Introduction
We drove for 13 hours from Chengdu to make it here.
Jiuzhaigou (九寨沟): one of the most beautiful places in China.
I’d read lots about Jiuzhaigou online.
The national park, deemed “Fairyland on Earth”, would be a natural wonder filled with endless, crystal-blue, shimmering pools. These bodies of heavenly water would be adorned by cities of luminescent plant life lavishly living atop the lakebeds. We’d see lush greenery amidst backdrops of snow-capped mountain clusters. What does any of this even mean?
It sounds all pretty, but what’s real and not pretty is our trip being delayed a day due to flooding and losing our hotel money. The drive, expected to take 6 hours, took 13 due to the storms from the previous month causing excess water on the roads, and the traffic of thousands of tourists striving for this destination.
These two days had better be worth it.
Jiuzhaigou Day 1
Turned out the flooding and storms had browned all the waters, so they were no longer that crystal clear color. I’d read about how pandas lived wild here, golden monkeys, and hundreds of species of endemic birds… I did not see much wildlife except for this one little bird that fluttered around cutely and pecked the water, reminding me of a fantail. I could’ve seen you in my backyard in NZ, bitch.
I acknowledge the rarity of pandas and monkeys, but it would’ve been nice to see less people, more wildlife. We did get to see some pretty nature and waterfalls though; it was the best weather in weeks apparently.
Storytime
Let me tell you a story to provide some insight into Chinese culture.
Some taxi and bus drivers in China have this painstaking tendency to alternate between accelerating and breaking every five seconds. Your head shoots forward then back, making most carsick quick. Going up the windy mountain on the bus taking us to the top of Jiuzhaigou became a recipe for disaster. A little girl ended up vomiting.
The vomit is okay – it happens – but the family chucked the plastic bag filled with body-juices and baby-wipes out the bus door into the forest - a UNESCO world heritage site by the way - and no one seemed to care. I am not blaming this family, but I want to point out the different cultural attitude towards the environment in China. People aren’t taught to respect it, whereas we learn this from a young age in New Zealand (NZ).
Accommodation
We stayed overnight in Jiuzhaigou with a local Tibetan family - beautiful wooden rooms with Tibetan designs. Staying in Jiuzhaigou overnight is nominally illegal, but ironically, both the owners were security guards. We ate a classic Chinese breakfast consisting of mianbao (bread), a boiled egg, rice congee and a couple veggies. It gave me that authentic, homely feeling as we sat in the wooden box-like room with television playing in the background and the owners’ family chatting in Tibetan dialect.
Jiuzhaigou Day 2
It rained.
Marching in our raincoats, we arrived at one pool of water, the Colorful Pond. The water was strikingly turquoise and so clear that you could see to the bottom where submerged logs and rocks lay; the pool’s clarity and color are due to a unique blend of minerals and algae. The vibrant blue was so intense. It was the only spot that lived up to Jiuzhaigou’s reputation.
However…
Maybe I’m just fussy as a New Zealander desensitised to top-tier nature sights, but the bad weather meant a carpet of white gloomed above. The surrounding trees lacked life. The pool’s maxed-out saturation couldn’t make up for the enveloping dullness.
Not to mention, even though the mountain was only at a fifth capacity, everyone had crowded here.
The small details like whether you’re listening to tranquil birds singing or screaming kids do significantly impact your experience.
I think this is what separates NZ from Chinese nature.
Nature in China vs NZ
China has already pleasantly surprised me by its nature - Huangshan, parks, Tsinghua campus, Guilin mountains… My preconception before arriving was that it would be busy, polluted cities for 10 million km squared.
However, I haven’t yet felt in China that sense of true nature, where you’re the only one in an entire forest, listening to the earth’s heartbeat and forging tracks through the trees.
Even when the sight is beautiful, there are hundreds or thousands of strangers by your side viewing the same. Maybe I’m too egotistical, wanting to have the illusion that this experience is entirely mine to feel special in that moment – even if I’m literally in a hot, tourist spot. In NZ, it is possible.
Moreover, those strangers tend to not admire the view through their own eyes, but through their cameras’. The goal here is often for girls to wear dresses, take photos, make their jaws triangles and eyes moon-sized, then share them on Xiaohongshu to make it look like they had a good time – instead of actually having a good time. The view is the other way, silly!
And what are the boys doing? Taking the photos.
These would also be the photos that give future tourists the glorified expectations about the location in the first place.
The same thing happened in Inner Mongolia where the grasslands on Chinese social media looked bright-green and vast, only for them to be lifeless and patchy in real life.
~ Note: Here I’m expressing a generalised, pent-up frustration from the course of my China travels; this is not exclusive to Jiuzhaigou ~
I love photos too, but I also want to make room for moments to stop, stare, and appreciate. You can see the proof of me being introspective and mindful in my staring-across-the-distance photos on my Insta @stellabeckmann.
On the second day, we also saw several impressive waterfalls.
Conclusion
I think we got unlucky with timing and didn’t consider the impacts of the flooding, which we in hindsight, could’ve thought about. Based on our visit, I think Jiuzhaigou is normally stunning all-round. It is also meant to be prettiest in Autumn (September to November). I would possibly give Jiuzhaigou another shot if the opportunity arose, and the season was right.
But this under-the-par experience was still a testament to the importance of managing expectations when traveling and taking media with a grain of salt. I’ll be trusting the internet’s magical portrayals of tourist spots next time I see a Fairy.
