We spent 1800 rmb each for our tour which included flights, entry tickets, hotel and all meals except for one lunch for two days. The same level of tour but designed for foreigners I have seen for one to two thousand American dollars. It was well worth the cost but a tour designed for Chinese travellers has some unique features. For instance, along the bus route are mandatory shopping stops. The first was at a Chinese medicine store. They were selling the usual collection of unidentifiable things, and there was a guy with a tray of bloody, freshly hacked off antlers that could be bought by weight. They had several concoctions that could be steeped in alcohol. We tried this mixture which was supposed to be good for the brain:
Many places that sell Chinese medicine have the highly un-ecologically correct feature of a stuffed baby deer. (Just a guess, but I think it is related to the healing power of deer antlers.)
During the bus ride our guide who was local and spoke thickly accented Mandarin told stories, introduced features of the area, and taught us a few words in Tibetan. Before our first meal stop, he took some pains to explain that the food available was not going to be very good (short growing season for vegetables, and the earthquake had closed roads so tough to get things shipped to the area.) But that is no excuse for bad cooking.
Pelts of these long, sharp faced animals that I can't identify were in many stores, both winter and summer coloured.
Our first bus stop in Jiuzhaigou featured many local people with costumes for us to try on - they literally line up and surround you as you get off the bus. To try on a costume is 10 rmb, if you get them to take your picture it is much more expensive. I was basically dressed in a costume (my hat pulled off and replaced with a tib*tan coloured and fringed cap; my arms pulled into sleeves of the dress) before I could protest.
The hotels at Jiuzhaigou (our guide claims all hotels are like this) have hot water at certain times of the day; in the evening between 8 and 11:30 and in the morning from 6 to 10 or so. The morning of our departure, we got a 5:30 wake up call and had to be on the bus before six. Yes, before the hot water was turned on. My problem with this, is that the trip back to the airport included two more mandatory shopping stops (you are required to get off the bus) that took up more than an hour.
7 am shopping stop at a jewellery store. When was the last time you shopped for jewellery at 7 am?
The next shopping stop was at a yak meat store. There were many interesting preparations of yak meat and other parts of the yak. I was kind of disinclined to buy anything after having been woken up so early though.
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