Black Bamboo Valley Abduction Delayed

Since we were unable to make it to the Hei Zhu Gou the previous week, we thought we would take advantage of the "Sports' Day" celebrations on Friday and make our way to the "mysterious" Black Bamboo Valley.

According to our internet research, this area is called the "Bermuda Triangle of China." All the students and teachers we talked to immediately used the word "mysterious" to describe it.

The scenic spot of Black bamboo valley located in Yi race Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, its area is 180 square kilometers.The Black Bamboo Gouge has grand and dangerous topography, fantastic landscapes, primitive ecology, rare species, marvelous environment, abundant forest landscapes, unique natural landscapes, thick national flavor and all sorts of wonderful legends. Hence, it enjoys a great reputation in the world. (www.chinahotel.com.cn)

All week long we made jokes about how we were going to get abducted by aliens when we spent the night at Black Bamboo Valley. Disappear from the face of the planet we would. We also gloated over the stories about those 30 Kuomintang soldiers who disappeared in 1950; the two Chinese People's Liberation Army soldiers who went missing: the 1964 Forest Resources Investigation Team incident; and other great an wonderful events to make us feel a little worried about our trip.

Hey, what the heck! We are in China to have an adventure and what better adventure could there be than to disappear in the Black Bamboo Valley. We may even make it in some of those mystery articles or tourist books.

To Ebian On The Way to The Black Bamboo Valley

We hired a van to deliver us to the Emei Main Bus Station. It cost us 15 Yuan (the guy was not interested in bargaining) so we arrived early enough to catch the 0750 bus to Ebian. Coordination with Charles, the teacher at the Leshan Vocational and Technology College, was made and he would catch the 0820 bus out of Leshan and meet us around 1100 or so in Ebian. We were underway.

It was 0740 and time to get aboard. Nice bus. Very comfortable.

Tom is relaxed and feeling good about the trip to Abduction Two!

Notice the fear on the faces of these two travelers. Do they believe the stories about all those abductions at Black Bamboo Valley? I began to think so as we approached Ebian.

We arrived at Ebian at 1005. Don't believe me? Check the clock. We had to wait another hour for Charles to arrive.

As us guys hung around outside kibbitzing and generally making fools of ourselves, a police car pulled up and two police persons got out. They both looked very young. We began to make jokes about the local department sending out their forces to confront the aliens (us). As we watched these two call back to headquarters the jokes flowed like water from all the scifi movies we had watched.

Police lady: We have contact with the aliens. Request further orders.

HQ: Approach cautiously and do not make any false moves. Try to communicate with the aliens.

Police Lady: Roger, will do. Do I need backup?

HQ: Backup is on its way. Are you comfortable in communicating with the aliens? Do they appear to be hostile?

And so the movies go with various constructs on the communication angle.

As we joked about the scenario, these two young police people walked up to us and introduced themselves. They had been sent to communicate with the visiting aliens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunee came out and it turned out that the road to Black Bamboo Valley had been washed out from the previous night's heavy rains. The police and come to inform us of this situation.

ABDUCTION DELAYED!

Another week, another disappointment! What to do? Charles was due to arrive in the next thirty minutes. We asked the police lady for a place to go visit. She suggested Luo Mu street about half way back to Emei City. Great! We decided to go check it out.

Charles arrived at around 1120 and we immediately reboarded the return bus to Emei, getting off at the crossroad that led us to Luo Mu Street.

Back to Luo Mu Street

We caught a bus to Luo Mu Street (one Yuan) and began our journey once more looking for ancient China.

We were all hungry so we stopped at this place that had fried potatoes. Looked and they were very good.

Our potatoes! Welcome to another Sichuan snack.

Welcome to Luo Mu Street. The buildings all looked to be well over 100 years old. Just what we were hoping for.

Sunee tries her hand at bargaining for some of those jiaodz steamers. The lady was not interested in selling just one so we left.

My first attempt at an art photo on the old street of Luo Mu. I call this one - Chairs

Oh, no! Not another pose from Dave. Me thinks he works to hard on posing, What do you think?

Great view of the old streets in Luo Mu. There were three or four such streets and we only walked down one of them.

Art Photo- ASLEEP

Art Photo - Yellow Door

This girl with her friend visited with us and ended up going down the street with us talking with us and just having a good time. Their skateboarding was impressive.

Art Photo - Brown Doors

Beautiful Sichuan countryside complete with water and mountains. This creek ran along the side of the ancient street we were enjoying.

Art Photo - Working Hard

Art Photo - Inside

None Art Photo - Detective Tom sluicing the great serial rape seed case.

We took a break at this farm house. Charles and Dave hang out a bit and enjoy being in ancient China.

Dave and Tom give free English lesson to our two hanger ons. The two girls were really sweet and acted like they had as much fun as we did.

We were taken to this Chinese coutyard. It was great with the open area surrounded by old buildings still being used. The owners of this house invited us in to relax and visit.

Dave checks out the drying leaves that Sunee identifies as flowers for some kind of tea.

Visiting with the owners of the courtyard who were very hospitable.

Visiting with the owners and the neighbors.

Art Photo - Chinese Setting

Our two friends had to return to their homes so I took this picture to say goodbye.

Tom continues to try his hand at Art Photography. Wonder if he was successful?

As we were walking along, we saw this guy coming up behind us. He was a unique ancient looking guy.

Art Photo - Chinese Gentleman

Art Photo - Brick House

As we walked along we came upon a house with lots of incense parts outside. We looked in and were immediately invited here. Husband and wife were both working diligently making incense sticks to sell. Hey, this could be one of my Art Photos.

Husband working hard!

When asked if we wanted to go inside and visit the incense makers, Dave kept whispering, "let's go in, let's go in, let's go in!" Experiencing the REAL CHINA.

Humm-V, Chinese-style.

Another view of the creek looking back at the cement factory we passed earlier.

We found this ancient Yi monument at a middle school just before the end of the street. Supposedly there were a lot of buddhas buried under the school grounds. This occurred over thirty years ago. Sounds very much like the Cultural Revolution hit here pretty hard. This place was supposed to be one of the big sites of the local Yi people. Guess I will do some research to see if anything happened here thirty years ago.

This bridge was called Gao Chao or high bridge and is pretty well the major landmark in the area. It is an ancient bridge that is over 500 years old or so the locals say.

After this bridge we walked to the main highway and to the bus stop just down the road. The trip back to the Emei area took only twenty minutes. We walked down only one of the streets at Luo Mu. The other streets are still there and are only twenty minutes away.