Chengdu
Early morning after arriving Chengdu we made the flight to the Minshan mountains in Sichuan, Qinghai part of the Tibetian plateau.
We arrived at Sichuan Jiuzhai Huanglong airport, and for the first time there was no pressure on the ears while landing, actually the opposite because the cabin pressure was higher than the outdoors this being at
3448 meters altitude.
The area is plagued by earthquakes due to the platonic plates come together around here and creates the Himalayas. We drove by the village which was the epicenter of the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, which claimed the life of more than 12.000 people. Our guide was a local hero from that incident. Her guide bus had been thrown off the road and she and the group of tourists had been on a two day walk to get to aid stations, thanks to her most of her passengers 32 people survived.
Huanglong
The park is at 3600m altitude and the bus passes some 4000m mountain passes to get there, so it is high up.
The air here has one third of normal partial oxygen pressure. Most passengers had some or severe altitude sickness problems. The effects were fever and headache and some people had to vomit. At several stations on the way they were selling oxygen that you would sit down and inhale for a while to get over the headache. Of course I had to try, although I got my headache later when we returned to the hotel
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| The water gets it colors from the high mineral content and sulphuric acidity. |
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| The water here has an exterme clarity. Because of the high mineral content very little will grow or live in the water apart from one fish specie that seems to have adapted. |
Jiuzhai Valley National Park
The day after we went to Jiuzhai national park which is also high up on the Tibetian plateau. The landscape here reminds me remarkingly of the Norwegian west coast with its fjords, it's almost as if I was there. It is strange to think that this is far beyond the tree limits in Norway. It's a little Norway elevated to 2500m height
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| Juizhaigou, a little Norway at 2500 m height |
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| Almsot like home in Norway |
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| A little Geiranger? |
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| This is defintely not the Sunnmørs-bunad, but maybe just as nice. |
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