Jiuzhaigou (Chinese for "Nine Village Valley"), Dzitsa Degu in Tibetan or Jiuzhai Valley National Park is home to nine Tibetan villages, many bird species and plants. It is located in the Min Shan mountain range, in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province. It is best known for its fabled blue and green lakes and waterfalls.
As mentioned in the previous post, we got there from Huanglong National Park via taxi after being transferred from a Didi rideshare driver. We chose an accommodation within walking distance but the accommodation offered free drop off in the morning. We walked back to the accommodation in the evening.
We were at Jiuzhaigou National Park on 2 days before 1st May where advices all around were to avoid visiting on the 1st May holiday. We were a couple of days earlier but visitors to Jiuzhaigou were noticeably much more significant that Huanglong just the day before. I don't know if it simply because Jiuzhaigou is a more popular destination or the crowd was already building up.
Tickets
Likewise Huanglong National Park, we got our tickets on trip.com. Tickets included sightseeing bus.
Routes in Jiuzhaigou
Routes in Jiuzhaigou National Park is in a Y-shaped. It just happened that the bus we got on went to The Primeval Forest first, so we started with that and made our way down before got on another bus that brought us to the Long Lake branch.
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| Map from their website - https://en.jiuzhai.com/plan-your-trip/map |
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| Fancy roof |
Our first stop was the Primeval Forest. The forest consists of dragon spruce and fir trees. We didn't walk too far plus it started to drizzle again.
We didn't get off at every stop nor walk the whole route, Jiuzhaigou is a very big national park. We did however got off to round the Arrow Bamboo Lake followed by the Arrow Bamboo Lake Waterfall. The actual location, whilst absolutely beautiful isn't that tranquil because - crowd.
Our next stop after was the Panda Lake.
Our next stop was Five Flower Lake. We didn't really stop for lunch but packed some biscuits and buns with us. This one is a fairly big lake comparatively.
We also stopped at Mirror Lake though ironically, I find this lake less mirror lake than others.
After this point, we took a bus to the other branch towards Long Lake and Five Coloured Pool. The bus will drop off at Long Lake. There is no bus stop at Five Coloured Pool.
Five Coloured Pool, also known as "the eye of Jiuzhaigou" is Jiuzhaigou's smallest and most colourful lake.
For the last stretch, we got off at Rhinoceros Lake and then walked towards Tiger Lake. Then it started raining again.
We were a little overwhelm with the crowd by then, especially since we spent a lot of time in Tibet with expansive land and minimal contact with other visitors prior. We stopped by Shuzheng Lakes before called it a day.
Getting away from Jiuzhaigou
There are buses from Jiuzhaigou to Huanglong-Jiuzhai Railway Station for CNY 51 per person. We got the bus ticket the day before after we left Jiuzhaigou National Park. The bus ticket booth is located in front of a theatre. Ticket purchase was through WeChat mini apps which we can't buy ourselves because we didn't have China mobile phone number, so a staff bought it for us and we paid him.
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| Spot the pandas along the road |
Side note: Perpetually sleepy
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