Jiu Zhaigou Tourism
A General Introduction of Jiu Zhaigou:
Jiu Zhaigou (Nine-village gully) is located at Jiuzhaigou county, Aba prefecture, Sichuan province. It is around by nine stockaded villages and got its name. The altitude of Jiuzhaigou is more than 2 kilometers, and it spread over forest. There are 108 lakes in Jiuzhaigou. Wu huahai, Colorful pool, Shuzheng waterfall, Ruo Rilang waterfall, All very beautiful. The scenery so excellent and colorful, so it has a name “fairy fale”. Giant pandas, golden monkey, takin, spotted deer roam the forests of Jiuzhaigou, along with many other species of animals and birds. Jiu Zhaigou as a key of China scenic spot, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1992. May 8,2007, Jiu Zhaigou by the National Tourism Administration approval for the state 5A-class tourist attractions.
The blue sky, white cloud, jokul and forests with the waterfall, river, lake and shoal constituting an attractive painting. The campfire, roasting mutton, Tibetan dance, age-old and beautiful legend are showed that the Tibetan hot and doughty ethnic customs. Jiu Zhaigou is a colorful and florid jasper lake, it’s an original ancient and illusion mysterious fairyland on earth, it’s a fairy fale of purely and no dust. Jiu Zhaigou is the only scenic spot possessing the titles of “World heritage” & “World Biosphere Reserve”. Jiu Zhaigou has original entironment, clean & fresh air, snow mountain, flourishing forests, blue rivers & lakes, all of these offer the tourists a cabalistic, fantastic and charming natural views. It comes out the nature is the best beauty, the best beauty is the nature. Do you heard top-five of Jiuzhaigou? They are colorful grove, the top peak of Jiuzhaigou, blue lake, multilayer waterfall and Tibetan customs. All over the world people call Jiuzhaigou “heaven on earth”.
In Jiuzhaigou, the Tibetan language, dress and customs are different to the else Tibetan of other areas. According to research, their ancester live at Maqu, Gansu province. You can travel Jiuzhaigou all the year, but autumn is the best time for traveling. Now, Travel boom in Jiuzhaigou is getting hotter every year, especially in Spring festival, if you have no early booking, you may have no place to sleep there.
At present, there are four travelling routes of Jiuzhaigou: Shuzheng area, Rize area, Zezhagui area and Zharu area. Its length is more than 60 km, the sights are distributed throuthout six big scenic spot: Shuzheng, Ruorilang, Jianyan, Changhai, Zharu, Tianhai. It has 3 gullies and 118 lakes, including 5 shoals, 12 waterfalls, tens of rivers and fountains. Combined with nine stockaded villages and 12 mountain peaks being an alpine-valley natural landscape. The views are charming all over the year.
Jiu Zhaigou is covering an area of 62 square kilometers, the excursion area is 50 sq.km. The sights of Jiuzhaigou are distributed in the main gullies: Shuzheng, Rize, Zezhagui. In Shuzheng area (its length is 75km), there are Bonsai Shoal (Penjing Tan), Shuzheng Group of Lakes (Shuzheng Qun Hai), Shuzheng Waterfall, Double Dragon Lake (Shuanglong hai), Spark Lake (Huohua hai), Wolong Lake, and so on. The sight spots in Rize are Ruo Rilang, Pearl beach waterfall, high waterfall, mirror Cliff, Panada area, Fragrant Grass area, Swan Lake, Sword Cliff, Original Forest, Suspensory Spring, Flowers area, and so on. The Long Lake and Five-color Pool are in the Zezhagui area. Zharu area has Devil cliff and Zharu Temple.
A lot of people said, “if you back form Jiu Zhaigou, you will not attractive by other places for enjoying water.” The water is the numen of Jiuzhaigou, lake, river, spring, waterfall and shoal go together to make a swinging, tougher with suave, moving and static, and colorful picture. The water streaming among the trees, the trees grow up in the water, the flowers blossom out in the water, how beautiful they are!
Tourist lodging in Jiu Zhaigou:
At the present time, there are dozens of 3-5 star hotel. Including two 5 star hotel, one 5 star standard hotel, three 4 star hotel, more than ten 4 star standard hotel, and so on.
5 star hotel: Intercontinental Resort Jiuzhai Paradise, Sheraton Jiuzhaigou Resort.
5 star standard hotel: Holiday in Jiuzhai jarpo
Remark: Intercontinental Resort Jiuzhai Paradise and Holiday in Jiuzhai jarpo are charged by the world’s biggest Intercontinental Hotels Group. Sheraton Jiuzhaigou Resort is charged by Starwood Hotel Group.
4 star hotel: Qianhe International Hotel Jiuzhaigou, Gesang Hotel Jiuzhaigou, Xingyu Jiuzhaigou hotel.
4 star standard hotel: Jiuzhai holiday village, Jiuzhaigou Sunshine Hotel, Jiulv Holiday Hotel, Jiuzhaigou Jiulong Hotel, Grand Hyatt Jiuzhaigou, Jiuzhaigou North West Hotel, Jiuzhaigou China Travel Service Hotel, Jiuyuan International Hotel Jiuzhaigou, and so on.
Jiu Zhaigou entrance tickets:
Jiu Zhaigou: entrance tickets is 220RMB in Apr. 1 to Nov. 15 and 80RMB in Nov. 16 to Mar. 31. If you want to take the ECO-car, you should pay 90RMB.
Huanglong: entrance tickets is 220RMB in Apr. 1 to Nov. 15 and 80RMB in Nov. 16 to Mar. 31. Maonigou’s ticket is 70RMB.
Ticket of Diexi Quake lake is just 5RMB, Heldendenkmal der Roten Armee is 8RMB, Jiuzhaigou Angel Pool entrance ticket is 100RMB, taking tour bus needed 90RMB per person., 40RMB for battery cart. But the ticketing packages of Jiuzhaigou Angel Pool is 398RMB, which consiste of tour bus, battery cart, guide and one lunch.. You can choose by yourself from these two way.
Jiu Zhaigou Cate:
In Jiu Zhaigou and Huanglong, lots of goods are delivered from outside and the traffic is not convenient, so most of the food are very expensive. Therefore, there is no necessary to consider about the food costs, because you would have no idea to cut the costs down.
You can taste much ethnic foods in the local hotels, such as Roast Whole Lamb, chang, Jiuzhai dried persimmon, Jiuzhai pickle vegetable noodle, Yam Ciba, Jiuzhai potato ciba, and so no. Most of these are Tibet flavoured food, so maybe some people don’t like them.
Various food introduction:
Ruyi dish:
Ruyi dish is fiddlehead shreds, it got the name by its shape like a green ancient jade Yu Ruyi. Foreigners rank it as health food, and call it “king of potherb”.
YA tea:
YA tea is made of tea’s branch and large leaves, its locality is YaAn area, so call it “YA tea”. The main food of the Tibetan is meat, they seldom eat fruites and vegetables, so they are lack of vitamins, drinking YA tea can meet their needs of vitamins. And YA tea is the necessary material to make buttered tea, the smell of YA tea is very heavy, so it can cover the smell of butter and milk.
Yam Ciba:
Yam Ciba is the most famous food in Jiu Zhaigou. Yam also called potato. Boiled the potatoes until softened, then Put in a cask and mashing vigorously. Making it as Ciba, add the pickle vegetable and pepper after it cooked. It tasted smooth and very dilicious.
Buckwheat noodle:
Pulverizing the buck wheat and then make various foods. Buckwheat steamed bread and noodle are roughage, they are good for health. The buckwheat noodles are very dilicious and fragrant, you can have a bowl of beef buckwheat noodle for your dinner.
Bracken:
Bracken is very fresh and tender, and it has very high nutritional value.
Chang:
Chang’s color is light yellow, and it taste sweet and sour. Chang is well known as “Tibet beer”, it’s indispensable to Tibetan. Chang is also the top-grade spirit to celebrate a festival with jubilation and hosting. According to Tibetan custom, when the guests are coming, the host would put up the chang flagon and serve 3 bowl of full chang to the guests. The guests can drink by yourr own quantity drinks to drink the first and the second bowl of chang, you can drink it up or drink a bit, but you can’t drink at all. The third bowl of chang, you should toss off the bowl to show your respect. The Tibet always sing toasting song when they urge the guests to drink. The songs are rich and colorful, the melody is enchanted, too.
Pickled vegetable:
Pickled vegetable tasted good, and it can adjusted the taste and increase your appetite. It’s also helpful for your digestion.
Yak meat:
Yak native form plateau of Jiu Zhaigou, the meat has fragrant and mineral taste. Now, there are some yak meat fabrication plant in Jiu Zhaigou. The meat is made for cooked food and packed in a vacuum packing, so the tourists buy and take it more easily and carry back to their friends and relatives as presents.
Local Product:
Ruyi dish, yam ciba, yak meat, chang and so on.
Shopping in Jiu Zhaigou:
In the area of Jiu Zhaigou and Huanglong, you would buy the local particular Qiang embroider, shading apple, Chinese medicinal herb, Tibetan handicraft article like Tibetan ring, Tibetan knife, beads and so on.
Northwest of Sichuan is filled with caladium, worm grass, muskiness and so on, these herb are all very precious.
You also can buy some wild pepper, bracken and agaric. The Tibetan knife is so characteristic, but it’s not allow to book and check through in the airport. The Tibetan ornaments are refined and beautiful, but you should know that they are not very expensive, and you can dicker with the seller.
The way to Jiu Zhaigou:
At present, there are just two ways to Jiu Zhaigou, bus and plane.
1、Plane:
In the circumstances of no discuount ticket, flying to Chongqing city then transfer to Jiu Zhaigou, more cheaper than flying to Jiu Zhaigou directly. There are planes from Chongqing to Jiu Zhaigou every day. The air fare is 980RMB + 50RMB MYC + 50RMB airport fee = 1080RMB.
You also can fly to Mianyang first, then take bus to Jiu Zhaigou. Jiu Zhaigou airport (in full) is call “Jiuzhaigou Huanglong airport”, short for “Jiu Huang airport”. The airport located at north 12 kilometers of Chuanbeisi town, Songpan county, Aba prefecture, Sichuan province. So the airport also called “Zhusi airport”.
Now, the opened flight include many line, e.g. Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou flight, Chongqing to Jiuzhaigou flight, Xian to Jiuzhaigou flight, and so on. But some flights would be socked in the off-travel-season.
There are lots of buses between Jiuzhaigou-Huanglong and Jiu Huang airport. All of the buses are using GPS & DIMS, and there are stewards give you a tour guide service. It’s very convenient.
Bus fare:
(1) Jiu Huang airport to Jiu Zhaigou: single ticket is 45RMB, return ticket is 80RMB. Single trip needed one and a half hour.
(2)Jiu Huang airport to Huanglong: single ticket is 22RMB, return ticket is 40RMB. Single trip needed one hour.
2、Bus:
Most tourists come form the direction of Chengdu, therefore, you can buy a bus ticket to Jiu Zhaigou in Xinnanmen station and Chadianzi station in Chengdu. But the buses in Chadianzi is more than in Xinnanmen, so you’d better go to Chadianzi to take the bus.
The bus fare is about 125RMB for single trip. Vehicle-hour is almost 10 hours.

















