Day 176: Wulong Karst National Geology Park
Our 2-day stop in Chongqing is really just a long layover, as Igor couldn’t find any direct flights from Jiuzhaigou to the next big park, Zhangjiajie. Since we had to stop here anyways, Igor did a little research to see if there was anything of interest that we could see in a day, and he discovered “The Three Bridges” – natural karst formations in a park that is supposedly “off the beaten path.” One blogger claimed it was the highlight of his China trip, due to the lack of tourists – sounds like a great recommendation to us!
While the Lonely Planet claims there is no public transportation to the park itself, Igor found a travel blogger who gave detailed directions on how to take the bus(es). Even though the trip was incredibly time-consuming, we had nothing else planned for the day so decided to leave the hotel at 7AM and let the transportation be part of our daily adventure.
Our adventure nearly got derailed when we arrived at the bus station and saw huge lines at the ticket counter – we had only given ourselves 10min wiggle room to buy our tickets and get to our gate. If we miss this bus, our plans for the day may be ruined! We watched in a panic as none of the agents seemed to be helping the people at the front of the line, when suddenly everyone turned away from the counters en mass and started hurrying toward the bus gates. We started following the crowd, and quickly asked a security office via Google Translate, “We need to go to Wulong. Should we go this way?” He nodded and pointed us to gate 7 where another large crowd was starting to gather – a few already had tickets (probably purchased the day before) but many others were like us. As we were waiting for the bus agents to sort everyone out, we managed to translate the Chinese characters on the electronic sign above the gate and confirmed that it did indeed say “Wulong 07:40,” so we knew we were in the right place. We asked another agent, “Can we buy tickets on the bus?” to which she nodded. Yay! Crisis averted! After a good 20min delay, the agents let us board the double decker bus (we get AWESOME seats on the second floor, right behind the exit stairwell so no one was in front of us) and we head out of town.
Taking the subway to the bus station. Lindsay is really disappointed that the weather is so hazy – she was really hoping for sunny pictures!
We don’t have bus tickets since the *entire terminal’s system is down* – all we can do is ask, “Wulong?” to the various people who work at the bus station. They point us to a gate – we assume this means we can just board and pay the conductor directly? Hope so…
We arrived in Wulong village around 10:00AM. According to the Lonely Planet, we have to hire a private taxi to get to the park, but we knew better – we walked up to the ticket counter and pulled up a picture of the Three Bridges and showed it to the agent. She nodded and sold us two tickets to the park. We purchased our return tickets to Chongqing as well, and confirmed the departure time at 6:40PM – a bit later than we were hoping, but we would still get back to the city at a decent hour. Despite the lack of English (or even pinyin!) signs indicating times and destinations, it was remarkably easy for us to find the minibus going to the park. We tried to board a full minibus that was just about to leave, but were waved off as there were no seats left. We would have sat on the floor, but were glad to discover that the minibus to the park doesn’t have a set departure time – apparently one minibus after another departs as soon as it is full of passengers. We climbed into the next minibus and only had to wait for about 15min before the driver decided he had enough customers to take off. Another 45min later and we recognized the pyramid-shaped tourist center of the Wulong County National Geology Park – we made it!
There are two more scenic areas of the park in addition to the Three Bridges, however each area has a separate admission fee. It was already close to noon at this point and we were not confident we could have visited more than one area and make it back to the station in time for our bus to Chongqing, so we went ahead with our original plan to visit just the Three Bridges and call it a day. There was no line at the ticket counter, so once we got our tickets, we joined a small que for the shuttle bus and headed off into the park.
Two subway lines, two buses and 4.5 hours later we have arrived at the Wulong Country National Geology Park. While the park runs shuttle buses to three scenic areas, we only have time to visit one, so we buy admission for the “Three Natural Bridges”
Up until this point, we believed we had truly stumbled upon a “well-kept secret” from Chinese mass tourism – sure we were in a bus full of Chinese tourists, but we figured we were getting to the park at the busiest part of the day. We soon discovered we were WRONG. When we got to the Three Bridges shuttle stop, we discovered huge tour groups queuing up to descend into the karst valley via the glass elevator. Since there was an extra RMB 75pp cost for the elevator (plus our sanity, for waiting in the line), we decided to take the footpath down instead, figuring we’d avoid the crowds as well. Once we reached the bottom, we officially called “bullshit” on the idea that this park is “off the beaten track” – yeah, maybe for Westerners it is (we were definitely the only white people), but the locals are very aware of the existence of Wulong park.
After a quick break to eat our lunch, we tried to make the best of it and explore the Three Bridges area. Since we had all afternoon, we tried to take our time, initially skipping the #1 Bridge near the elevator in order to walk down to the exit and back. However, we grossly misjudged the flow of traffic and found ourselves fighting a surge of tourists as we tried to return to the entrance of the trail. The experience just wasn’t fun anymore; so even though it was early, we joined the LONG line for the return shuttle to the tourist center and got the hell outta dodge.
As usual, we try to avoid the crowds by walking – we descend into the valley via footpath, rather than taking the glass elevator (or a sedan chair)
Apparently scenes from “Transformers: 4” were filmed in the park, so now the whole area has statues of autobots randomly placed throughout the park – even the village! As all the tourists swarm to the dinosaur for their selfies, we couldn’t help but imagine it coming to life and eating them all..
Bridge #2: Qinglong Bridge – in our hurry to move away from the crowds we totally forget to take a picture of Bridge #1…oops
Bridge #3: Heilong Bridge
For reasons unknown to us, all the Chinese tourists really like to yell in this park. I don’t mean they “talk loudly” (although they do that too), they scream, “ARGH!” as if they are trying to hear an echo. Except, there is no echo effect here, at least not one produced by nature – although, once one yokel starts screaming, several more inevitably reply
If you can manage to ignore the other people, the Wulong Geological Park is pretty spectacular – the deep karst valley looks prehistoric. A stone carving of a dragon adds a mystical touch to the scenery
Of course the exit of the scenic area forces us to walk through food stalls and souvenir stands – Igor stops to buy a $1 hotdog on a stick…ew! Is he really going to eat that?
Ah! Igor uses his hotdog to make friends with a scrappy dog loitering near the food stalls. He’s very shy and reminds us of Caesar. We start to feel a bit sorry for him, until we notice more tourists tossing him their leftover snacks – puppy cleans up!
Back at the main tourist center, Igor does his best “Chinese tourist” poses, but his “scarf” doesn’t billow in the wind very gracefully
Igor gives the stink-eye to a tourist who doesn’t seem to understand the concept of “giving someone else a turn” before finally getting his turn with Optimus Prime…or whoever this character is, I dunno, I didn’t watch the movie
Igor calls false advertising on the park promo photos that show only 4 people on the walks! Yeah, multiply that by 100, then it will be more accurate
Since we were heading back to Wulong city by 4PM, we were preparing ourselves for a long wait at the bus station for our return to Chongqing. It was luck that prompted us to “just double check” when a bus started boarding from our gate at 5PM – it was headed to Chongqing! We are quickly learning that Chinese buses don’t always follow their posted schedule – it seems that if there is ever a situation where they have a busload of people ready to go, they GO! It makes us wonder what would have happened if we had arrived later in time for our “6:40PM” bus – would it have left without us if it had enough passengers?
Even though Wulong Park was not the gem we were hoping for, we still felt pleased that our Chinese public-transportation travel adventure was a success, so we still considered it to be a good day. We were also really happy to get back to the city and our luxurious hotel room nice and early, so we decided to enjoy the rest of the evening by indulging in Western take-out, Chinese wine and English-language movies channels.
We indulge in another fast-food dinner, picking up some KFC on our way back from the subway station, and decide to spring for a bottle of *Chinese* wine! You know, considering it was only USD $4 for the bottle, it wasn’t bad! Maybe Chinese wine will be the next big thing…?