Sixty One Degrees
An occassional journal of an Asia-overland adventure
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Hong Kong is freaking me out. It's so strange after mainland China. I just paid HK$50 (about 50 yuan) to store my bag, it costs 3 yuan in China. I couldn't find Chinese food for lunch (had a Canadian hamburger instead), and I only just stopped myself from spitting in the street (just a small piece of food stuck in my teeth mind you, not hacking up my guts in the Chinese fashion).
That said, coming in from China is the only way to enter Hong Kong. You start in typical peasant-and-rice-paddy country, riding a fairly shabby bus. Gradually this gives way to the urban sprawl and high-risers of the new city of Shenzen. Then it's through immigration and on to the modern and clean Kowloon-Canton Railway through the New Territories. Half-an-hour later you find yourself walking past the venerable Peninsula Hotel and boarding the famous Star Ferry. As the boat bobs in the waves of the harbour you see the incredible skyline of Hong Kong Island approach. Huge skyscrapers rising high but dwarfed by the steep, tree-clad slopes of Victoria Peak. You step off the boat into the central square, from where the British governed the colony for a century, now overshadowed by the sensational Bank of China building. Symbolic of the new millenium for the city.
You have arrived.
Daocheng, Sichuan Province, China
We've discovered why there's a distinct lack of activity at the bus station. No buses can get over the four passes from Kangding to Litang, on the route to Daocheng.
With just about every distraction in this town exhausted though Bradley and I decide to strike out anyway, first taking a share taxi to the nearby junction of Sangdui, then hopefully hitching from there.
Things are looking pretty good at the start. Blue skies all round. Cheap fare to Sangdui. We stop in at a small cafe for some breakfast, downing a tasty plate of Chinese ravioli, before looking up to see a blizzard outside. Where did that come from? We step outside to investigate but are quickly convinced we are going nowhere for the time being. Resigned to our fate we go back in to the cafe and huddle around the fire with the locals, drinking cups of tea.
The snow continues bucketing down for a good hour or so then, just as quickly as it started, it stops again and we are once again confronted by horizon to horizon blue skies. Where did it go?
No time to ponder this question though as a four-wheel-drive dual cab Nissan pickup truck comes around the corner past the cafe. We wave it down and find that the driver is going to Litang, our next destination. Some quick negotiations and we're on our way. A little disappointed to not have visited the local monastery, complete with hermit monk up in the mountains, but you don't turn down a 4WD when it comes your way.
The drive to Litang is spectacular, traversing up and down small passes, running alongside a rich green valley, and with snow everywhere brightening the scene.
It turns out that the driver is going all the way to Kangding, potentially a two day trip depending on road conditions. Bradley is heading towards Tibet whilst I'm heading away so our paths separate at Litang, the most Tibetan-looking town I've seen yet.
I was pretty keen to go to Tibet but it's still a bit of an ordeal to get in as an independent (read: cheap) traveller. And once you are in there are quite a few restrictions on where you can travel. Tempted as I was I decided to leave Tibet for another day. Now I turn eastwards.
The road to the east, to Kangding, is a spectacular series of passes and valleys. I get a taste of things to come as we head out from Litang and begin to climb and climb and climb. We rise above the snow-line and I'm soon looking at a scene of snow-covered mountain peaks all around. We finally reach the top, 4718m, before dropping down and down and down in to the next valley.
The scene is repeated three more times. On the second peak we have to negotiate our way past an army convoy of 75 trucks. The third pass was pretty uneventful but on our approach to the fourth pass it was clear that our luck had run out. A huge traffic jam had formed just over the crest as big trucks struggled to put on chains and managed to run in to each and off the road in slow motion. With several vehicles totally incapacitated chaos reigned. Every attempt to clear a path for one direction of traffic was thwarted by some idiot in a small vehicle racing up to jump in to the new "space". I took advantage of the delay at least to get out and take a couple of photos in the last light of the day. In the end we were stuck there for two hours before finally extricating ourselves and heading off down the road.
My driver decided to make up for lost time and, oblivious to the terrible condition of the road, proceeding to race down the mountain and along the final valley at breakneck pace. Nevertheless we made it to Kangding by about 9:30pm and I found myself sharing a room with two Korean guys who I'd met in Xiengcheng. Turns out they were stuck on the same pass overnight the night before last.
As for myself, I had a nice hot shower. My first in a week.
Postscript: Much later I ran in to Mili again, about 2000km away, in Yangshou. Turns out she got in only a day or so before me because of all the snow. She was also stuck for 24 hours on one of the passes. She was particularly impressed by the generosity and charity of the local monks, who came down from their monastery to sell the hapless travellers 2 yuan packets of instant noodles for 10 yuan a pop.
Daocheng, Sichuan Province, China
I spend some time wandering around the outskirts of town today, in the Tibetan quarter. At about 1pm I'm beckoned in to a house for lunch. Sounds good.
I follow the elderly gentleman through his main gate, across the courtyard containing a horse, and in to the house. The bottom floor is a stable with at least a couple of cattle. Hard to say as it's so dark. Up some steep steps and around a corner to the large kitchen where the man's wife prepares lunch in the dim light. I'm ushered to a corner next to the window and offered butter tea, dark bread, and yak cheese. Two cats and a lamb wander around the room.
After a time my host beckons me to follow to another room, a small chapel where pictures of the Dalai Lama are prominent. "Dalai Lama", says the man in a slightly conspiratorial fashion. "Yes. Dalai Lama", I say, immediately clinching our brotherhood. He shows me pictures of his two sons, monks in some far off monastery.
Back to the kitchen and lunch is ready, noodles and some sort of green vegetable, and rice. Very tasty actually. The lady goes back to churning the butter tea whilst I eat.
Lunch finished I prepare to make my leave, asking how much I owe. Six yuan the lady indicates with a hand gesture. I give ten. They were very nice.
Yading, Sichuan Province, China
We reached the entrance of the park and stopped in for some instant noodles at the house we'd stayed at before. It's now about 12:15 and apparently most of the minibuses returning to Daocheng leave at about 12:30 or 1:00pm.
That must be when there are minibuses. Hour after hour passes by with virtually no traffic at all. The occasional motorbike. A truck. Nothing remotely resembling transport we could use. The helpful owner of the house comes out in to the lightly falling snow to tell us that, oh yes, when it snows the minibuses don't come from Daocheng because the road is too dangerous. Great.
It's now about 4pm and I'm taking a break inside when Bradley comes rushing in to say that he's scored a lift. I quickly grab my stuff and run out. They already have five passengers so it'll be a cramped ride and they want a fairly outrageous 100 yuan a piece but we decide to go with it. Three of them squeeze together in the back seat whilst I jam in next to a small guy in the middle row and Bradley squeezes in next to me. The three of us on two seats. I'm so close to the poor Chinese guy that I'm virtually in his lap.
Things quickly go downhill from there. As we climb up the tricky mountain road it becomes immediately apparent that the windscreen-wipers don't work, the demister doesn't work, and the driver is seemingly short-sighted. The front passengers has to keep calling out obstacles on the road.
With the constant snow and no windscreen-wipers the visibility out of the windscreen naturally begins to deteriorate. The driver tries every couple of minutes to wipe the inside of the glass, apparently unaware that the snow is on the outside. He occasionally winds down his window to put his hand out and check if it's still snowing, despite the very obvious flakes continually hitting the windscreen.
Just as it seemed things could get no worse we began to climb to a higher pass. The snow was getting thicker and beginning to drift on to the road. Bizarrely, just as we hit a large drift, one of the guys in back asks the driver to stop. More bizarrely, he does! Bradley and I look at each other and we both know that we are not going to get going again uphill in this drift.
Sure enough, when the driver tries to move the wheels just spin. He clearly has never driven in snow before. Or he's just an idiot. Hard to say. We eventually push the little van past the snow and can continue on. Only a few hundred metres later he stops again and gets out to look at the back tyre. Almost flat.
It's now 7pm, the snow's still falling, the road is getting more treacherous, and I have no confidence this guy can even change a tyre properly. With an hour of light left Bradley and I decide to strike out on foot and at least get over the pass, just a few hundred metres away, and down the other side to warmer terrain. For all we know they might be sleeping up there for the night.
We head off and quickly begin descending. We don't know how far it is to the next village and there's very little traffic on this road but it still seems the safer option. After 45 minutes a four-wheel-drive heads towards us. We try to flag it down. It zooms by. Typical. They'd rather we died in the snow than they be inconvenienced.
Soon after we see a monastery on the other side of the gorge. "I claim sanctuary!", exclaims Bradley. Unfortunately, there's no way to cross the gorge here. We continue on.
8:00pm. Dusk is here. We see another set of lights approaching. Damn, it's the minibus. Hard to decide which is worse: to trudge on in the dark and snow, not knowing when shelter will appear, or to risk descending the mountain with Mr Magoo at the wheel. We strangely opt for Mr Magoo.
The driving snow makes visibility terrible. The driver tries various combinations of lights to see which is best: high beam, low beam, no lights, and, bizarrely, the interior light. Strangely that doesn't help.
Ultimately, against all odds, we make it, although we have to force them to drop us in the middle of town rather than the outskirts. A further two or three minutes for them. They manage to stop the van right in the middle of an intersection. After a thoughtful critique of the quality of the driving we cough up the 200 yuan and get away from the van from hell as fast as possible.
But then we find a restaurant with some excellent and cheap food. The guesthouse owner is very pleased to see me return. The room is warm and the bed is comfy. Home sweet home, for one night at least.
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.
Zhongdian, Yunnan Province, China
Having kitted myself with the best in Chinese winter gear I was heading for the Mingyong glacier. First step was a seven hour bus ride from Zhongdian to Deqin.
We headed west from Zhongdian and down a long valley. Small villages and isolated houses overlooked green terraced fields. Mostly the terrain was rocky though and unsuitable for cultivation. We travelled up and over a couple of passes then we started to climb and climb and climb.
Snow began to appear by the roadside and I saw the clouds above getting steadily closer. Well beyond the last signs of habitation we continued climbing and soon we rising through then above the clouds. Suddenly a huge vista of snow-covered mountain peaks surrounded us. We continue to climb, higher and higher, each turn more impressive than the last. We're well above the snow line now and the sun is streaming down on the distant mountain peaks, lighting the snow in colours of white and gold.
Finally we reach the summit at over 4200m. I was expecting a bit of a cheer from the crowd but they all seemed a bit underwhelmed. Not least my seat companion. He'd been asleep on my shoulder for most of the journey.
Zhongdian, Yunnan Province, China
The western part of Yunnan and Sechuan provinces begin to show a bit of Tibetan influence. With this in mind I was looking forward to visiting the large Ganden Sumtseling Gumpta (monastery). What a shock I had.
Monks with mobile phones, labouring on the buildings, driving trucks. Very different to Thailand and Laos. Virtually no monastic or religious activity going on. Just a small boy down an alley chanting scriptures in a sing-song way. Very disappointing.
I was hoping for a small slice of Tibet. I'm afraid I might have found it.
Walnut Grove, Yunnan Province, China
At the guest house this morning I was brought two bowls of porridge for breakfast. I had forgotten the cardinal rule of travelling in south-east Asia. Always specify "one".
"I would like the chicken and rice".
"One?"
"Yes. One"
This conversation is so common that long term travellers short circuit it by always specifying "one", usually with single finger clearly held up, with every order. No matter how superfluous it might seem.
Dali, Yunnan Province, China
After ten weeks in Indochina it's strange travelling in a semi-industrialised country. So many things are different.
The immigration people in Hekou were about the nicest I've ever encountered. Helping me with the forms and telling me about the bus and train times. I left the building and was immediately approached by a young man claiming to be an english translator and offering help. Alarms bells start going off big time as he offers to escort me to the bus station or the bank. Turns out, he really is an english translator enployed by the government to just stroll around and help lost looking foreigners. Amazing!
There's very little hassle to buy things, take motos, or go to guest-houses. Everyone is generally honest over prices. A bit dazed after a long bus ride I offered 35 Yuan for a 3.5 Yuan purchase. The nice young lady just gently corrected me. The Vietnamese would take the cash and laugh to their friends.
There are real mountains now looming overhead. With snow!
Strange thing though. I sort of miss the hurly-burly of Indochina. It was fun.