In Search of the Fabled Shangri-La - Via the Sichuan-Tibet Highway

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The government restrictions imposed on Tibet has made the journey a pain in the arse and expensive. The government has imposed a permit system thus making travelling to Tibet illegal without a permit, on top of this they stipulate that you have to go on a private tour which is expensive. After finding all this out plus the fact that you can’t go off and do your own stuff, you are herded thought racing from one check point to the other, we decided to abandon our Tibetan adventure till another time.

Instead we decided to travel from Chengdu through western Sichuan into north western Yunnan heading to Shangri-La. After speaking to various people who have made the trip they informed us that as this route borders Tibet you will experience the Tibetan way of life as you travel through Tibetan townships, see Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and temples, travel at some very high altitudes with some passes as high as 4600m and Litang itself resting at a strenuous 4100m. Ok, admittedly you do not see the Polata Palace or Mount Everest, but those aside, we were assured to sample some of the Tibetan way of life without the controlling hand of the government.

We decided on the route travelling from Chengdu along the Sichuan - Tibetan highway, heading first to Kangding, then Litang, we then leave the highway and head south to Xiancheng and then cross the provincial boarder into Yunnan arriving in Shangri-La.

So we boarded the bus for Kangding (117 Yuan) and were pleasantly surprised that for the first time in China the bus is almost empty. The bus journey took about 9 hours, and it took us along the Sichuan - Tibetan Highway taking in some amazing views, with the exception of a local girl throwing up into the bin it was a rather uneventful journey.

As you drive along this highway you are approaching some significant changes firstly, green tea will eventually become butter tea and Confucianism will become Buddhism. There are physical changes too, the land rises and rises quite radically to heights of over 4,000 metres (approx 12,000 ft). The Sichuan - Tibetan Highway was built in 1950 and construction was completed in 1954, this is one of the world’s highest, roughest, most dangerous but most beautiful roads.

We arrived at Kangding at 17:30 and checked into a hotel over the road from the bus station (80 Yuan) and set off back to the bus station to book our onward journey to Litang, we had heard that foreigners can only travel on even days of the month to Litang, we failed to buy onward tickets for the following morning, believing that we couldn’t travel because of the above reasons and hoping that our Chinese wasn’t that bad that she didn’t understand us, we thought we would spend an additional day in Kangding.

Kangding sits at an elevation of 2,700 metres above sea level; it’s a cool little place with a powerful river running through the centre. We continued our exploration and discovered a little bar called through The Village Window, so we rested our weary legs and ordered a beverage of the alcoholic variety! This bar is run by a local Tibetan woman called Mary who speaks English very well, she has some involvement with an NGO (non-governmental organization), whilst we were resting our weary legs we meet an American chap and after a long chat with him we discovered that he sponsors children through school and Mary calls him granddad! Basically, for $700 US a child from a local village will go to middle school for three years, these children are from subsistence farming villages, these families have enough food to live on, as opposed to other parts of the world, they have a few Yaks, goats, chickens and crops etc, but what they lack is cash, so people such as our American friend ensures that opportunities remain for these village children who show they have intelligence but cannot afford to carry on with their education.

It was at The Village Window bar that we experienced our first Chinese takeaway in China, they don’t actually serve food at The Village Window but Mary orders whatever you want in, so we ordered Chinese dumplings and eat them in the bar - they were lovely!

The next day we ventured up to Paoma Shan to visit the monastery and temple at the summit, to Tony’s dismay, it involved a cable car ride, but this was no normal cable car ride but a scary one (in Tony’s words) containing dips and high passes and lots of wind! We reached the top and there were spectacular views of Kangding, the monastery was stunning and it was very peaceful, to wander about. After the hairy cable car ride, we decided to walk down, this was some decent, we passed numerous prayer flags that scatter the forest and arrived on the ground ready for a beer and more dumplings at The Village Window.

The next day we boarded the 06:30 bus to Litang, this turned out to be a journey in itself, firstly a women runs off with our tickets so we don’t know our seat numbers, there is confusion where people are sitting, so T ventured off the bus to track down our tickets, in T’s absence G gets surrounded by 4 Tibetan chaps, all in cowboy hats, who grabbed her arm to get her out of the chair to which T shouts ‘hey dickhead’ they stop thank god, then we grab his ticket to point out his seat number and they shut up. The bus was a 28 seater thing, with no arms on the chairs which soon proved problematic. Its full as normal but on this journey, to accompany the chorus of vile hacking and splitting enjoyed by the Chinese the length and breadth of the country we have smoking, these Tibetans smoke like chimneys and to top it off they keep the windows closed to smoke after a few stern words in English and a tug of war with the women in front for control of the window - which we win, we allow the deadly fumes out!

The road is one of the bumpiest we have endured even comparing to Russia and Mongolia; the bus at certain intervals had 4 wheels off the road in a bunny hop motion. The lack of arms on the seats made sleeping impossible as the numerous bends resulted in you falling out of your seat. After 10 hours we reached the police check point for Litang (our first) and the driver took his book to be stamped and the policeman strolled down the outside of the bus chatting with the locals until he spots us and with an aggressive point he shouts, “passport” then he directed us off the bus, the bus driver was perplexed and was about to drive off until told to wait by the police officer, we showed our passports, filled in a form and the attitude of the policeman changes instantly, with that he welcomed us to Litang. As we returned towards the bus we could see the whole bus looking at us through the window pointing and clearly talking about us.

We drove the hour to Litang and headed towards our home for the night - Potala Inn (70 Yuan for a twin room with shared bathroom). Litang is at an elevation of 4,100 metres above sea level and it felts it too! We both suffered a touch of altitude sickness, banging headache, aching joints and dizziness. T felt and looked like an old man walking around with laboured breathing, which meant we could not do great deal and had to have regular breaks.

We spent two nights in Litang and to be honest we did not do a great deal, there is a lovely little monastery up the hill to the rear of our guesthouse, we walked there like a couple geriatrics, wheezing away, we kept having to stop for rests too. We must have only covered a kilometre in about 45 mins! The views from the monastery were stunning (once we got there) and the stream of people spinning prayer wheels and the constant “tashi delek” (hello in Tibetan) was a nice thing to see/hear. We then attempted to walk around the little village but had to return back to the hostel for a lay down.

In the evening we sat in the hostel bar and had dinner with an English couple and a Dutch couple and sank a couple of beers which have a totally different effect all the way up at 4000m!

With the Dutch couple, we decided to hire a minivan to take us to Xiancheng - the hostel women informed us that foreigners cannot use the public bus!!! We ventured down the bus station and found we can but the bus arrived at 14:30 and there is no guarantee of enough empty seats. The four of us arranged for a minivan to pick us up at 9 am the following morning and for a total cost of 400 Yuan he drove us to Xiancheng which tooks about 4.5 hours. The drive was relatively comfortable, with some spectacular views taking us over a 4,600 m pass.

On arrival to Xiangcheng, first impressions wasn’t great, we arrived at a hotel which was rather poor, so we decided to go straight to the bus station to confirm our passage out to Shangri-La. The bus station was none existent, so failing to locate the ticket office we decide to find somewhere to stay for the night. We stumbled onto the Bamu Tibetan guesthouse; this was a pretty little place, well decorated and at a cost of 40 Yuan for a double room darn right cheap! The only downside to this place was the toilet, it was the worst we had visited on this trip!

We ventured out into town and discovered it was quite a cool little place, we decided to eat in a little place which had “pretty girls inside’ written in English on the restaurant window. The rest of the day was spent on the hostel terrace taking in the views and drinking, yep you’ve guessed it....beer!!!!!

The next morning when 05:30 arrived, T had to get up with the Dutch chap, Michel, to acquire our bus tickets from the crazy bus station, they hang around till about 05:50 when the ‘ticket office’ opened and with the help of a friendly local they got 4 tickets to Shangri-La on the 09:00 bus. Back to the hostel and back to bed for a few more hours!!!!

The views were magnificent on this bus journey, and the journey took about 7 hours, about an hour outside Shangri-La we stopped at the usual checkpoint, the police come on and take our passports and all the identification cards of the locals before letting us go, an hour later we arrived at Shangri-La.

We arrive at the bus station in Shangri-La, decide to hop in a taxi and head to the old town, we spotted a cute little guesthouse called Barley Guesthouse and decided to make this our home for 3 nights. It had satin sheets!!!!!

We headed out to explore Shangri-la and discovered it’s a cool little town with cobbled streets, loads of little shops and BARS!!! The main square in the centre of the old town is cleared and at 7pm every night music is pumped out and the locals come out and start dancing - as you can see from the attached video (which we are still attempting to upload). Its quite a spectacular sight. It is a mixed affair, local old Naxi women dress up in their traditional dress, the chaps seem to don normal every day attire but with the addition of panama hats and dance in a large circle.

We awoke the next morning with hunger in our stomachs and head direct to Noah’s cafe for what was rumoured as a great BLT - to which it lived up to! Today’s mission was to extend our Chinese Visas, we had heard that the Public Security Bureau (PSB) issues on the spot extensions, so we went to find out! We registered with the police, where a really friendly English speaking officer completed this bureaucratic task for us without any problems, we then wandered the 500 metres down the road to the PSB. On arrival at the PSB you have to fill in a form, provide a passport photo and your passport and 20 minutes from the moment we walked into the PSB we were walking out with an extra month in China - it cost 160 Yuan.

That evening we headed out for drinks with Michel and Yvonne, after a few beers and some dinner we stumbled into a nightclub. The club was full of locals dancing and singing - more like MC’ing over the top of dirty hard house - very bizarre to watch, we were the only four westerners in there. As the night progressed more and more ‘clubbers’ kept coming over to ching their beer bottle with us, then the singing started, it was a sort of open mic affair, each punter took a turn to out sing the previous attempt, very reminiscent of House Party the 1980’s rap film.

All in all we liked Shangri-La and highly recommend the trip to Western Sichuan, the Dutch couple we met spent even more time in Western Sichuan going further north and they loved it too.

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