We headed for JiuZhaiGou, desperately in need of mother natures warming embrace. We risked the fact that the National park was a 10 hour trip through high mountain ranges, and that we might have to take the same road back before continuing north (effectively a +1000km detour trip), and lastly we were not even sure the park would be open as it is off season here, and many of the mineral lakes freeze over. Our gamble paid off and we found ourselves in a valley between high snow covered mountains peaks. Where the valley forks off into two is the entrance to the national park, this was about 3km from our hotel. Which we wouldn’t have found without the help of our new friends David & Angle, who we shared our time in the park with and a delightful sample of vegetarian Chinese food on our last night. We spent two days in the park and it can only be described as winter wonderland. Many Tibetan tribes still live in the park and we were lucky enough to have traditional Tibetan tea (which they have for breakfast and is actually quite thick) in a very colorful Tibetan home. Our timing was quite fortunate as many of the hotels were closed being the off season (only 4 were open), and the park was effectively empty. The prices were also good as we got a 4 star hotel for AU$28!!! Our time in JiuZhaiGou wouldn’t have been the same without the amazing company that we found, thanks David & Angel for making our stay a pleasure we hope you come visit Australia some time.Nathan

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Posted on January 21st, 2007 :: Filed under Travel
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