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November 4th 2006

Published: November 10th 2006

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Nunny

Deqin

Frrrressssh snow on the village and the mountain.

We embark onwards to Deqin, the closest that we will get to Tibet this trip unfortunately, but were not disapointed in anyway what's so ever!

The 6 hour bus journey from Zhongdian (Shangr i la) was through some of the most breathtaking scenery that we have ever encountered so far - and certainly justified the compulsory $2 Life Insurance ticket. Zhongdian sits at around 3270m above sea level, and as soon as we boarded we began to climb even higher. The surrounding areas consist of mountaineous peaks and large plains where herds of yaks and cattle roam the grounds. The animals here are so 'free range' it really is a case of building fences to surround patches of food and other agricultural products, while cows, and pigs the size of cows, take over the meadows and roads.

We head northwest and the fields disappear to be taken up by rocky mountains and steep valleys - some with water flowing through, others just descending into an abyss. At first it is very dry looking with the rocks showing different shades of brown; from tan and yellow at the bottom to darker shades as you look upwards mixing in with a

Deqin

The changing leaves add colour to the mountains in Autumn

dry grey. Then as you continue to wind through bend after bend the slopes begin to show a russet colour from the small red low-lying brush that amazingly clings onto life. The rocks become a deep purple colour and you could fool yourself into thinking that you're travelling through Arizona or even Mexico as sporadically small hamlets appear with the houses in traditional Tibetan style, but when surrounded by cactii (as these were) we could expect the smell of chilli concarn and burritos to be wafting out of the abodes. It is the beautiful white stupa's though, adorned in prayer flags that keeps your imagination on track as your eyes can do nothing but consume the visual candy being provided in front of you.

We stop briefly for lunch - a very plain, watery bowl of soup with spinach floating in it - and then hop back onboard to continue onwards for another 4 hours. At this point the vegetation starts to change again as there seems to be more moisture in the area, or less logging and mining, but the road is now lined with elm and mapple trees that are in their full wonder of autumn colours

Deqin

Looking out the front window of the bus as we climb towards 5500m

and cover the mountains in gold, red and orange. Words, at least my words, really can't do the beauty of the area any justice, so I hope the photos are able to capture it somewhat, but even then, it is admittedly very hard to take photo's out of a moving bus.

When we are about an hour and half out of Deqin and the clouds are surrounding the vehicle, we see our first glimps of snow capped mountains at around 4920m. At one point the road just continues up as if you are literally driving into the sky and our naturally dramatic, or inately spiritualistic bus driver, magically fills the bus with the soaring sounds of Tibetan music, bird calls and an unearthly female voice fills the void of silence that had encompassed the vehicle. Truly amazing. There are no words to describe the moment as your soul literally begins to soar.

This glimpse is just a tease as we begin the slow descent to Deqin. We arrive around 4pm and have intentions of climbing the Mingyong Glacier on our one and only day we have here before we need to turn around and head back to Zhongdian

Deqin

Nunny at one of the rare stops on the 7hr trip

for our flight to Kunming. If only we had more time!

We get off the bus and jump into one of the crazy micro-taxi's that are a sort of mini-van that someone left in the wash for too long and now are a hybrid van/lego-car. The corners are even more deadly in this thing!We were told there was a local bus service for a tenth of the price, but noone could help us with it once we got there. But the glacier is another 2 hour drive away, and we need to get there that night if we have any chance in climbing it the next day. It is at Feiliai that we see our first cloud covered sights of the glacier and jump out to pose for our very enthusiastic taxi driver that had us modelling from all angles. Towering above the glacier is Meili Mountain, Yunnan's pride and joy, but we could see nothing of its greatness through the thick clouds that were descending fast.

The light is starting to fade as we continue onwards and we have become numb to the impressvie twists and turns. Paying our park fees we are dropped at a guesthouse

Deqin

A good looking mountain dog

with the most ludicrous bathroom imaginable for 60 yuan a night, and move in next door. The kitchen is an open affair where you point to different food types and mimic how you would like it to be cooked. After our spinach water soup we are famished and once again surprise the locals with the amount of food we can put away! We go for a short walk and again are impressed by the glacier that is towering above us on Mt Kawagebo as we stand on a small footbridge, spanning the river of ice-blue glacieral water. It's an early night, with a fairly early start, but we were corrected in how much time we should allow for the hike, and it should only take about 4 hours return trip. Too easy!

DAY TWO 5th November
We head off around 10 am, clothed in a number of layers and carrying a small day pack with wet weather gear and the compulsory Dove Chocolate bar 😉

Only 20mins in after a consistant upward incline through the changing coloured leafed trees, we begin to strip off our layers and Andrew mutters something about too much noodle soup for

Deqin

At Fellai Temple with Mingyong Glacier, and Mei Li Snow Mountain in the background

breakfast. It's not a hard walk, but it certainly isn't flat either, and this is only compounded by the altitude that we're far from used to travelling at. There are herds of horses / donkeys/ mules that wait at the beginning of the track with their owners preying on the weakness of the fat and or lazy to take them up to this traditional pilgramage, but once again our pride resisted such luxury items and we continued to tell ourselves it was cheating to ride a four legged beast to the top.

We reach the bottom of the glacier in about an hour, and much to our disapointment the cloud cover has only gotten worse from yesterday and we cannot even see the bottom peak of snow that we were graced with previously. Looking around we're surprised that this small look-out point could be the end of the trek. Our eyes continue up the neighbouring mountain to spy a green metal walkway and some red and blue jackets moving steadily along it. How'd they get up there??

We easily find the way and start to climb for earnest. Scenery again is gorgeous, much more lush and wet then

Deqin

Fellai - Stupas and Prayer Flags

Tiget Leaping Gorge, and we kept getting blasts of icey-cold winds fresh off the glacier. As soon as you stop moving you realise how cold it is!

With our heads firmly down and determination pushing us up the hill - no breath for conversation - it soon becomes apparent that this entire section of the track, if not the whole mountain, is made entirely of manure. I can't imagine how many animals it takes to create such a state, but it was very impressive to say the least, and left the mind constructing pun after pun of poo jokes to regale to one another when we would stop to get our breath back.

We think we are getting closer to the top when we start hearing the first lot of mules carying fat lazy pilgrams on their back down hill, looking at us with bemused expressions on their faces. It seems we are the only ones apart from the mule owners that actually walk the track nowadays.

The traffic increases, the glacier gets closer and finally we reach the temple at the top of the mountain - or so we thought. You make the last hyperventerlating stint

Deqin

Nunny on the bridge across the Mingyong glacial runoff

to reach a massive clearing filled with donkeys and prayer flags. How religious! It must be the temple!

In a possible combination of altitude headiness, fatigue and surprised wonder we walk into the clearing with smiles on our faces and our hearts open to what ever we shall find. A small temple, a thousand prayer flags and a fair few pilgrims looking fresh faced from sitting on a donkey for the last 2 hours (some of them even dressed in suits!). Inside the dark temple a woman is chanting in prayer, and candles illuminate the small space. We stand respectively at the entrance, but do not know the ettiquette of prayer wheels etc to enter any further. It's a lovely place.

Behind the temple though the track continues to a number of viewing platforms that brings you the closest to the glacier that is allowed and a height of easily 2900m. We walk through groves of gold and yellow trees and head up the green metal platforms. It starts to rain and we admire the thousands-year-old body of frozen water that sits proudly ontop the upper areas of the mountain. Its outerlayer is covered in dark grey dirt

Deqin

Ricko on the bridge across the river - halfway up to the bottom of the glacier.

and debris, but just underneath is a wonderous aqua blue, and if you stand there long enough you can hear her crack and groan, making you wonder if its not just going to change its mind and decide to descend to the valley below.

We are now wet and the wind is cold, really cold, and we can cannot stay there for too much longer so we begin to descend.

After reaching the temple again Andrew suggests that this may be a perfect time for me to cash in that horse-ride that I'm owed. As my knees are completely dodgy going down-hill, sitting on a mule did sound like a nice idea, and as Andrew so courtesly pointed out, maybe this would mean he would be able to descend at a normal pace. hmmm... And I did walk UP the mountain, so it's not really cheating. Conscience cleared, I select a fine black mule and we head downhill, the beasts' bell tinkling musically the whole way down in accompianment to his owners' traditional tibetan singing. Ahhh, this is the life.

We reach the bottom in about an hour - 3 up, 1 down - and we stand

Deqin

Looking back down the valley towards Mingyong town

around hopefully trying to hitch or arrange a lift back up to Deqin in order to catch the morning bus the next day. It is at this point that we hear that up until 4 days ago there used to be a local bus service - as we first thought - but the bus had an accident. "No one was killed" we were happily reassured, just 20 injured. Fanbloodytastic. After paying 100 yuan we are stuffed into the two bucket seats in the back of a family mini-bus type car filled with early-30-somethings and head towards Deqin.

Climbing back up the road we came down yesterday and trying not to think of the recent demise of the local bus, we notice that the cloud cover has descended further and the road is now winding and in a complete state of fog. Christ, the faith one puts in strangers. We are silent in the back, partly because we don't speak Chinese, and they don't speak english; partly because we don't want to distract the driver from the road; but mostly becasue we are absolutely freezing. Our outer clothes are wet from the rain, and our inner layers are wet with

Deqin

The glacier from the bottom - a touch on the dirty side

sweat that has now frozen and is enveloping our skin in an icey chill that goes all the way to the bone.

Mercifully we make it back to Dequin, our only complaint being that we cannot stop chattering. It was at this point that our friendly driver relays that he is continuing onto LIJIANG!! What a nutter! Thats a good 10 hours away on some of the craziest roads we've ever seen. Good luck mate! Our own goals are set on finding a hotel and somewhere to jump into a hot shower and warm up ASAP. We end up settling for something way over our budget, but the bonus that it had one of those crazy futuristic "Power Showers" that sees you locked inside a glass cylinder that has 8 water jets inconjunction with the usual shower head. It looks like a teleporter.... but alas, when you opened your eyes you were still in the shower. Bloody good though.

Our night only improved when we discovered a local little cafe where our host (forever known as 5t) treated us to a night of glowing friendliness and warmth with a radiating bowl of coal embers, 20 yuan bottle of

Deqin

Mei Li snow mountain peeks through the cloud cover

rice wine, and local Chineses, Tibetan and Indian film clips while we played hours of cards. Such a lovely girl taht we returned after dinner for a quick cup of tea and a final session of Chinese version of Scum.

We return to our hotel amazed to see the reincarnation of our most beloved Betsy! Obviously it was necesary to pose for a while, before we once again realised how freezing it was and ran home to electric blankets.

DAY THREE - 6TH November
We rise for the 8.40am bus - a pretty respectable hour - to be pleasantly surpised by the sight of snow on the nearby mountain tops where 2 days before it was nothing but dirt and scree. Yay! Snow! The more we looked the more we saw. And while there was none in the streets of DEQUIN itself we were super excited and I was jumping around like a little kid. Yay! SNOW!!!

My excitement only increased a thousand times as the bus pulls out of Dequin and we look to the right.. there stands MEILI Mountain in its ful glory. It's a beautiful morning, the clouds have all but disappeared apart

Deqin

Nearly there... only another 100 vertical metres to go

from the ones covering the valleys, and if you weren't convinced before, it is now easily apparant why they call this area from Zhongdian up to Dequin, Shangrila country. So amazingly beautiful.

So we now looked forward to the return 6 hour journey that we found so breathtaking the first time, but now it is a totally different spectacle. The grin never left our faces the whole way home.

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