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November 20, 2002, Songpan, China.
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The morning we left Xiahe it was freezing as usual. The taxi we had booked the night before for a 3-day trip to Songpan in northern Sichuan, was late. This allowed us to have a decent breakfast. We took off at around 9 am, heading south. Very soon the unhardened, bumpy road led us over rolling yellow grasslands, with snowy hills in the distance. Here and there we saw some Tibetan settlements with smoke coming out of a few houses. We entered a series of valleys bordered by higher mountains as the sun came up. There was hardly any traffic. |
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We could see lots of herds of zhous (crossbreed of a cow and a yak) and sheep with long twisted horns in these valleys and on distant mountain flanks. Sometimes we had to stop to let a large herd pass, being driven over the road by Tibetan men and women on horses. The people's faces completely covered because of the cold & wind. We stopped for a quick lunch of noodles in a village on the road and onwards again through the desolate landscape of southern Gansu.
Our driver was Tibetan and spoke limited Chinese. But he made it clear to Papa that he wanted to do the trip in 2 days instead of 3, blatantly different than what he had agreed to the night before. Papa knew that he would straighten him out that evening with the help of an English speaking Tibetan. So we just enjoyed our ride with Tibetan music on the stereo and we stopped often for Mommy to take pictures. At around 3 pm we arrived in Langmusi, a picturesque village on the border with Sichuan and known in the backpacker's world as being a good place to spend some "Tibetan time". The manager of the hotel there spoke English very well and thanks to him we made a new arrangement with our driver.
Langmusi at 3300 m. elevation is surrounded by hilly grasslands on one side and alpine mountains on the other. There are numerous Tibetan temples in and around the village which attract a few pilgrims too. There are also Hui Muslims with a beautiful mosque in the center of town. After we had checked in it was nice to go for a stroll in the sun. We visited a small watermill where barley was being ground into tsampa. Dinner was at Lesha's Cafe, famous for her huge yak burger, apple pie and chocolate cake. Lesha is Hui, a great cook, very friendly, and speaks a little English. There we met with two other Camadians who were also heading south. |
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Big surprise the next morning: snow everywhere! After breakfast of pancakes at Lesha's (we ended up having all our meals there, same with the Canadians, which provided for an interesting insight in village family life...) it was still snowing and the road was very slippery. Although the plan was to continue on that day, we decided that it would not be such a good idea in our small car. So we made a new deal with our driver and sent him back to Xiahe, knowing that we would hire a jeep for Songpan the next day. It ended up snowing pretty much the whole day, so we didn't do much: a short hike up to a (closed) temple, spending time at Lesha's with Eric (Montreal) and Trayah (Vancouver). They had both been teaching English in China for a year and had just come from Xinjiang in the Far West of the country.
The next day it was totally sunny again but everything was still covered with snow. The jeep driver decided that the road was still too icy for a 7-hour trip through the mountains, so we spent a second day in Langmusi. And it ended up being a beautiful day! We hiked to a Buddhist grotto, past prayer wheels driven by a small brook, through the snow up a narrow and pretty valley. We were awed by seeing a couple of fierce looking Tibetan horsemen riding through the village. Papa went on a more strenuous hike over the white hills, passing nomad tents and herds of zhous. He then |
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happened on an area full of prayer flags and large vultures circling above: a sky burial site (Tibetans do indeed resort to this type of funeral rather than cremation), complete with gory "left-overs"... Past some hill-tops with more prayer flags, overlooking Langmusi, he arrived at a temple where he had a chat with an old monk and a traveller from Beijing. At night we got the good news: our jeep would be ready the next morning at 7! The trip to Songpan can be done by bus, but it takes 2 days and we wanted to be able to stop on the way to take pictures. And the Canadians were interested to come along and share the cost (US$ 100). |
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