We woke up early to catch the bus to Dujiangyan, the site of a UNESCO World Heritage site – the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project. It really doesn’t sound very interesting, doesn’t it? After all, it sounds like a dam, how interesting could a dam be? We went to the Chadianzi bus station, buses depart for Dujiangyan City every hour so there is no worry. After purchasing the bus ticket we enter the departure lounge. Basically a waiting area for passengers. But not before subjecting your stuff to and x-ray inspection. I really don’t know what they are looking for, but whatever it was, they didn’t find it in my bag.
We didn’t wait for long before our bus left the terminal. What I like about this is it is an express service so there won’t be any stopping in between. Dujiangyan City is just next to Chengdu and can be reached within the hour. We passed through nice highways and it was little wonder that we got there so fast. Dujiangyan City is not as cosmopolitan as Chengdu but it is a nice and charming city nonetheless. Our bus went right to the Dujiangyan bus station. And a nice security guard pointed us where to take the bus for the irrigation project, it was just outside the bus station, across the road.
The entrance to the irrigation project was just a 20 minutes away from the bus station and we got to see more of the city. Dujiangyan has a more rural feel with the pace of life moving even more slowly than Chengdu’s. It does have shopping malls and the like but on a much more modest scale.
At the very end of the bus route is the entrance to the irrigation project. The immediate area is a splendid Chinese design of old style houses and bridges. Even the entrance itself was built similarly. Since it is just an irrigation project they might as we make it nice, right? Right at the entrance is a nice park much like how People’s Park in Chengdu was. It has a lot of fountains and ponds. Though the fountains here are also more modest.
Along the main path to a temple, are statues of famous historical figures. Actually I don’t know most of them. I just recognized one name, famous general Zhuge Liang, of Three Kingdom’s fame. It seems like the irrigation project is still quite fair bit of walking away. There were quite a few people already up and about here in the park. Most of them were elderly folk just taking a stroll in the park. The tourists probably haven’t woke up yet. Hopefully when we get to the irrigation project itself there won’t be hordes of tourists there.
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