Today we were heading back to Chongqing, but first we would spend the day visiting a beautiful national park. We decided to have a relaxing morning first, so we took a walk around the resort again—it was beautiful in the morning, but it was starting to get hot by the time we finished our walk. Then we packed up, I finished drying my shoes with the blow dryer, and miraculously, they were dry enough to wear comfortably!
We hopped on a bus to go back to the tourist center. While we were there, we stopped for lunch at a nice outdoor restaurant. But thankfully it was covered and somehow it was cool even though there were no walls and no air conditioning.
After lunch we took another bus to 天生三桥 (The Three Natural Bridges). I knew this was a beautiful nature area, and based on the name, I knew it had something to do with bridges, but that was about all I knew about the park. Surprise traveling is pretty fun!
As usual, there were lots of people, and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. Similar to the Great Rift Valley, we were on a path on the side of the mountain, but on this path, we were closer to the top of the mountain than the middle. We were also looking out over a valley between the surrounding mountains.
We walked along, surrounded by masses of people. We looked down and saw more people on the valley floor walking back in the direction we had come from. I supposed that was the direction of our path.
Our path ended at an elevator, and I was a bit confused about what was going on. We had to take an elevator? To where? Things got even more confusing, when we were directed down some stairs and away from the line to the elevators, or so I thought. That’s when we realized that we were getting on a two-story elevator. Whaaat?
Everyone wanted to be on the glass side of the elevator, looking out toward the mountains. But the elevator was so crowded and full of people that no one could move much. I ended up somewhere in the middle.
In a weird twist, as the elevator descended to the valley floor, it twisted around giving everyone a view through the glass. It reminded me of the verse when Jesus says, “But many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Matthew 19:30). All those people who had crowded toward the windows only got a few seconds to see out before the people at the back ended up with the view through the glass. They also got to get out of the elevator first since the doors where now on that side of the elevator. All of these thoughts rushed through my mind, but mostly the spinning elevator left me a little bit dizzy.
We kept walking on the path now at the bottom of the valley. A few minutes later, our path led us to the first of the three natural bridges. It was incredible! I hadn’t realized the massive scale of these limestone bridges over the valley and our path.
As we passed under the bridge, I saw another path up a bunch of stairs that looked like it went up nearly to the bottom of the bridge and looked out over the valley. Wendy and I started climbing up. Also, there were fewer people on this side trail that was mostly just stairs. We climbed up the stairs until the path was blocked, and we could look out across the valley. A little cluster of buildings stood in the valley, and Wendy told me that a Chinese movie was filmed here. The movie is called Curse of the Golden Flower (2006).
After resting and enjoying the scenery for a few minutes, we headed back down the stairs and into the hamlet. Now the buildings were mostly just tourist shops. We looked around for a few minutes, but we wanted to also make sure that we finished the park before our train left that evening.
Right outside the hamlet, we found a little machine that could take our picture and print it in a fake newspaper. I didn’t want one necessarily, but Wendy decided that she would do it for 10 kuai ($1.50).
We kept walking through the mountains, enjoying the incredible natural scenery. I was amazed at the beauty of the landscape. Lots of signs told us what animals the rocks looked like, and we tried to find them based on the pictures.
In some places, the path hugged so closely to the mountain that water from the rocks dripped onto our heads. It wasn’t raining, but the mountain was full of water. One area had a few little springs that trickled out in little water falls. I really enjoyed the beauty of the mountains and the rock formations. When I talk about it, it makes me think of Arches National Park in America, but Arches is in the desert, and The Three Natural Bridges is not remotely desert-like. There were trees and green things everywhere.
By the time we finished at the Three Natural Bridges, we didn’t have quite enough time for the other park that Wendy was trying to decide if she wanted to see. I also kind of wanted to see it, but I didn’t want to miss our train. I had already paid for an extra ticket since the first ticket I had booked was for the day before. I hadn’t been paying close enough attention when I bought the ticket, and since we were in the mountains when I realized that the train was about to leave, I couldn’t do anything to cancel the ticket. Thankfully, there were lots of train tickets still available.
We decided to skip the next park and have a more relaxing afternoon. We found a nice little café at the top of the restaurant where we had eaten lunch. We got fun drinks and chatted until it was time to take the bus back to the train station.
We got on the bus with plenty of time, but we sat there waiting for the bus to leave for around 30 minutes. I started to get worried that we were going to miss our train, but the driver said that we should make it.
Thankfully, we did! We made it back to Chongqing, and it felt a little like going home to get back to the same hotel. Also, I was also reunited with my suitcase that I had left behind.