SICHUAN trip day 7! pandas and chengdu!

October 4, 2007
Today we got up early to leave the hotel and head back towards the city where there would be western toilets and nice rooms haha. Before heading back we drove to Mt. Ba Lang to rest a bit which it is 13,000 feet high and that was the highest we went on our trip. We got out to take pictures and use the bathroom and to buy random food on a stick as usual. It was kinda cold so we didn't say for too long. After that we got back on the most dangerous road and for another 20 hours. After many hours and another disappointing meal we got to the highlight of the trip, the "China Giant Panda Garden" in Wolong, China which has 71% of the worlds panda population. I got lots of pictures of them, but you could actually hold a baby one for a few seconds and take pictures if you payed something like 50 or 100 dollars so I passed. They didn't give us to much time there because we had to head back to Chengdu to check into the hotel. We all loaded back into the bus and checked into our realllllllly nice hotel and went to sleep because were are tired from all the traveling.

Day 5 Tibetan Jiaju village and lots and lots of high altitude driving on even worse roads (if thats possible)

The first picture is a random bathroom on the side of the road, the second is of normal road conditions for most of the trip, the third is a picture of the road and scenery from the bus, and the last is the yak butter milk tea

October 2, 2007
Today we get up and drive up the mountain to Jiaju Tibetan village which is basically just a small tibetan town that has been turned into a tourist attraction, but its still fun. We went to a house and looked around it and saw how the traditional houses are. Then after a bit of looking around they made us their traditional yak butter milk tea which tasted a bit like warm skim milk with barley and a lot of salt... yum... and they also gave us some little barley cakes to go with it. We didn't stay for very long though because we had to get a move on to Siguniang Moutains (Mt. Four Sisters) which was high up and far away. We left the village and headed to a Tibetan hotel for lunch which was ok but still not very spicy. It was fun at the end though because all the servers came in and sang and danced for us. After that we headed off our our trip of more and more and more terrible roads of getting stuck in the mud and having to stop and help other cars out of the mud so we can get by ect. ect. We also passed through so many small villages that looked like they may have never even seen a foreigner before.

I think the whole trip was about 9 hours and not one minute of it was on a paved road or anything so it was a nice 9 ours of crazy rocking back and forth on the bus. It was so bad you couldn't even do anything but talk or listen to music and deal with it. I heard form someone on the trip too that this was the most dangerous road in the world and I'm not surprised from how it looked from all the falling rocks and everything. The bridges too looked scary, like they would fall and collapse if we drove over them but they seemed to hold just fine.

After a long long long long time we got to our village which I think was about 11,000 feet above sea level and checked into our Tibetan hotel for 2 nights. It was a really tiny town and nothing really to do except hang out at the hotel cuz it was so late. Also it was realllllllly cold at night that high up and it was actually a little hard to breath cuz everything was a walk uphill. Also the hotel didn't have heat which was fun. And they had "western style toilets" which was basically a western toilet over a hole... so it didn't really work, but I wont get into that. Also the shower and the toilet leaked on the floor because the shower was kinda a stall with a floor but the drain in the shower just opened to the floor and kinda flooded the bathroom cuz the drain was on the other side... nice. Also you couldn't walk barefoot in the room because you would probably step on something and get a disease because they don't vacuum or clean. So the first night we just went to sleep because we were all tired from the rough trip and to get up early to go hiking on the mountains.
PICTURES!!!! click here, same as day 4 pictures, tibetan village, and danba
Pictures of Tibetan village and trip on the way to siguniang mountains and the mountains

Day 4 Heading to Danba Tibetan Town

the first picture is of the bridge that Mao crossed in Luding (but we had no time to go on it :o() and the second is infront of my hotel at Danba, and the third is a large portion of our dinner that was too 麻 for us to handle.


the October 1, 2007
On this day we got to sleep in a little and then drive to Danba, it was a little bit uneventful since it was mostly driving all day. Lots of bad roads and driving through small towns and "唱山歌". We stopped in a small town called Luding to get some snacks and water since where we were going next they wouldn't have much of that kinda stuff. I guess Mao and his army crossed a chain bridge in this city sometime during their civil war. We only got to spend a half hour there though because we had to get to a tunnel ( i think they said it was the longest in asia?) before it switched direction ( they make it one way during holidays and switch direction for long times) or else we would have to wait like 4 or 5 hours and would miss something else we were doing. Before we went in the tunnel we stopped yet again to take more pictures, but they also had a lot of vendors who were selling fruit and nuts and things and they had some dried kiwis which were really good. Then we went through the tunnel and came out the other side into the mostly Tibetan area of Sichuan. Mostly this whole time I got lots of scenery shots. We stopped a few more times to get pictures and look at road vendors and then drove down lots more bumpy roads and through more small towns and maybe got stuck in the mud a few times.

We then got to Danba and checked in our hotel that wasn't thaaaaat bad but once again the toilet acted as the drain for our shower, which was also not warm water, but actually boiling and it would switch between boiling and freezing almost every few seconds. We only stayed here for one night though. We had free time in Danba so we went down to the shopping area naturally and went shopping. I ending up buying a nice chinese chess set. Its made of out real (haha yeah right) leather as the guy says, and each of the pieces is also made from leather and the board and the case and its blue. I think I paid about 8 or 9 dollars for it so not too bad. I also bought one of the Tibetan spinners that has the sutra inside that I really wanted. We then went back to the hotel and hung out a bit before going to dinner. We went to some random place on the side of the road and we wanted to eat outside so they brought a huge table from inside and put it outside for us. I think there were about 10 of us total. We got a bunch of dishes like normal but they were 麻麻麻麻麻麻麻 to the extreme. I couldn't even eat the mapodoufu or the fish, even though I didn't really want to. The eggplant was good though (as usual). All in all it was a great dinner and fun being out with everyone. Then after that we headed to the internet cafe for 20 minutes only cuz they were gonna lock us out of the hotel and I manged to check my e-mail even though it took all 20 minutes to load. We made it back just in time and then played charades for a while until we got yelled at for being too loud because you can hear EVERYTHING even if its a whisper through the walls in that place. Then after that I had a boiling/freezing shower and went to sleep to get up in the morning early to check out and head to the Jiaju Tibetan Village with the Tibetan families. There are pictures below to see!

here are pictures!!!!!!!