Woke up early at 7 am to have breakfast at 7.30 am to prepare to head off to Jiu Zhai Gou at 8 am. It was COLD!

Our Hotel

Entrance fee was RMB 220 but we got it for RMB 170 cos’ we were students. There was also a fee for the bus ride (RMB 90). How you travel inside the attraction was to take the bus like a public bus. The bus will stop at various locations of attractions and you can choose to get off or on the bus.

The “public” transport within the gorge

Our first stop of the day was to the Forest (原始森林). Untouched by humans, the trees stood tall and proud. The air was fresh and it was very peaceful except for the occasional mutterings of the chinese tourists.

After which, we slowly made our way down Ri Ze Gou (日则勾) to visit various Hai Zi (海子). What Hai Zi means is ‘Child of the sea’. The tibetans use to imagine that the lakes in the valleys were the sea due to their vastness and clear blue water. It reminded them of the sea and since it was not as huge as the ocean, they named them all ‘Child of the sea’ or in chinese, 海子. The other 2 gous (勾) that were open to the public were Shu Zheng Gou (树正沟) and Ze Cha Wa Gou (则渣洼沟). All were very beautiful lakes and the best being Chang Hai (é•¿æµ·).

We stopped for lunch at this place to have our pre-packaged lunch, which was really just some bread and fillings and mineral water.

and around 5 pm, after a full days travel of the place, we were done. Tired and done, but extremely satisfied.

I think the only person not satisfied was the tour guide, Ah Qing. Why? Because we were not interested in joining in the Tibetan Cultural performance and dinner which cost RMB 180 (inclusive of RMB 40 for development of Aba Zhou and RMB 40 to provide satellite TV to the citizens living there. It possibly also included Tour Guide fees.) Anyhow, he was quite ‘sad’ and throughout the rest of the trip he kept appealling to us to go and spend at certain places, as he needed to earn money through commission based on our expenditure. Totally targetting the wrong audience. We were students on a budget tour trying to cut cost for almost everything that we could and he was still attempting to psycho us to spend more and go for more things. Just his luck and our luck that we got a tour guide like him and he got a tour group like us. (More on that story later on.)

Our tour guide, with huijing and yvonne

After dinner, we once again went in search of snacks outside the Hotel. It was pouring, but we still headed out with our coats on … garang, huh?