Sichuan (四川), alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan, is a landlocked province in Southwest China occupying most of the Sichuan Basin and the easternmost part of the Tibetan Plateau between the Jinsha River on the west, the Daba Mountains in the north and the Yungui Plateau to the south. Sichuan's capital city is Chengdu. Sichuan covers 486,000 km² and its population stands at 83 million. Sichuan neighbors 7 Chinese provinces, of which the sparsely populated Tibet Autonomous Region to the west is the second largest province of China by area. - It is commonly believed that the name Sichuan means "four rivers", and in folk etymology this is usually taken to mean four of the province's major rivers: the Jialing, Jinsha (or Wu), Min, and Tuo rivers. This interpretation is not universally accepted and it is thought that the name Sichuan actually derives from four ancient imperial administrative circuits during the Northern Song dynasty.

In antiquity, Sichuan was the home of the ancient states of Ba and Shu. Their conquest by Qin strengthened it and paved the way for the unification of China under the Qin dynasty. During the Three Kingdoms era, Shu was based in Sichuan. The area was devastated in the 17th century by Zhang Xianzhong's rebellion and the area's subsequent Manchu conquest, but recovered to become one of China's most productive areas by the 19th century. During World War II, Chongqing served as the temporary capital of the Republic of China, making it the focus of Japanese bombing. It was one of the last mainland areas captured by the People's Liberation Army during the Chinese Civil War and was divided into four parts from 1949 to 1952. It suffered gravely during the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–61 but remained China's most populous province until Chongqing Municipality was separated from it in 1997.

The Han Chinese people of Sichuan speak a unique form of Mandarin, which took shape during the area's repopulation under the Ming. The family of dialects is now spoken by about 120 million people, which would make it the 10th most spoken language in the world if counted separately. The area's warm damp climate long caused Chinese medicine to advocate spicy dishes; the native Sichuan pepper helped to form modern Sichuan cuisine, whose dishes—including Kung Pao chicken and mapo tofu—have become staples of Chinese cuisine around the world.

In 1950, the former province of Xikang was dissolved and its territory was later split between the newly established Tibet Autonomous Region and the Province of Sichuan. The western and northwestern part of Sichuan is made up of Tibetan and Qiang autonomous areas and this is the area that we were visiting on this trip.

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In this second segment, we are starting our bus tour with a rather large group of mainly Canadian and American Chinese visitors - I happen to be the only non-Chinese in the group. The guide's explanations were in Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, of which I just have a very basic understanding and my wife Susan was providing the translation where appropriate. While the guide was providing the information, I was mainly on the lookout for "photographic opportunities".

Once we exited the city center of Chengdu, we followed the course of the river Min for the entire day, stopping at various scenic points as well as visiting a few towns on the way.

Please note that all of these pictures were taken out of the fast-moving bus window.


Notes
TRIP INFO: Set # 1 provides a brief introduction to this series. The link below lets you review this intro:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-724330-1.html

Thanks for visiting, I recommend viewing the downloads and look forward to your comments and questions.

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