Ganzi to Litang - Another amazing day

---

Every day seems to bring something new, unexpected, amazing, and wonderful. Today brought these things in abundance as we travelled over the provinicial highway in a chartered van on the provincial road south to Litang. All in all we gained 2000 feet in elevation, moving from an agriculturally-oriented Tibetan region to one that typifies the wide-open spaces and nomadic herding way of life. On the way, we discovered an incredible canyon that looks like it would provide 200 km of great white water kayaking or rafting, had an encounter with Chinese police, we passed through remote villages some of which were empty because their inhabitats were apparently away tending the yak and sheep, entered the treeless nomadic herding country over two high mountain passes, and finally reached Litang at over 13,000 ft elevation where we are now.

We started at 7 AM from Ganzi, met by our driver of the previous day in his "7 passenger" van with a prayer wheel on top designed to spin in the wind when the vehicle moves. He is Tibetan and speaks minimal Chinese. Jacob negotiated this day and the previous one with him on the street using passers-by (Tibetans who spoke slightly better Chinese) as interpreters. Luckily they were able to communicate to some degree without that help, though. Leaving town, the driver asked Jacob "Do you know the way to Litang?" Luckily we did, equipped with Jacob's great road atlas of Sichuan, my compass, and our driver's ability to ask directions of the locals in Tibetan, we made it through. And boy was it worth it.

The route was mainly over a provincial road that connects national highway 317 (the northern Sichuan-Tibet highway) with route 318 (southern Sichuan-Tibet highway). This road is paved and decent at both ends, dirt and hard to follow in the middle. Soon after leaving 317 we entered a deep canyon with plenty of water and nice rapids. This is the Yalong River, and we were headed downstream, even though ultimately we needed to gain 2,000 feet in elevation. The canyon got deeper and narrower the scenery more beautiful, and the road more precarious looking as we went on. Luckily this road does not have the heavy traffic of a national highway, and whatever landslide problems it had were cleared, so the terror factor was not there. The scenery is incredibly beautiful, and, according to the signs that Jacob translated for us, the Chinese have designated this as some kind of a natural area, so there is some chance of not losing it to hydro development.

Just over 100 km into the trip we entered the county seat of Xinlong, perched above both sides of the river. The narrow streets were filled with Tibetans and Yi (Chinese muslums). We stopped to get something to eat and took some photos in the town square, which featured some kind of Buddhist statue in the place usually occupied by Mao in the People's Squares of most Chinese towns. Just as we finished the photos, two helmeted police officers walked up and said that we had to go to the station to register "for your safety".

So we had to backtrack to the police station, where we sat with 10 young officers watching Chinese music videos while the honchos wrote down all sorts of information from our passports and visas. They could not read the visas correctly, because they had not been trained to do so, so they had to call in a higher-up from somewhere else in town. He showed up, verified that we were legal, and then we had to wait while he used our documents to train his people. Jacob told us that this is normal procedure in the Chinese towns that are not set up for foreign tourists, which is most of them. There were also police checkpoints entering and leaving town on the road, so there may have been more to the story. An interesting observation, made separately by Jacob and our driver, was that all the officers were Han Chinese, while this was a 100% minority town.

After many more km of canyon, small villages, and a few monasteries, our road, once we found it, left the canyon to climb along the banks of a tributary and eventually switchbacked up a pass way above treeline. We stopped briefly to celebrate, wishing we had bought prayer papers to release in the wind there as many locals seemed to do. On the other side we were in the land of Tibetan nomadic herders with herds of yak and sheep all around and people living in tents of all sorts. Further down we stopped briefly to watch a group of mainly young people dressed to the hilt in traditional costume dancing and singing in a circle as part of some kind of ritual or social gathering. There were elders and monks watching, the horses were also dressed up with ribbons, and the whole experience was amazing.

As we left that scene, our driver started singing the same song the dancers had been singing. In fact, thoughout the day from time to time he sang, which added incredibly to the atmosphere of this drive. When he wasn't singing he played videos of Tibetan scenes, accompanied by traditional Tibetan songs, which showed on a small screen that took the place of the rearview mirror in his van. These videos were reminiscent of the ones played on the big screen in the Tibetan dance hall in Kangding, but so much better because the music was real and not synthesized. This is very beautiful music when not blared electronically.

Finally we reached highway 318, climbed another, higher pass, and descended into Litang. The town sits in a valley entirely above tree line, filled with nomads, their tents, and their herds of yak and sheep. We'll be here a few days before heading back to Kangding, Chengdu, and new adventures.

---

Comments

[Heather Kibbey]

Hi! Love the blog
What wonderful adventures you are having! If it was me there in yak and sheep country, I'd be pinching handfuls and spinning it!

[Fran]

Transported
Hello Kit - Just got back from vacation myself, so just read through your blog so far...I was transported. Thanks for sharing your travels and what a great trip to share with your son. - Fran