Day 2 - Huanglong Valley "Fairyland on Earth"

Continuing our travel story where we left off.. After a 90 minute delay in the morning for a bus repair, we left for Huanglong Valley. The translation is "Yellow Dragon", because the calcified rocks along the river course down the mountain are golden yellow from all the minerals, and look like a giant yellow dragon along the side of the mountain from above. We were rocketed up the mountain on the fastest cable car you have ever seen, had a cup-o-noodles at the top and began our descent through one of the most beautiful places on earth.



In the pictures above and below, you can get a glimpse of the yellow river bed. I am carrying Sophia at this point because Helen had trouble with the elevation and began to become very tired and had to be carried most of the way down by Michael. We were up about 11,000 feet at one point, and others in our group had trouble, too. There were oxygen stations every half mile or so, and we stopped in one for Linda and Helen to get a boost.

For me, the most amazing moment of the day was the sudden glimpse of a Tibetan Buddhist temple after climbing to the top of a hill.

Thomas and Tal are spinning the prayer wheel at the temple.

This is considered one of the important temples of Tibetan Buddhism, and it was a thrill for me to see it. Michael and I have had an interest in Tibet for a while, and when the Dalai Lama visited Buffalo last year, I was even more intrigued. We had even discussed trying to go to Lhasa while we are in China -- but it is far, and we were not sure how the kids would do with the elevation (turns out we were right to be concerned about that). As we drove to Huanglong we began seeing signs of Tibetan influence in the architecture of the villages, and spotting the temple, stepping inside, was like realizing a dream to encounter this remote people and their peaceful spirituality. The area we were in, as it turns out, is a "Tibet and Qing autonomous prefecture" within the Sichuan province, although I think "autonomous" might be stretching things a bit. But for me at least, if I never get to Tibet, I began to feel like I was there in spirit, anyway.