2025-12-06 Songpan
Last Day in Jiuzhaigou
We checked out of our hotel, but stored our luggage to be picked up later in the day, and headed back to the entrance of the Jiuzhaigou National Park.
As expected, it was quite crowded, but we went through the entry gates quite quickly and boarded a bus that dropped us off at Shuzhen Village, overlooking the Shuzhen Lakes, a series of cascading pools. We went up to the village to get a Luckin coffee, and have a walk around this Tibetan village and also to get to a viewing platform that gives a great view over the lakes, valley, mountains and the village itself. The village is set into a bowl like valley that feeds into the main valley and catches the morning sun, even now close to the shortest day.
The tourism business is obviously paying off for the villagers, as there is new construction all over, replacing the old houses with newer, but still with Tibetan features.
Walking back to the Shenzhen Lakes, we continued along the valley to the Shenzhen Falls, and then to Tiger Lake where we caught a shuttle bus to the tourist centre, and transferred to another shuttle bus that took us to the south eastern arm of the National Park up to Long Lake, the largest of the lakes we have seen - another magnificent spectacle, with aquamarine water surrounded by snow topped mountains.
We walked back to the Coloured Pool, a smaller shallower lake that gets its name from the play of light on the water, the bottom of the pool and the reflections - a gem of sparkly light in the forest and snow lined banks today.
Back on a shuttle bus (the Park must have hundreds of these - all metro bus sized - all constantly going back and forth, as the park is not open to public traffic, only these buses and the residents of the nine tibetan villages in the park) to the tourist centre for a late lunch before getting another shuttle bus to the entrance, and a Didi to the hotel.
Toby had booked a driver to take us from Zhangzar to Songpan, who was waiting when we got back to hotel. Quite a bit of juggling followed to get all our luggage and ourselves into the car, but we managed, then it was a 2 hour drive back to Songpan, retracing our bus trip from the train to Zhangzar two days earlier. It is amazing country here - rugged mountains and snowy peaks, with bits of snow lying in shady areas. In a month I imagine that the road would need snow ploughs to maintain access.
Our hotel in Songpan is right in the old centre, which is surrounded by Ming Dynasty walls. We arrived after dark, so we only had time for a quick look around, but this seems like a very interesting place. There is a lot of road works going on - it looks like the central core is being redeveloped into a tourist/pedestianised precinct. A bit haphazard at the moment,with holes and trenches, half finished footpaths and street vendors, clothes racks into the footpaths from the shops and so on - to me, at least, this is vibrant town life! On the way back we passed an enormous brightly lit up square or parade ground, where in one corner a scratch soccer match was being played by some local lads, and in another corner a group of women were doing 'aunty dancing' to a big boom box.
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