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.