Minority Village and Bipeng Valley

     Last weekend we went on a field trip to the Taoping Qiang Village and Bipeng Valley.  We were just gone for two days but it was a great trip.  The Taoping Qiang Village was in a Tibetan area.  It was pretty touristy but it was supposed to show you how the local people lived.  It looked pretty new but I guess it was a replica of the traditional houses.  The area we were in was badly damaged by the earthquake in 2008.  Over 90,000 people died during the earthquake and it was felt in Chengdu as well.  The damage in Chengdu was nothing like the damage experienced in this area though.  One of the towns we passed had to be completely rebuilt after the earthquake.  We were only at the village for 2 hours but it was kind of cool.
     We drove a few more hours to our hotel and then had dinner.  Our hotel room only had a squat toilet so I wasn't too happy about that.  After dinner, a group of us walked around town and explored for a little while.  As we were walking, we saw some fireworks so we decided to stop and watch.  There were a bunch of people out dancing and there was a little fire going.  We ended up dancing with them.  Everybody was holding hands and dancing in a circle so we joined and it was so much fun!  Garrett bought some marshmallows and we roasted them over the fire and then continued dancing.  We found out a little later that it was a wedding reception we had crashed.  We had the best night dancing and talking with these people!

     The next day we got up early and went to Bipeng Valley.  The line to get in was madness.  Chinese people don't believe in lines so it was a massive crowd of people pushing and shoving for at least an hour.  It was crazy!!  Once we made it to the valley though we were surprised by how beautiful it was! Chengdu is so polluted and we rarely ever get to see the sky so it was refreshing to be able to breath in unpolluted air and see the blue sky!  We had a few hours to walk around and there a bunch of trails to hike.  It was just what we needed.  The mountains were snow capped and the leaves were changing colors.  I felt like I was out west in the United States.  It was beautiful and I wanted to stay there longer!  It was such a wonderful day!  We headed back to Chengdu that afternoon and I think it took us close to 7 hours to get home.  Apparently a bus was broken down on the road in front of us and it was smoking really bad so nobody could go past it because they were afraid it was going to explode.  It was pretty crazy and we were stuck for a few hours.  Everybody got off the bus and just hung out on the road.  We ended up getting back pretty late that night and I was exhausted but it was great to get away from Chengdu for the weekend.  I like Chengdu but it's full of concrete and there's no grass anywhere so it's nice to get away every now and then.