The beauty and devestation of Jiuzhaigou

Through all of my travels I have seen many breath taking sites ,wonders of the world and the amazing remains of history but Jiuzhaigou has to be in the top 3 most beautiful natural sites I have witnessed.
I was lucky enough to have traveled from Hong Kong through Shenzhen ,Hangzhou,Chengdu,Chongqing and the mountain sites of Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong in the space of three weeks and what an amazing trip it was.

Now getting to Jiuzhaigou from Chengdu was quite the ride. It was around 8hrs ish by car but the ride there was amazing. So many great views of mountains and valleys and small villages on the way through made the trip very enjoyable which was a surprise as I usually hate long journeys.

As for the town of Jiuzhaigou it is a busy little area full of small restaurants and hotels ,markets and lots of Tibetan culture.
The people were some of the nicest and welcoming people I have met in china.
The hotel I stayed at was a nice family run place with very comfortable rooms and facilities and the family/staff were exceptionally nice people, they helped with everything from transport ,tickets, reservations and food and even had home made alcohol ( which I guess was some sort of Chinese moonshine) but either way it was a nice added extra.
The owner was a great guy who spoke a little english and also sang some triditional tibetan songs to us in a kind of welcome ceremony .......I think ! it was that or he was hitting on my girlfriend but either way cool guy and if he was he had serious game !

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As you can see it's quite an amazing sight and this is just a handful of the pictures I have from this incredible place. I have never seen water quite like this before and the lakes that look just a few feet deep were actually upto 12 meters deep , so the water adds an amazing illusion when you look into it and I wasn't even high that day! But unfortunately Jiuzhaigou was devastated by an earthquake a few months ago and most of the area is now destroyed along with the businesses of the people who live and work there. This was heartbreaking to hear as it was just two weeks after we left but luckily after speaking to our friends there they are safe and trying to move on from it all.
I was one of the lucky ones to have seen Jiuzhaigou in all its glory and i'll remember the trip for ever and hopefully one day things there will clear up and maybe it will again be a great place to visit.

I'll finish this post with some pictures of Huanglong a place further up in the mountains about 3 hours from Jiuzhaigou , again full of amazing sights and Tibetan culture Huanglong has more amazing blue lakes and rivers that seem to get more and more clear the further down the valley they run. It was quite an overwhelming place and I hope you can all visit there someday .

Thanks for reading and i'll post another travel blog again soon.

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