Paradise lost (and found)

Google “Jiuzhaigou” and you get hundreds and hundreds of pictures of sky-scraping mountains reflected in the clearest of petrol-blue waters, fallen tree trunks ossified in the shallow lakes, and, even in a photo, you get the feeling of cool, fresh air in your lungs. That’s why most visitors to China make time for the trip to this national park in the north of Sichuan province either the easy way – by air – or the more interesting way – by winding mountain road in a bus that’s probably seen better days.

In Chinese, “jiuzhaigou” means “nine village valley”. Those villages are Tibetan and in the buildings you see, the language you hear, the songs and dances you watch, the culture is distinctly different to anywhere else in China. So it’s not only western tourists who come by the bus and plane load; it seems like every single person in The People’s Republic makes a beeline for this tranquil, natural paradise whenever there’s a public holiday.

The pictures on Google don’t lie. The “Y” shaped valley is home to the most amazing scenery. Starting at the foot of the “Y”, you pass a string of small lakes including Bonsai Shoals, Reed Lake, Double Dragon Lake and Lying Dragon Lake. The water, clear to the very bed of each lake, is unlike anything else you’ll see in China. But this is the appetiser. Continue on to the small Shuzheng Falls then Rhinoceros Lake and the larger Nuorilang Falls and the feast really begins.

At the split of the “Y” the mountains close-in and the combination of hills and trees, water and blue skies becomes that much more intense. The left route ends at the aptly named Long Lake but the star of the show here is Five Coloured Pool. With a sheer backdrop of conifer trees painted in a palette of a million greens which reaches to the clouds, the different depths of this modestly sized lake – along with the chemical properties of the bedrock – give the water jewel-like properties displaying translucent colours you never even knew existed.

The trouble with something so beautiful is that everyone, naturally, wants to see it. So it’s all but impossible to add to Google’s 83,000 Five Coloured Pool images without a bobbing head or two in the shot. It’s hard to even enjoy the serenity of the place without being jostled this way and that by the swirling crowds around you.

The volume of people wanting to visit Jiuzhaigou presents serious problems of management to the authorities. In an effort to preserve the sanctity of the park while offering the chance to visit to as many people as possible, they have to lay down rules. More specifically, they have had to lay down boardwalks to channel the flow of people and discourage them from charging every which way and damaging the very jewel they came to see. Understandable, then, but I couldn’t help feeling it was a shame to be in such a veritable walker’s paradise but be constrained to these narrow walkways. It felt a little like traipsing the aisles of a supermarket at times.

So, despite the surroundings, it’s difficult to feel the rawness or freshness of nature here. As for solitude, forget it. Swarms of visitors gather at the foot of the valley waiting for buses to take them up stream. The buses come and everyone pushes forward in an almighty and undignified scrum of feral humanity. Tempers flared while I was there, people really got hurt. Ugly. Very ugly. We were then dumped short of the Tourist Centre and funnelled along a narrow path next to the lower lakes where we were literally pushed along by the force of the crowd and quite unable to stop to even take a snap of bobbing heads with a glimpse of the lake in the background.

The courtesy buses ferry punters up and down the valleys all day long. You can jump on or off wherever you like. Some people methodically visit each lake in turn, tick that box and jump on the next bus but that seems to miss the point of being out in the great outdoors to me. Determined to walk a little and hopeful of outrunning the herd, I headed to the top of the right hand fork, where the valley gives way to forest, before making my way back on foot.

It was a decent plan. Sure, the boardwalk was still the only route you could take but it was no longer necessary to walk the lakes in crocodile fashion. The path winds through the trees threading the lakes together: first, Grass Lake which is more like a watery meadow and then Swan Lake whose swans must have migrated when I was there. There’s a long stretch after that to the next string of lakes and most people take a bus to join up the dots. The path, though, continues if you choose to take it, leading you on a good hour’s hike through the trees which occasionally takes in a tumbling mountain stream meandering through the forest.

And not a soul about.

Looking up the sides of the valley as I came out of the woods, the leaves on the trees at the lower levels were changing from their summer greens to autumnal yellows, oranges, reds. With the different colours, it’s as though you are watching autumn happen in front of your eyes. A million shades at once look back to summer and forward to winter, all bathed in a benevolent sunshine. The first leaves, yellow tinged with brown, have fallen on the path or rest on the glassy water like counters. Moving further down the valley, the colours change imperceptibly again and the number of people you encounter starts to increase too.

Some of the most popular and memorable lakes come next. The waters of Arrow Bamboo Lake cascade down Arrow Bamboo Falls toward Panda Lake and on to Peacock Riverbed whose deposits of calcium spread beneath the lens of the water surface like a fabulous fan of tail-feathers.

You leave the national park past several of the valley’s eponymous villages which, truth be told, are not much more than Tibetan themed gift shops selling the same kind of kitsch ‘n’ tat that people buy, take home and sling to the back of some cupboard or other never to be seen again.

It’s the same outside the gates of the park. Tourists think that a Tibetan ‘homestay’ may give then some higher cultural experience but, in reality, a bunch of awkward westerners making small-talk over a stove with a steaming kettle of Tibetan tea in a local’s home which has been hastily re-worked to include rudimentary guest rooms is hardly my idea of getting closer to a culture.

Happily, in my case, the homestay managed to double-book my room the next day so I was forced to change plans and move on. So at eight o’clock the next morning I stood at the roadside, my breath steaming as I braced myself against the mountain chill, waiting for a bus to Songpan.

I had no ticket for the bus. I’d been told it would come at 8.30 and that I could just flag it down. 8.30 came and went but something told me to just go with the flow. An old man joined me at the roadside and, with a mixture of my pidgin Chinese and his animated gestures, he assured me the bus would indeed come. And, of course, it did.

No luxury coach this, the bus was full of locals – workers, families – and a couple of hippy backpackers squeezed in on the back seats. The driver gestured toward the metal wheel arch by the front door which was my seat for the next couple of hours. The guy already sitting there shuffled up a little and offered me a cigarette. We were off.

The road climbed through the mountains, switching this way and that, and the temperature plunged whenever we lost sight of the sun. Then we would turn a corner and come upon a wide, flat plain surrounded by brooding peaks topped with snow and the sun would flick back on filling the bus with a chilly warmth. The mountain wind seeping through the gaps in the rattling windows was so fresh you could taste it.

It took a couple of hours to reach Songpan. The main street stretches the length of the town and threads itself through the massive old stone gates of the original settlement. Although work was going on downtown to modernise – pedestrian areas, newly built shop units and the like – it remains a town largely untouched by out-and-out tourist development. Tatty tumbledown stores line the street from the bus station selling everyday necessities, not tourist tat. Yak meat butchers and restaurants predominate. Hardware and general stores come next, again, set up for local trade: damn! not a souvenir cigarette lighter or Songpan key-ring to be had anywhere.

Two hills tower above the town on each side. Both are good options for a hike, one with a monastery to head for, the other with nothing but a few sheep and cattle munching on its green grass. There’s no clear path, of course, but after a while you can pick up the odd trail here and there. Very soon I found myself high above Songpan and could make out the fortified walls of the original garrison town from which the new one spills out. Pretty Tibetan roofs are jostled and bullied by the blue tin roofs of the latest, more utilitarian buildings. Climbing higher, the temperature dropped but the sun was blazing from a perfect blue sky smudged with perfect white clouds. Not the fittest walker in the world, I’d stop for regular breathers, take a deep breath and just smile at the simple beauty of it all.

Toward the top there was a sheepfold or something, I couldn’t quite make it out. But as I approached, a big dog on a small leash leapt up from lying down and barked furiously. “Okay,” I thought, “bad idea” and so turned and started walking away. There was plenty of hill for both of us. Then, before I could quite make out what the sound was behind me – a slobbery panting – another huge, black and brown dog clamped his jaws around my right calf. The blood was flowing immediately. The pain kind of dull. Something told me not to run, be calm. So in a rather absurdly British way I tried to walk on like nothing had happened, mumbling Be calm to myself and, not really daring to look around, hoping with every fibre that the monstrous animal wasn’t still following me.

Amazingly, it worked. The pain came on, the blood was going into my boot but I kept walking. Calmly.

Once clear, I reflected on how sublimely happy I’d been on the way up and how nothing had really changed. The grassy hill and the scraggy bushes, the beaming sun and pure air, the feeling of freedom and being far away from the everyday were all still there, all still mine. Wild-dog bite or not, it didn’t matter. This was how I prefer to enjoy nature.

Untamed.



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