Felix's 3 Days Jiuzhai Valley Tour

Also called Jiuzhaigou and Nine Villages Valley, Jiuzhai Valley National Park is famous all over the world as the Land of Fairy Tale. Huanglong National Park, known for incredible calcified scenery, located near Jiuzhai Valley. I've been planning go there for years, and I knew it's the time! My sister and I planned to start the tour during December when is almost the low season due to the cold weather, but there's still extremely marvelous view with snow and ice.

Day 1 Chengdu-Huanglong-Jiuzhai Valley

In order to avoid the possible traffic jam, we got up at 5:00am. After a quick fresh up, we took a taxi to the rendezvous place to meet other tourists, the guide and the driver. The tour started at 6:30am in the morning.

Useful Links: How to Get to Jiuzhai Valley | Best Time to Visit Jiuzhai Valley | Jiuzhai Valley Travel Guide

We stopped 3 times on the way to let everyone especially the driver get the time for a rest. Once, we stopped by a local tourism market where we could get some warm food like corn, eggs and Chinese sausage, and warm clothing is also available.

After about 5-hour driving, we finally arrived at the restaurant, the environment is not so good because of the special location, and the food got cold quickly but everyone understood and had a happy lunch. After lunch, we walked around and enjoyed the fresh air, there's a picture of the blue sky and a speck of cloud which seemed like a “running dog”. Then we headed for Huanglong National Park!

We enjoyed a great weather

About one hour later, we arrived at the entrance of Huanglong National Park, and took the cable car up to the top area of the mountain, where we could walk along the plank road with fresh air and engaging views. It's quite cold and we all felt a little bit headache due to the high altitude. Remember to take warm clothing and common medicine if you want to come in the winter.

With almost half an hour wandering, we could see the Wucai Lake (Five colored Ponds) from a distance, and we climbed to the observation deck for better view where we couldn't stop ourselves from pressing the shoot button.

The Panoramic View of Wucai Lake (Five-color Ponds)

We overviewed Wucai Lake (Five-color Ponds) from the Deck

Our Selfie with Wucai Lake (Five-color Ponds)

After that, we started to walk down. There are many marvelous sights to savor, like water flow, colorful lakes and waterfalls. My favorite is the iced waterfall Yingbin (Guests Welcome) Pond.

And then we left Huanglong for dinner as soon as everyone had come back. We visited the local Tibetan family (a restaurant in fact) where we tasted Tibetan-style hotpot, yak meat and enjoyed dancing and singing performance. After that, we finally arrived at our hotel which is quite close to the Tourist Center of Jiuzhai Valley.

Day 2 Jiuzhai Valley (Jiuzhaigou) National Park

Today, we would start our exploration in Jiuzhai Valley by ourselves.

As you can see from the map, consisting of three valleys- Shuzheng Valley, Rize Valley and Zechawa Valley, jiuzhai Valley looks pretty similar to alphabet Y. The tourist center near Nuorilang Waterfall is the only place with a restaurant and the smoking area where is quite packed even during the low season, it's better to bring some fast food with you.

We started the trip by shuttle bus which took us to the tourist center directly, and we chose to visit the Five Colored Pool and the Long Lake first, which are totally the highlights today. It took us about half an hour to arrive the Long Lake by bus (about 1.5-hour walking distance), and then we went to the Five Colored Pool on foot. The water is so clear that we could be able to see rocks at the bottom of the river and the scenery is extremely fabulous.

Five Colored Pool with Multi-colored Water

After visiting the Long Lake and the Five Colored Pool, we took the shuttle bus back to the tourist center to find some warm food, where was full of tourists having lunch. And we enjoyed the instant noodles and hotpot which was quite delicious for us at that time! Remember to bring some instant food and enough water with you, in case you're hungry or thirsty on the road without any shops nearby.

We hung around for a while and then took the shuttle bus for the Virgin Forest (we can only go up to the Five Flower Lake because the roads were under repair) and got off at the Five Flower Lake station. We kept roaming along the walking path and visiting the Pearl Shoals (the babbling brook looks like pearls flowing through), the Pearl Shoals Waterfall, the Mirror Lake (mirroring everything around), the Nuoriang Waterfall, the Rhinoceros Lake, the Tiger Lake, the Shuzheng Falls and the Shuzheng Lakes. When we were near Lying Dragon Lake, we couldn't be able to move anymore and sat down to look through the photos we've taken today.

I took a picture with the Five Flower Lake

The Mirror Lake truely looked like a mirror

Picturesque View of the Nuorilang Waterfall

The Shuzheng Falls

The Rhinoceros Lake

Roaming in Jiuzhai Valley and Huanglong, I totally lost myself regardless of time and space. After a short break, we went back to our hotel and had a rest.

Day 3 Jiuzhai Valley-Chengdu

Today, we visited a Tibetan Village, learnt some local cultures, browsed the museum and tasted the unique food as lunch. Then went back to Chengdu!

You don't want to enjoy the beauty of other mountains after you have paid a visit to Mount Huang, nor do you intend to experience the wonder of any other scenic water when you have returned from Jiuzhai Valley! If you have a plan for Sichuan Tour, then it's a must to unveil dreamy inborn beauty of Jiuzhai Valley and Huanglong. Please feel free to contact me and get your tailor-made tour!

Since my friend felt sick and vomited after staying at the platform for a while, we had to finish this tour in advance, and ate some fast food at the foot of the mountain. It was fantastic even though we missed the Old Golden Summit, the Cheng'en Temple and many other attractive spots.

I won't make it too long to visit again!