Chengdu (Sichuan Province)

Leaving Xian by train we reached the mountain ranges within 2 hours. We travelled through these rugged, soaring, lush, green mountains for the rest of the afternoon and all through the night. Sunsetting over the lakes, rivers pretty villages... very picturesque.
Chengdu was another modern city with a very old part. We met another of YangZheng's (my student) friend here, and he showed us around, took us to see a famous poet, Du Fu's house, a thatched cottage, Had lots of traditional Chengdu foodgoose stomach and other delicacies boiled in spicy hot water. I thought the Indians ate hot food, but here in Sichuan, their mild food is the equiavlent of a vindaloo! Spent the afternoon in the old part of Chengdu in an old courtyard , chlling out in comfy bamboo chairs drinking lots of green tea, until the monsoon rains came thundering down, then it was time for dinner. A whole pigs leg each, stood upright with the hollow of the bone filled with gunky pig juice, a pretty straw stuck into it to drink the juice with. They should have gone all the way and stuck a cocktail umbrella in it too. The fatty meat of the foot takes a bti of getting used too - a real delicacy in china. On the whole thought the food in the south and west is very delicious, very spicy. All I seem to do is eat 3 huge spicy meals a day, definately put on weight.
For the next four days we went up to the mountains north of Chengdu, Qui Zhai Gou Mountains, bordering Tibet.
At first we had got on a lovely comfy air conditioned coach, then 10 mins down the road realised it was the wrong one, had to jump off, get a taxi back to the hostel and get the right bus...a crappy old uncomfortable rickety bus with no air conditioning! For the same price too! I was not impressed. But as you will see later there was a very good reason for this!!
The mountains were stunning. The highest in this range is 7000m above sea level, not far off Mount Everest (8000m). We went as high as 4000m and had to take oxygen bottles with us and got altitude sickness!
The lakes were the most beautiful colours i have ever seen, they each had 5 colours the clearest water of electric blue, deep indigo, bright green, orange and yellow. Totally out of this world. And the reflections were so clear, it was as if the fish were flying in the sky and the birds were swimming in the water.
One of the mountains had yellow calcium carbonate deposits running down the mountain forming amazing pools of coloured water....so perfectly formed they looked totally manmade, although they were completely natural. And from above the deposits looked like a huge yellow dragon winding its way down the mountain, hence the name Yellow Dragon mountain.
This whole place was really like being in heaven.
We passed many little villages , small clusters of wooden and stone houses scattered int he mountains. There are 9 Chinese minorities in these mountains and they were heavily influenced by the Tibetan Culture (46 minorities in total in China). It was like going back in time 200 years. The traditional dresses, the royal blue shirts and jackets, embroidered skirts and aprons and even black turbans were worn by the women who were selling fruit from the miles of fruit trees growing on the mountains. We visited some villages, which allowed tourists and saw traditional folk dances and singing by the minorities. Had a ride on a beautiful, huge, white hairy yak and then had delicious though tough spicy yak meat for dinner.
On our journey up the mountain many of the mountain roads had collapsed in the overnight rain and there were regular rock falls blocking the road. So sitting in htis uncomfortable bus for hours on end was not too pleasant. But as we were driving home i was feeling quite sad that we had not got to spend more time exploring the real villages, the ones that weren't expecting hords of Chinese tourists, and just then the bus broke down and the driver ordered us taxis to go to a small village across the river and up the mountain via a rickety rope bridge!
It was incredible, just like a village in India, small dark very simple two story houses along little cobbled alleyways. This village rarely saw tourists and the villagers were very hospitable, inviting us into their houses. They had huge slabs of pork hanging from their ceilings in the main room downstairs. off this room were a couple of little basic bedrooms.
Upstairs was an open area where they stored friut and vegetables carried back in baskets from their farms and washed these in the village stream before eating.
It is a tradition of this particular minority that the woman marries all the brothers in one family, so the brothers all have to share one wife. Not a bad idea I thought, 4 husbands - a bit of variety.
It was so relaxed I could have lived there forever. Anyway we made our way back to Chengdu for more chilling out and green tea drinking with the locals.