Sichuan & Chongqing

While my German fellow students had already started their internships, I still had a few days off before I was able to begin doing research for my bachelor thesis. Together with a few friends from Beijing I went to Sichuan and Chongqing Province. Sichuan is famous for its spicy food and also well known for its beautiful national parks whereas Chongqing is mostly known for its size: the municipality of Chongqing has a registered population of 31.442.300 as of 2005 (Wikipedia).

The next picture was taken while we were eating hot pot. My friends’ names are Hai Xia, Anne and Dian (f.l.t.r.):

One of our first stops was Jiuzhaigou, a national park and UN World Biosphere Reserve. Although we were there during offseason, we were still rewarded with some breathtaking views:

“Jiuzhaigou means “Nine Village Gully” and refers to the region’s nine Baima Tibetan villages. According to legend, Jiuzhaigou was created when a jealous devil caused the goddess Wunosemo to drop her magic mirror, a present from her lover the warlord god Dage. The mirror dropped to the ground and shattered into 118 shimmering turquoise lakes.” (Lonely Planet China)

This is the most beautiful lake that I have seen in my life. Believe it or not, this picture has not been “photoshopped”!

Despite the freezing temperatures, there was a couple taking their wedding pictures:

As mentioned above, there are several Tibetan villages, hence many prayer flags can be found in the national park:

On the summit it was even colder so that the lakes were covered with snow:

Huanglong national park was the next stop of our travels. Again, there were some Tibetan villages and of course some prayer wheels:

It is famous for its terraced, colored limestone ponds of blues, turquoises, yellows and greens. Most of them were frozen, but at the very top we were able see at least some of them:

In spite of the high altitude I was still feeling well at the top:

For the rest of the day I had to lie in bed and wait for my headache and nausea feeling to go away.

After the worst bus ride in my whole life (80% of the roads were not even paved!) we made it back to Chengdu. One of the city’s major tourist attractions is its Giant Panda Breeding Research Base. I had the feeling that the happiness and well-being of the tourists was more important than that of the pandas and I must admit that I didn’t like this institution too well. The pandas were cute, though:

Aren’t the babies adorable?

On this trip I also learned how to play Mahjiang. It’s a great game which makes it easy to forget about everything else. We kept playing for about four hours:

One more sightseeing place near Chengdu is called Leshan. With fingernails bigger than the average human, the Grand Buddha is the main reason why people come to this city. It is carved into a cliff and about 71 meters tall. Actually, it is the world’s largest Buddha statue which is sitting down and made out of stone: