Beijing - Chendgu - Danba, June 2-10
We flew from Los Angeles (where I ran into a former student of mine) to Beijing, where we had one morning to spend before catching a train to Chengdu. We woke early and went for a walk, then headed to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. We caught our train and spent twenty-six hours in our hard sleeper car to Chengdu. The train ride was beautiful, passing through lush mountains and massive limestone crags. We arrived in Chengdu, a major city and the capital of the Sichuan province, where the sky was the same gray/brown as Beijing and and the temperature was hot. We chose Chengdu as our "home base" because it is a good entry point for Tibet, where we'd originally planned to go, but also because there are many mountains in western Sichuan as the land rises to the Tibetan plateau.
We stayed at Sim's Cozy Guesthouse, which we enjoyed very much. It's a, for lack of a better word, cozy hostel run by a very friendly and helpful couple. They helped us come up with an alternate plan once we'd decided not to enter Tibet. We decided to head to Danba to climb Mt. Moerduo (15,800 ft) and then head to Rilong, making a kind of loop in the Ganzi and Aba Tibetan Prefectures, which, while still in the Sichuan province, are home mostly to Tibetans. Once we had our plan, we enjoyed a trip to the supermarket for all kinds of goodies, and we got on a bus the next morning for Danba.
Chengdu was our introduction to Sichuanese cuisine---which was incredible! A popular meal called "hot pot" is served in many restaurants. A big pool of boiling, spicy chili oil sits in the center of your table, and you order vegetables and meats to dip in it. When you fish out the items, you dip them next into a bowl with sesame oil, cilantro, garlic, and MSG. It is sooo spicy, and also delicately spiced, so that your first sensation is a sweet taste, followed by salty, and then the hot hot spiciness kicks in. We loved hot pot and ate it every time we were back in Chengdu.
Moat around the Forbidden City in Beijing.
A guard at Tiananmen Square.
Inside the Forbidden City.
Amy.
A lovely bit of stone work on a cabinet with an ancient hinge.
Aaron on the train to Chengdu.
View from our window at Sim's Cozy Guesthouse.
The trip to Danba was our first of several insane bus rides. The road was carved into a steep mountainside along a river, and all along our route sections of the road were being rebuilt as we drove over them. Sometimes we could see sections of the old road that had fallen into the river as we drove along. At one point we actually drove through an uncompleted tunnel---men in hard hats were working away on the walls of the tunnel as we passed through.
We arrived in Danba, which we'd heard was a very beautiful place---actually, Danba itself is not remarkable, but the small Tibetan villages nearby are exceedingly beautiful. This is the view from our hostel room in Danba.
We were planning to start off for Mt. Moerduo immediately, but it was raining in the morning so instead we went to the village of Zhonglu with Ping and Kay---two girls from Guangzhou who were also traveling around Sichuan. (We saw them again a few more times on our trip!) The region around Danba is famous for these "blockhouses," which were built hundreds of years ago, and for the stone houses built in the fortress style of the Jiarong (or Gyarong) Tibetans. They carve these terraced farms into the steep hillsides and grow barley, potatoes, beans, corn, and more.
More of the village. Mt. Moerduo is somewhere up in the clouds.
Stone work around a colorful window.
It seemed like only women worked in the fields.
We caught a glimpse of Mt. Moerduo through the clouds.
Aaron and Amy.
Looking down towards the village. You can see another village on the hillside across the gorge.
Goats.
The goats' minder, an elderly Tibetan.
Ping and Aaron eating a delicious meal made from local vegetables and grains.
Riestras of Sichuan chili peppers hanging in a house---just like the riestras of New Mexico chiles sold in Santa Fe.
Corn drying out on the roof of a house, with a corn-shucking device on the ground.
Ping climbing a ladder to the roof.
This is the fortress-style Jiarong Tibetan house (this is a very large one and the one we were allowed to tour).
Fields of barley.
That day there was a dance performance held in the courtyard of the large house. The performance was staged for a Hong Kong TV station, but we were glad to be able to see it. Here are the female dancers.
The male dancers.
A large group did a big circle dance.
Amy starting up Mt. Moerduo the next day. We hired a guide, who didn't speak any English, and since we didn't speak any Chinese, it was hard to communicate about our trip. We carried about six days worth of food, because even though we were only climbing a fifteener, that's how long they indicated we would be backpacking, and we were starting from about 6,000 feet. We should have known something was a little off when our guide carried only a tiny pack, but we set off anyway.
There were lots of wonderful strawberries.
After about 2000' of elevation gain with very steep hiking, we arrived in a flat valley with a lovely farm. We sat down and had tea with the men while the women continued to work in the fields.
A view up the drainage towards Mt. Moerduo in the clouds.
After we left the valley it was more steep hiking in the drainage. The guide, Shin Lo, got us lost only twice.
This was when we figured out why Shin Lo had such a small pack; we hiked almost 6,000' grueling feet of elevation gain that first day to arrive at a monastery/hostel where we spent the night. The hiking had been very, very steep and there was truly nowhere along the way to pitch a tent.
The next morning was quite rainy, so we got a late start. We were hiking through incredibly lush forest at 12,000 ft.
Amy. The going was very steep again on the second day. We could definitely tell that this hike would not take six days, as we'd been told, since we were gaining altitude quite fast.
Aaron.
Blossoms.
Shin Lo and his little pack. It was filled with Red Bull cans, liquid milk packages, dried onion biscuits, and sausages. He tossed his trash on the trail when finished with it. I guess it's a cultural thing, but it made it hard for me to like him.
Amy.
A rainbow.
We stopped at about 14,000 ft and set up camp as it began to rain. Here's where it got interesting: Shin Lo had no tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad. He built a small shelter under a rock and we loaned him our pack covers (big garbage bags), a sleeping pad (we each brought a Thermarest and an ensolite pad), part of my sleeping bag that zips off, and Aaron's down jacket. The rain turned to snow later.
Aaron making dinner when the rain let up a little - seaweed, quinoa, and dried tomatoes from last summer's garden.
Aaron in the morning. I barely slept that night, worrying if Shin Lo was dying of hypothermia, soaking wet in his little cave. We got up and made him tea in the night, which he didn't drink. (He was fine, as it turned out, apparently pretty dry and comfortable.)
The next morning, he indicated that we would go down. We would have stayed to see if the weather cleared, but then, we were prepared to sleep out in inclement weather and our "guide" wasn't. We hiked down, and it rained some more. Again, being unable to communicate, we didn't know if Shin Lo's plan was to hike down the entire almost 8,000 ft of elevation we'd hiked up over the previous two days; we suspected it was. We were right. It was brutal, steep, and we had our heavy packs while our guide only had his little day pack.
Aaron at a prayer wheel spun by a paddle in the stream.
Eventually, we reached a village, where we were invited inside for snacks and drinks---a strong, sweet "wine" (they call it wine but we'd call it liquor) made from lychees. As we left the village, a woman gestured towards my pack and I thought she just wanted to try it on, so I gave it to her---but then she insisted on carrying it for me as we hiked down from the village! It was especially funny because Shin Lo had been trying to take my pack from me the whole trip---both on the way up and down---because I was so much slower than he, but that just REALLY annoyed me, and here I was tricked into giving up my pack to this sweet woman.
We still had about 1500 feet of elevation to lose after the village to get to the road where we would be picked up.
Back in Danba, we ate at a wonderful restaurant where a dish of oyster mushrooms, plus a second entree and tea, rice, and drinks, cost about $2.50. I don't even like mushrooms, but these were delicious and Aaron was exuberant, saying that these were expensive mushrooms back home.
Tibetan women at a shop in Danba.
NEXT PAGE >>
©2007 Amy Jordan; Email Me.