Western Sichuan (Tibetan Villages: Kangding & Danba)
I am going to borrow the following quote from Lonely Planet-China’s Northwest:
To the north and west of Chengdu is where green tea becomes butter tea, Confucianism yields to Buddhism and gumdrop hills leap into jagged snow-capped peaks. Much of the area in Western Sichuan kisses the sky at between 4000m and 5000m high.
Today we began the first of many bus trips to Tibetan towns and villages in Western Sichuan. For me, this is Tibet without the ‘official’ border and all its hassles. I learned later, firsthand, that many of the roads we travelled are considered to be some of the highest, roughest, most dangerous yet most beautiful roads. They’re right. I can’t believe how many times our buses had to stop for goats, horses, yaks, rockslides, small rivers, and yes areas where much of the roadbed had simply ‘slid away’ during a recent heavy rain (I learned later that one of those roads subsequently became impassable after another heavy rainfall hit a few days later).
I discovered that summers in Western Sichuan are blistering hot by day, with severe sunburns resulting due to the high altitude, and then the temperature drops dramatically at night, requiring sweaters and even heavy coats. This would explain why in just one day I got a horrific sunburn and came down with a nasty cold!
Security is also pretty strict in this region. On every single bus trip, we had to stop at road checks. And, at every single road check, our bus was delayed because of me. I was the sole foreigner and therefore the police simply had to doublecheck my identification every time. At one highway checkpoint they even took my passport away, driving 10 minutes to their ‘office’ supposedly to scan it. Needless to say, I was terrified I might not get it returned to me. But I did get it back, thankfully, because later when we arrived in the town of Maerkang, I found two police officers waiting for me. Oh yes, they had been contacted and now we had our own personal escort into town. They wanted me to stay in a ‘foreigner-approved’ hotel, but we explained that a 4-5 Star hotel simply wasn’t within our budget. We finally did locate a ‘suitable’ hotel that satisfied all parties and the officers left us, relieved to know that we intended to leave first thing the next morning to continue our travels. They kept telling me this VIP service was simply for my ‘personal safety’, yet they left us alone for the remainder of the evening, when anything could have happened, right? So strange!
KANGDING was our first stop west of Sichuan (9 hrs. by bus). We stayed at Sally’s Knapsack Hotel and discovered it was ideally located right next to a Tibetan Monastery – how lucky for us! We planned to simply stay just one night and continue on to Litang, but surprise surprise, the people at the bus station would not sell me a bus ticket. “Litang is not open to foreigners”, I was told. Now I probably could have found another way to get there (probably pricier too), but since this was early in our trip, and given how things have gone so far, I elected to give Litang a ‘pass’ and instead continue on to our next destination, Danba. But we were told no tickets were available for the next morning’s bus. Usually there is just one bus per day, but we were advised to come back in the morning and maybe, just maybe they will schedule another bus to Danba. This turned out to be a good advice because we got tickets on a 2:30pm bus to Danba – yahoo! Unfortunately, we were on the bus trip from hell! 6 hours felt more like 10 hours – we ran into every single problem I mentioned at the beginning of this post. And although I took my motion-sickness medicine, I still felt like crap when we arrived – not a good way to start our visit to this charming area.
DANBA
The area around Danba is considered to be one of the jewels of Western Sichuan. The town itself is nothing special, set in a valley surrounded by mountains. But it is the numerous Tibetan and Qiang villages perched on the hillsides that are really worth seeing! What sets this area apart are the striking Qiang Watchtowers, the homes’ architecture style and the exquisite scenery. It’s absolutely gorgeous! Many of the watchtowers were originally erected as checkpoints, protecting villages during war; fires lit on the towers’ rooftops would warn surrounding villages of impending attacks. Nowadays these watchtowers are primarily used for storage. Both Tibetan and Qiang homes are 3-storeys; the lower floor is for livestock, the middle for living quarters and the top floor is for storing grain and drying crops.
During our time in Danba we got to visit three villages, Zhonglu, Jiaju and Suopo. My personal favourite was Zhonglu because it is a little more unspoilt than popular Jiaju. The scenery at all three villages is quite spectacular and we found everyone very friendly and welcoming to us. In Suopo I met three beautiful young girls who invited me into their home. They all come from the same family and have been, or are, attending university! Living off the land has definitely provided the people here with a good life, it seems, although I’m sure they must work very hard for it. A wide variety of fruit trees seems to grow everywhere, and homeowners grow their own food and raise livestock. Most people seem to have even found the time and effort to grow their own flowers to further beautify their home environments. And unlike most Chinese kitchens I have seen, Tibetan and Qiang kitchens are absolutely spotless! Check out my photos!
In Danba we had a really nice room (with private bathroom) at the Danba Friends of Nature Youth Hotel (Tel: 0836-3522006). I highly recommend it. We also met a nice young guy from Chengdu who dragged us along one night to one of Danba’s local dance/singing clubs. Rather than present flowers when someone is singing, apparently it is Tibetan custom to drape a white silk scarf around the singer’s neck. I think this is a whole lot nicer than thrusting bouquets of flowers into a singer’s arms to the point where she/he has trouble holding onto their mic! Sadly, our new friend’s trip back to Chengdu took almost 36 hours because the road washed away during a recent rainfall and his bus was forced to take a very long and arduous detour! Expect the unexpected, they say!
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