Fed up with the urban jungle of steel and cement buildings, I longed to be close to nature. So I readily accepted the invitation of four friends from Beijing to accompany them to the Huanglong Nature Reserve in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Southwest China's Sichuan Province in mid-June.

After a 50-minute flight from Chengdu, provincial capital of Sichuan, my friends and I arrived at the Jiuzhaigou-Huanglong Airport around 8:30 am.

The small airport, 3,300 meters above sea level, opened last September and is believed to be one of the country's busiest. Almost all of its flights are full in peak travel seasons and passengers have to book tickets well in advance. Our group could not get five tickets for the same flight, so two friends had to fly in earlier.

Reunited at the airport, we hurried out and met Liu Bihua from the Huanglong Nature Reserve Administrative Bureau. Liu, in her early 20s, works in the bureau's tourism section, and had a minibus to escort us to the reserve.

As my friends were first-time visitors to Huanglong, Liu gave us a brief introduction to the reserve on our 90-minute ride there.

Colorful ponds

Huanglong consists of a 3.6-kilometre-long valley that is tucked away in thick primeval forests and descends from 3,578 to 3,145 meters above sea level. The reserve is about 3,000 kilometers from Chengdu.

Huanglong in Chinese means "yellow dragon." There are several stories of how it got this name.

One tells of a Buddhist monk called Huanglong whose saintly acts included rendering a great service to Yu, founder of the mythical Xia Dynasty (21st century-1600 BC). According to Chinese tradition, Yu was the Xia Dynasty's most illustrious ruler, who tamed the flooding that had devastated the lowlands of central and southern China.

With the monk's help, Yu was able to create a channel in the Minjiang River and direct its course to the Yangtze River. Eventually the monk became an immortal, and later generations erected the Huanglong Taoist Temple in his memory in the present-day Huanglong Nature Reserve. Liu said the valley was therefore named Huanglong.

But to most visitors, the name of the valley is closely associated with its scenery, she said.

The valley is covered with a thick yellowish layer of carbonate of lime, which forms around 3,400 ponds of different shapes and sizes that are joined together like a terraced field. Viewed from far above in the sky, the valley resembles a massive yellow dragon. The glistening pools look like dragon scales.

We had all got up early that morning to take the flight, so fell asleep as the minibus bumped along the mountain road. When we woke up, we were at the entrance to the valley.

Climbing to the summit and back would take at least four hours, we were told. My friends Zhi Tongfan and Sheng Xiandai were alarmed.

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