Huanglongxi Ancient Town Tourism Area （Northeast Gate） — Attraction in Chengdu

Firstly, I want to say I went on a weekend. I think it could have been a different experience on a weekday in winter. There were hundreds and hundreds of people packed into what is a small town. It had turned into a water park for kids - I don't feel comfortable posting photos as every space is an ant hill of kids in bathers. Everyone had a watergun, or dish to throw water and the street stones were full of water. Now I'm not saying this is a bad thing - it's quite cool, much fun to be had. Nothing that could be done to a heritage site back home. However it wasn't the day I was expecting. The food/shop vendors all sold the same things - which were much better in Chengdu. Many activities for kids - dodgem cars, sand digging, ball play pen, shoot the balloon, weird caves. The water is all shallow, lots of parents nesting along the side of creek while their kids played (think of an Easter parade). While the buildings were lovely, I couldn't really see them to be honest, there were just too many people. You can have the same experience (building wise), in the ancient parts of Chengdu. The drawcard was really the creek running through the middle/trees etc - which look lovely in other guide photos. If you have kids and it's summer they will love this place. Or if it's a quiet day in winter and you have spare time - go for it. My recommendation for friends would be to go to older parts of Chengdu, go on the night boat ride in Chengdu, etc, rather than spend time traveling here. From what we experienced the bathrooms were clean, all squat. We took public transport there, subway is (obviously) underground for a good hour, bus stop is poorly signed (in all languages), bus was slow (I could see speed checks all along the road, and it was a low limit). We took a taxi all the way back to Chengdu - which cost...

Walking along the Main Street, you can see the whole place was really commercialised with many shops selling souvenirs. A bit like Main Street Disneyland (Chinese Ancient town version). I didn’t really like the place until I turned left into “Food Street”with a shallow stream running in the middle and many families wading and playing water. It gave life and a celebratory mood to the whole town. We sat down at a noodle shop to have lunch but the food wasn’t really fantastic. The bowl of noodle has a lot of noodles and only a finger’s length of fat intestine. What a disappointment. The Siew Mai (dumpling) was filled with glutinous rice instead of minced pork which we were more used to ( Cantonese dim...

Said to be one of 10 oldest towns in China. Completely "touristified". Only the houses are authentic, if one disregard the ground floors which have all turned into shops, selling various products and food. The spirit of the town is completely gone. This is now a mass tourist attraction. It is nicely laid out though with small waterways and bridges and stepstones. Visited on a weekend and quite a crowd. Presume it is a nice afternoon getaway from Chengdu. Older ladies try to sell head flower wreaths, so one sees many visiting ladies wearing same. Lots of stalls sell refreshing made-on-the-spot...