The Most Beautiful Place

Let me preface this by saying that I'm now home. I've actually been back in the US for a couple of weeks now, but my stay has been punctured with a trip to Boston right after my return home to get my French visa and a few days in Vermont to spend Christmas with my grandma and see a friend from Middlebury. I've been busy with a million little things trying to wrap up my trip to China and prepare for my trip to Paris. It seems as though a trip doesn't really end until a few weeks after homecoming. There are always loose ends to tie up. I suppose this blog entry (and a few more to come) is a good example of just that.


We got to Jiuzhai Gou in the morning. This is what we saw:

And this:
To anyone who ever goes there, take this advice: ride the bus all the way to the top and hike your way back down. The “hike”, like I’ve said about previous hikes in China, is not a “real” one. The park is massive, so unless you have unlimited time—or an experience such as we had the following day (stay tuned)—you probably shouldn’t spend your time hiking up. Instead, make sure you get in all the sights. It took us two days to see everything we wanted to see…and maybe even a few things we didn’t want to see.

I cannot describe this place to you. None of my words would suffice. The water is “crystal clear.” The sky is a perfect blue. There are rushing waterfalls and majestic mountains. The place sounds like a giant cliché. That’s why I’m relying on pictures to convey this beauty.




We had decided to enjoy the park for two days. Although the guidebooks say that you can get a two-day pass, we figured out upon arrival that this option is unavailable (to the general public) and probably requires some serious connections or impressive persuasion to acquire. So, we decided to sleep in the park. Like I said, this place is called “Nine Village Valley”, so there are many places to stay. Apparently, there were villages of Tibetan people living in paradise before the government swooped in and decided to claim this land as a national treasure. They were good enough to not kick the people out, though. So, tourists who go to Nine Village Valley not only see some of the Mother Nature’s finest, but also gain a drop of insight on the Tibetan way of life. And what do some of the Tibetans do now that their home is filled with up to 20,000 tourists a day? They rent rooms! So, Amy booked us one. We decided to drop our stuff off after lunch so as to lighten the load and make the afternoon a little more enjoyable.

The place we stayed, consistent with other Tibetan dwellings, was painted with fluorescent hues. The outside was decorated with countless Tibetan prayer flags.

Having lightened our load, we continued on our journey, taking the bus back up to hike back down. The problem was the hike was so pleasant and the scenery so breathtaking that we just kept walking, right past our village and towards the entrance. We didn't know exactly where we were until we approached one of the other villages, asked around, and consulted a few maps. After a while, we realized that we were a several hour hike uphill just 45 minutes before we had to be back for dinner. Uh oh.

Well, only one thing to be done: take the bus back up.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention something.... what we were planning to do was not exactly allowed. Yeah, that tidbit of information was left out when Amy was explaining the plan to me. Its not as though staying in the park overnight was "illegal" per se, just that the park officials do not allow it. They know it occurs, of course, but they do not permit it. So, we flag down a bus to go up during late afternoon when all of the tourists are going down. We're sort of going against the grain here. Tired and a little annoyed for a few reasons (most of which were petty) I got on the bus silently and remained tacit for the duration of the bus ride. Amy and Tim, the to "Chinese looking" tourists were chatting with the tour guide on the bus. Their Chinese was pretty good. However, as the conversation began to turn and lead in the uncomfortable direction of why we were going up, their Chinese proficiency seemed to decline rapidly. There were lots of "um"s, blank stares, and "sorry...i didn't really get that"s. The tour guide looked over at me, studied me carefully, and when she saw no hint of comprehension from my blank staring eyes, she seemed to give up on "the clueless white girl". Racial profiling at its best.

Eventually Amy and Tim managed to shake off the persistent tour guide, and when we were dropped off we hurried toward the cover of the brightly colored houses and giant prayer flags. We munched on some food, stared at the silver moon, and went to bed early, ready for our second day of paradise.