It would be two hours by road before reaching Mu Ni Gou, located in Song Pan County. Songpan is east of the vast Aba Autonomous Prefecture which sprawls over the Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai borders. This area is the domain of the Goloks (a nomadic group of herders) and a Bonpa stronghold. Both tribes you don't want to mess with.
Songpan, was founded as a garrison town guarding the neck of a valley. Songpan is one of Sichuan's few surviving walled towns and is surrounded on three sides by high stone walls, most of them reconstructed. Their shops (unimpressive) still cater to the occasional Tibetan and and local Qiang. The only impressive sight we saw in Songpan was an old bridge. Glad our itinerary didn't call for an overnight there. (Thank you, Cindy.)
The Huanglong Reserve covers over a 1,000 square km/600 miles of rough terrain at an average altitude of 3,000m/9,800'. This valley was carved out by a glacier and the limestone-rich waters flowing down the valley have left yellow calcified deposits between hundreds of blue ponds. The entire circuit, on either wooden boardwalks that have to be slippery as hell when it rains and stone paths, is approximately 8k/4+ miles through the deciduous forest, pine forests and rhododendrons. By now, I had forgotten all about the hissy fit on the way to this Reserve. It was definitely worth every long mile and entirely different from Jiuzhaigou. Go and visit!
We walked down from the Monastery on the opposite side of the circuit and gained new perspectives of the 5-Colored Dragon Head pool, Golden Flying Waterfall, 1k long calcified slope "Golden Sand on Earth" ...View image...There were toilets all along the trail and posts offering free oxygen. If we could have read "free oxygen in Chinese", it would have been a sure indication that this was some serious altitude just to go out and walk in. And...duh...seeing a porter struggling up carrying everything Nepal-style would have told anyone with a brain that this was high altitude...
porter carrying cartons on his back up the mountain
It was a very long drive, over 2-1/2 hours from Jiuzhaigou to Huanglong, up and over mountains. Huanglong is a string of lakes and small ponds in a calcified valley with thick alpine forests. Already, I was not happy. The thought of driving this distance just to see another park was leaving me cold and I was busy muttering in the back seat to ex-Marine..."Can you believe we have to drive all this way...and then turn around and drive the same road back through the mountains...yadda...yadda..." At long last there, Huanglong seemed less busy than Jiuzhougou. Probably because there were very few tour buses in the parking lot at this early hour.
Again, there was a big visitor's center at the entrance of Huanglong again in the Minshan range, another UNESCO site...View image... The highest peak Xuebaoding would have been visible on a clear day but today was cool and overcast. Wang-Lee decided to take us in to the park today, and left Yonten in the parking lot with the car. There were no buses into Huanglong - you had to walk in...and up...or so we thought. Fortunately, ex-Marine and I had absolutely no inkling of the altitude here.
In Jiuzhaigou Scenic Reserve: Middle To The Top Section
Jiuzhaigou is in the southern part of the Minshan Mountains at an elevation of 2,000-4,300m/6,500-14,000' and is one of the branch gullies at the source of the Jiulingjiang River in the Yangtze River system. This big "Y" shaped valley consists of Nuorilang with the two branches of Rize and Zechawa. There are over 114 lakes and 17 waterfalls...impossible to see everything. Jiuzhaigou Scenic Reserve was designated a UNESCO Man and Biosphere area in 1997. The midpoint of today's gully was called Nuorilang and Fangcao Lake (Primeval Forest) was an additional 18k/10 miles up.
Jumped on the next bus to top (a 20-minute ride) to admire the views from there. Most of the tourists in the park were also paying 30 Yuan to take photos dressed in Tibetan costumes....View image...they were so pretty that I was tempted to dress up in one myself...but we were running short of time and there was still much to see in Jiuzhaigou...
In Jiuzhaigou Scenic Reserve: Bottom To The Middle Section
Approximately 1,000,000 people visit annually and there were over 15,000 today. "Jewz" means "9 Stockades Gully." It is 14k/8+ miles from park gate to center of reserve, then 15k/9.3 miles to the Primeval Forest at the top from the center. Bus stops all along the route and the routes are divided from bottom to middle and middle to top. It took 20 minutes by bus just to get from the middle to top. There is also a guesthouse at the halfway point to spend the night if you want.
Huge visiters center with everything in Chinese and English. A map cost about 50 cents and was an extremely worthwhile investment....View image...and the visitors center had information flashing by, also in Chinese and English...View image...
Ruo Er Gai Grassland and Jiu Zhai Gou (Jiuzhaigou)
Today's destination was Jiu Zhai Gou (Jiuzhaigou) Scenic Reserve for some exploration. Jiuzhaigou is in a valley with lakes and some waterfalls, "discovered" by tourists in the 1970's and is now being groomed by the Chinese Government for a huge influx of visitors (primarily Han Chinese).
Ruo Er Gai was an interesting little town. even if we did nearly freeze to death in our hotel. And breakfast was a Chinese breakfast only, without eggs or bread BUT there was some sort of sponge cake and we had our instant coffee. No worries... Upon arrival yesterday, we walked around town - that took about five minutes - but there were some great looking pedi-cabs, one food street selling lots of candy, nuts and other foods - all sitting out in the very hot high-altitude sun...View image... - and peas drying on the sidewalks...
Driving along, Yonten taught us another Tibetan word - DEE MOUCHEE - goodby in Tibetan. It wasn't long before Wang-Lee pulled off the road, drove a short distance across green pastures and stopped before a black tent, Yonten's family summer tent. His mother, sister-in-law and nephew were standing outside waiting to greet us while the family's yaks roamed around and the family dog (a mean one, tied up) growled and barked at us. (Yonten said even he was afraid of that dog.) ...View image...
The black tent made out of yak fur absorbs the sun during the day and keeps the family warm at night. The tent was quite spacious with a spot for everything including a pile of dried yak dung (three-days worth) used as fuel for cooking. They even had a small solar generator. Nomads move their flocks four times n the summer to new pastures, gradually heading back to their winter home by the mountains. It takes several yaks to haul everything each time they move. They also had a little white tent in the middle of the yak corral for someone to sleep in at night to keep away predators.
Today, if we are lucky, we'll get to witness a Tibertan Sky Burial. When a Tibetan dies, the body is kept in the house for three days, and then brought to the monastery where a monk says prayers over the corpse. After that, the corpse is immediately transported up the mountain and left for the vultures and other birds of prey to dispose of it. Before the birds even get there, a monk splits the corpse into pieces with his knife to make it easier for the vultures to carry off the body chunks. Neither one of us were quite sure whether this was really something to look forward to or not...
Up very early in the morning to hike up the mountain to the Terrace for Celestial Burial (sky burials), the most holy place in the area. The hiking trail was easy...the altitude was not. We asked Yonten while burtials are handled in this fashion. His explanation, during Tibetan life, they eat many animals and birds. This method of disposal gives something back to the animals and the souls of the dead are brought to heaven.
We continued on our walk to visit Sezhi Monastery, at the intersection of Gansu Province and Sichuan Province. This little village of Langmusi has two large Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, each with about 600 monks. This is an Amdo Tibetan nomad region and the people are devoutly Buddhist. The first thing we saw were people sitting in front of the very attractive Sezhi Monastery, trying to capture the sights in paint...View image...first one, than another person working on their artwork...View image... And, the next day, we happened to see an entire Chinese art class, palettes and paints in hand, heading for the same spot.
We'd visit the other monastery, Geerdeng Monastery, in Gansu Province tomorrow on the way up to a Tibetan Sky Burial. (More about Tibetan Sky Burials later...) Locals simply refer to them as the Sichuan Monastery and Gansu Monastery.
Langmusi was another beautiful village, populated by Hui, Goloks and Tibetans, surrounded by mountains and lamaseries. There is really good hill walking around here as well as horse-rides into the country. Quite a few Chinese tourists like to rent horses, ride to a nomad village where they spend a night in a tent, and ride back the next day. Langmusi is a very relaxing, Tibetan area and many travelers organize treks or just veg out for a few days.
We arrived in Langmusi just around lunch time, dropped the suitcases at the hotel, walked down the street and upstairs to a restaurant Wang-Lee knew. The food wasn't very good. Wang=Lee said this restaurant was excellent the last time he drove through Langmusi, but this time, a big Julia Child thumbs down . We all should have known this place wasn't for us when we saw the street sign, advertising intestines for lunch...
Xiahe (Labrang), Through Hezuo, On The Way To Langmusi
Now going south of Gansu Province to Hezuo ("WHO-ZOO") to visit Mila Riba Palace, on a sunny, nice day. Built in 1777, this 14-storey temple was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and rebuilt in 1988. Quite elaborate with great views of the grasslands surrounding Hezuo. There are over 1,700 statues of Buddha, Bodhisattva and guardians of Buddhism. We just admired from the outside.
Hezuo is a trading post for Tibetan nomads. The road leading to Sichuan from Gansu Province was a tough journey with lots of stopovers in remote towns. A new Tibetan word for us "KAY-OH-MARI"...."no problem" in Tibetan. Yonten is responsible for this new word. He attends university in Lanzhou trying to improve his Chinese and English. In today's China, a person must be fluent in Chinese if they want to get ahead and Yonten has no intention of returning to the nomadic life of his family, herding yaks and sheep for the rest of his life. The Lanzhou University has 40,000 studens and four months equals one term.
another monastery tucked at the foot of the mountains
Xia He/Xiahe/Labrang County and Monastery in Gansu Province
We had visited Gansu province during the Silk Road trip but were heading into an entirely different area. Xiahe (pronounced shak huh - the Chinese world for "Labrang") is the most important Tibetan monastery town outside of Tibet. (I'm going to use Xiahe throughout this article.) Xiahe is a tiny rural town around 3,000m/9,800' in the hills of southern Gansu, on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. The town basically runs along one small street starting from the bus station, leading through Labrang Monastery in the middle, and ending in the old Tibetan section of town.
Labrang Monastery is one of the six major centers of the Gelugpa (Yellow Hat Sect). Four are in Tibet and we had already visited the fifth, Kumbum (Taer Si) in Qinghai Province. This temple, with its 600+ year history, is famous for ancient cultural relics and architecture. The Yellow Hat Sect is considerably wealthier than their brother monks of the Red Hat Sect (Hongjiao Si - Temple of the Red Hat Sect - also in Xiahe), and the Yellow Hat people certainly never looked undernourished... Speaking of undernourished...it was time for lunch...and we were getting pretty darn good with chopsticks...
This was the big Day...the reason we were visiting Tongren in Qinghai Province at this particular time. The Shen Wu Assembly for Worship, in only held once a year..TODAY. This Assembly, called "Zhou Pu Le Rou" in Tibetan language, is a traditional old Ritual Festival incorporating religion, sacrifice and entertainment. Some of the numerous ceremonies and activities include: ritual dances, the beating of holy drums, singing of folk songs and the shaman going into trance all hoping to bring good luck for future offerings.
It is more correctly called the Tongren Shaman's Festival dating back to pre-Buddhist influence. After today, the festival would continue in many of the small villages around Tongren presided over by each village's local shaman. There would also be ritual piercing of cheeks of all the young men in the village, the men dancing a drum dance with pierced backs, and a shaman in a trance, climbing the dragon pole, then cutting his forehead with a knife. Quite wild and very different from any festival we've ever experienced. Don't know about the piercing and cutting bits, and just hoped we had the stomach for it.
- Approximately 31% of the Chinese smoke (could be much higher). Very difficult to get used to constantly being surrounded by a cloud of second-hand smoke. We've probably inhaled a year's worth of smoke in just a few days. If you are a smoker, China will be nirvana and you'll be happier than a hog sitting in a puddle of ...you know what....just puff away to your heart's content...
- Spitting on the sidewalks has diminished since prior visits to China. Do you think SARS or Bird Flu had something to do with it?
- You can buy some great looking sunglasses for $1.
- The Tibetans love to have their pictures taken and a crowd always materializes to see the image on my digital camera and camcorder. They are also as interested in us as we are in them.
Our hotel (the China Telecom) was packed with both Chinese National tourists and westerners arriving for the festival tomorrow including one group that just came off trek. Their mules were munching away behind the hotel waiting to be carted off to wherever mules go. We'll have to walk about 15 minutes from the center of Tongren to the monastery uphill. It should start at 10:00 am, and then again, maybe not.
The China Telecom Hotel had its own bowling alley but didn't serve breakfast or any other meals which certainly wasn't a problem. Each morning we walked less than 100 feet to a little hole in the wall restaurant with, perhaps, six tiny tables seating 4 persons at each table. If an entire table wasn't vacant, we just ate with strangers...it wasn't like they took "reservations." This restaurant was operated by Chinese Muslims, the Hui people, a completely family-run affair. Little boy poured tea and cleaned off tables while another family member made the noodles and a third took orders and delivered the food to the table. Breakfast was either a huge bowl of meat/vegetable/noodle soup - what Wang-Lee and Yonten ate or, hard-boiled eggs and flatbread - our breakfast - supplemented with a jar of Nescafe coffee.
In Tongren (Tong Ren) Known As The "Homeland of Thangkas"
Finally in Tongren, Qinghai Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Region, the focal point of this trip, to attend the Tongren festival supposed to start today with two-days of festivities. BUT...the Head Lama has decided that today is not an auspicious day and the festival won't start until tomorrow. Ah...memories of our Ladakh trip when we planned three weeks around a huge festival, arrived and found out that the festival had taken place weeks earlier when that Lama changed it to a more auspicious time! What could we do but hope that it actually would begin tomorrow...
In the meantime, there were other sights to see. Tongren (pop. 16,000) had two other monasteries not far away. Upper Wutun Xia and Lower Wutun. This area is also known for its Tangkas/Thangkas, a unique form of painting in Tibet. It was off to the monastery to learn a litttle about Thangkas. It is usually a painted or embroidered Buddhist banner hung in a monastery or family altar and carried in ceremonial processions. In Tibetan, the word 'than' means flat and the suffix 'ka' stands for painting. A Thangka can be rolled up when not required for display.
Originally, Thangka painting became popular among traveling monks because the scrolls could be easily rolled and transported from monasteries.
Ping An and Tongren (Tong Ren) in Qinghai Province
It was time for the serious road trip to begin. It would be a three hour drive before arriving in Tongren, the hometown of the Tibetan Re Gona Culture and also a center for art. On the way, we passed through Ping An County and attempted to visit Hong Ya Gou (Red Cliff Village) to visit the 14th Dalai Lama's Former Residence. Even though the 14th Dalai Lama's government in exile is in India, he still has a few "Scotch Cousins" living in the village. It was not to be. The Chinese were busy working on a new road that made it too difficult to get there. No problem.
Onward... It was surprising to see so many Chinese Muslims in Qinghai Province. I couldn't get any definitive answer where they originally migrated from...Pakistan? Afghanistan? One of the Stans? But there were approximately 12,000 Chinese Muslims in this province.
Into the Toyota for a short drive to the Tu Village in Hu Zhu. The Tu Ethnic Nationality is in an autonomous region of Qinghai. The Tu predate the Tibetans and about 30,000 people live in this area. The Tu put on performances of singing, dancing, martial arts. These Tu people manage to make a very nice living for themselves serving lunch, dressing in their colorful, traditional outfits and performing. A typical Tu sports competition is called "Lun Zi Qui" and they fence with swords, etc.
Pulled up to this compound, welcomed with singing Tu women, offered small bowls of their local hooch made from highland barley and shown to our invidual room for lunch and local Tu delicacies. Most Chinese restaurants have little rooms for your group to eat in along with a big main area.
The Beishan Si (North Mountain Temple) Taoist Pagoda was located north of the Huangshui River, on the outskirts of Xining. Wang-Lee thought we might enjoy a visit before returning to the hotel. This Taoist temple is over 1,700 years old and there were hundreds of steps that led along a series of walkways and bridges connecting caves decorated with Taoist designs.
Approaching the location in the car, you could see the top level of caves from a distance and we were looking forward to a nice walk to the top. Unfortunately, the entire top levels were closed for repairs and only the bottom was open to visit. A very pleasant, serene place with information in both Chinese and English. One sign referred to it as the "Earth-tower observatory platform" which I found confusing.
Kumbum Monastery (Taer Si Monastery) Outside Xining
The majority of the Chinese tourists (up to now) are on a holiday headed to Lhasa by bus. This trip takes six or seven days, with occasional stops at guesthouses or you sleep on the bus. There are usually two drivers who alternate shifts. Everyone is dressed in bluejeans, the height of Western fashion, toting digital cameras and camcorders, and quite a few women have perms and colored hair. ...View image...
Kumbum Monastery (Taer Si in Chinese) is one of the six great monasteries of the Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism, built in 1557 on sacred land. Still quite active with 600 monks. Unfortunately, every monastery we'd visit in Eastern Tibet was either new or the great majority had been rebuilt after destruction during the Cultural Revolution. Kumbum is the birthplace of Tsong Khapa, founder of the Yellow Hat (Gelupa sect), and is known for its sculptures of human figures, animals and landscapes carved out of Yak Butter. Kumbum along with a visit to the Tu region was on today's itinerary. ...View image...
Sun Moon Pass, Ginghai Lake and A-bomb City Around Xining
Our driver, Mr. Wang-Lee has been driving through the plateau, to Lhasa and beyond for over 13 years. According to Cindy, he knew exactly what to see, how to see it, and where everything was. And, he did. Yonten is Tibetan Nomad who would be able to explain all the intricacies of his Tibetan culture. Both were going to do their best to make this trip exciting and memorable. Let the sightseeing begin --- with our first day-trip out of Xining to Sun Moon Pass, the watershed of Loess Altiplano and Tibetan Altiplano.
A few hours ride on one of China's excellent roads. We've always been struck by the fact how quickly China can build excellent roads in remote areas while India, with the same huge population and industry, has some of the worst roads in the world. Sorry, India. We love your country and people but the roads are god-awful. We zoomed on major highways, through toll booths, to the Sun Moon Pass at 3,200m/10,500' with prayer flags blowing in the wind.
