Aba Songpan Ancient Town
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Yellow Dragon Pond
Yellow Dragon PondThe pond is like a green gem inlaid in the Songpan area. About 53 km from the county seat of Songpan, it is to the north of the perennially snow-capped peak of Mingshan Mountain. Looking like a yellow dragon reclining in a 3.6 km mountain valley, it is today a scenic area featuring ground lava formation. In 2000, the United Nations listed it in its Man and Plant Protective Network of the World.
The pond is amazingly colorful; hence also, the name of Yellow Dragon Colorful Pond composed of some 3,400 tiny ponds and eight flying falls. The smallest is no larger than a fist. While the deepest is some 3 meters deep, the shallowest is only 3 cm. Like linked hoops, they are varied in shape. In the ponds are dotted tone bamboo shoots?snow white in color, tone pagodas?and rocks shaped like corals usually found only in oceans.
In the scenic area there is also the Yellow Dragon Temple. Built during the Ming Dynasty, it is composed of front, middle and rear temples spreading along the three sections of a mountain slope known as the Dragon Head, Dragon Waist and Dragon Tail, with head and tail 7 km apart. The first two temples are in ruins, and only the Rear Temple remains in reasonable condition.
The ancient temple is a combination of Han and Tibetan styles, featuring services for Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, Taoism and the Bon religion.
A temple fair is held on a perennial basis in the ancient temple on the 16th day of the 6th lunar month. It lasts three days. By then, innumerable people come to take a dip in the Big Fall in front of the ancient temple before going into the 30-meter-deep Yellow Dragon Cave to worship the Stone Bamboo Shoot Buddha and watching with great reverence the Sleeping Beauty opposite the Yucui Mountain. They will throw Wind and Horse Flags into the air amid the din of happy shouts. |
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