Notes on a trip to Sichuan | Traveling to Huanglong in the Mist

After touring the Qinggan Grand Ring Road, I returned to Lanzhou and ate another mutton barbecue. I queued in a long line at Zhengning Road Snack Street to buy the Chinese No. 68 Bearded Milk and Egg Fermented Rice Dumplings that had been on A Bite of My Tongue. It tasted delicious. It's just average. Sure enough, it's hard to live up to the reputation of being an internet celebrity. I can only comfort myself by saying that I just can't get used to it and it doesn't suit my taste.

After a short rest, we flew to Chengdu and started our journey to Huanglong and Jiuzhaigou Valley.

From Chengdu to Huanglong, after getting off the expressway, it is a narrow two-lane winding mountain road with many large cars on the road. Our driver did not grasp the distance properly during the overtaking process and was caught between two large trucks, breaking several pieces of glass. The process was very thrilling, but fortunately no passengers were injured. I spent more than an hour on the roadside waiting for the travel agency to reschedule the vehicle, which resulted in a late arrival at Huanglong. It was already dark only halfway through the tour.

In order to save time, we chose to take the cable car directly to the top of Huanglong Mountain. The altitude is more than 4,000 meters. Be careful not to exercise strenuously to prevent altitude sickness. God is not kind to us. There is a thick fog and drizzle on the top of Huanglong, and we can't see anything. It was also wet and cold, and even wearing a down jacket felt chilly to the bone.

I felt so melancholy, thinking that most of my trip was in vain, so I had no choice but to take pictures of flowers and plants to barely prove that I had been there before.

All the way down the mountain, the fog gradually faded, but the sky began to get darker. I adjusted the camera's sensitivity to over 1600 to barely keep the photo from being blurry.

As the fog dissipates, you can begin to see Huanglong's most famous terraced calcium carbonate sedimentation pools, grand in scale with ingenious structures and rich colors . Each sedimentation pool has a different color, such as blue and green, like various gemstones. If the weather is good and there is sunshine, it must be very beautiful.

Only halfway up the mountain, the sky was completely invisible. The weather on the plateau was like this. It only took about an hour from the time the sky started to darken until it was completely invisible. With great regret, I started to use the flashlight of my mobile phone and hurried down the mountain. I will come back next time to see the most beautiful side of Huanglong.