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Published: September 18th 2006
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If you can survive the bus journey to Songpan, then this trip is a must. A combination of the rickety old bus, narrow winding roads up the mountain and very risky driving over 9 hrs makes it a bit of a trek.
Songpan itself is a cute little place with traditional buildings, city walls and gates, tiered rooves and colurful temples. There seems to be a large muslim population living there also. We stayed in an awful place called the Traffic Hotel which is part of the bus station but for 40 RMB you can't ask for much. At least we had our own room, kind of..... All the rooms are partitions so there are gaps at the top ie no privacy!! Dont think that there is any decent accomodation in the town at all.
But you are here for the horse riding. The horses are quite small, infact some of them are mules. They're no beauties, a bit scrawny and tangled manes full of sticklebacks. However they are strong. The scene in the street on the day of departure is hilarious. All these backpackers, guides with their two horses on the main st-mayhem. The horses leave
quite a trail behind us as we ride out of the city. But of course there is someone to clean it up straight away.
We did a 3 day trip. The first day involves about 3 hours of trekking uphill mostly, towards the place where we set up camp. It is very steep in parts and actually we dismount for the very steep downhill which you would be glad of because you are perched up rather high on these horses, tent canvas and god knows what else underneath you.... so it is quite easy to slide forward.
The guides set up camp beside a river. We camp here on both nights. It's a nice spot at about 3000m so you can feel the cold at night. The tents are well worn canvases thrown over a few sticks.....bring lots of warm clothes. A light mist of rain hits you at night as you try to sleep so we wore our waterproofs and the rest in bed. They give you these really warm tibetan coats which do the trick and look ridiculous!!! They are great cooks, whipping up some really tasty dishes, all vegetarian and lots of everything. Tomato salad,
cucumber salad, tofu, noodles, fried rice, fried bread, fried cabbage (for breakfast)...we were well fed!!! They also make the trip quite atmospheric by singing long gutsy airs while we are trekking.
One of the guides wasn't feeling well on the 2nd night so one of the others practised a bit of chinese medicine on him. He used his shoelaces as tourniquets, then pricked each one of his fingertips with a needle. I wondered if this therapy would do my aching back any good!!! The result of sleeping on a bed of branches.
The 2nd day is fantastic. Firstly we don't have the big loads underneath so we can trot now and again. A stick is useful encouragement for this! The first part brings us thru a few rivers and then we start climbing. The scenery is amazing esp when we ride above this stunning valley. A river rums thru it and there are steep mtns on either side. Down below you can see life-a few houses, yaks being chased along, brightly coloured tibetan flags on tall poles and farmland. Up above we pass a good few houses, some very impressive with beautiful stonework above and elaborate woodwork below,
a store, and many of the local indigenous people. They mostly ignore us, getting along with their farm work, tools in hand.
After this is an unbelievably steep ascent to Ice Mtn. Was in awe at the surefootedness and strength of these horses. There were a few stumbles but this wasn't surprising at all given the rocky and slippery terrain. Reached a plateau, up above from which rose icy peaks on all sides. Apparently we were at 4300m here. Thankfully for us and the horses we walked down the steep bit before remounting.
Day 3 is back to the camp via another route. We passed a temple with active monks ranging from about 7 to 70. It started to rain heavily and the lads deck us out in large black ponchos so we look like the black horsemen in 'Lord of the Rings'
Get back to Songpan about 2 and gladly hand my horse over. My last memory of them is one releasing a deluge in the middle of the main street.
Emma's is a good place to go for breakfast and internet. It's a bit of a central meet-up for westerners. We had a great meal at the Pancake House also.
The food market in town is a chaotic mish mash of produce. They have everything there from turtles to peanuts. We also saw a chicken being dropped in a large vat of boiling water to kill it, and then plucked in some sort of machine...yuk. My chance to convert to vegetarianism.
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