April 12, 2004

At least I've got noodles

Daocheng, Sichuan Province, China

I'm strolling the streets of Daocheng with my current travelling companion, Mili, when a western chap, the first one we'd seen in the town, came across to us.

"Are you going to Yading?", he asked. We both looked at each other, a little puzzled. That wasn't the plan, we didn't even know where it was. "I just wondered", he said, "because why else would you be in Daocheng?". Why else indeed, but here we were, and it wasn't too bad a place really, in that western-Sichuan a-little-bit-of-Tibet kind of way.

Turns out Yading is an excellent and almost undiscovered National Park a little to the south. After a look at a few photos I was convinced to make the trip. Mili was a little short on funds and so decided to skip it and head for Chengdu. So Bradley was now my new travel mate.

He'd already scoped out the mini-bus situation so we decided to head down straight away. I hastily packed a few things in to my day pack and left the big bag behind. A summer sleeping bag, a couple of packets of biscuits, and a toothbrush. What more could I need?

The journey took about three hours to the entrance of the park. It was getting dark by this stage so we decided to stay in a farmhouse just outside. The weather was definitely cold but we could pad our beds with about four blankets (yak I think) underneath and another four on top. Toasty warm.

Next morning we awoke to amazing blue skies. We could see two of the three mountains in the distance, tops covered in snow. Thus inspired, and after a hearty meal of fresh bread and packet coffee, we set off to the park.

First stop was a monastery that we supposedly could stay at. Not at the moment. No monks but plenty of construction workers. It seemed to be prepared more for tourism than religion. A common theme in China. In any case, no real option to stay there at the moment. The place was mostly just workers tents. They did sell me some overpriced packet noodles on the basis that there was no food further on.

Continuing on we noticed snow falling a bit more persistently before reaching our destination for the night, the Luorong Pasture. The original plan was to camp but with all the snow about we opt for the simpler choice of staying in the group tents already set up. They have heaps of blankets at least. Oh, and a full kitchen. No food indeed.

The next day we strike out for the high lakes. If the weather improves we'll circle the mountain.

The weather doesn't improve. It snows on-and-off all day and visibility is a few hundred metres. Not enough to safely find all the necessary passes. We climb to the top of the first pass, wait for a while to assess the situation, then decide it's too risky to continue. Back to the delights of the Luorong Pasture camp.

We awake the next day to find the visibility exactly the same as before. Looks like the circuit is off. Some Chinese from the east coast have arrived to assess the regions viability for tourism development. They have a local guide and are planning to cross the pass we reached yesterday then continue on. They seem woefully ill-prepared with casual trousers and dress shoes. It's almost worth staying just to see how they fare.

But in the end we decide to cut our losses and head back out of the park. The next challenge will be to try to catch a lift on the very quiet road back to Daocheng.

Posted by David at April 12, 2004 10:54 PM