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Chengdu (Sichuan)
The city is located in the north-western part of China. The city itself is not that exciting mainly because of the size and all the pollution. It is one of the biggest cities in China. About 15 km. north of the city we went to see a Panda breeding centre. The Pandas are great and beautiful animals.
We used Chengdu mainly as a transition point for our trips to Emishan, Songpan and Jizaigou.
Emeishan (Sichuan)
Located southwest of Chengdu this mountain is known for its importance for the Buddhists. The mountain is about 3000 meters high and we spend 2 days on reaching the top. On our way up we spend the night in a monastery where there was no electricity and meat. At that time I was really hungry after a whole day of hiking uphill. I had to see myself being satisfied with a small bowl of cold rise with some soup, beans, tofu and vegetables.
The next morning I saw a beautiful sunrise in the attitude of 2200 meters. The way to the top there was a lot of beautiful holy temples. It is said that a Chinese Buddhist has to climb this mountain once in a lifetime. Most of the Chinese tourists and there were a lot of them used the cable car to reach the top. Actually it was only foreigners that hiked the whole way to the top. Unfortunately I got ill on the way up and had to take the cable car too, a fact I am absolutely not proud of.
There is a very big temple on the top of Emeishan. The weather was really bad so the view was not that good as we expected it to be. At that time I did not really bothered because I was sleeping all day to recover.
Most of the trip down was made in a minibus!
Songpan
North of Chengdu we went on horse trekking for 2 days. The area is located in the mountains about 3000 meters above surface. The landscape was really nice but I was not satisfied with our guides that did not allowed us to ride the horses as long as we wanted to. We camped a place near a hot spring that was not hot at all.
Jizaigou
A very beautiful national park East of Songpan. The lakes are awesome blue and green. The water is unbelievable clean that one can spot everything in the water. I wonder how a lake can provide and maintain such clean water? The problem, as in other places of China, is the amount of Chinese tourists. There was so many of them. In general Chinese tourists make a lot of noise and always bring a lot of food, which they trash wherever they go. A very bad habit if they care about their environment.
