



spraying water on the brakes... their form of vehicular repair.



It is at moments like these that creative endeavour come through... when we are bored... stuck in the middle of nowhere with plenty of time... you will never believe the stuff we do to entertain ourselves. So we had bought some hats from street vendors.. and interestingly enough they were shaped like cowboy hats.. So in the middle of mountains with cowboy hats, cameras... and a couple of bored boys.. what do we do??? Recreate the poster for brokeback mountain.

First take, i smiled too much.. not enough melacholy




Second take .. more sadness.. and a nice shot of the mountain behind us.



Finally we got on the road again and arrived at this small town named Song Pan to rest for the night before driving again the next day. Its a nice little town overcrowded with tourist accomodations, but nevertheless still charming with a small stream flowing through it and lush green mountains surrounding its immediate vicinity. Having such a picturesque environment, its only natural that we broke into some hill songs.....



So the next day, the bus broke down a couple more times.. and then we finally arrived at our destination... Oh ya i forgot to say that for once in my life i was defeated! For all the adventurous foods i have tried in my years of eating and traveling... i finally had a stomache... it was the bbq food on sticks that i ate after it got cold and was left out side for quite a while.... man.. i have never had such a bad stomache before.... its like.. its like... oh darn i hate to say this but.. its like freaking peeing from your ass... you have any idea how bad it feels to get up in the middle of the night for like 7-8 times, going to the toilet and only having liquid gush right out from your bottom? ..... too much information i know.. but i just had to share the joy i had those few days...

So.. anyway, back to the story... since i had a case of wonky bowels.. the first thing i did when i got to the place was to scope out for the bathroom.... so i went in and did my routine again... thats when i saw the following picture....
















I was like... why the hell would i want to do something like that to myself.. then i realised.......... its the freaking bathroom for the HANDICAPPED..................

Needless to say i was stunned for a moment and i broke out laughing.. as wrong as that action is... I mean deformity and handicapped... boy.. they sure have some queer sense of humour... these chinese toilet label scripting people.

But anyway... we finally got in.. and i found what i came to this place for...







isn't it just amazing? wow.. i seriously could not believe my eyes... ok.. you can hear my introduction to the place, five color lake, in the video.



Of course on the way, we just had to have take 3 of brokeback mountain.




So we went further down the reserve and saw this turquoise waters.. Panda Lake... i tell you.. every moment there was unbelieveable .... i really never knew waters can be this colour.






After the Panda lake, we walked down further to see more of this magical place... along the way we saw this amazing waterfall... the water that is flowing down in this waterfall is the same water from the Panda Lake.. funny huh.. same water.. but totally different and beautiful form... wonders of nature...i say




Then we saw the Peacock Lake...



Heaven on earth indeed...






Look at the fallen trees in the water... wow..



then next we walk further down to the Pearl Shore .... and saw a much more powerful and inspiring sight..



really makes me think about the wonders of nature.





Surrounded by such inspiring views.... and i just take to do it again... this time with Ben..




heck we even made an movie trailer for Brokeback... i wonder if i will get noticed with this... haha




after the waterfall.. we came to this bridge...



incredible sights ... i kept saying to myself..



I really can't say much more about this place... except that it was absolutely incredible.. and i am glad to have seen it with my own eyes once in this life.




After this we went to HuangLong.. but i must say it was rather disappointing.. coupled with my bad case of crazy bowel movement... i did not take pictures... so i rather not blog about it... But neverthelss what an amazing experience.. you have the chance and time.. go there! avoid the crowds.. if that possible.. and you will have such an involved experience.

The next travelog.. will finally be Tibet!! :)

The reason why i am not blogging about china..

Been playing around with filming and editing videos.. so this is what i have. Its a video for my student council recruitment drive. Let me know what you think so i can improve. Esp rong!!

Journey to the Motherland part 4 - Chengdu

Chengdu 17 July to 19 July

Chengdu, 'tian fu zi guo' meaning a land in abundance. Surrounded by a ready water supply, fertile flat lands and natural geographical defenses, this city has been a popular place for kingdoms to establish their power base. It was made the capital of the Shu kingdom by Liu Bei (on the advice of Zhuge Liang) and it was also the last city held by the Kuomingtang in mainland china.




Fast forward a couple of centuries ahead, this has become a thriving city. When we first arrived, we had a chat with the taxi driver and found that this is the place to be. You know people here party every single day... there is no concept of an weekend for them. They go partying pretty much every night.. the crowds at a club on a tuesday night would be pretty much similiar to a saturday night... and when i asked him about food...mmmmmmmmmm.. man... i knew i was in for a GOOD time.

So like everyone, i had some preconceived notions about Chengdu before i went, i knew it would be developed but i had no idea.... it was so developed.. going into the city.. the roads were huge... flanked by tall sky scrapers.... if people were speaking english and had blonde hair.. you would think you were in manhattan (hahah sorry my americano friends... cheap jibe.. haha) The people are trendy.. very up to date clothing... totally not that china you had in mind where the people wore thick framed glasses with heavily gelled hair, a fully buttoned short sleeve shirt and pleated pants pulled up to the ribcage level. (ok maybe not everyone has that impression... haha) But anyway, this was comparable to Singapore or Hongkong... and the women... oh man.. they are something else.. it is no wonder that one of the top things chengdu is famous for is its woman.... hhmm.... hahaa. its true you can ask tanwee... they are so pretty!! anyway... videos speaks much convincing than my words... ( NO~!! i did not take videos of woman la!! i only take video of the city.. you perverts... haha)




This is tanwee again with KFC, that guy had the nerve to make me go eat KFC in china when i could have easily gone to somewhere else to eat local food at 1/10 of the price!!!! haha no la joking.. it was alright.. having air conditioning in the hot chengdu weather.



Anyway, later in the day i got my wish and we headed for some authentic chengdu local delights... and clifton being clifton.. i decided to push the envelope and order the two spiciest things on the menu. See that green thing... its all green chilis (hot peppers for my americano firneds) and that red thing surrounding the noodles.. yup that all hot chili oil..... oooooo



ok a video to allow to share this culinary event with me!!




After that lunch.. we went to get some outdoor gear for our hike/hitchhike/local bus/horse ride to everest. However, barely a few hours later being the gluttons we were or i am... , we proceeded to meet Benjamin Yeo ( my great buddy who helped us a lot in our china trip and even got us accomodations!!) and his colleagues for ma la hot pot. Translated it means numbing spicy hot pot.... mmmmmmmmm..... goood....

Before we went to the restaurant for my long anticipated ma la hotpot... we found this street with ancient architecture pretty interesting i thought, until my friend told me that it was not original but instead reconctructed to look like the original.. thats when i felt 'TAIR LAM PAR" (i will not go into the literal translation but that means felt stunned and disappointed)




Ben came a lil late but its ok as a feast awaited me... and finally i present to you ma la hot pot!!




After the meal, just when i thought it could not get any better... we decided to go get a massage. Ah the ultimate indulgence in life... good food.. followed by a massage... but i really did not expect what was to come. I had expected a nice thai massage and followed by feelings of relaxation and comfort... haha what was the case in the first part of the massage session.




Then.... we decided to do 'gua sar' which is an extension of the traditional chinese medicine method of cupping. Cupping is when you use a round glass countainer and then you use a flame just above the skin and you quickly remove the flame and cup the glass container above it. This creates a sucking action that sucks your flesh into the container forming a hump shape. Thats why you see people walking around in chengdu with circular mounds of blue-black colour on their back. According to chinese medicine, this is supposed to get rid of the 'feng' or wind in your body.. helping to balance your system and prevent rheumatism or arthritis. It looks like this



Sounds and looks painful? well normally, people just have lots of cups sucking the 'feng' in them in stationary positions... but for our 'gua sar' it just involves one cup and MOVING THE CUP up and down your back.. while it is sucking... and when there is not enough suction.. the masseuse lights up a flame again and makes more suction. Sounds painful enough? ok this is the result.
















Mine was not as bad as tanwee's but... i had something similiar too... despite all of these i must admit.. i felt better .. sort of in a body now balanced kinda of way... or maybe its just placebo.. hhmm..


Seems like we didn't do anything but eat in Chengdu... what about all the historical places... what about all the important cultural locations to visit... well... eerrmmm we basically just said 'F*** it" and we just chilled for three days doing nothing but eat sleep enjoy life and recover from the hectic program we had in hongkong.

The next day, we went shopping around for supplies for tibet as we were afraid that there would not be supplies to purchase there as to its inaccesibility and backwardness. (this notion later turned out to be completely wrong the minute we arrived in Lhasa)Anyway, we were in the supermarket and we saw these... which i think is interesting enough to share with you.




To recover from the massage, introduce us to local culture and stop the hunger pangs brought on by the food you saw earlier... mmmmmm....Ben took us another place to eat.. local food! YooHoo! Its called Mapo tofu, the dish gain fame when the emperor of china then decided to visit the common people in disguise. The emperor stayed at this commoner's place and the host didn't have anything to offer him. So the host took some leftovers and fried it with some tofu. The emperor liked it so much that when he returned from his disguised visiting of the commoners, he order his imperial chefs to cook that dish for him. Ma Po in chinese actually mean Aunt Ma, so the dish was named after this person. Cool huh.. haha a lil bit of food trivial for you. :)





The center plate is rabbit.. the texture is like chicken but it has a gamey but light taste to it. and Ben will introduce the rest.




and of course at the end of that meal.. we had to go for some dessert.... smooth steamed milk and guilingao (the black one.. which is actually made from boiling turltes... ha.. imagine that we eat turltes for dessert..mmmmm... yummy)




Ok with all that food and relaxing... eermm sort of..... behind us... Ben will join us and now together we head towards Jiuzhaigou ... the magical place of natural beauty... aahh.. so nice... Alright, pictures and videos in the next installation. :)

This one cannot wait..

i know i am supposed to be writing about Chengdu. But i saw this video and it is absolutely hilarous. Performed by Hossan Leong and written by Edmund Tan.

Kudos to Mr Brown and saltwetfish.net for great work in production! Thanks fellow singaporeans!

See the video here