Yesterday, we left Luqu (we were not sorry to leave that over-policed town!) and spent most of the day driving to the Songpan "area." Note that I say the Songpan area, and not the town of Songpan (which was where we thought we were going) but, again, I'm getting ahead of our story.
There weren't many pictures from yesterday, but you can find them (day 5) here. The high point was a small set of late afternoon and early evening pictures from the old garrison town of Songpan — once we got there (again, I'm ahead of our story, sorry, I'm simply so tired, that I can't untangle all the threads woven into this post). You can see the snow on the hills by the road as we neared Songpan. You can also see a flock of vultures feasting on the remains of what we think was a yak that we think we saw killed on the road the day before (the way from Luqu to Langmusi was the same as our way from Luqu to Songpan).
Now to the story. Trouble started when our guide started patently hunting for our Songpan hotel way before she should have. We were at that point in a particularly unscenic industrial zone still some 20 kilometers from the actual town of Songpan (which we knew from road signs we could read in English). When she piped up with "we live here tonight" and pointed at a sorry-looking mausoleum complex called the Songpan Minjiang Hotel, we were, respectively, crestfallen (moi) and livid (Miles). The problem was that our tour itinerary meant for us to be guideless and driverless, free to "wander around the town of Songpan" as our activity for today. All of which would have been perfectly ok, except we were in point of fact nowhere near Songpan, had no way to get there, and were instead to be some place we could not conceivably want to wander around. Miles had a very useful "tantrum" by cell phone with our booking travel agent Marc back in Shanghai, and we got things sorted out. The Minjiang Hotel was indeed to be our home for the remaining three nights of our trip, but we would get a late afternoon tour of the real garrison town of Songpan yesterday, and for today, we would get a visit (blissfully unguided as we have by now grown much less than enchanted with our guide) to the lovely Huang Long preserve. This was the best possible outcome in the circumstances, as there were simply no rooms to be had anywhere in the town of Songpan (or so we were told) because of the holiday week crush of Chinese tourists there. We had really wanted to see Huang Long anyhow.
I'll get to Huang Long in a moment, but first a few words about the Minjiang Hotel . This was supposed to be a 5 star hotel. And, to be fair, it is clearly the nicest of the hotels we've had for our trip. But, just as all of our hotels on the trip have done, it completely lacks any form of heating. It has the nicest hot water we've seen — usage time is still limited to a few hours in late evening and early morning, but the water is really and truly hot, rather than the tepid solar-heated water we suffered with in Luqu. The place is huge and very, very much like a tomb. In fact, I think the architect must have preferred that it be a tomb. The center of the lobby boasts a twice- or treble-life-size statue of Chairman Mao, complete with a faithful reproduction of his "rotundity." The statue is worked in some very dark metal, and is scarcely lit. We estimate the current occupancy of the hotel at around 2%. Everyone but us is a Chinese tourist here for their holiday week. The hotel's first floor is partly under repairs. This creates an extraordinarily nasty chemical sort of fume, which, if it were to be described on a restaurant menu in typical Chinese style, would be called something like "seventeen thousand carcinogen aroma." This odor seems to have decided to concentrate itself in the two elevators that take one from the football-field-length lobby to the 3rd floor, where our room is. The odor is, if anything, even worse in the stairs which are the only alternative to the elevators. One therefore has the choice of attempting to hold one's breath for the time it takes to get the elevator to make the trip up or down, or else release oneself, in Buddhist resignation, to the fumes, come what may. I used to play the trumpet back in high school, and still possess some of the lung capacity of those good old days, so I opt for the "held breath" strategy (though there have been some close calls when the elevator is being especially obtuse). We think one of the reasons that the odor has found its way into the elevators and stairs is because every single openable door to the entire place is left open all day and all night — despite the fact that the temperature is right around freezing. This makes the lobby "prairie" rather cold, and that's a shame because that is where the wifi internet is available.
Well, on to Huang Long. Some of the drama of Huang Long is on the way there (there is just one road in or out). It is really hard to describe. You start with a pretty incredible mountain road built in very difficult mountain terrain. You then add a major earthquake in Sichuan back in 2008. You end up with an indescribably difficult road. Sections of it are ordinary pavement — except for the edges that look like they have the shape of a the coastline of Maine, and you realize that major portions of the support for the road have fallen away, both on the inside edge and over on the "abyss side." Other parts have pavement covered by, take your pick, several feet of mud, or huge slides of rocks (boulders, really). Still other parts are "in repairs" or "being widened." These basically amount to the same thing. You have basically one lane (not one lane each way, just one lane, full stop) of churned up mud, forming a surface that is not at all flat like a road should be. As this is the only road that goes to Huang Long, it is heavily travelled by huge tour buses, tourists in taxis and private cars or SUVs, and heavy equipment involved in the repairs and construction. What should be an exhilarating 45 minute drive takes over two hours of periodic terror. Midway on the route, you have to make your way over a very high pass (around 4000 meters, well over 13,000 feet). The weather at that pass was, for us, in both directions, dense fog mixed with some precipitation (drizzle on the way to Huang Long, and more of a steady rain on the way back).
But arrive at Huang Long we did, and we had a perfectly lovely time!
Huang Long means "yellow dragon." The dragon in question is a huge deposit of travertine that takes on the shape of dragon as seen from above (or so we are told). The travertine in places naturally forms terraced reflecting pools of clear but colored water of various hues. In other places water runs over the travertine forming it into incredible curved shapes. There is lots of beautiful vegetation, including several species of rhododendron (definitely in their element, as this is the part of world they come from). It is very, very tempting to accuse the park people of going out each morning with eye droppers of concentrated food coloring to create all the wonderful colors you see. But it really is natural.
Pictures of Mao at the Minjiang and of Huang Long (day 6) are here.
Weather was iffy today for our trip to Huang Long. It looks no better for our trip to Jiuzhaigou Natural Park tomorrow, but tomorrow is our last full day, and so we're going if it's even at all conceivably possible.
I'll close with another really loopy sign. This is one you can see (only) as you are climbing the stair case back up out of a cave at Huang Long. You've definitely already had the opportunity of hitting your head (though not of reading the sign) as you climbed the stair case down into the cave, as it is the same staircase and the obstacle is just as troublesome coming down as coming up.
Oh, and, I have to include one more picture — just for our friends Michael and Patrick back in San Diego, who are devout poodlists. This will reassure them if they were concerned that there might not be anybody who loves poodles in China — some, at least, absolutely do!
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