Sichuan Adventures

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I finally made myself leave Lhasa, somewhere I think I could have spent ages just chilling out (especially once I discovered the cappuccino shop... absolute heaven after a month of the 3-in-1 super sweet instant stuff they have in China) and arrived in Chengdu to find it hot hot hot - sooo much better than the incessant rain last time I was here! I spent just one night in Chengdu... after the small towns and remote places I'd been to in Tibet a city of 10 million was all a bit too much!! The next morning saw me up at 6am (again) for a 9 hour bus ride to Songpan in the north of Sichuan provence. The journey was long but the scenery stunning, the flat area around the city becoming green forested slopes rising steeply above the river valley as we climbed higher and higher into the mountains. Songpan itself is an interesting little town of about 70,000 that had plenty to keep me occupied for the afternoon. The centre to my inexpert eye looked largely rebuilt, maybe restored, but in a very distinctive style that I'd not seen elsewhere. Songpan was once a walled city and two of the ancient gates still exist. From the top of the north gate and the attached bits of old wall I got good views over the old city and the perfect chance to inconspicuously peer into the lives of people below.... street vendors cooking, men on the street playing Chinese chess, children playing football. There was also a bustling market hidden down a side street - the nice green veggie and spice section hidden in a dark hall and the headless and not so headless fish and chicken section spilling out into the surrounding streets. The town includes a mix of Tibetan and Muslim people in its population and for me was one of the friendliest places I went to in China - I encountered far less of the direct stares that as a westerner I've come to expect from the Chinese and the locals seemed genuinely interested to know where I'd come from, where I was going etc... at least as much as their minimal English and my v basic Chinese would allow for!

The whole point of travelling to Songpan for many people is to go horse trekking in the surrounding mountains. I was no exception and once there I hooked up with some English, French, Danish and Korean guys on a 3 day trek. Finding the trekking company wasn't hard.... they find you. There are only three buses a day from Chengdu so as soon as you step off the bus you're ambushed by the local hotel, restaurant and horse trekking touts. I've had that alot in other countries but this was the first time I'd experienced it in China. Songpan isn't overrun with western tourists though - on the day I arrived one local business man was able to proudly tell me that precisely 9 new westerners had arrived in town. Big brother really is watching ;0) I dare not ask if he knew where they were all staying but I imagine he did, it was that kind of place. I'd only ever ridden a horse twice before in my life (on hols with the parents in wales when I was a kid... i.e. a long time ago!) so a 3 day trek might have seemed ambitious!! By the end of the second day my body certainly wasn't impressed with me, even my fingers hurt, and I was wondering in what moment of madness I'd decided to do this. It was a great trip though and I was very impressed with the company we went - there were 9 foreigners on the trip, each paired with a guide to make sure the horses were looked after and behaving themselves.

The first day saw us riding for about 6 hours - the saddles were wooden with no padding but we had our bedding thrown over the top so it was just like sitting on a big duvet!! And for a change I had a well behaved animal!!!! Whether it's horses or camels I always get the beast that wants to either run off at full speed or pick a fight with the others. Given the mountainous terrain we followed running off wasn't going to be a problem and for a change i had one that didn't incessantly want to bite the bum of the animal infront! The day was blue sky and sun all the way, the scenery we passed was remote and beautiful - small villages on the mountain slopes with many colourful Tibetan prayer flags. The hills were lush green, sometimes with alpine forests and sometimes grasslands, we trekked passed small waterfalls, saw lots of yaks and farmers with ox's that were hauling logs. It was sooo peaceful and great to be away from urban life.

We set up camp at the base of a beautiful valley... well, the guides set up camp - some put up tents and others disappeared into the forest with knives and axes.... 20 minutes later they returned one by one each dragging half a tree! Us tourists, well we just collapsed in the sun and spectated - sitting on a horse for 6 hours is seriously tiring work ;0)

The afternoon we had to ourselves... it was a tough choice between lazing in the sun or going for a walk but seeing as the horse had been putting all the effort in on the trek I decided I was in need of some exercise. A few hours later I returned to camp to find things pretty much as I left them with everyone just chilling out. Our guides cooked up a yummy noodle soup, which included making the noodles. Picture 6 Tibetan outdoorsy guys standing round a cooking pot on the fire, stretching small lumps of dough into long strips about an inch wide then tearing them into 1 inch cubes and dropping them in the pot. This went on for a good few mins - none of the preprepared packet stuff here! A local Tibetan woman turned up with beers for sale so we spent the rest of the evening sitting round the camp fire, wrapped in traditional Tibetan woollen (not sure which animal it was from...) blankets, playing cards and drinking beer! This camping thing is a hard life ;0) We eventually crawled into the tent to find that our beds had been set up by the guides - lots of blankets to keep us warm but they'd set the wooden saddle up as a pillow.... needless to say that didn't last long!!!

The second day was a tough one on the saddle soreness front.... the nice cushy bedding we'd had for padding yesterday was back in the tent, meaning 5 hours bouncing around on wooden saddles. Ouch is the most polite way of describing the pain felt by the end of the day! Today started as a grey, drizzly day and we (ok, the horses) spent 3 hours slogging up to the top of 'ice mountain', only to arrive and find the view shrouded in mist. We could see a total of @ 20m in front of us. Hmph. As the rain turned from light drizzle to a torrential downpour we took shelter in a dilapidated wooden hut which became more dilapidated as the guides started prising planks of wood off to built us a fire. After a while the rain eased and we started down again, by foot this time as it's not safe for the animals to carry us down steep slopes. What struck me was the colour that surrounded us, even at this altitude. The vegetation was low to the ground and there were no trees, but after the comparatively barren landscape on the Tibetan plains there were lots of lush green shrubs and flowers of all sizes in yellow, white, pink, red and purple. One of the guides caught me paying to much attention to them and as I dawdled down the mountain he was dashing up and down picking my a bunch. Ahhhh

Our route back to Songpan passed through several villages - for me this was the best day as we had a real chance to look into peoples lives as we road passed them building, farming, washing etc. Maybe they were used to the horse treks coming through but I'm sure we, as westerners, attracted less attention on horseback than if we'd been on foot. We lunched at a monastery, watching local women walking the kora and spinning bright multi-coloured prayer wheels (most of the ones I saw in Tibet were a single colour - gold). The men were trying to erect a huge 2m high Tibetan prayer wheel whilst others constructed a new building entirely held together by wooden joints - not a nail in sight! I was slightly concerned by the lack of foundations.... the main uprights were glued onto a concrete floor.... but perhaps not as much as the English guy who got pulled into helping out. When we finally arrived back in Songpan it really felt like we were featuring in some wildwest film... picture 18 of us on horseback trotting into town and down the main street with everyone turning to stare and watch!

I'd decided to take the back routes through Sichuan from Songpan, rather than backtracking to Chengdu. Well that was the plan. One of the challenges I found with travel in China is getting money. Most banks have ATMs, but most of them don't accept international cards.... even some of those that advertise that they do, don't. I've stayed in cities of 5 million people that apparently only have one international ATM. Songpan isn't that big but the one international ATM it had was out of order, which meant I had to go back to Chengdu - I was pretty sure there'd be none between there and Zhongdian, about a weeks travel away through small towns and villages. On the drive back to Chengdu we had a brief rest stop and three of us went on an ATM hunt. We found one that said it took Visa, Cirrus and Mastercard - yeayyy we thought!!! We had 8 cards between us and it declined every one of them......

I spent much of the next week on buses as I made my way through the back roads from Chengdu to Zhongdian in northern Yunnan. First stop was the Tagong grasslands, a small town full of Tibetan cowboys with long dark hair cruising around on their motorbikes. Mostly I've been fine travelling alone, but here I had the minivan drive from hell when 2 guys decided they were love with me. Sounds harmless enough but when you're stuck in the van with them for 3 hours and one of them is drinking..... arghhhhh. They spoke little English but unfortunately one of the phrases was 'I love you', which was said over and over and over and over and....., both wanted me to go home with them, their intentions made quite clear through some rather explicit guestures, and no amount of me staring out the window or pretending to be asleep made them take the hint! Maybe I should have suggested pistols at dawn... The others in the van were really sweet - a Cantonese girl and three Tibetans. We all had food to share for the journey.... I bought some crisps, the Cantonese girl some fruit and the Tibetan trio.. well they bought the chicken feet!!

The next day I had another unpleasant experience, this time with a bad monk, who after telling me about his trip to India to see the Dalai Lama, then decided to try it on. Enough was enough I decided and left town the next day! I'd really been looking forward to spending some time here and the hostel owner and other locals I met were lovely but I figured it wasn't meant to be. I'd been chatting to a friendly Chinese guy in the hostel and the next day me, him and his family and a french girl hired a minivan to Kangding. We set off and got as far as the next town.... @ 30 mins down the road.... where it soon became apparent even to those of us that didn't speak the language that he was trying to offload us into another vehicle. Luckily we had the Chinese guy with us who was able to translate...... a little quirk of local law (there's lots of these in China I've discovered) meant that the driver we'd hired in Tagong could legally only take us as far as this town... if he took us into Kangding and got caught by the police then he'd be arrested. After a bit of haggling we end up in a new vechile and off we went again... this time we drove for @ 3 hours before stopping some 30 mins outside of Kangding..... to wash the car. All along this area and Northern Sichuan I'd seen hose pipes by the side of the road. It seems, according to my Chinese friend, that driving into town with a dirty car in these areas can also land you in jail..... whether that's true or not I don't know but they were doing a very very very thorough job!!!

Another day, another 9 hour bus ride, this time to a place called Litang (@4000m above sea level), a cowboy wild west town that is famed as the birthplace of the 7th and 10th Dalai Lamas. The scenery was again gorgeous - green grasslands dotted with Tibetan houses that differed from those I'd seen in Tibet in the sense that they were a dark brown stone, compared to the white washed buildings of Tibet. They were the same rectangular flat roofed shape though and had the same style widows with their beautiful colourful patterned frames. As we neared Litang we saw increasing numbers of nomad tents on the hills around us with the nomads themselves sitting round fires or tending to their yak and goat herds grazing nearby.

The centre of Litang is very much Chinese in architecture but the people are most definitely Tibetan. Men with long hair and leather waistcoats drive around on their motorcycles, others wrapped in thick coats talk on the street, women with their hair braided with red thread then plaited and looped around their heads, buy and sell things at market stalls. Life here seems to have a very relaxed pace of life - no one was rushing around, infact lots of people seemed to just hang out on the streets and chat. I had dinner that night at a cafe just along from my hostel - it was owned by a charming Chinese guy who was so eager to chat and practise his English. Sitting at the front table of his cafe I attracted quite a bit of interest from locals walking passed with several of them stopping to peer in at the strange westerner. I felt like I was an exhibit in a museum. One pair, a Tibetan mother and daughter I think, even came and sat and drank tea with me and asked that I take a photo of them with me.

Part way up a hill at the edge of town is a beautiful monastery. The walk to get there takes you away from the Chinese buildings through lanes full of traditional Tibetan houses complete with yak poo patties drying on the walls. The monastery was a hive of activity with much construction work going on, including some guys sat outside carving large pieces of wood into statues and decorative pillars to adorn the new temple buildings. There were lots of young monks here - I walked round the corner of one building to find maybe 40 of them playing. It really could have been a regular school playground.

At the top of a hill behind the monastery is a site for sky burials - a Tibetan burial ritual that culminates with the body of the deceased being consumed by vultures. Once the birds have stripped the flesh from the body the bones are crushed for the vultures to consume. There was no suggestion that a sky burial was happening when I was there but it didn't seem right for me to go wondering up there. Instead I relaxed on a hill just outside the monastery, looking at the views down across town, out to the nomad camps on the surrounding plains and into the monastery. V hard way to spend an afternoon ;0)

After a day in Litang I took another minivan to a place called Xiangcheng. After my last one I was a little bit dubious, especially as this time it was just me and a load men, but they were lovely. One of them even bought chocolate to share! The drivers sidekick spoke a little English and introduced everyone to me. He was also very definite that he was Tibetan and not Chinese - in Tibet I had deliberately steered away from asking locals any awkward questions about the Chinese situation, and I was astounded to have anyone voice their position unasked. After a mere 6 hours we arrived in Xiangcheng..... these days anything less than about 8 hours ranks as a short journey ;0) For me Xiangcheng was just a necessary stopover on the way to Zhongdian. The town does have a monastery but I'm ashamed to say that I developed monastery apathy....I usually love things like that and never thought I'd tire of them but on this particular afternoon, sitting outside my hotel giving impromptu English lessons to some of the staff seemed like more fun!

The next day was an epic.... the journey to Zhongdian should have been 8 hours of unsealed mountainous roads and beautiful scenery - the roads were high and bumpy and the scenery, when it wasn't raining or covered by cloud, was stunning... the journey took 15 hours and if we hadn't bailed off the bus and hitch-hiked at the end then I think we'd still be there!! All started well, lots of bendy roads which is never good on a bus full of locals... they're great with altitude but show them a winding road and they're throwing up all over the place. A guy across from me spent most of the journey being sick out the window and there was the occasional whiff of puke permeating from the back of the bus, but in that sense it was actually one of the better journeys I've done. The problem was mud and given that the rainy season is in full swing there was a lot of it ;0) We'd been going for a few hours before we encountered our first challenge - a small slope that it took us some 10 attempts to get up. The entire bus bailed off at the bottom of the slope to make it lighter, or maybe safer - if the bus went off the road the next stop was the bottom of the cliff. Well, everyone got off apart from some old folks and a monk... maybe he thought he had to be on the bus for he's prayers to work??!! The driver reved the engine, put his foot down, the bus skidded and slid, got embedded in mud and he reversed back, 2nd attempt, a longer run up and he got a bit further, skidded and slid some more, got embedded again, reversed back to the bottom again... third attempt with a bit more of a run up.... etc etc etc etc. After the 5th failed attempt branches and leaves were put on the mud to give some grip... a few more tries and the bus was back at the bottom of the hill again. Next the snow chains came out!! A few more tries, a small miracle, half the bus pushing (the male half.. I took my steer from the local women and stuck with commenting on tactics from the side lines) and the bus finally made it to the top. All in it took @1 hour to go 50m. But yeahyy we were on our way!!

A few hours passed before we stopped again - this time the road was blocked by a truck stuck in the mud as it tried to go around a landslip. Everyone off the bus again!! The back wheel of the truck was 3/4 buried in mud so the next 2 hours went like this: two guys jacked the truck up a little, another put rocks under the offending wheel, a fourth broke the rocks into bits with a pole and then the first two guys jacked it up a bit more. zzzzzz. But yeay after only 2 hours we were on our way again!!! We got to within 1 hour 30mins of Zhongdian before we hit real trouble. A big truck was having the same problem we'd had on mud hill... except here the truck was so heavy that they'd decided that rather than having a go and risk getting completely stuck they'd take the opportunity to build the road... well, they called in a gravel truck! We were 17th in the queue behind the stuck truck, on a road that doesn't see much traffic so I think they'd been waiting a while for it to come. It arrived just as we got there and we joined in spreading the gravel over the road. The driver got into the cab, started the engine, moved maybe 1m max, and then stopped again. Not enough grip, call in another gravel truck. Arghhhhhhh.

Some 3 hours later the stuck truck was still stuck, we were still 17th in line and the rain had started again :0( I'd got chatting to two Israeli girls on the bus and we'd been dreaming of the yummy food that we'd have when we got to Zhongdian... by the time it hit 7pm and there was no sign of us moving we'd started to loose hope. The dilemma we faced was whether to eat all our supplies now, or save some incase we were in for the night... the later really would have been the sensible option but hunger got the better of us ;0) Between us we managed to make a yummy main course of green crisp sandwiches, with a filling of smoked Yaks cheese and a desert of dried banana pieces. Not quite what we'd been dreaming off but it tasted soo good!

The occasional jeep and minivan past us that was able to squeeze passed the stuck truck, but unfortunately most of them were full. Nevertheless each time we heard an engine one of us would dash into the rain to check. We were mid way through a game of cards when Noa dashed out... finally good news!!! She'd stopped an empty jeep and persuaded/begged him to take us. We spend the next 90mins squeezed into the back of our jeep with our rucksacks on our laps... the alternative was on the roof in the rain.... hmm. During those 90mins our saviour smoked 8 cigarettes... we were trying to guess how many he'd be on a day.... but we weren't complaining, oh no, we'd escaped the bus at last and as far as we were concerned 1 every minute would have been fine by us! He spoke no English but was soo sweet when we got to Zhongdian. It was still raining and he didn't want to dump us on the street so he rang the hostel to get directions.. when we got there he refused to take any money off us! It was late but at @10pm we finally got the almost gourmet dinner we were dreaming off!

Next up, farewell China!

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Photos

More villages...
The buildings here were quite different from others I'd seen in that the roofs were made of large overlapping pieces of ireggular shaped slate.

My poor horse after having made it to the top (well, as far as we went up) of ice mountain
.... note the really comfy looking saddle... ha!!! Wood with a pretty piece of fabric on it. Now imagine that for 5 hours!

Fabulous views at the top......
picture snow covered mountains rising above...well that's what we imagined anyway ;0)

We took shelter from the rain inside a wee hut.....
... the horses had to stay in the rain

Comments

[fk82]

Songpan info
Hi Willow. Just wondering what your Songpan advice was. For example how much was the trek per day per person. Did you book in advance or when you arrived? What things did you need. Other question...it sounds like you have been traveling on your own...have you felt safe etc...bar the mad monk scenarios. I am in Chengdu for the next year so any travel advise would be greatly appreciated. I am particularly interested in Tibet...how did you get the permits etc...all info would be greatly appreciated. Not been travelling for a while...like 5 years so about rusty....cheers felicity