24th June - Beichuan to Tibetan Village

Stay with a Tibetan Family.

Slept in until 8.30 to try and catch up on sleep and then had a leisurely breakfast and had coffee WITH milk and sugar as a treat. I managed to buy some last night.

I took a while asking about buses out of town to try and make up some time so that I can have enough time to go and see the Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve and get to Xian. I spoke to the girl in the book shop that approached me last night to ask if I needed any help. Her English was good. She explained that the route that I wanted to take was not possible because of the earthquake damage. There were no buses that went that way and it would be very difficult to get there on bike. She suggested that I go East to the next big town Jiangyou and get a bus north from there. It looked sensible on my map.

So off I headed towards Jiangyou - 50km ish. It was a good ride as the road was flat with a good surface but went through the valley with mountains either side. The scenary is nice and it is good to be out of a major city but all of the houses are pretty much new (less than 20 years old). I have not yet seen any of the quaint villages that I was travelling though 4 days ago. In fact leaving Chengdu yesterday I only really saw new developments.

It is a shame that the weather is blue skies and very sunny and the scenery is not as good where as when I was traveling through some amazing scenery it was all muggy and the light rubbish for taking photos :-(

Then I got to Jiangyou I found someone that spoke English at the bus stop and managed to get my bike on a bus North to Pingwu in 30 minutes from arriving. Enough time to take my bike to pieces and put it on the bus and go for some lunch. However, when I spent some more time looking at routes and directions on my phone while having lunch I realised that the detour because of the earthquake damage is a significant change of the route. It will mean that I will have to go west for about 160km to get to Songpan. I am not sure whether I will have time to do this as well as see Jiuzhaigou.

It was actually really hot today without any cloud cover and I was quite happy to get out of the sun for a few hours and take a bus ride. It gave me a bit of down time to catch up on the blog. However, the bus ride really was very beautiful and passed through some awesome mountains and I would have preferred to be doing this section by bike and have caught a bus out of Chengdu instead of biking the built up, highway section yesterday.


I do love the mountains....They call for me to climb them... The area is a tourist area where many Chinese people go on holiday. All of the mountains are covered in natural forests - no quaint little villages though. I am much happier to be traveling this way rather than on busy highways in flat areas to Xian.


I arrived at Ping Wu about 6 and I found out using google maps on my phone that it is about 150km to Jiuzhaigou from Ping Wu. That is normally OK in a day but not if it is really mountainous and judging from the squiggliness of the road I guessed that it would be very hilly. Therefore, I wanted to use the 2 hours of day light I still had today to get as far North as possible so that I would have less to do tomorrow to get to Jiuzhaigou. A lad that speaks English came over to me while I was rebuilding my bike (I had to take it to pieces to get it on the bus) and asked if I needed any help. He told me that I would find somewhere to sleep in the villages to the North and so off I went.

I had also found out on the bus journey to Ping Wu that I could catch a bus from the town to Jiuzhaigou at 9.30 tomorrow morning. As I need a whole day to see the Nature Reserve, getting to Jiuzhaigou mid afternoon tomorrow by bus would not give me any extra time at the Park or get me to Xian any sooner than biking. So the decision was very easy. I get to bike through amazing scenery tomorrow and take it all in rather than sitting in a metal cage! :-)

I biked for about 25km. It was great to be on my bike again on such a fantastic road on a sunny evening. There was a steady incline all the way but the condition of the road was great and there was very little traffic. I had a great hour and a half. I also started to see again the older style of Chinese houses that I had seen in the rural areas of the South.

I stopped off about 7.30 to ask in a Tibetian village (it said so on the entrance sign) for accommodation only to be told that there was no accommodation in the village or on the road to the north (google translator and hand gestures are awesome). They signaled to me that I should turn round and go to Ping Wu (were I had just left). I really did not want to do this as I would not get there before dark and it would mean I have to do the 25km I have just done again tomorrow morning and meant it was less likely that I would be able to make Jiuzhaigou tomorrow night.


I was very fortunate that a family that owns the village shop/restaurant said that I could stay with them. They do not speak a word of English but as per usual it is amazing how much can be communicated by other means. They were in the middle of their meal when I turned up and they invited me to join their feast.

After eating with them the lady of the house took me to use the shower in the hut outside. It was interesting to see really top quality plumbing in these surroundings. I think that the homes in the area must get government grants for solar powered hot water. Most of the homes seem to have brand new installations on the sides of their properties. I do not think that they had done the plumbing quite right though as they had really hot water in the taps to the shower room but no hot water leading to the shower. They had a digital thermometer attached to the pipes which read 69F (no idea what that is in grown up numbers) and indicated that I should not use the shower but instead use a bucket of hot water. I was just happy to get a wash of any kind and very happy to be staying with a friendly family.


After my very hot bucket shower I changed and went to sit with the family. They seem to run a casual restaurant/shop/gambling room for the village. Several people had come round to play a game with blocks - I have no idea what it is called. The family provided the facilities and the automatic table (shuffles the blocks and delivers them ready for the next game in neat lines) and people bought fags, snacks and drinks. The husband (a small, cute, tubby man) was also playing. It all got very heated and engaged. They played the game very quickly and were throwing the blocks down with considerable force. It was very interesting to watch. The aim of the game seem to be to pick up blocks as quickly as possible in order to make sets. A player can discard blocks that are of no use to him/her in the middle of the table so that other people can use those blocks. The game finishes when the first person has matched all their blocks and puts them down on the table. However, although this is the general idea is is more complicated than this.


I left them about 10 and went to bed as I have a very long day tomorrow. The family indicated that it is very steep to Juizhagou from here.