Xiangcheng to Kangding
Never succeeded in getting a ticket to Litang but after a lot of hassle got a ticket for the much further Kangding in what turned out to take 15 hours plus.
So it was an early 6am start in heavy rain. After an hour I got to see my first snow as everything turned white. Wonderful views ( my words not the drivers ! ) would have been great to stop and take photos with the fresh snow, the yaks and herdsmen camped out by the road trying to keep warm, top stuff and even the cold and very high altitude seemed bearable.
This carried on for about 4 hours then the sun came out and the rough mountains mellowed to rounded tops and grasslands. Scenic at first but eventually tedious and started to doze. Went up a mountain, reaching 4600m when there was a sudden massive banging noise. The driver stopped, a steel cable about 200m in length lying in the road had got into the back wheels breaking whatever. So it was a long wait on the top of a mountain, with the cold to match – time to buy warmer clothes !!, wasn’t expecting this weather in September. Eventually they managed to cut the wire and fixed the broken bits and we did a very slow descent down the mountain, 2 trucks in a headon collision on a bend providing a timely reminder. Made it to a garage and got the rest of the cable out and replaced a damaged back tyre with the super smooth slick used as a spare.
Carried on but it wasn’t until near Kangding that the scenery went back to proper mountains ( admittedly a large part of the day was spent over 4000m). Unfortunately the sun had already set and in a clear sky would have made great views of gongga shan at 7556m, as it was it was dark as we made our long descent down to Kangding, the driver quickened the pace only to lose the back end badly on one bend and after that it was a much more cautious end.
Never the best time to arrive late at night when tired but checked into a cheap enough hotel of the old Chinese variety. Once travellers would have been begging to get into these hotels rather than the expensive foreigner approved ones. As it was it was a 5 storey climb up passageways that had probably never been cleaned in their lives and with the Chinese, their doors open, cooking in their room or the hallways. The room was actually ok bar the fact there was no water until 9am next morning and the bathroom one to be avoided.
As it was next morning my stomach was playing up and despite the character of the place it was time to find a better toilet and get away from the smells of food, plus the place was certainly not somewhere to be in in a fire. The next hotel better but again the old style with the seemingly usual miserable floor attendant in controls of the keys. There must be a special training school for these people as they never seem to look even remotely cheerful, maybe I’ve just been unlucky. Spent most of the day in the room feeling cold and weak so will stay another day here. Kangding itself, a fair size town with the usual building boom going on and surrounded by huge mountains, all pleasant enough.
Tags: Travel
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