Day 11. Blue Valley and Yulong Snow Mountain

I bought a day tour to visit Blue Valley (蓝月谷), Impression Lijiang (丽江印象), and Yulong Snow Mountain (玉龙雪山). All these attractions were in one big park. The tour included transportation, lunch, a free rental waterproof winter jacket, and two cans of oxygen. The price was 1080 RMB (~$150) for two people. I booked the trip a few days prior and had to send them photos of our passports.

In general I do not like group tours in China since a lot of time was wasted on things I don't like. This tour was no exception. However, I could not find a way to book tickets on my own for the cable car ride to Yulong Snowy Mountain without joining a tour, a questionable practice on the park side. In hindsight, we should have skipped this park completely Most of the attractions were too crowded and not worth a visit.

To Start the Tour

The tour driver picked us up at 6am. We then went to a shop to pick up rental jackets and oxygen cans. Over there, we had to listen to a sales pitch on products for altitude sickness. We did not buy anything.  Then the driver headed towards the park. It was about 30min drive. At the park entrance, a park employee came to the van to do a roll call. I was curious whether she would be able to pronounce Claire's name. When it was our turn, she simply called "Two Passports". 

Once we were inside the park, someone was giving a small walking tour of nearby buildings and ponds, and explaining the history and culture. After 10 minutes I found it rather boring, so we just opted out and waited in one of the buildings in the visitor center area. Finally we got our tickets, and passed some gates to board park shuttle bus to Blue Valley. It was near 9am at that time, so much time wasted on waiting.

Blue Valley

Once we got off the shuttle bus, we were told that the free bus offered limited stops, and that we could pay to get a van service to go to some additional stops, another questionable practice on the park side. I declined and believed that I could walk there. I was totally right. Claire did not want to walk, so she waited for me near the bus stop. 

The Blue Valley was a valley featuring a very scenic river with many cascades. There was a paved trail/board walk along the river, so it was an easy walk. The trail was very crowded even though it was a rainy day. 

We then took the bus back to the visitor center area. Our driver had told us to go to a certain restaurant to have lunch at 11am. 

Impression Lijiang

After lunch, we walked to the show area. We were first in line and was able to get front row seats. This show was not very impressive in terms of the artistic or the technical side, in comparison with all other shows we watched in China. The performers were all local residents, so I guess we were supporting the local economy.

Yulong Snow Mountain

After the show, we waited a bit and then went to the cable car to Yulong Snow Mountain. Other people in our tour group had their cable car tickets for a ride scheduled 2 hours later, so they had to wait longer at the visitor center area. The cable car took us from 2000m elevation to above 4000m. We took oxygen puffs constantly in the cable car up as instructed. 

Up there, there were boardwalks to walk around. Claire did not want to walk. I was feeling a bit altitude sickness, so we decided to take the cable car down. The line for the ride was over 1.5 hours!

After we finally went down, we met with the tour driver and returned the rental jackets. I did not want to wait for others so I hired a Didi ride to go back to the hotel. It was $10 well spent.

Altitude Sickness

What was said

It was well known that people experience altitude sickness at Yulong Snow Mountain. There were a huge variety of medicines and different sizes of oxygen cans claiming to treat altitude sickness. Online search in China did not yield any facts that I could trust (e.g. clinical trial results), so I had to ask Ethan to search for that topic in the US. The truth was that there was no medicine treating altitude sickness. Canned oxygen could provide a little temporary relief, but one should really just come down to the lower altitude immediately. 

Ethan predicted that he would be fine since he grew up in the mountains; Claire and I would likely have altitude sickness because we grew up at sea level. 

What actually happened

I did experience a mild altitude sickness. When we walked around, I was out of breath after just a few steps. My blood oxygen level dropped to 90% - I brought an oximeter with me. Two to three puffs of oxygen would bring it up to 95% for a few minutes. 

Claire complained about being tired but her blood oxygen level was 98%, so I doubted that was altitude sickness. It was good that she also diligently used her canned oxygen. 

In the whole trip, we used up three cans of oxygen: two small cans that were free from the tour, one bigger can that I bought via online delivery the day before.    

Dinner

Our friend Bei also came to Lijiang to visit. We had dinner together and she also brought two teenagers she met during her day trip. The two girls just graduated from high school and were traveling by themselves. One person had a tiktok channel and showed us some "hand dance" that was funny.

We ordered one special dish for dinner: a local specialty mushroom called Jianshouqing, which translates to "see hand blue". The name comes from the fact that once sliced, the inner surface gets oxidized and turns blue. The mushroom is poisonous unless fully cooked. The waitress brought to our table the mushroom platter, told us the names of each type of mushroom, before putting them in the boiling hotpot. She set a timer for 6 minutes, and told us that it was safe to eat after the timer went off. She then replaced all utensils and plates that touched the poisonous mushroom. When the timer went off, we decided to wait a couple of more minutes before eating, just to be on the safe side. I liked the mushroom dish, although I could not tell which one was Jianshouqing. Some mushrooms were cruncher, while others were softer. I also don't think the taste is so special that it's worth the risk. Once was good enough, I earned my bragging rights.