Western GrandCanyon HotSprings 

Anticipation

Something about living in China gets under your skin. Whether it's the job opportunities, friendly, helpful people or the awesome, chiseled rock faces inscribed with Chinese characters (Hanzi), I don't know. But, living in a remote mountain village has brought about some unexpected changes to my complexion. Literally, something has caused a tremendous outbreak of skin rash and pimples that must be the result of my Chinese diet.
So, I decided to do something about it. I figured if I drink plenty of water and spend some time in a hot springs, it would do my complexion some good.
I had a 3-day weekend the first week in June and wanted to get out of Weixin and explore some hot springs.I discovered that there is a large (and very hot) mountain spring located near the city of Yibin in S.E. Sichuan Province. Yibin is the closest big city from where I am living in N.E. Yunnan Province and have never been up to Sichuan. After doing a Google search, I found out:
Western Grand Canyon Hot-spring lies on the bank of Jinshajiang River in Shuifu county of Yunnan province. It is 32 km, away from Yibin city and 4 km away from Shuifu county. It is an hour’s drive to get to the hotspring from Yibin city. The Grand Canyon is the river valley of Jinsha River, with green mountains, steep cliffs and swift currents. There is a wonderful spring hidden under the beautiful canyon at the depth of 2380 meters. It was discovered by the Surveying Party of Yunnan province while they were drilling a well. Evaluated by the national-grade experts, the high temperature (85℃ ) , the high pressure and large amount (more than 8000 cubic meters every day) are the No.1 in the country. The hot spring is rich in partial-silici acid, sulfur, technetium, lithium, selenium, selenium-radon, copper and strontium, etc, which are beneficial for human health. The grand Canyon Hot spring Ecological Garden covers more than 300 mu. It can hold more than 3000 people bathing at the same time. By far, it is the most large-scale hot spring in the country. The Hotspring Ecological Garden has elegant hotsprings with different emotional appeals such as: wine hot spring, milk hot spring. There are other facilities: a safe but exciting steep water gliding path, a parking lot with 4000 stalls,a hall that can hold 600 people at the same time., a meeting center dining 500 people, 140 beautiful and refined VIP villas and a national square for more than 1000 people to sing and dance. Besides, there are grass-sliding plot, tennis court, badminton court, beach volleyball court etc.
Wow! This sounds like a treasure. I could go there and let everybody know about a mammoth hot spring and play tennis to boot. So, I packed my rucksack and embarked on a new adventure.

Getting there

One bus per day leaves Weixin and goes to Yibin. The distance is just over 200 kilometers through the rugged mountains of northern Yunnan. The roads are very badly maintained and the majority of traffic traveling on them are blue trucks hauling coal from the coal mines there. It a was treacherous trek, complete with one-way passages around corners where the driver had to constantly blare the horn to make other possible travelers aware that we are coming. We passed through many small mountain villages along the way. Living in rural Yunnan province is a world away from living in Shanghai or Beijing. This rugged country demands a hard life on its' residents. The people's faces revealed the hardships of what living in the mountains truly brings.
While the local people weren't dressed in flashy clothing like some of the Naxi and Bai people I had seen in western Yunnan, they all carried around a big bamboo backpacks used for gathering and hauling. Most of the men smoked endless cigarettes and some of them enjoyed smoking truly harsh tobacco from an exotic pipe. Amidst the faces of the rugged mountain people, however, were many, many children. Their lives didn't appear to have the same toll as the elders. They were all mostly students and were completely astonished seeing the face of a foreigner in there backcountry dwelling. Many of them would come up to me and ask me in english, "How can I help you"? In one of the villages, I saw 3 girls dressed in pink dresses with their hair bereted in red pigtails. When I asked them if I could take a photo, two of them shyed away, while the other girl consented gladly. Finally, a second girl joined in the photo, but the third one hid away. I guess that she just wasn't ready to look face-to-face at a LaoWai.
After the bus finally emerged into Yibin, the first thing that I noticed was the JinSha River flowing through the city. The color of the water was reddish-brown. I had never seen anything like this before (see above photo). Although the redness isn't caused by pollution, inside my brain I remembered the Midnight Oil song, "the river runs red, black rain falls onto my head.....".
From the bus station, I caught a local bus into the city. There I found out the details about getting to the hotsprings and decided to start out early the following day. The Chinese man that I met on the bus into town helped me locate the finest hotel in Yibin, called the Jiudu Hotel (please see travel reviews for more info).

The Hotsprings

It took another cross-city bus ride to get to the south bus station in Yibin. Then, I had to buy another bus ticket to get to ShuiFu (back into Yunnan province). From ShuiFu, I asked a cab driver how much he would charge to take me to the hotsprings He responded "ErShi Kuai" and I thought that was a little too high. A Chinese man on a motorcycle then offered to take me there fun 10 Yuan, at which point I jumped onto the back of the motorbike.
Finally, I thought to myself, I'll be able to get into some serious hot tubs and relax for the rest of the weekend. ShuiFu is a sprawling suburb of Yibin. Construction projects, as in most of urban China, abounded. Little did I know that I was going to witness the largest construction project that I ever laid eyes on when we passed through a dimly-lit tunnel. Boom! There it was the river, with the resort nestled beside it along the JinSha River. Directly downstream was a heavily excavated mountainside with a road built half-way across the river. With construction towers both on top of the and at the base of the mountain, I knew that this could only mean one thing....a damn dam! The Chinese motorcycle rider revealed my fears when he explained that the Grand Canyon was going to be deluged in less than a year.
This, I thought, is sort of eerie. Here I am going to a resort that won't even be there in a year. Oh, well, I've come this far and I truly want to get into some therapy. The motorcycle rider turned off the main highway and took me into the canyon on a switchback dirt side road. The entrance sign into the park said the admission fee was 68 RMB. I then asked the girl at the counter how much it costs to get in. She told me 57 RMB. I then tried to talk her down to 50 RMB, but she stood firm on 57. Printed on the ticket itself was the 68 RMB admission fee. I guess the off-season changed the price. Who was to argue? I paid the 57 and was handed a ticket.
Now, for a destination resort this park was very empty. There were only two or three other people walking around the main concourse. But, it was indeed a beautifully sunny day and I could smell the sulphur and carbonates in the air. I went into the men's locker room,was given a towel, key and disposable swimsuit and prepared to go into the baths.I had never changed in a locker room where the attendant was smoking a cigarette, but, hey, this is China and a person is free to smoke wherever.

The Hotsprings II

There were many pools located in the park. However, the 'theme pools" mentioned in the earlier chapter were not open. Most of the pools in the open areas didn't have any water in them. Since the statues and water fountains weren't running, I could sense that this park was being poorly managed and maintained. Or maybe it was just because I chose to go to a hotsprings on an early June day. Either way, the scarred mountainside, where the dam construction was proceeding, was clearly visible from the hotsprings. Now the water in the pools is piped in from the mouth of the springs on the valley floor. However, the temperature was cooled considerable from the 82 degrees Centigrade water that emerges in the canyon base. Cooled down enough for me to consider it "luke warm" and nothing like the hotsprings that I have enjoyed in California and Idaho. Some of the trees, shrubs and landscape inside the park looked very nice and there were plenty of employees, dressed in Blue "Mai" traditional dress. They were all very friendly and nice, but the overall atmosphere at the park was dreary.
It would be nice if every adventure had a happy ending. It would be nice to be living in a perfect world. I suppose that with the population demands for power, that a hydroelectric dam is a very practical and environmentally-sound solution. Either way, as a foreigner living in China, there is really nothing I can do about it, other than making other travelers aware of the information. So, if any of you have been thinking about going to the Western Grand Canyon HotSprings, I would suggest you make other plans. It's not worth the time and expense of the journey to windup in an almost empty, and poorly-run park.
To end on a bight note. I did enjoy over 5 hours in the pools. The sun and the water helped my skin rashes considerably. Although the trip back to Weixin was difficult, I made it back in plenty of time to make it to the classroom on Monday morning ; )O