Back door route through Western Sichuan

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Friday August 4th

I won't spend much time describing this day as I did nothing. I woke up late, surfed a bit but was too tired to blog (plus the kids were so annoyingly loud). I went to a "minisupermarket" and bought food for the day, instant noodles as main meal for both lunch and dinner, asked for hot water at the hotel reception and sat around in my room reading my book. I didn't want to do anything that involved me walking for the day. I did some hand laundry of my socks and pants which were just so dirty I had to change water 4 times.

Late in the afternoon I went to the bus station to get a ticket to Litang but the guy told me to come back in the morning. After dinner the girls from the reception came to ask for money but I had already paid. I told them I wanted to go to Litang and they told me there was a couple in another room that also was planning to go there. I talked with them and we agreed to meet at 8AM and get a van. I went back to my room, finished my book and slept. It can be a bit academic and dry at time but it is very interesting book about China's history especially since it was written in 1984, at a time when Deng Xiaoping was just beginning to reform China in a capitalistic way so they still didn't know if his method would work or not. He also describes traditional chinese society. I remember 2 things from that: 1) chinese emperors had thousands of concubines, as much as 12 000 by the end of the Qing dynasty. Now I understand why the emperor wanted to keep the system going, 2) in traditional china only men could divorce women and only for 7 reasons, one of them was if the wife was talking excessively. Very wise culture indeed.

Saturday August 5th

I was back in travelling mode after almost a week in Daocheng/Yading region. The plan was to take a van to Litang and maybe chill for a day or two there at the Horse Festival then take a bus to Kanding, sleep there then take a morning bus to Chengdu where I'd relax for a few days in the lowland heat before heading off somewhere. I met up with the couple from yesterday at 8 and we went in the street. It didn't take long before someone spotted 3 foreigners with huge backpacks. Word spread around fast and within minutes we were surrounded by several vans and driver telling us: "Yading?", "Zhongdian?", "Litang?". Thankfully none tried to sell us girls or banana like in Manila. We agreed to a price of 50RMB each from one of the driver thinking eh, we're only 3 so we can't bargain for much lower. He brought us to a restaurant where 2 chinese tourists were eating and he told us to eat something. Smart guy, he leaves the people who already agreed to go with you behind while you look for other then tell them you can't decresae the price because there's only 3 of us. We had some momos at the restaurant, tibetans dumpling, which redeemed tibetan food for me. They were delicious.

The ride to Litang was uneventful except that we stopped for 15 minutes because a car had crashed. It was a Volkswagen with 4 chinese tourists and the car was turned over but no one was hurt. It was a very wierd place to have an accident as the road was totally straight. We left after a while after calling someone to come and get them. I talked with the couple for most of the time. They're from Czech and are named Gaby and Tomash. They had done the crazy Lugu Hu-Yading trek, without guides just with the map from chinabackpacker. Very impressive. But they were hardy trekkers and had done even crazier and longer treks in Siberia, Indian Himalayas, Canada, US and Europe. They were the first czech I met on the road, actually the first eastern european I think. We got along pretty well and we sort of decided to travel together for a while. We also stopped at a nomadic tibetan tent at some point because the driver had to give them something. The people looks really poor but they have a solar panel on the tent, just enough to light up one bulb I've heard.

We arrived in Litang around 12:30 and we could see the tents for the Horse Festival in front of the city. We passed the tents into the city. It seems that the first part of town is a big dusty construction area. Once you get passed that it is quite lovely however. We asked the driver to drop us in front of Crane Guesthouse which he did but not before suggesting us somewhere else which he said was "really really good". We got a triple dorm room for 20RMB each after a friendly negotiation with the friendly tibetan girl. There is a washing machine available so we decided to do some laundry. Even though I had handwashed several of my clothes yesterday my pants were still somewhat dirty so I figured a good old washing machine will do a better job than me, and it did. While it was washing me and Tom went around town trying to find a bus station. I had thought maybe of staying a bit longer in Litang but I had heard that the Horse Festival was finished even though it was supposed to last until August 10th. We walked around for a bit but didn't find it.

We came back to the hostel and decided to just eat before continuing our bus search. We went to this chinese restaurant and ordered scrambled egg and tomato, sweet and sour pork and fried vegetable (with rice of course) which we shared around. Of course since I am with czech we had to wash it all down with some of the local beer. There was a slightly drunk tibetan man on the table next to us that was pretty friendly. He shook our hands and filled our glasses with beer. He also toasted every 5 minutes or so by saying "Tashi dele", the traditional tibetan greeting. Litang really does feel like the Tibetan wild west. There are tourists but much more less than Zhongdian and nothing compared to Lijiang but even then this was the peak of the year because of the Festival. After our very good meal we finally found the bus station and got 3 tickets to Kanding quite easily. Lonely Planet says this station is very chaotic but we had no problem. Never trust Lonely Planet!

I tried to go to an internet cafe after but it turns out it was full. I met a guy named Jeff which I had seen at the guesthouse and knew he spoke perfect chinese. I asked if he knew another internet cafe and he said yes but thought that they'd be all full at this time as the kids are out playing games (seeing young tibetans monks playing Counter-Strike is quite funny. Can't kill anything in real life but killing humans on the net is no problem). He was right and the other was full. He started rambling about how this new generation of kids would have a totally different outlook on life because of computer games. Having spent my childhood playing games I heard the argument often and needless to say I disagree. It's just something you outgrow or turn into a hobby as soon as they'll start being interested in girls. I talked with him for a while and it turns out he has been living in the area for 4 years, doing a documentary on nomadic tibetans west of town.

"This is the Wild West here. The people here are more tibetans than in Tibet because they've been left alone by the central government." He said.

My McGill t-shirt betrayed me once more and he told me he studied at Concordia (but it's ok, he was studying cinema) and was born in Ottawa but lived in Switzerland for most of his life. He was interested and I wished I could talk with him a bit more about the surrounding tibetans but alas I didn't have the chance as he left for the market and I didn't see him after. On the way back to the hostel I met the czechs and we walked around town for a bit, ending up in the market. The place was interesting but it is definately not the kind of place I'd buy my meat (please don't mention that it is probably where the restaurants buy it, what I don't see don't hurt me, although it might give me diarhea). I went back to the internet cafe and the first one was full once again. There was a wierd australian man there who had entered just before me. The shy chinese girl in charge started speaking to him in very bad english. "Internet is full" she said I think. The australian guy looked at her as if she had said she was into bestiality and ran away: "Did she just asked if I wanted a headjob? This girl is crazy". I felt bad for the girl she had clearly made a big effort to speak in english and seemed to feel self-conscious after what the australian guy did. I guess she won't make an effort to speak english next time.

I went to the next cafe and waited a bit but after 5 minutes I got a computer but the connection was slow and dodgy so I didn't stay too long. I did manage to get from fellow travellers at the cafe that there had been fights involved Han Chinese policemen at the Festival and it was why it had been cut short. I heard several versions of the stories so I don't know which one is true. One of them said that Han Chinese came from eastern sichuan to beat up poor tibetans and cancel the festival, another one was that a fight broke out between 2 men and the police intervened by whipping everyone and shooting in the air, another one said that the festival was just scheduled to be 3 days and nothing happened ("Nothing going on here" the Communist Party says) and another version said that two extra-terrestrial giraffes that claimed to be Buddah appeared in the sky and told the festivalers to cut it short, but the guy who told me that one was a bit wierd.

I walked back to the hostel to find out that the czech didn't feel like eating now and Tom was in the Old Town painting so I went to eat by myself. I went to Mr Zung (sp?) to the left of the Crane Guesthouse. Mr Zung is quite a friendly bloke and will say hello if you walk close to his restaurant. If you go to Litang you'll see him, or more likely he'll see you and then you'll hear him. I got some standard dumplings that were pretty decent.

"Where are you from" Mr Zung asked when I had my mouth filled with a dumpling

"Canada" I replied

"Ohhhh! You come all the way to China just for the Litang's Horse Festival from CANADA! This is great!" he said all excited.

"Uh sort of well I also visited oth... Oh yeah of course I just came to China for the Festival", skillfully not mentioning that I had seen nothing of the Festival and had never heard of it before Lijiang. In any case he was a happy man knowing that Litang was an internationally recognized city.

After eating the dumplings at Zung I walked around the Old Town. I had hoped to walk on a hill to take pictures of the surrounding but I found out it is almost impossible unless you're ready to walk in people's courtyard. The access to hill seems to be restricted to people who have yaks (which sort of excludes me). I'm sure there's a way to get around it but I didn't find it by sunset. The Old Town was nice as it felt really real, unlike Dali and Lijiang. The roads are dusty, people are poor but the houses are superb with painting on the sides of the window and great architecture. When I was walking I saw troops of yak just passing through Litang's street which didn't seem to bother anyone. Just yaks walking on the road blocking traffic! Nothing out of the ordinary eh? Quickly after sunset I walked back to the guesthouse, read my guidebook for a while and fell asleep.

Sunday August 6th

As mentioned before Lonely Planet says that Litang's bus station is chaotic and Jeff yesterday told me it was the worst in China (this coming from someone who has been in China for 6 years). I hadn't felt that yesterday but this morning was different. We got there by 6:40 and our bus was supposed to depart at 7 but it took us all those 20 minutes to find which was our bus. In the end it was a bus with a sign saying it was going to Batang but before we reached that conclusion we went outside on the street, back in the station, asked about 10 different people until we finally found the bus. The moral of the story: always trust Lonely Planet (well not really but don't discard what they say out of hand). In the station I met Amit and the 2 girls who told me they hadn't done the trek in the end because it had been too hard to arrange and were not going to Taggong. I also met Oshley and Navid who told me they had been worrying about me and were glad I was alive. They were also heading to Kanding. We couldn't talk much as we were all faced with the same chaotic situation but in the end we all found our buses although they were not the same.

The bus had reserved seat and thankfully I was sitting next to Kirk, a friendly english bloke doing his graduate studies in Shanghai but travelling around China for a bit, who was going to Taggong also but that meant taking the Kanding bound bus to a small village sort of midway. I was happy to be sitting next to a fellow traveller as this meant I could talk. What I was less happy about was that the bus took an hour going around town before leaving Litang proper and that it was the dirtiest bus I've ever took. It took about 5 minutes before my previously twice washed pants were all dirty.

Kirk was a friendly bloke whcih made the first part of the ride appear shorter. I took a picture of the countryside at a pit stop and Kirk, who has been living in Edinburg for 3 years, mentioned that it looked a lot like Scottland. At around noon we stopped for meal stop somewhere and I had some instant noodles. Kirk was pissed because he was sure the bus had stopped for meal just before his stop and he was right. The restaurant stop was just at the outskirt of the town he dropped off.

For about an hour I had the whole bench to myself but then we picked up two tibetans barbies. The one with the kid sat next to me and the kid stared at me constantly until he fell asleep. The barbie mom was cute but didn't speak much english unfortunately. Aside from that the ride was uneventful and we arrived in Kanding by 4pm. The place didn't look great so me and Gaby exchanged a "Let's buy tickets and get the hell out of here now" look. We bought ticket for 7:30 tomorrow and went looking for a hostel. Immediately I realized that my cowboy was getting out of style here. In Litang and Daocheng I felt like a local with a cowboy hat but in Kanding I felt exotic. We were entering Han Chinese territory. It was also much lower than Litang (4000m) at around 2500m and it felt much more hot. It wasn't cool to be a nomad anymore. We walked about 1km into town to the place called Black Tent which had been recommended to us before for it's dorm accomodation but it was full. An enterprising girl brought us to different chinese hotel until we found one with a triple room for 30RMB each (no luck at negotiating there though). The place was decent and the toilets/showers very clean. The room even had a TV and we mentioned that we felt like first class travellers, although anyone who has ever travelled with more than barebone budget would find this claim hilarious (shared bathroom is not exactly first class travel, no matter how clean).

The czechs wanted a yak steak so we tried to go to this slightly upmarket tibetan restaurant mentioned in the guidebook but never actually found it. Instead we went into another tibetan place with english signs hoping it would be good. We were disapointed. The czechs had yak meat and crispy chicken in peanut sauce. The meat was extremely hard and the crispy chicken was actually pork. I had potato dumplings with cheese and it was fairly disgusting, mostly because of tibetan cheese which I just don't enjoy. The place was clearly the hanging out spot of the young local rich kids and we felt a bit out of place. The beer was good though. After that, we walked around town for a long time, going in side streets and markets. Kanding is lovely you just have to dig around a little bit to find the cool streets. At around 7:30 we were in the main square and we saw people dancing around like in Zhongdian. The music was less loud and the square too big so it didn't create the same atmosphere as in Zhongdian. It was still interesting. At one of the market one of the lady tried to rip off Gaby but she wouldn't have any of it and she just walked away.

On returning to the hotel I stopped at a sort of minisupermarket to buy toilet paper as I was running out. I couldn't find any single roll so I just ripped a bag and took one (which is usually what the lady does when I ask if I can have only one). The boss wasn't happy at what I did and gave me a speech in mandarin. I said sorry and walked away feeling like a vandal. Back at the hotel I took a shower in the 5 star common bathroom and went to sleep.

The Lonely Planet says that the Back Door Route in Sichuan is off the beaten track and goes on very though road. I didn't feel it was anything hard or off the beaten track except Daocheng/Yading but maybe the Festival made it appears more touristy than it is. Very nice places though.

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Photos

Around Litang
I really loved this place. The green in the mountain is amazing. Kirk said it looks like Scottland except that no one says Shyte like in Trainspotting.

Litang market 1
Doing their best to spread bird flu.

Litang market 2
Make me want to become vegetarian

Litang market 3
Hmmm

Yak parading in town
Nothing to see here. Just a troop of yaks walking in the road in the middle of the city, blocking traffic. That seemed so normal to the locals that they couldn't get why I took a picture.

Litang old town in sunset
The picture turned out bad but the sunset was cool. Really.