The people at the Trek shop were pretty certain that I should go to Beichuan. New Beichuan anyways. Afterwards I could make up my mind about going to old Beichuan or not but I definitely should go to new Beichuan as the Qiang ethnicity are currently having their new year's festivities and it's supposed to be something really neat.

I looked up the Qiang and the Qiang New Year online once I got to my hotel room. The festival ended the day before yesterday.

Be that as it may, they agreed with me on my guess that the path I'd originally plotted out was going to be "as boring as yesterday's ride" and that I should go into the mountains. I spent a while looking things over and decided that, even though they said it would give me an extra unnecessary mountain to go over, that the "unnecessary" is only 200 meters of elevation gain and the most direct route from Jiangyou to Beichuan would be. I also decided, even though they said I should go to New Beichuan first and then go from New Beichuan to the Earthquake Ruins, that if the festivities were already over there was no point in taking a route that deliberately would involve an out-and-back when I could do a nice wiggly loopy thing.

The first bit, between Jiangyou and Hanzeng, is mostly kind of meh. In fairness to the scenery, I was focused somewhat inward during much of this section. Despite my having sat around the hotel room waiting for the world to warm up, my stomach decided to wait until after I passed the last gas station (and last obvious public toilet) to decide that I needed to shit. 

Past Hanzeng, however, things start getting interesting. When I check the maps, I don't see any little bridges across the Tongkou River so I decide not to take the turnoff to the Zen Buddhist Temple that's five kilometers up a country road. Later, in Tongkou Town, I discover a hanging bridge so I cross over to check out the temple anyways only to discover that it's a bad translation and just a couple of natural caves which are currently being used to store the rafts that leave from here for summer rafting trips.

With judicious zooming in, I see another bridge farther up the river and confirm with the locals before staying on this side. That bridge, once I pass through a mostly closed but not quite closed mining and smelting facility actually turns out to be a large very not open to the public hydroelectric dam but, luckily enough, there is in fact a bridge another 10 kilometers farther up on this side.

When I finally get back on to the Provincial Road, I'm very very happy to be on something a little less steep, a little less narrow, and a little less inclined to have hairpin curves and cliffs. Which is not to say that this road isn't steep or narrow. Just that that road was steeper and narrower. Both roads are gorgeous though.

A dedication sign near the intersection with the S105 lets me know that, back in the 90s when they decided to build this section of Provincial road, it took them five years. Now, obviously, the country was poorer then and there would have been less heavy equipment to make the job easier but it's not just my imagination that the road often seems to be carved into the cliff face.

From this point on to Qushan (Old Beichuan) we are finally far enough above the hydroelectric dam that an obvious current can be seen in the water and the road can run relatively near the water. There are few, if any, signs that this area was hit by a devastating earthquake 10 years ago but once you know that that happened, the signs are very much there. 

The government propaganda banners, for example, exhort people to make a point of living in safe housing and even the smallest of settlements has a metal sign near the edge of town that lists the number of houses and the number of permanent residents. There are also 'in case of danger run this way' signs pointing towards various large open spaces. 

However, it mostly just looks like your average rural Chinese valley area. No particularly old buildings. A couple of different layers of "lets make this look pretty" in different aesthetics. Normal really.

The first sign of very definitely "not normal" is a tourist site about 3 or 4 kilometers south of Old Beichuan. It's done up as an adventure course but instead of featuring just the usual ropes to swing on or climbing wall type stuff, there's purpose built buildings to practice escaping from without hurting yourself which sort of remind me of how, in 2011, FEMA and the CDC packaged up a 'natural disaster survival guide' as a "Zombie Apocalypse Survival Guide" and got people to read through a survival guide because it was interesting.

Then, after passing a very very long line of trucks that I won't know are stopped here to wait for trucks coming down the long hill until after I finish the Earthquake Memorial and am on my way up the long hill, I am at the memorial. And, well... it's like nothing I've ever seen before.