great firewall of china: part 15: Sneaking into parks

9-23 I woke up early to find cloudy skies, so I didn't head to
Jiuzhaigou (pronounced Jo-zy-goh by the way). Instead I played around
on computer. I wanted to watch the first episode of Glee, but Hulu
can only be watched in the US due to copyright stuff, so I settled
with The Daily Show and Colbert Report Around noon, there was some
blue sky, which was exciting. So I headed towards the park entrance
to see if they had any half day fee. Paying 35 bucks plus the 15 for
the bus for the afternoon when there were still plenty of threatening
clouds around wasn't worth it to me. It was a no go though. I was
considering trying to do the sneak, just like you can do legally at
Rocky (think of all the trails you can access by foot into rocky for
free: lower beaver meadows, ymca, twin owls, black canyone, mcgraw
ranch, dunraven, allenspark), so I was thinking perhaps I could just
walk across into the park from some other area. I was debating this
as I was visiting the visitor center, and I made up my mind when I saw
a figure in the visitor center of how much PROFIT the park had made
for the chinese government. 467 million RMB...that's 69 millon
dollars. Although I felt a bit guilty for sneaking into the park, I
figured I had already paid my fair share in what I think is a super
expensive fee for 1 day and in my 5x more visa fee and than 5x more
visa extension fee. Plus, I didn't want to give too much to a
government that is doing ethnic "cleansing" on the tibetans and other
minorities and that doesn't allow for freedom of religion nor speech
and blocks many public websites. Not a government I necessarily
approve on and want to keep giving lots of money to. So I decided I
would increase my donation to the World Wide Fund for Nature and
Greenpeace this year instead: a much better place for my money. I
also made sure to buy some fruit at the little remaining tibetan
village in the town. The tibetans used to farm and raise animals in
the valley where all the fancy hotels, airport, shopping centers, etc
are now before they turned jiuzhaigou into the big tourist destination
that it is. So I walked a bit down the river, forded the river,
climbed up a steep rocky area where their fence was not built,
reforded the river, and snuck in that way. It still was not full
sunny, but it was much brighter, so I went back to some of the
highlights and some them sparkle even more in the better light. I
then hiked some trails I had not been able to get to before because I
had run out of time before.

Tomorrow I catch the early bus for the long journey back to Chengdu
via the landslide and earthquake damaged road. This is the area of
china that had the huge 8.0 earthquake back in 2008. I hope to make
it back in time for the dumpling party that my hostel in Chendu is
holding.

9/24 Bus to Chengdu. We went a different route than we came,
presumably bc the other route was closed by landslides. I later read
that 4000 people in an area of sichuan not too far from me had been
evacuated bc a landslide dammed a river and their was a whole town at
risk if the landslid dam were to break. Of course the route was very
scenic through the mountains and steep canyons (tibetan prayer flags
hanging everywhere). Lots of landslides and collapsed roads. We
often had to take the bus on a very narrow dirt road avoiding the mud
or collapsed road. Had lunch at a town that had obviously been
majorly hit by the 2008 earthquake, but they were busy rebuillding it.
A chinese couple on the bus that spoke good english took me to a
different restuarant than the one the bus dropped us off at. They
said it was better and cheaper...and then treated me to lunch. They
said it was in thanks for the girls' brother who had moved to
California and had been treated quite well there.
That night I made it back in time for the dumpling party. We first
made the dumplings, then cooked them, then stuffed ourselves with
them. The hostel I stayed at (mix hostel) in chengdu was awesome and
one of the best I had stayed at so far (makes sense as it was rated as
the #2 hostel in asia by hostelbookers) and it only cost 5 bucks for
an aircon dorm. That night I chilled with a couple americans who were
fresh on the start of a year long journey. They were sort of typical
americans complaining about the food (wouldn't touch street food and
had been frequenting kfc and mcdonalds). They were in for a surprise
when they got to other parts of SE asia where there would be no
western food to be found. But they were nice and we had a good time
talking and a couple british girls and a dutch gal also joined.