Once upon a time (how all good stories should start) there were four beautiful, young, adventurous girls who set out to explore the deep forests of the Sichuan province of China. They were excited but little did they know that the adventures that awaited them would be life changing and unforgettable, an experience beyond their imaginations.....
So we left Tuesday September 30th, the day before the National Chinese Holiday. Just for the record, if you ever plan to travel in China...DON'T DO IT THE FIRST WEEK OF OCTOBER. October 1st is their National Holiday celebrating Mao and Communism and stuff and EVERYONE travels during that week. Seriously the traffic was horrible, we almost missed our flight because traffic was so bad even though we left early. But turns out our flight was delayed about an hour anyways...
We got to the airport in Chengdu sometime after midnight. We had to wait for Carina because she had a separate flight after us, and then trying to find her was really hard when you don't really have cell phones to use. But then I remembered how she said she was going to come out of terminal 2 and we were at terminal 1 so we ran over there and some nice Chinese girls were with her which was nice. So then we had to get a taxi to our hostel and the line for the taxi at 3am was really long...but we kind of went down and went over the little "fence" to get a taxi haha.
We stayed at the Flipflop Backpackers Hostel in Chengdu. It was an awesome hostel, we were sad we only planned to stay a night before leaving. Little did we know we would be back there in a few days to sleep in their lobby for free...
October 1st- Chinese National Day
We left our hostel early to go to the bus station. We planned to take a bus from Chengdu to a small town called Leshan (about 2-3 hours away) to see the Giant Buddah. On our way to the bus station we saw some ladies in a park who were doing some kung fu with fans...just like the kung fu we are learning in chinese class! Except they are actually good. And the best part? The music they were planning is a song we know from our school where we teach. Every day the kids have outside where they do dances to music and this was one of the songs we dance to! And it was one of my favorites so it just made me really happy to see them doing kung fu to music that we knew from school!
Well the line at the bus station wasn't bad at all to get tickets. The places was crowded but we kind of just pushed our way through. I know it sounds really rude. But really that is how you do it in China. So we got our tickets and waited in line for the bus. Now that line was LONG. Especially to Leshan because everyone of course was going to see the Buddha. But we kind of just went around and waited towards the front of the line instead of going to the end of the line. And it got crowded fast, we were all smushed up against each other. I honestly thought I might die from suffocation or being trampled on. You know those horror stories from Black Friday sales where someone gets trampled to death? Yeah I thought that would be me. I actually didn't even have to move, because everyone behind me was pushing me. I was trying to keep from moving forward but next thing I know I am in the front of the line and free from the Chaos. I don't even know how I got there it was all a blur. But we made it and headed onto the bus.
It took about 3 hours because traffic was so terrible and when we got to Leshan we realized we should have taken the bus to Mt. Emei instead because that is where our hostel is, another town about 45 minutes from Leshan. So we got a guy with a van taxi to drive us there, and hoe played american music and was really cool even though we couldn't really communicate with him.
By the time we got to our Hostel, the Teddy Bear Hotel, it was probably around 3pm so we decide to just walk around and explore the area. Allie wanted to just stay in the room so it was just May Carina and I exploring. There were some waterfalls and a golden pagoda we saw and wanted to get some pictures. We didn't realize that there actually was this whole entire area to explore, with lots of ancient carvings, Chinese art and history and beautiful bamboo forests to walk through. There is also a mountain called Mt. Emei which is one of the most sacred holy mountains for Buddhists. It would have been really cool to go and climb it but it takes about 1-2 days time (which we didn't have) so I would love to go back someday.
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| Inside our room at the Teddy Bear Hotel |
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| Funny sign above the toilet |
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| beautiful waterfalls- pretty sure this one is actually man made and not real. May, Kelita, Carina |
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| There was a bell that you rub for luck and you can crawl underneath and go inside and this is what was inside the bell |
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| Add caption |
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| Not sure how this happened with this picture but it looks really cool |
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| The spiders here are so big and gross looking! |
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| This girl scared me when she decide to walk across this thing :p |
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| I like this statue- it is interesting because the big lion is stepping on a smaller lion with his foot, it's the only lion statue like this I have seen so far |
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| Which way to go?? |
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| Interesting wet floor sign in the middle of some plants |
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| Poor bunny was waiting to be eaten with the rest of the animals at the restaurant :( |
October 2nd
We left bright and early again and headed to the big buddha. It was a park with lots of others thing to see in it. We arrived around 9am and when we entered the park...it was pretty quiet and deserted. I thought where is everyone?? Something wasn't right, it should be crowded. Well when we made our way to big buddha...well there is where everyone went! The line to see the buddha was SO LONG. We could see the head where we were standing and got some pictures but to go down to the bottom and look up you have to wait in line...I mean I knew it would be long but we were thinking it would probably be maybe 4 or 5 hours. Worse than Disney World or other amusement park rides. We decided it wasn't worth it because then we couldn't see the rest of the things in the park so we got to see its head at least and look down.
The park was beautiful! Lots of statues and carvings, temples and ancient buildings, caves, beautiful scenery. It's a different part of China but I Love it! Funny story: As we were walking I felt a slap on my arm and turned around to see a young lady looking at me horrified. She holds up her hand that has a huge squished misquito and blood on it. And there is blood and a black smudge on my arm. I told her "xie xie" which means thank you in Chinese. Apparently she was really worried I would get malaria or something. Actually I think this province is more prone to diseases via misquitos..I was wearing bug spray but I guess it didn't keep that guy away from me. I actually wasn't too worried- I hardly ever get bug bites here even without mosquito spray. Guess I don't have the right blood type thank goodness :)
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| The buddhist statues here are a lot more heavenly influenced by hinduism |
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| One thing I love about seeing these carvings is the beautiful colors- the bright red clay like Georgia Clay, mixed with many colors from being weathered over time. The green, gray, white. It's so pretty! |
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| While we were hiking I came across this rock with all these sticks and I'm wondering what the significance of it is? |
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| Part of the line waiting for Buddha...people everywhere |
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| Biggest stone buddha in the world! |
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| Monk at a temple |
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| This "golden buddha hall" was interesting because the colors- pink and teal- are a bit different |
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| Do you notice the "nazi" looking symbol? |
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| They decided to have a bamboo stick fight, and I love this picture best because you can see Allie hiding behind the pillar |
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| Lotus flowers also remind me a lot of India/Hinduism |
After we got our fill at the park we took a bus back to Chengdu where we were going to get on a night bus to Jiuzhaigou, which is about 9-10 hours from Chengdu. However when we arrived back in Chengdu and went to get tickets we found out there were not actually night buses to Jiuzhaigou. We planned taking a bus so we didn't have a hostel to stay in...and also that meant we would take the bus in the day and have one less day to stay in Jiuzhaigou.
Normally I would probably be pretty upset at that fact but I was actually super cool about it. In fact it was kind of fun because it made our trip more spontaneous..Where would we stay for the night?
We made our way back to flipflop hostel where we stayed the first night. They did tell us if we ever needed to come back we could stay in the lobby so we took them up on their offer. They didn't even charge us to sleep there (but we gave a little tip). It really was the best experience bumming off their lounge. We decided that night to go to the Sichuan Opera- I have been wanting to go to some Chinese show at some point. And this really was the place to go! I didn't realize how famous Sichuan Opera is. They had all sorts of stuff: dancing, singing, acrobatics, fire spitting, puppets, hand shadow puppets....and the famous Sichuan face changing. It is specific only to the Sichuan area- not anywhere else in China! And it is a special secret. What happens is the actors have masks on and with a flick of their cape, fan, or just turning around for a brief second their mask suddenly completely changes! And sometimes they do it multiple times in a row really really fast. Even one of the giant puppets did a mask changing routine and this other actor who had a huge costume with masks all over it and every single mask changed....it is a little hard to explain. It probably doesn't sound cool but it really is! Oh also this guy had a candle on his head and did some cool stunts while balancing it. Anyways it was a super cool show. And I am so glad I got to see it! Random thing also about the Chinese opera we went to. The people playing the live music/instruments were actually on the balcony on the sides of the stage, rather than below in a pit like you see in more Western theater.
Another cool thing about bumming the lounge in our hostel is all the cool people we met! The lounge was seriously the hot spot, everyone hung out there. There was Foosball, music. We met some people from Holland, Spain, India, England, Canada, and Malaysia. And we played games with them like Mafia and ipod idol of course (our favorite games). And it was just SO FUN.
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| This guy came right into the audience and I got to shake his hand. He was actually wearing a completely different mask when he shook my hand and just a few rows in front of me a few seconds later he changed his mask, right before this dude's eyes! |
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| all the cast at the end of the show |
October 3rd
We didn't get much sleep- what do you expect from bumming off a hostel lounge on a tiny cushon on the floor and staying up most of the night hanging out with cool people you meet? Well we headed out and got a bus ticket for Jiuzhaigou. Like I said it was about 9-10 hours. Traffic was bad in a few places, mostly when we were going through some villages. I just loved looking out the window at the scenery. We passed through some beautiful gorges, and lots of small villages. I just wanted to stop in the villages and explore them, but our bus only stopped at midde-of-nowhere places to eat and use the restroom for about 10 minutes. These rest stops also charged money for the bathroom (1 yuan) and they were the gross kind of squatters. The kind where there are no real stalls, just short walls with no doors and not even a squatter but a ditch that you squat over and go in. And it smells and it is gross everywhere and pretty much everyone is watching you pee. But hey when you have to go you have to go....
I also was sitting next to a Mongolian lady on the bus. She is from Mongolia but she lives in Chengdu now because that is where she works. She knows Mongolian, English, Mandarin, Japanese, and the native Sichuan province dialect. She was a really cool lady and it was great getting to talk to her for part of the bus ride. I wish I was able to get a picture of her but she got off early before I had a chance to get one.
As we got closer to Jiuzhaigou the scenery changed, and the elevation rose. The villages were more Tibetan inspired, as we are pretty close to that area of China. As close to Tibet as we can get for now. Everywhere there are these color flags with writing on them, the Mongolian lady told me they are prayers written.
The buddhist religion is a little different here she told me, and they believe in witchcraft. It is also a LOT more colorful here! Color color color, I love it. And yaks. Lots of yaks, and warm clothing like fur and colorful shawls. As we got into the Jiuzhaigou area....it was crowded. Traffic was terribly terrible. We might have gotten out and just walked if we knew where we were going...
When we finally got off the bus we were trying to contact our hostel. It was actually a home stay with a real Tibetan family. We couldn't get a hold of them and I was just starting to get really annoyed because I just wanted to get there. Then we happened to run into this German boy and girl and found out they were ALSO staying in our Tibetan home stay. What a coincedence we ran into them and could stick with them. Then...turns out another 4 people join us who are also staying in the Tibetan home stay. A russian girl, two german boys, and an English boy. Finally we got in contact with them and they told us to go to their restaurant where they would pick us up and take us to their house. It was a really nice restaurant with Tibetan food. While we were there we ran into a French family..who also was staying with us. Funny coincidence right? Well we finally get picked up and we go to their house. They cooked dinner for us and it was so good. Yak meat, bread and yak butter and honey, cucumber. We all just sat around and talked (the other foreigners) our Tibetan family actually didn't know very much English but a few words. The house was different than I expected, there was only one bathroom and there was no heating in the house at all or wifi...and it was pretty cold up there in the mountains but we had lots of nice quilts.
October 4th
In the morning we got up super early, they made us breakfast and lunch to take with us to the National Park. Then they drove us to the National Park. Or part of the way anyways. The traffic was soooo bad they told us to get out and walk the rest of the way because it would be faster so we did. Line wasn't too bad to get our tickets but we made it just in time before the line got worse. We got a nice student discount (50%) off and it told us students didn't need to buy a bus ticket, that we get on for free. So we entered the park and they wouldn't let us on the bus!! See the park is so big you have to take a bus to get from place to place...well you can walk but it's so far! So anyways they didn't let us on the bus so we just started walking. We got in a pretty good walk, it was beautiful but pretty chilly- I wasn't expecting it to be so cold. After a few hours we made it to a little village and found out we weren't even half way to where we wanted to go....so the guy made us buy a bus ticket. Which was kind of expensive but there was no way we could walk all the way so we got on the bus. So we were able to pretty much see most of the things in the park. There were a lot of lakes. Mountains. Just the most beautiful scenery- the stuff you see in National Geographic pictures or on Pinterest and you think "Ah I want to go there but I probably never will...." But I actually DID go there. It was also right when the leaves start changing colors. Fall is my favorite season so I'm glad I got to experience it.
At one point there are these ladies who have costumes you can pay to dress up in and take pictures...they are usually a bit pricey but this lady said I could do it for only 10 yuan which is about 1.5 dollars so I thought...why not? I've secretly been wanting to do one of those dress up picture things. The best part was when the ladies started putting the costume on Allie...she didn't even really want to do it but somehow she ended up in a costume before she knew it haha.
My favorite thing to see was the Five Colored Pool. Just for the record...this is really the color of the pool. I didn't edit it or anything. It was SO BLUE. Yet so clear. You can see every rock and thing underneath the water. But it's so blue and part of it green too. Really one of those things I see in pictures but have never seen in real life.
There were also some pretty sweet waterfalls!
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| This lady wanted a picture of me so naturally I get one of her too. |
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| They were so nice to help this lady carry her stroller up some stairs! |
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| These boys were so nice! We asked them for directions and they ended up staying with us most of the rest of the trip. They wanted to make sure we got to see what we wanted to see and I think they just wanted to practice their English with some beautiful American girls. They also gave us their umbrellas when it started raining and gave us some food, they were way nice! |
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| Of course another bride and groom taking pictures! |
It started raining and was getting really cold so we decided to head out. We lost the other foreigners form our home stay so we thought we would wait for them to be picked up. But then we found shopping and yeah...I wanted to get me one of those shawls! We were all supposed to meet at the Tibetan restaurant again for them to pick us up and when we arrived they told us everyone already left without us....so we hung out there for a while, I tried talking to some of the waiters there as they were really nice and hospitable to us but I realized I couldn't really say much in Chinese. As soon as we met a nice Mongolian family who knew English though our ride came to pick us up and we went back to the home stay where they made us another delicious dinner!
Our home-stay:
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| The brother of the owner of our homestay who lives in a house nearby. He would pick us up and drive us to where we needed to go and help us. he was the only one who knew some sort of English... |
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| One of the ladies who lives at the home we stayed at. She was so sweet! |
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| Wearing our new tibetan style scarves/shawls |
October 5th
In the morning we had to leave to go back to Chengdu. We got a bus back and our two German friends also were the on the bus with us. The owner's brother of our home-stay who had been carpooling us arranged for the bus to come pick us up at his house so we didn't have to go to the bus station which was really nice of him! We got on the bus and said goodbye to Jiuzhaigou and our Tibetan family. In Chengdu we stayed the night and left early for the airport where we flew back home to Zhongshan.
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| At one of the rest stops they were cooking and selling some ox meat on a stick so I bought some |
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| Yum! |
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| Can you believe I took this picture through the bus window? I know its really good for a picture behind glass!! |
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This really has been the best vacation by far. And not just because it was really fun. Things definitely didn't go according to plan the entire time...we had lots of close calls. Many times where we barely made it onto our plan/bus. Not having a hostel one night and having to stay in the lounge. It was a more spontaneous adventure. I'm usually the kind of person who likes to have a plan and know exactly what we are doing and when, where we are staying, how to get there, etc. And we did some of that, we had a few things we wanted to see specifically. But then there was also a lot more randomness and on the fly decisions and I have to say it was really fun.
We met so many people. That might be one of my favorite parts. Meeting people from all over the world, not just China. Just on this trip I have met and made friends with people from Malaysia, India, France, Spain, Holland, Germany, England, Canada, Russia, Mongolia, Tibet, and of course, China. I realize that I don't know much about the World. Like I've never been much into history, or politics, or government, or current events. I'm more of a science person. But now I wish I knew more about other countries and what is going on in the world because I want to better connect with people from other countries and be able to have conversations and keep up with what is going on. Also I realize that I don't really know much Chinese. I've known a few phrases to get by and how to read a menu. But I was never interested in having a conversation in Chinese with someone until this trip. Several times I just wanted to get to know someone and speak with them in Chinese and couldn't!
Also I learned that when my brain tries to think in a foreign language, it automatically goes to French. And meeting some french people I realize how out of practice I am when it comes to speaking and understanding people speak it. But whenever I don't know how to say something in Chinese, it comes to the tip of my tongue in French. And I have to stop myself before blurting out French because well, that's not really helpful when talking to a Chinese person. Out of the girls in my group (including all 12 of us), we know how to say something in French, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, Danish, and Italian...but not how to say it in Chinese!
I also loved seeing a part of China that usually isn't on the top of everyone's list. I never really knew about this place until May talked about it. When our group decided on vacation we were going to choose Bejing but with the Holiday most of everything was sold out or expensive for tickets, and we knew it would be so crowded and not worth it. So most girls in my group chose to got o Yangshuo and the Avatar Mountains. I REALLY wanted to go to Avatar Mountains...and I'm sad I probably won't get to while I am in China this time. But I didn't want to go to Yangshuo again. Don't get me wrong..I LOVED Yangshuo and want to go there again someday in my life. But going again 2 months later is just too soon. I wanted to explore other parts of China. So this was kind of a "on the fly" decision too. But I'm Sooooo glad I choose this trip instead of the Yangshuo/Avatar Mountains.
It is "western China"...actually it is about dead center of China but we call it western China since most everything else is Tibet and the Chinese people don't consider it part of China. And it is really hard to actually get into Tibet so yeah, we were Western China. And I think it would be so cool to go to Tibet someday. And I would love to come back to Chengdu/Jiuzhaigou/Leshan because there is so much more things to do there and take my time (when it isn't busy).
I also learned that I kind of like being a leader. I've always considered myself more of a follower...maybe because I'm more soft spoken. But when traveling with a group of 4 (which is the PERFECT number) I've had a lot more say in our group. And since most of the girls in my group are more lazy/procrastinators, I was the one who did most research on how to get to where we want to go, booked our hostels, etc. I even once bought our bus tickets and used Chinese to do so! The other vacations I kind of just let others decide and plan and control everything and just followed along. Which is nice sometimes to not have responsibility. But I like being organized and I liked kind of being the one in charge who knows what we are doing and where we are going. And I am thinking more and more that I would love being a head teacher with ILP and coming back to China. I just love China so much!!!
Like the title of the blog post says, "It doesn't matter where you are going, but who you have beside you." I'm so grateful for the wonderful girls I got to spend my vacation with, Allie, May, and Carina! And all the fascinating people I met along the way. I've decide one of the best things about traveling is not only getting to see amazing things, but getting to know people and learn from them. Because it wouldn't be as rewarding of an experience without the people along the way.
