Jiuzhaigou Valley: The Fairytale World

It was a bizarre and surreal 14 hour bus ride up to the Jiuzhaigou nature reserve as the bus navigated around the epicenter of the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake.  Over 64,000 people died and thousands are still missing after this 8.0 magnitude tremor shook the province.  Houses and schools still sat in disrepair; bridges and roads in ruins, but people continued to live and rebuild their city as bricks and contorted rebar lay in piles along the street.  We also passed by a clock tower and saw that the time remained 2:28; when the disaster hit. 

But we ascended higher leaving the nightmarish scene behind to find ourselves entering an almost story book landscape.  The river began to turn from a murky mud to a translucent olive green, and the dilapidated buildings were replaced with tiny farming villages dotted along the hillside.  Small crops of corn and cabbage lined up in rows between houses and young boys herded the livestock along the road.  Old men and women with hard earned wrinkles and ruddy cheeks sat on their stair steps watching the world go by.  But it got later in the evening and the charming sights faded away as the cold night started to settle in. 

We arrived in Jiuzhaigou and found it to be much colder than we anticipated.  Water was frozen in the pot holes of the street and we had no heat in our room.  We spent most of the days and night bundled in our two jackets.  Quite a change after only being in sticky South East Asia a couple of weeks ago, but we braved the cold because this is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Jiuzhaigou means "Nine Village Gully" and refers to the nine Tibetan villages that are spread about the reserve.    The Chinese myth behind the creation of the valley says that a jealous demon caused the goddess Wunosemo to drop her magic mirror, a present from her lover, onto the ground and it shattered into the 118 shimmering lakes.  After paying the steep admission fee we take the bus to the top.  We find snow capped mountain peaks standing majestically above pine forest and enchanting lakes that look like aquamarine, sapphire, and jade had been melted together into a lucid pool showing you what lies below.  Streams bend around the autumn colors that blaze in the reflection of the water and join together before cascading down a waterfall.  Walking several miles of trail we occasionally came across Bon prayer flags strung among the trees.