Sichuan - November 2003

Langmusi, or Chinese Switzerland
How long does it take to bridge 160 kilometers? More than seven hours! There was no road. Where did it go? It was all mud and rocks, resembling one big building site. When the Chinese build a road they don't do one section at the time but they dig up the old road across the whole stretch for hundreds of kilometers, resulting in absolute transportation chaos during the time of the construction. I assume that next year there will be a brand spanking new road leading to Langmusi on the border of the provinces Gansu and Sichuan.

The first part of the trip to Hezuo goes smoothly but then the fun starts. We run into a bus trying to haul itself out of a big muddy depression in the road which is icy and slippery to boot. Everybody gets out of the bus to offer advice and assistance. After much digging to give the tires grip, the bus manages to overcome this tricky section. Our bus is next. The initial attempt fails. A rope is attached to the bus and all and sundry, including an elderly Tibetan lady, is grabbing hold of it to help pulling.
The first few attempts are fruitless because the tracks of the truck before us has frozen over and makes the bus slide back. But at length it manages to get out and we are on our bumpy way again, with all going relatively well until a blizzard is developing. Not far before reaching Langmusi we get stuck in a long waiting line of man, beast and vehicles trying to work themselves through a narrow section of muddy road with visibility reduced to zero. But my story is nothing compared to stories I hear from other travellers who only days before me witnessed whole fights revolving around similar mud traps, police being called, being dropped off in the middle of nowhere late at night. Apparently I am quite lucky getting on a bus that actually arrives in Langmusi village in the end.

In the bus I get chatting (plenty of time for that) with a young man who works as a policeman in Langmusi and we end up going to dinner together at Leesha’s, the traveller’s haunt run by Muslim Hui Chinese Leesha and the only place in the village with a stove heating things up. This is also where I meet up with German Una again.
Langmusi is largely is a Tibetan town but the noodle restaurants are all run by the Muslim community. Apart from the two monasteries on either side of the hills that dominate the village, there is one quaint little mosque and the call to prayer happens acoustically by a young boy.

Only the next evening I manage to meet up with Da Gee, monk in the Langmusi Geardi Monastery to whom I have been introduced by Lilian whom I have met in Turpan earlier in my trip. I had stuck a note in his closed door that day. He had found the note and had brought it to the people from the Renqing Hotel who claimed they spoke English but they couldn’t make sense of it. Still he manages to track me down, not so hard in such a small town with the number of visitors at any given day probably not exceeding 10.

Da Gee invites me to stay in his house the next night and will serve as my guide during the day. He picks me up at 8 in the morning the next day. Una who had planned to take the 7am bus to Zoige that day is still standing around in the muddy street, hopeful that some bus will still materialise. By 9 o’clock one bus has come and gone but wouldn’t let her on. Da Gee invites her along to his house. He lives in a lovely courtyard house together with his five students. The building is perched on the edge of the hill overlooking the village. We have tea and raisins. That morning there will be a sky burial in the hills behind Langmusi. Da Gee cannot or does not like witnessing so Una and I set off alone. It is quite a hike towards the site and by the time we get there, the actual ceremony is over and the attendants are just leaving. But big vultures are still feeding and circling above the site. There must be at least 30 vultures, complemented by many crows. The sight of the big animals circling above our heads and landing and taking off is overwhelming. Their wingspan is enormous.
In Tibetan Buddhism the tradition of sky burials fits in the everlasting cycle of life and death and taking and giving back to nature. And in a country with wood being in scarce supply and the soil being often frozen, it’s just a practical solution.

The grasslands around us bordered by higher snow covered mountains are so lovely that we decide to keep walking. Not for nothing do the Chinese call this the ‘Switzerland of China' I am not sure if it really resembles Switzerland but it’s beautiful all the same. Here and there the grasslands are dotted with nomad tents with their herd grazing around them.

In the afternoon we get a tour around the holiest places of the monastery like the university building and the source of a spring in a cave. That night we sleep in the cottage. There are no toilets, the surrounding area serves as outdoor toilet which keep causing slight embarrassment with us, afraid as we are to stumble upon anyone doing their business or being caught in the act ourselves.

The Aba Grasslands
Happiness is: taking a local bus from Langmusi to Zoige filled with Tibetans, squeezed between the window and a Tibetan lady in big chuba coat breastfeeding her baby, seeing the Aba Grassland horseback nomads herding their horses, sheep and yaks to the winter grounds with their possessions strapped to the back of some of the yaks, and watching your fellow passengers throw prayer papers out of the bus window when crossing holy mountain passes, in the meantime listening to monks' prayers in front of you and jubilant Tibetan chansons played through the VCD player.

The vistas on our way to the destination of the trek, Ice Mountain, are beautiful. We come through villages, hidden temples, old ruines and remote settlements of herders and their herds. And on our way up we cross sections with dizzy making precipices. But luckily our sturdy horses are sure footed. The horses are quite competitive and since none of us is afraid of a little trot we race each other frequently.
On the night of the first day, Jan-Willem and Marieke, two Dutch people join us. Together with their two guides among which Johnny, who says he’s 18 but looks more like14, we have become quite a lively party. At night the plastic water bottles with baijo (rice wine) are being passed around. The guides are engaged in lively discussions and Johnny is the loudest of them all. We wonder what they are discussing. Too bad we can’t understand a word.

We sleep in very simple canvas tents, pitched with the help of tree branches. It’s freezing at night, even more so the last two nights as it has snowed. Now this is the part where the prime aspect of their guiding service comes in. Every person is being tucked in! This is Holly’s specialty. He takes some of the chuba coats and sleeping bags that have been brought along and tucks and tucks until you’re snug like a mummy. And this way we manage to stay warm at night.

The food is equally simple but tasty ware, consisting of pumpkin, cauliflower and potato stews and freshly baked sugared bread sticks in the morning. Never mind that I had to visit the hospital in Chengdu after the trip for treatment of acute gastro-enteritis. Apparently the trekking group that came after us were worse off as they had to cut the trip short for actual hospitalization in Chengdu due to food poisening!

Chengdu
The 10 hour busride from Songpan to Chengdu takes us through spectacular landscapes. The road for a long time follows the flow of river cutting deep through high mountains. The bus taking many a hairpin turn up and down the mountain. On our way we pass many dams and other big waterworks either in operation or in the process of being built. Back in the bus a group of young Tibetan men burst into singing every once in a while. I'm beginning to recognise the most popular Tibetan songs and can hum along the melodies. I suspect that there are no more than 10 different VCD's rotating between the bus drivers.
Upon arrival at the Chengdu busstation we discover that our luggage in the luggage compartement back of the bus has been sharing quarters with a freshly slaughtered bloody yakskull in a leaking carton box with the brains in a plastic bag loose on top. But on our already badly soiled bags we cannot distinguish whether or not the bloody neighbour has left any new marks.

The Dragon Cloud guesthouse is located in a lovely area, one of the last remaining hutongs in Chengdu, very central in the city. I set about finding myself another outfit as after having worn the same clothes for the past month I'm longing for a change. Chengdu is filled with modern shops and in no time I find suitable replacement for my old garb. In contrast with the modern shops, high rise buildings and the roads busttling with traffic, groups of people, young and old but mainly women, on street corners and squares are performing dances with fans, flags and colourful handkerchiefs. Many of the high rises are half empty by the way, I discover when exploring by elevator the many floors of a flashy building.
Next on the list of things to do is look up the computer centre in Chengdu. Expecting to find one building for this purpose I am amazed to see a whole neighbourhood dedicated to computer equipment and accessories alone. Several of modern multistorey buildings offer well laid out shops with all the latest gadgets. The streets in between which cover at least a kilometer in length have shop after shop with paper supplies, computer furniture, scanners, external hard drives and CD-ROMs. I decide to try the illegal circuit for software, DVD's and CD's. Touts all over the computer centres try to interest people in buying their ware. I indicate to one that I'm looking for software. I'm taken out of the building and into a neighbourhood with apartment blocks. One of the staircases offer access to DVD's and CD's galore. Unfortunately no MacIntosh software. It takes me a while to get them to understand what I am looking for. Finally we have it, "Pinguo". Of course, it's a straight translation of the word apple.

By the way, after having visited Beijing and Shanghai since the above story pales by comparison. DVD and software shops galore and they all sell good quality disks from Y10. Nothing with taking you to the back room, it's all out there in the open. Not even Hong Kong pulls that off!

I do discover an Apple Centre in one of the swanky buildings where they install a demo copy of Final Cut Pro 4 for only Y80! For Y320 they would have given me the disks. But I'm especially interested in the downloads which come with the online registration of your disks. But no, I wasn't going to be able to register the disks they would give me.

In Chengdu my confidence about the future of Hong Kong is beginning to crumble and after my visits to Beijing and Shanghai I'm definitely beginning to getting worried. China is not a zoo anymore! It's definitely on its way to something big. So maybe all the business analysts were right after all. IS HONG KONG HEADING TOWARDS THE ABYSS?

Tagong - Nomadic Heartlands
Via Kanding, two busrides from Chengdu, I reach Tagong, a village set in high altitude grasslands (3,500m) against the backdrop of holy mountain Haizi Shan of 5,820m. The busjourney to Tagong takes only 4 hours but takes us over a high mountain pass in snowy and icy cold weather conditions. In Kanding I have teamed up with Belgium Paul and we travel together for most of the week to follow.

The first thing that strikes me going west beyond Kanding is the beauty of the people. We are entering Khampa territory and they are definitely the best looking people I've ever seen. After the initial shock I gradually get used to seeing so much beauty on the streets and eventually manage to walk in a straight line without being overly distracted.
Tagong reminds me of this little Western town. Dusty streets, people on horseback and cattle freely roaming the streets. Tagong is also where I have my first real tsampa, or zamba as some call it, barley mixed with yakbutter, yaktea and sugar. After all the horror stories I think it's not half bad! Which is a good thing as I'm being offered the stuff round the clock about everywhere I go. It's a bit like raw cooky dough. Interesting fingerfood anyway.

A Sakyapa temple, Lhagang Gompa (Tagong Si), dominates the town at one end. One guide mentions that this lhakhang (temple) is supposed to be the most easterly one of the 108 geomantic temples that radiate out from Lhasa and which served to subdue the great ogres that roamed Tibet (a bit like Shrek I imagine). Apart from it's importance it's also a very beautiful temple, which like most temples at the moment is being made winter ready judging from the red chalk stains on my clothes after a visit. 'Very lucky!' I am told by a monk who sees me look at the mess.

But first we set out to get some food which turns out to be quite a challenge. Eventually we discover a Chinese restaurant at one side of the village where reasonable dishes can be ordered, but, forgetting about the tsampa for the moment, for the rest we have to rely of a couple of muslim bauze (dumpling) and mientiau (noodles) hole in the walls, if they are open and if they are willing to serve us that is.
The Tibetan lady who whips us up a nice hearty bowl of noodles the first day, refuses to do so the following days. We resign at simply having some tea there as she runs the only place where some time can be spent away from the freezing cold outside as well as in our guesthouse. The last day however and argument ensues between her and her surly husband. Pots and pans are being thrown at his head. We discretely get up to leave but she urges us to stay and drink our tea so we continue enjoying her marital bliss. It is there that it strikes me although the Tibetans seem very cheerful and good natured, there doesn't seemed to be a lot of happiness in their marriages. At many occassions I witness not so friendly exchanges between husband and wife.
Later on I learn that for Tibetan men and women it is traditionally common to marry a whole set of sisters resp. brothers for practical reasons like not having to split up the inheritance of the family home or simply because it's more economic than each sister or brother having to support their own family. This may have something to do with it.

The first day Paul and I walk towards the north-east of the village and come across a couple of horses and before we know it we are roaming the grasslands on horseback. The first half hour two girls, also on horseback, accompany us. But after 20 minutes they decide we've gone far enough and settle down in the grass for what looks like could be a very long break. This is not what we had in mind so we mount our trusty steeds again and leave the girls behind. I set course through herds of yaks and horses, trying to steer clear of any overprotective yak bulls. Eventually we reach some nomad tents. Vicious looking nomad dogs are growling and barking around us but high and dry on our stoic horses we can savely ignore them.
The nomads come out of their tents in bewilderment about the strange tourists roaming around alone on horses. I hope they will invite us in but when our prospects look bleak I set course for a few other nomad tents in the distance. There we are being hailed to come closer. I ask if we can take a peek inside and they invite us in. We instantly get offered a meal of the standard tsampa, bread, yakbutter tea and cold yoghurt like strings, which later turns out to be cheese.

After some time there is some commotion outside of the tent, the girls have come to collect the horses. We have to literally run after our horses. When we overtake them they pull sour faces. Although we had said we wanted the horses for 2 hours they had not expected us to actually stay away for that long. Curiousity wins it from anger and one of the girls asks me what we did inside the tent and when I tell her we had tsampa she asks me how much we had to pay. Well, nothing of course! I hope that will keep them from being too greedy after we dismount since it's clear they intend to renegotiate the agreed price. Paul and I race eachother back, our horses are only to eager to oblige. Aaah, the fresh wind on my face while I am galloping over the grasslands!

Hey baby, I've got yaks and horses!
The next morning we set off for a walk into the valley to the west of the village in spite of Paul's altitude sickness that hit him during the night. We come across Nyingmapa Sherda, a Buddhist College. Sacred mountains surround the valley, indicated by dar-shings, mostly light red and white flags.
Along we continuously get invited by men and women working the road to join them while they are having their breaks enjoying tea and tsampa. In order to make a bit of progress we try not to take up too many offers.

We come across two ladies on horseback on their way into 'town'. One has a little boy in front of her. The other has a girl in front of her and a baby tied to her back. A foal is following the party. They are a glorious sight with their traditional headdress of braids with silver and coral ornaments attached to them and wrapped around their heads. Lucky for me they don't mind having their picture taken and find especially the video camera hilarious. We give the children sweets and I stick Jip and Janneke stickers on their jackets. Eventually they are on their way again.
We next come across this old stupa with incredible mani stones (stones with Buddhist inscriptions and illustrations). I'm trying to put some of it on film when a young man with an enormous earring with turquois and coral in one ear and a big knife with silver scabbard in his belt addresses me. We exchange some basic small talk when next he makes some sort of proposal which involves his many yak and horses. It takes a while before with the aid of my little phrase book I manage to decipher that he is actually is inviting me to come over to his farm house that night. Pointing at Paul "That is not your husband?", eh no, well that's sorted then. Euuuhh, well maybe not but thanks anyway!

I find a spot with a good view on the stupa and the surrounding valley and sit down to do a bit of drawing. As usual within no time a bunch of children has gathered around me closely following my progress, followed soon after by a group of horseback men. My view is pretty much blocked by now, but I am almost done. Hao khan (pretty) says the boy next to me. My sketchbook is being passed around. Approving nods with the two horseback men when they come across a drawing of the Labrang Monastery which I also couldn't finish because a crowd had gathered around me.

In spite of being packed and ready on the square in front of the temple at 7:30 in the morning we are only on our way at 10 am. It goes something like this. At 8am a minibus appears but it needs at least 4 passengers to start driving. So with me and Paul in the bus we need two more. While we are waiting for the additional passengers we watch a group of female pilgrims being blessed by an apparently very esteemed elderly lama with a white beard and reddish pointy hat on. He reminds us a bit of Santa Claus (or rather Sint Nicolaas for the Dutch, Belgium and German readers).
Santa Claus is also about to embark on a journey. He gets in and sits in the front seat of one of the minibuses. Jealously we watch how not long after his minibus departs. But no, shortly after the minibus with Santa Claus returns. Even high lamas don't go anywhere without the bus being full.

At 9am our bus starts driving, still only with Paul and myself. But not 50 meters later the bus turns back. Along the way we do pick up a monk. One more to go! We pass Santa Clause's bus doing another 'mock departure'. At around 10 just when I start to doubt if we'll ever make it out that day, two ladies, one elderly and a young man who all looked like they were only passing by jump in the bus and we're off! But 20 meters we stop againg, although it's only to load a bag filled with something onto the roof of the bus. Just when we are about to go through to the gate of the village and onto the road, the bus stops again. The chauffeur and the old man get out, the chauffeur yells something to people in the fields. The yelling continues for a while but is maybe not with the desired result as the old man clambers onto the bus again and we're now definitely off! On our way out I see the bus with Santa Claus drive back into the village.

Weird Science
In Shinduqiao after returning from a walk in the valley I am being called over by a woman leaning from a window of a big traditional Tibetan house. She wants me to come in. I enter and upstairs am ushered into a room where two monks are performing a puya or pusa, the reciting of Sanskrit prayers. I'm being invited to sit next to them and enjoy a cup of tea and some tsampa. As I experienced in another puya session in Tagong, eating and drinking and Tibetan Buddhist prayer sessions are not mutually exclusive.
One of the monks seems to be the senoir of the two and does the actual reciting. While he is reciting he is instructing the other monk what to do. A flat type of basket with some items on it, what I could not distinguish due to the dim lighting, is being placed in the middle of the big room. Later on it is moved to the side and a low bench is being brought in and placed diagonally in the room. The head monk is instructing the other to place certain caca, or clay worship figurines, which were previously all placed on a small table, in a specific position on the bench and to light this one but not that one. I watch in bewilderment. The other inhabitants of the house come in and seem to be instructed to perform some services. Unfortunately it is getting dark and with there being no street lights and me coming back via a different direction than I left that morning I am afraid I won't find my way back if I stay any later so I have to bid my farewells and thus miss the conclusion of this utterly intriguing ritual.

However, this is not the last I will see of this group of people. I later discover that I have left my phrasebook in the house and I go back accompanied by Paul to pick it up. After banging on the door for what seems like ages while the two big chained dogs on the left side of the courtyard go absolutely beserk and the cow on the other side of the courtyard is looking on stoically, the lady finally opens the upstairs window. She has the dictionary but we will have to come up before we can get it.
What follows is a cosy gettogether with the family around the fire, eating sesame seed sweets and drinking tea. We speak only very basic Chinese and they do not speak any English so it's mainly giggling and guessing at what the other means. But we take pictures and we get their address to send the pictures to. The hospitality of the Tibetans never ceases to amaze me. Especially when there is so little information we can actually exchange.

The next morning then finally we head for Litang. Much to our surprise, instead of our busride being a fun Tibetan affair, we end up in a bus full of unfortunate looking Han Chinese men. It's my theory that leading up to the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, Beijing is shipping out all people with a physique dificile (at least the Honkies will know what I mean: 'lantai') towards Western China, as far away as possible.
Our bus driver is also a Han Chinese and it's not long before we have to endure earpoppingly loud tasteless Chinese music. Paul is smart and has brought earplugs with him. I stick it out for 5 minutes and then decide to protest. I am totally in the back of the bus, the path to the front of the bus is clogged with luggage. I make a quick assessment of the situation and then decide to simply scream from the top of my lungs as trying to make myself understood over the din will be impossible. But it works! The music stops, the bus stops as well and for a moment I think I will be thrown off. But we start moving again and the driver got the message, the volume of the music is turned down a notch.

Wild, wilder, wildest
Litang is a Tibetan town increasingly westward towards the border of Tibet proper, lying on high altitude plains (4000m) fringed in the distance by snow-capped mountains. Perched on an elevation, overlooking the town and the vast surroundings, is a large monastery which during the Cultural Revolution was subject to air raids to quell Tibetan resistance to the Chinese occupation.

The Tibetans in Litang look again different from the Tibetans I have seen so far. And wilder still! Streetlife is one big visual spectacle. Litang performs a central function for the region with nomads from deep in the grasslands coming to town to sell their produce, stock up on necessities and maybe to get a taste of the more mundane pleasures of town life. Too bad there isn't a heated teahouse facing the main street as one could sit there all day enjoying the view. There is only so long you can stand outside in the freezing cold.
Occasionally I see a family of parents and two or three children walking into town and I wonder where on earth they come from. With dusty unwieldy hair, dark tanned dirty faces, rags for clothes and up to the smallest child carrying a heavy loads they are as wild as they come.

People are very friendly and very curious after foreigners here. The afternoon we arrive we are being invited by a monk to visit the monastery with him the next day. While we are waiting for him in front of our guesthouse the next morning a young Tibetan who introduces himself as Nyima Tsering stops to talk to us. He tells us about his trips to Dharamsala where he learned his English and how he spent 5 years in jail for shouting 'Free Tibet' in the streets once. In December he will return once more to Dharamsala. While we are talking to Nyima a curious crowd gathers around us.
The monk never shows up but I meet with Tashi again later that day because I promised to help him get an email address at the Internet cafe. I am a little sceptical of a young Tibetan man who has lived in India for 5 years not having and email address, but he turns out to be genuinely computer illiterate. I make him a free email address and show him how to check it and read and send messages. But he is totally new at it all and when there is a power failure which puts an end to our Internet time he still doesn't really get it. I haven't received an email from him since so I think he needs another lesson or two.

Tashi also helps me and Paul with getting bus tickets to Xiancheng towards the south, a obligatory stopover on the way to Zhongdian in North-West Yunnan, our next destination. At the bus station we encounter Chinese attitudes old style. The lady who sells the tickets is in no mood to be helpful about informing us about the bus situation the coming days. There 'probably' is a bus tomorrow morning, there 'maybe' is a bus the day after. Considering the fact there 'maybe' is no bus the day after tomorrow, I decide to buy a ticket for the next morning. Tashi is not coming with us but the lady insists on charging us for three tickets when giving back our change. When Tashi explains that we only need two tickets. she start screaming insanely. I now lose my temper and feel much for grabbing her by the collar and dragging her across the counter but I leave it at calmy cursing her and advising her to seek some mental help. Not that she understands English of course but it allows me to let off some steam. Although for days after I wish I had dragged her over the counter since that would have really been so much more satisfying. These are the few moments that I have less than friendly feelings for the Han Chinese.

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