Of Cowboys, Vultures and Thin Rare Air
Suddenly, it's been three weeks that we have been trawling around the backwoods of China. Firstly following the SIlk Road via Lanzhou - where they still float cargo across the river on inflated sheeps stomachs - to Xining, our last 'big city' for a long ttime
Then it was to The Wild Wild West....real old style country and cowboy time, TIbetan style. Teeny weeny little villages perched on the sides of towering green cliffs with miles upon miles of empty and beautiful land, dotted with the perfectly square shapes of massive yaks. Which are damn fine eatin', by the way.
Here on the Tibetan plateau and (later) the Szcihaun to Tibet Highway, the air is clean, and fine and very very thin. My poor Prairie Girl lungs really just did not what to do with the air at 3600 metres up. We both got a flash of altitude sickness in Litang, but laying around gasping for a day or two let us acclimatize. And fortunately for my battle worn bod, we had alot of time to adjust, and take it easy as we went higher and higher...
Tongren, where the famous thanga paintings are made in isolation. Xiahe, home of the Labrang Monastery, the most famous and important buddhist temple outside of Lhasa. Langmuse, which is a one street town with many, many horses and sky burials up in the hills. Songpan, closest town to the amazing nature reserve of Juizhaugou - which was totally overrun with tourists but was still one of the most beautiful lake areas I have ever seen. Litang, a real small Tibetan outpost, leading to Xiangcheng famous only as a stop to Shangri-la. And the road to ShangriLa, well...
I fell in love with China all over again when we came up to a massive rockslide on the road to Shangri-la. And this was the road that was the diversion because there was a really big slide on the main road. There were cars and trucks and buses, and here's the thing...
In Canada or in England, if there was a slide like that, with a cliff on one side and a raging big river down a cliff on the other, well, hell, we'd just wait for 'someone' to come along and deal with it
not these guys. Nope they get out the crowbars and shovels and roll up the sleeves and bloody just make a damn road OVER the slide. Wow. It took a few hours, but it was quite the thing. We walked to the other side and watched the bus drive over though :)
Most of the bus trips were about 4 or 5 hours at a stretch, unless there was slides or something to delay us, so even though it was washboards all the way, and sometimes our knees were under our chins, it was good going.
Man, we saw some mountains. And roads that in retrospect make me break a cold sweat. You tumble into these tiny minivans, ideallly NOT driven by a drunk or a madman, and basically just hold on tight. I was pretty zen about it all, except one time next to a real old dear who suddenly started to pray real hard. I stupidly looked out the window and frankly, i nearly soiled myself. Straight down, like in the hundreds of feet, no edge, and a driver who was smoking, chatting on his mobile and trying to pass a gas truck. '!"
The vultures circling us didn't help either.
We have a million pictures of course, and hope to add them when we can on flickr. Stay tuned.
