Walking into Wulong - Natural Heritage Route After the Summit

On September 20th, the 2016 World Tourism Cities Federation Chongqing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit came to a conclusion. After the two-day agenda, some guests were invited to go to the Natural Heritage Route, one of the three travel routes arranged by WTCF and Chongqing Tourism Administration to introduce Chongqing’s tourism resources. 

Natural Heritage Route- Mount Jinfo

Mount Jinfo of Nanchuan District and Fairy Mountain of Wulong County were the highlights of the route. Visitors experienced the magic karst landform as well as the beauty of Chongqing’s mountains and rivers. On the morning of 21st, guests went to their first stop, Tianxing Town of Nanchuan District. On the stage set up at the entrance of the town, actors entertained the audience with traditional Ba-Yu characteristics performances. Changing Faces of Sichuan Opera was the most popular program and guests began applauding, even before the show ended.

Changing Faces of Sichuan Opera

After that, guests took off to Mount Jinfo. Beautiful natural landscape along the road attracted lots of attention and help distract the guests and forget about the motion sickness caused by traversing the meandering, rough mountain roads.

Mount Jinfo cable car

The Buddha cave of the Mt. Jinfo is a typical karst grotto and the temperature in the cave is much lower than the outside. By entering the cave, visitors need to squeeze through a long narrow, twisting tunnel. Locals called it “72 turns.” After the “72 turns,” visitors arrive at a grand hall with capability to hold of tens of thousands people. A large Buddha statue surrounded by 1250 arhat statues is located in the cave. After visiting the Buddha cave, Abdekrim Moufakkir , Head of Beijing Office of Morocco News Agency, said, “This is magnificent. I have never seen such natural landscape. I thought it was a man-made cave, but it is actually Mother Nature’s masterpiece. It is marvelous.”

Arhat statues in the Buddha cave

Next up was walking through a plank road, where tour guide introduced a special kind of bamboo sprout that only grows in the area of Mt. Jinfo, the favorite food of pandas. One of the guests heard about pandas and jumped in joy because she thought she would see a real live panda. After learning that it was misunderstanding, she smiled and harvested a bamboo sprout joyfully to keep as a souvenir. At that moment, Mount Jinfo was surrounded by fog, walking along the plank was like wandering in the sky. Guests were excited and took many pictures there.

Foreign guest takes photos with Chongqing locals

At dusk, the guests went to Wulong. The beauty Wulong city was hidden in the dark, but the beauty of Wulong was introduced to the through a performance, the Wulong Impression. Wulong Impression is a live show, with the stage set in the valley. The show features local “Chuanjiang Haozi,” a kind of work songs sung to synchronize movement, which is on the verge of extinction.

It exposes the audience to the local customs, love stories, and traditional work and life scenes peculiar to Sichuan, including the stirring Chuanjiang (Sichuan River, the upper section of Yangtze River from Yibin to Yichang) haozi, gracefully sad wedding melodies, and huagan, sedan chairs borne by two bamboo poles used in Sichuan Province.

With well-arranged light, music and dance routines, it gives the audience an insight into local customs, traditional work called Qianfu, and life scenes. The show is presented in the “Chongqing Dialect” and there was a screen that broadcasted Chinese and English subtitles during the show. It aims to introduce the Wulong and Chongqing culture to the world. As one of the most important development goal, Chongqing is striving to build into an international tourism destination this year.

Wulong Impression

During the Wulong Tourism Development Forum, attendees expressed their opinions and offered advice.

During the travel route, guests attended forum themed “Travel Internationalization & of Wulong Tourism Development.” Lau Hengkiang, Director of Penang Tourism Department, Malyasia; M.Ajantha Dias Gunawardhana, Acting Mayor of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka; Itzhak Mizrachi, Director of Tel Aviv Tourism Administration, Israel; Wang Shujuan, Vice Director of Qingdao Tourism Administrationa; and Yu Liangbing, Deputy General-Manager of International Tourism Company of CYTS, attended the forum. Bao Qiang, Vice Mayor of Wulong County delivered a speech; he said that Wulong’s tourism has been developed rapidly recent years. The number of visitors has been increasing by more than 10% every year. Wulong is changing from “A City of Chonging” into “A City of China,” and will soon be an international tourism destination.

“With the opportunity of 2016 World Tourism Cities Federation Chongqing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit, we gather in Wulong and convene the forum of Tourism Internationalization & Tourism Development of Wulong. We hope to conduct a deep international cooperation, so that to introduce Wulong to Chinese and the world travelers. We will keep our strength to build Wulong into a world-famous tourism destination.”

On the morning of September 22nd, refreshed guests arrived at the Wulong Three Natural Bridges. It was the shooting place of Curse of the Golden Flower and Transformers 4, which is why a giant model of Bumblebee is presented at the entrance. This high-class tourism area includes sights of mountain, river, fog, springs, gorges, peaks, brook and fall. There are three majestic stone arch bridges: Tianlong Bridge, Qinglong Bridge, and Heilong Bridge. They are the largest natural stone bridge collection in Asia. There are naturally formed pits between the bridges.

The giant model of Bumblebee at the entrance of Wulong Three Innate Bridges

The inn for shooting Curse of the Golden Flower in Wulong Three Innate Bridges Scenic Spot

Wang Mei, General Manager of France Southern Travel Agency is a local Chongqing resident. She showed great passion during the trip, “Although I’m from Chongqing, it’s the first time for me to come to Wulong. It is a newly developed destination. That is why I choose this line out of the three, and it turns out I am absolutely right. I will introduce Wulong to my friends when I get back to France. Combined with traditional Three Georges Cruise route, Chongqing’s travel resources are becoming more colorful, I’m so proud of it.” After the journey, Holly Keogh from Britain Propeller TV said, “Chongqing is too beautiful to leave! I want to stay.”

Guests enjoying a different tourism experience in Wulong

A lot of guests expressed the feeling that they would never forget this year’s Chongqing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit and this trip in Chongqing. Many of them came to Chongqing for the first time and they want to share this trip with their friends.