Our bus left at 8am from the tourist station in the south of the city
so we were up early. After chatting with some Chinese people on the
bus we were happy to discover the trip is 8 not the 12hrs we had
planned for.
Most of the trip was winding roads beside a river and about 2hrs in we
got to the area hit by the '08' earthquake we had read about troubles
with this road after the quake but I was amazed at the damage. The old
road popped out from under massive landslides every now and then and
bridges still lay collapsed into the river. All the houses were
obviously new but the odd foundation or ruin still lay about.
They are building a new highway due to be completed soon and for
kilometres all the landslides into the river are now makeshift
quarries for the new road.
Our next stop we got photos of a yak which tried to charge me twice
when I got too close but the nose ring connected to a concrete block
saved me!
The following stop was a police check the driver pointed to us to get
off(being the only foreigners) thankfully a guy spoke English and said
they just want to record our details(we guess worried we were heading
in to Tibet).
Arriving in Jiuzhaigou the same english speaking guy on the bus helped
us find our hostel but when we discovered they had no hot water and no
heating we stayed in the same place he did with an electric blanket
and yay hot water.
The town is very much in winter lock down it was very quiet most
hotels and shops had locks on the doors but we found a chinese
restaurant with meal pictures on the walls and a bonus English menu.