Trip to HaiLuoGou, Sichuan (圖)

The trip to HaiLuoGou was an adventure according to Richard. He told me in Chinese with excitement but low voice: “This is an adventure”, when we had our first dinner at HaiLuoGou. His eyes appeared to me at that moment that HaiLuoGou was full of mysteries to him and he was eager to explore them. We joined a tourist group and left Chengdu on 28Mar2007. It would take us about 9 hours to get to HaiLuoGou, although it was only 320km from Chengdu. I worried that Richard would get bored/upset sitting on the bus for such a long journey. Therefore, I talked to him about the first stop that we were heading toward to give him something to look forward to. We would visit the LuDing Bridge on our way to HaiLuoGou. The LuDing Bridge was tightly related to the history of the Red Army. Walking through the mini Long March of the Red Army including crawling across the mini LuDing Bridge, climbing over the ice mountain, and walking across the wet grassland was an annual event as a part of my education in China. The fight between the Red Army and the KMT at the LuDing Bridge was very famous and had been presented in many movies/TV programs, etc. I didn’t know how much Richard knew about the modern history of China, but I knew that he was extremely interested in anything related to the militaries and wars. He gained a lot of knowledge about the BaLu Army by watching the TV program called “BaLu Army”, which was aired during the summer of 2005 when Richard was in ChengDu. He knew that the BaLu Army fought against Japanese army who invaded China and did many bad things to Chinese people. He admired the Generals of the BaLu Army, and had been eager to know more about them. Watching “BaLu Army” triggered his attention to the global issues. He even wrote down that his goal was “to know more about the world”, when his teacher asked him to set his goal for his 1st grade when he just started his 1st grade after the summer of 2005. The LuDing Bridge associated with Mao ZheDong, Zhu De, and Zhou EnLai’s army definitely raised Richard’s interest. Of course, the scenic way along the winding QingYi River, the 4km long tunnel across ErLang Mountain, the rural villages and many small bridges over the DaDu River on the way to LuDing were all attractive to Richard. He was quite into the journey and enjoyed the journey.I almost forgot to mention a mystery guest with us. Flat Stanley had been accompanying us from the beginning. I was sure that he was traveling around the world with many other friends of Richard’s class as well at that moment, and would share his stories to Richard’s class after the Spring Break.Richard was excited to see the snow mountain when we stopped at the entrance to the Tunnel of ErLang Mountain. He said: “This is like the Fuji Mountain”. He had a picture taken with Stanley there. The sky was clear blue. I heard that the weathers on the two sides of the ErLang Mountain are completely different most of the time. The ErLang Mountain is like a screen dividing the two sides. The sky is usually foggy on the side close to ChengDu because of pollution, but is very clear or snowy on the other side. We were lucky to see the beautiful sky before we entered the tunnel. I got excited too for the scenic surroundings –the blue sky, the white clouds, and the snow mountain from a distance, and couldn’t help breathing deeply since such fresh quality air was quite rare in China. We got across the Tunnel of ErLang Mountain in 5 minutes. Thanks to the builders of the tunnel! It would have taken three days to get across the ErLang Mountain without the tunnel. The DaDu River became our company then, which was quite narrow during the season, but was running extremely fast. Richard questioned about where the water comes from and where the water goes. I was of course the proud mom providing directions as always. You would find out where the water comes from when we get to the HaiLuoGou Glacier Park, and you saw where the three rivers – the DaDu River, the QingYi River and the Min River, merge into the Yangtze River when we visited the LeShan Buddha during the summer of 2005. The Yangtze River then goes all the way to the Pacific Ocean. After passing by many small bridges over the DaDu River, we got to the LuDing Bridge that Richard had been anticipating from the beginning of the trip. The famous iron-chain bridge was finally in front of us. It looked less than three meters wide and about 100 meters long. It was covered with wood slots. I guessed that it was much safer than when the Red Army soldiers crawled across the bridge without the wood slots and under the gunfire from the KMT soldiers. It was waving and shaking with people walking on it. It was fenced with two iron chains on each side only. The river under the bridge run extremely fast, and would take away anything falling into it. Whatever imaginations about the bridge that Richard and I had had, we were amazed and a little scared when we stood in front of it. Although I went through the mini Long March of the Red Army several times during my primary school years, I just realized how dangerous it was for the Red Army soldiers to get across the bridge with even shootings ongoing. In front of the bridge, I was deeply moved by the courage of the Red Army soldiers. From Richard’s facial expression, I could tell that he was very proud that he got to where the Generals that he admired left their footprints. He might also have many fancy imaginations of himself, and maybe even his Bionicle characters as well as his favorite characters from the Star Wars with the bridge, I guessed. I could tell that Richard wanted to get across the bridge. I wanted, too. We waited until the bridge was almost cleared before we stepped on the bridge hand in hand, and walked along the center cautiously toward the other side. Yes, we made it!! There was a temple close to the gate on that side. A bless from the Buddha for safety was definitely desired at that place. Emperor KangXi’s handwriting of the three Chinese characters of “LuDing Bridge” was put above the gates to the bridge at both sides. I heard that Emperor KangXi paid special attention to the building of the bridge and requested that every craft man hired to make the iron chains grave his name on the chains made by him, so that people could tell whose chain breaks in case it would happen later. I was so glad to see that the quality system was in place years ago in China, and we could still benefit from it to get across the river. The history might have erased countless lousy constructions, but quality products would last for generations.We arrived at the entrance to the HaiLuoGou Glacier Forest National Park about an hour after leaving the LuDing Bridge. The park is on the eastern side of GongGa Mountain in LuDing County of Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Ganzi, Sichuan Province. After another 45 min ride of the shuttle provided by the park along the winding mountain road, we got to No. 2 Camp in the park. It was dark already. Richard told me that the shuttle made sharp turns one hundred times on the way. No. 2 Camp lies about 2600 meters above the sea level. It is surrounded by mountains and mountains, and is famous for the hot spring water ponds in the open air. The cottages at No. 2 Camp were built along a hill and were scattered below the eye of the hot spring water of the GongGar ShenQuan. My sister booked the president room for us, which is at the highest spot of No. 2 Camp - the closest to the eye of the hot spring water. We had to climb many steps to the top of the camp passing by many hot spring water ponds at different levels. The white smoke of the water vapor flying out of the hot spring water made the environment full of mystery in the dark with a few dizzy lights around. I was short of breath and had to rest a little bit about every 10 steps because of my physical reaction to the altitude. We were amazed when we got to the front of our cottage. We had a private hot spring water pond in front of the cottage, and could see all the other hot spring water ponds below ours. The surrounding was quiet and dark at night. Looking down the hill, with the white smoke of the vapor here and there, you would feel that you were not in a place of the real world. We decided to jump into the hot spring water in front of our cottage immediately. It was too hot! That reminded us of what the clerk told us when we checked in. We should start with the pools at the lower levels first and go up gradually, since the lower the pool, the lower the temperature of the water. The strategy worked. At last, we walked into the pool in front of our cottage with ease. The temperature might be only 5-10 C at night. Experiencing the hot spring water and the cold weather at the same time in the natural environment was unique. We really forgot everything else, but indulged ourselves in the special comfort in the nature. We went to dinner after enjoying the hot spring water. Richard had his favorite Chinese dish – Tomatoes and Eggs. You could tell from the taste that the tomatoes were organic. That day was a whole new experience to Richard. It was not a surprise that Richard stated that the trip was an adventure.We had a very good sleep that night with every cell relaxed. While I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom the next morning, Richard got out of the bed, and opened the door. I heard his shout: “Wow, it is so beautiful outside. Mom, come over. Look!” It was indeed so beautiful outside. I was speechless at that moment, and hated myself that I couldn’t find any words in either Chinese or English to describe such a scene. The rising sun shined from the East on the pool in front of our cottage. We could see the sun shine through the water vapor flying out of the pool. The leaves on the big old tree next to the pool were sparkling and dancing with the breeze in the sunshine. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing was real.We walked around and breathed deeply the fresh air in the mountains with light spirit. We were very excited seeing so many breathtaking scenes around. We took many pictures including a picture of the eye of the hot spring water. I heard that the beauty of the spot is that the scene changes with the season and weather. It was a totally different picture when my sister visited here in February this year while it was snowing. Can you imagine the feeling of sitting in the hot spring water in the open air with a snowy white surrounding?We had our breakfast after walking around. Then, we jumped into the hot spring water pool in front of our cottage in the sunshine. Sitting in the hot spring water with vapor flying around, breathing the fresh air, and viewing the snow mountain in a distance, I was wondering if I was in a dream or in the real world. The scene at that moment reminded me of my imagination of the Garden of Eden.We left for HaiLuoGou Grand Glacier Cascade around 10:30am. The shuttle provided by the park took us to the cable car station. We traveled through the HaiLuoGou valley in the cable car while viewing the big mountains on both sides and the virgin forest, glaciers and winding creeks beneath, and then arrived at the Grand Glacier Cascade station. Of course, Richard figured out where the water in a river comes from on the cable car. The Grand Glacier Cascade cable car station is about 3600 meters above the sea level. The sky was clear blue with brilliant sunshine. The Grand Glacier Cascade, with a drop of about 1000 meters, looked like a milk way descending from the heaven. I heard that if you are lucky, you may see an avalanche there. Even without seeing an avalanche, you would feel the grandness and the power of the nature. Looking at the glaciers, I couldn’t help questioning when they started to form and how the world looked like in the ancient time. Maybe only the glaciers could answer the questions. The mountains nearby were covered with snow here and there. Richard was quite excited to see the snow after living in a place without snow at all for some time, and he built a snowman and had a picture taken with Stanley and the snowman there. Richard liked the place, and was reluctant to leave. He agreed to leave after I promised him that we would come back later. We left HaiLuoGou, but I was sure that it would be in our memory forever.