Blogs from Songpan, Sichuan, China, Asia

What can I say? I spent my golden birthday on top of the world... quite literally. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. We caught a bus and headed off to western Sichuan. I wish words could describe how beautiful our trip was- but I think I have a better chance with the pictures.... read more

Petite ville tibetaine, Songpan est le depart de randonnees a cheval dans les montagnes environnantes. Here we are, Lulu et Elo sur les dos charges de MaJi et Quizzi parties pour trois jours de treck fabuleux. Quitter nos "hommes des montagnes" etait tres difficile, on s'etait beaucoup attachees a eux. Songpan, small tibetan city for horse-treck departures in the mountains nearby. Et voici Lulu and Elo on the horsebacks of MaJi and Quizzi gone for three fabulous days. It was too hard to say goodbye to our "Mountain Men", we kind of became attached to them... read more

Just got back from a 3 day horse trek out of Songpan. There were some high highs and low lows. I'm sure stephanie will cover the lows in her blog, so I'll summarize them quickly: back and butt pain from riding horses 6 hours a day, crappy food, extremely uncomfortable beds, not-so-hospitibal Tibetan hosts, COLD mornings, the ride home. As for the highs: the scenery was amazing. Riding along rivers, through forests, with waterfalls, snowcapped mountains - it was awesome. We first heard about the horse trek thing from the hostel in Jiuzhaigou. It sounded fun, and it was in Songpan which is part of the way to Chengdu, where we were headed anyway. In the Lonely Planet, the horse trek to Ice mountain was recommended. According to our 2009 lonely planet it should cost 350 ... read more

In the morning we had cooked breakfast - on the gas cooker ...as it was not only warm but it was a means of getting our hands defrosted. Next step was to meet the horses, Reni's first reaction was a poor horse carrying my ass up the hills with another heavy load on his back already. The road to the Tibetan village was interesting at least to say, have you ever seen horse ice scatting... neither did we until this day. Accept it was not us much fun as we were on the back's of the horses and the winding path was again interesting especially when you looked down the hill and imagined yourself ling down the dig with horse on you, actually Reni said she would kill the horse if it failed down. We have ... read more

I got to Songpan after another 5 hours bus ride. The ride was life threatening beautiful - and by that I mean I thought I was about to die. The drive from Wenchuan to Songpan goes through a series of mountains and the road is narrow, very winding, and there are a lot of speeding busses and trucks, and crossing animals. The views were quite stunning but one aggressive turn would mean that the bus would surely flip and fall thousands of meters down. There were lakes, rivers, multi-colored mountains, etc. My fellow bus passengers were terrible - eating apples and leaving the cores in the aisle, smoking, and one woman was eating chicken feet and accidently dropped the bones in the aisle. Aye! This is China... and this is a developing country. I, as well ... read more