lucakunlife: ottobre 2010

sabato 23 ottobre 2010

Chengdu, Sichuan

After the interesting staying in Litang I tried to hitchhiking, but both the police and the weither were not agree, so I paid a crazy formula 1 driver to bring me to Tagong, it was a long 6 hours pray, with a lot of snow and bus.... Tagong was probably the best and relaxing town I saw during my journey on the mountains, nice trekking on grassland, nice and cheap food everywhere, great Tibetan people and wonderful guest house, what else can you ask for? ah, I also experienced a basketball play with monks, maybe next time I will need more oxygen to do that. From Tagong I travelled to Danba with my favourite australian-canadian couple Ben&Audree, all close together with few other people in a mini mini and again mini-van. Danba was quite anonymus town with a lot of nice little Tibetan villages around, I saw one of them and the day after with all left together at 6,20 in the morning for Chengdu with a big luxury bus, aka "the vomit bus". 11 very long hours.

Now I am in Chengdu, today I saw pandas and there is still a lot to see and to eat in this big city!

Tagong view from top

Tagong trekking and grassland

Danba

Chemgdu - Pandas

Aggiungi didascalia

domenica 17 ottobre 2010

Across the Yunnan-Sichuan border, along Tibetan people

Shangri La was a really great place to get used about high altitude and to do some trekking and bicycle in the 2 main valleys, I liked even if it was crowd of tourist because of the 1 week chinese holiday in beginning of October.

So, after 1 week training on the 3200 mt plateau of Shangri La I was finally ready to start my trip through the high montains on the Tibetan border!

The first destination after 11 hours of bumping bus it was Daocheng, a 3600 mt town as large as my home's street in Italy, quite freezing in the night where I start to see the first Tibetan people in my trip.

After 2 days rest & discovery in Daocheng, I then went to natural reserve of Yading, maybe my main reason of travelling in this area. Yading is a mountain sanctuary and major pilgrimage site comprising three 6000m+ peaks blessed from 5th Dalai Lama, I was very curious to hike around these holy mountains unknown to tourism until the end of 90's. Even if it was a bit expansive, I was both very happy to be there and to celebrate my best hike attempt, from 3700 mt to 4600 mt and back completely alone and without help, 11 hours of hard work but really proud of it! And the landsacpe definitely worth that money!

Then my next destination was Litang and I experienced for the first time the hitchhiking, from Yading to Daocheng and then to Litang, 6 hours in total and very good luck to get 2 different free rides in a row.

Now I am in Litang big bazar city at 4000 mt, with real Tibetan people and a big mess all around, I definitely love it, even if today I saw the worst and ugliest cerimony in my life, the world famous Tibetan sky burial... in few words a dead body is placed on the top of a hill, then there is a man (with a lot of hairs on the stomach I suppose, like people say in Italy) who cut the body in order to allow the birds to eat it, and then the fight between the hundreds of voltures begin to take part of the dead man lunch. A very disgusting experience, but this is the Tibetan way to bury dead people.

Shangri-La

Best Travel Buddies

Daocheng

Around Daocheng

Yading

Yading - Milk Lake 4.700 mt

deers on yading

Yading

Litang hard workers

Voltures ready for sky buring

Litang

lunedì 4 ottobre 2010

Lijiang & Tiger Leaping Gorge

Wow, again a lot of time since last login, this time I had had a lot of problems even to enter my google e-mail, but this is China!

About Lijiang I don't have much to say, it is nice, part of UNESCO and bla bla bla, but it looks fake and it was so crowd of chinese tourist that was a real mess, with lot of loudy bars and so on. I better spent my time in the close old town of Shuhe and even better in the old Baisha village, more authentic experience.

After Lijiang I decided to have a stop on my way to Shangri-La for a 3 days trek on Tiger Leaping Gorge, the deepest and highest in all China. For the first time since I have start my trip I was really alone, it was not easy, I did not have technical equipment, I did not hire any local guide, I did not buy maps, I did not know what to expect and I get lost few times in the middle of nowhere, I had hot sunny, rains and wind, a lot of wind, but it was one of the best experience I had in China so far.

Now I just arrived in Shangri-La, I can only say that the 3200 mt altitude and the lack of oxygen make me sleep almost 18 hours per day, sooo nice!