The Road Less travelled - Tibetan Sichuan - (Ganzi/ Manigango/ Dege)

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SICHUAN, CHINA - (May 2007)

Sat 26th - Thurs 31st May

- (Ganzi) -
I'm not sure what route Hee had planed to take after Kangding but it didn't take long to persuade him to come north with me up to Dege where the Bakonk Scripture Printing Lamasery (which according to Lonely Planet is revered as one of the three most important Tibetan Lamaseries) is located.

The trip would take us at least 5 days and we would reach an altitude of over 5000m. We would travel ‘right into the heart’ of the Tibetan area of Sichuan and the number of other none Chinese/ Tibetans we would see would be minimal. (In fact over the next 7 to 10 days we only saw about 5-6 'none Chinese/ Tibetan’ in the whole time).

Our first stop was to be the monastery town of Ganzi, a 12 hour bus journey from Kangding. The bus set off from Kangding at 6:30am so we were up early before it got light. I could tell from the first look at the bus that it was going to be long day! Some of the seats were broken and the bus didn't look like it would last long going up the mountain passes. Although we were given seat numbers and our seats were supposed to be at the front, as often occurs in China and SE Asia, western backpackers almost always seem to end up with the worst seats at the back of the bus - so that we can feel the full force of all those pot holes!!

My fears about the bus were quickly realised when we broke down about 30 minutes into the journey and at the beginning of the first climb up a mountain pass. However, this break down proved to be quite fortunate as it was close enough to Kangding for another bus to be sent out which happened to be far better than the bus that broke down. So after an hours delay, we set off again up the mountains in a much better bus than which we'd started off with!

Between Kangding and Ganzi the bus passed through the 'Tagong Grasslands' which are surrounded by snow capped mountains and which were filled with Yaks grazing on the spring grasses. The area was dotted with semi nomadic herdsmen's black tents all of which seemed to have a motor bike parked outside. (Apparently motor bikes are really really cheap in China and hence all the Tibetan men, even if they look like they own nothing, seem to have a motor bike (I'm told that a new Honda motorbike costs around 4000 Yuan, approx $525US)).

The route also passed through numerous Tibetan villages all of which seemed to have had quite a bit of money spent on them recently as there seemed to be lots of new houses. Although a lot of these houses seemed to be exactly the same (from the outside at least), at least some effort had been made to make them look a bit Tibetan instead of the standard drab Chinese buildings.

Unfortunately, no money seemed to have been spent on the road in a long while. The journey was very slow going and very very bumpy. At the back of the bus we were certainly feeling the full force of all those pot holes! It was probably the worst bus journey I had taken in a long while. 12 to 13 hours of non stop 'flying' in the air - off our seats and back down again with a bump, and then a few seconds later, off our seats again!

It was with some relief when we finally arrived in Ganzi that evening. After a few minutes of stretching our legs and trying to walk again, we had a walk around looking for a guesthouse. It didn't take long to find a Tibetan Guesthouse where we were able to get a fantastic twin room all laid out in traditional Tibetan style. As is often the case in this part of the world, especially in the cheaper but definitely more atmospheric Tibetan guesthouses, the showers consisted of a big bucket and scup in the courtyard. Unfortunately, even through I'd been in China for over a week now, this was the first place where I'd stayed where the toilet was a squat one!

Ganzi sits at the bottom of a valley at around 3800m and is surrounded by snow capped mountains which tower over the town. The town is mostly populated by Tibetans and is home to a number of monasteries including the 540 plus year old Garze Gompa which is the largest monastery in the area and is home to over 500 monks.

When Hee and myself looked round the monastery the day after arriving, we didn't see a single other person apart from Monks in the whole complex. We were shown around one of the minor temples by a monk who proceeded to uncover a vast collection of beautiful Thankas (Tibetan Religious paintings) which covered all four walls. He proceeded to tell us that the Thankas had to be covered up because some people in the past had stolen the paintings by cutting them out from the cloth frame.

We were then rather oddly shown round the rest of the complex by a little boy who although he spoke absolutely no English, was a rather good guide showing us places which we would not have gone into on our own and pointing at the important things and muttering a few words of Tibetan which neither myself nor Hee could understand.

The main temple was perhaps the most impressive part of the monastery because of the giant statue of Jampa Buddha (Maitreya or Future Buddha) which dominated the whole temple. After a day sight seeing in Ganzi, it was up early again to catch the 8am bus to Manigango which was about a 4 hour bus journey away.

- (Manigango) -
"Manigango is a dusty one-street town that looks unmistakably like the movie set for a Tibetan Western. It’s a glorious multicoloured scene with Tibetans on horseback, monks in crimson robes on motorbikes, and tractors piled precariously high with pilgrims rattling down the road." - Lonely Planet China - 2005

Erm, well, not quite - Lonely Planet does it again - who writes these things??

Manigango was perhaps my least favourite place on this part of the trip. Perhaps it was just that it was raining and cold for part of the time we were there, or perhaps it was the hotel we had to stay in, but I didn't take to Manigango. The town is indeed a dusty one-street town, but I think the horses were replaced by motorbikes years ago. The town appears to be very poor with lots of old women begging at the bus stop. I didn't see any monks and the town doesn't even have a Monastery close by to redeem itself which is very rare for a Tibetan town.

The only 'Authorised for Foreigners Hotel' in town was probably the worst hotel I have stayed in in a long while. I've stayed in worse places such as barns where the people have kept their animals in the winter, but they have not attempted to call themselves hotels. Squat toilets with no door on, no running water, no electricity, damp rooms and dried blood on the bed sheets, all made for a not very pleasant stay. I was glad we only had to stay there one night. (Until very recently, hotels in China had to be 'authorised' for foreigners to stay in. Whilst I think that his may still be the case in some areas, most hotels, but not all, don't seem to pay any attention to this rule anymore).

All the above said, 13km southwest of Manigango is Yihun Lhatso, an absolutely stunning alpine lake. For some reason, after having lunch in a small restaurant where beggars watched over us the whole time, Hee and myself thought we'd attempt to walk it there and back. Whilst this may have been a good idea if we'd had all day, setting off in the middle of the afternoon we really didn't have time. Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, after about an hour a Tibetan guy on a small motorbike stopped for us. Somehow, he managed to get both of us plus bags on the back. The next ten minutes were pretty terrifying. At full speed with not much to hold on to we proceeded to travel around hair pin bends and over pot holes. If I'd have fallen off when going over one of the pot holes, I would have really done myself some damage!

Fortunately, we arrived at the entrance to the lake all in one piece if a bit shuck up. Unfortunately my poor photography doesn't do the lake justice because it really was absolutely stunning with the lake's water being a beautiful deep turquoise colour and being surrounded by 6000m plus high mountains upon which glaciers could clearly be seen.

After spending about 2 hours at the lake just lying in the sun taking in the surroundings, we set off walking back. On our way back the scenery behind us (which we missed first time round because we were sitting petrified on the back of a motorbike) was just spectacular. We almost walked it all the way back to Manigango but after nearly two hours we managed to catch a lift on the back of another motorbike, but this time the bike was bigger and the driver not as mad!

- (Dege) -
The next day we journeyed to a small Tibetan town called Dege. The journey from Manigango to Dege took about 4 hours and involves climbing up the mountains to go over the Tro La (Chola) pass before descending again into Dege which lies at an elevation of nearly 3300m. I'm not too sure what the height of the pass is, LP says it's nearly 6000m while the sign on the top gives two numbers, 5050m and 6168m. If I could read Chinese I'd be able to tell, but I can't.

At the top of the pass the bus stopped for 5 minutes with some of the Tibetans getting out to throw coloured prayer papers about and to chant some prayers while others took some photographs.

We reached Dege in the late afternoon. For the first time on this trip we had a bit of difficulty finding somewhere to stay even though the town seemed to be full of hotels. The dorm beds at the 'Authorised for Foreigners' hotel were full and the hotel could only offer us a very expensive twin room. This was most surprising as the only people who usually stay in dorm rooms are backpackers and we must have seen all of 3 backpackers in the two days we were there! All the rest of the hotels wouldn't let us stay and kept pointing to the 'Authorised for Foreigners' hotel. We had almost resigned ourselves to sleeping in our sleeping bags at the bus station and leaving the next day when a Tibetan woman approached us and pointed us in the direction of her hotel which proved to be a very good choice, although very basic.

Dege is located on the border of Sichuan province and the 'Autonomous' Tibetan Regional area and is mainly populated by Tibetans although the Chinese influence is evident in the newer buildings which just look like any other Chinese white tiled building.

At the heart of Dege is the Bakong Scripture Printing Lamasery. According to the LP the Lamasery currently houses over 217,000 engraved blocks of Tibetan scriptures and includes ancient works on astronomy, geography, music, medicine and Buddhist classics including a history of Indian Buddhism. The present structure dates from 1744 and the lamasery is revered as one of the three most important Tibetan lamaseries along with Sakya Monastery and the Potala Palace, both of which are in Tibet itself.

The Lamasery itself is no more impressive than lots of other Lamaseries/ Monasteries, perhaps less so, but it is interesting to see the printers at work with their wood printing blocks turning out thousands of hand printed pages every day.

Also, all day there are groups of devoted pilgrims circling the Lamasery with their prayer wheels and saying their prayers, particularly in the evening, presumably after they have all finished work.

The Lamasery's entrance poach also seemed to become a bit of a playground in the evening with little girls, presumably being bought along by their mothers and fathers who were circling the lamasery, congregating there to play 'hop-scotch' in between the prostrating bodies.

Hee and myself spent two very pleasant evenings at the Lamasery sat in the evening sun watching all this take place.

Dege is also home to a couple of other Lamaseries/ Monasteries, one of which seemed to be home to tens if not hundreds of teenage boys all of whom seemed to own a mobile phone and frequent the local internet cafe. I'm not sure how prevalent it is today, but it used to be the Tibetan tradition for the first born boy to be sent away to become a monk at the local monastery. Whether this was out of religious tradition, or just to make sure that the boy could have some sort of education, or a mixture of both, I'm not sure.

After a very pleasurable day and a half, it was time to leave Dege. At Dege, we had basically come to the end of our Tibetan/ Sichuan adventure and it was time to leave the Sichuan mountains and to head north towards Xinjiang and then into Central Asia. However, first I wanted to visit a little bit more of 'Tibet', perhaps for the last time, and go to the Tibetan Monastery town of Xiaha, which while being a very big revered Tibetian religius town, is once again not actually located in what is termed the ‘Tibetan Autonomous Region’ but which is located in Gansu province to the north east of where we currently were.

However, first we had to get out of the mountains. There was the option of going to Manigango again and waiting for the bus going north the following day, but we decided on the longer journey back to Ganzi where we could at least check into a reasonably good hotel -although these things are all relative!

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Photos

The Road to Yihun Lhatso (Yihun Lake)
The road towards the stunning Yihun Lhatso

Ganzi Gompa
A 540 year old lamasery home to over 500 monks

Pilgrims circumambulating Dege Lamasery
The Lamasery houses over 217,000 engraved blocks of Tibetan scriptures and is revered as one of the three most important Tibetan Lamaseries

Yihun Lhatso (Yihun Lake)
Unfortunately, my poor photography doesn't do it justice

Manigango Street
Not quite a street scene out of a movie set for a Tibetan western!!