PRC - Day 58 - Leaving Lhasa and crossing the Tibetan Plateau - very ill

Snow blizzards and rain.  Very, very cold.

PRC - Day 52 - Lhasa 拉薩

Warm & sunny

Alt: 3700m

PRC - Day 44 - The middle of nowhere - crossing landslides

Very heavy storm - brighter later

As we left Deqin I had predicted we would be arriving in Lhasa on this day.  Instead we were very very far away still, out in a forest in our sleeping bags after a poor night's sleep and at 6am it was starting to rain and was still very dark  By now we had not eaten for over 24 hours and not drank anything for 18 hours.

It was hopeless to try to sleep any more and our sleeping bags would get soaked so we packed our things, donned our waterproofs and set out on the road again, which we could just make out.

We were all in surprisingly good spirits and I often thought that I was glad I was in this situation with Mike & John who treat it as a big adventure rather than a horrific and frightening nightmare which it could easily be seen as if you allowed it.

After an hour as it got a little lighter the heavens really opened to the point where you could see only a few metres in front of you and the rain stung as it hit your waterproofs.  My shoes were sodden and getting painful.

Then at last we had some luck as we saw the first residence we'd seen since the jeep had dropped us off yesterday what seemed an age ago.  We managed to unlock the gate and sheltered in the wood store.  A little dog had started barking as we arrived and must have woken the occupant, a young guy, who was remarkably calm to find three bedraggled foreigners nestled among his stash of wood before breakfast.

We asked him for water and within minutes we were inside his simple home and he had a wood stove going and a boiling pot of tea.  Next he set about cooking us all some food.  Never before or again will boiled rice with chillies taste so good for breakfast.

He seemed not at all put out by our intrusion and helped us dry our socks and shoes as best we could.  Communication was really hard as he didn't understand our Chinese and seemed not to understand the symbols in our phrase book, neither the Tibetan or Chinese.  Maybe he was illiterate.  Whatever, he was a life saver to us and just a really sweet guy who wouldn't accept any money from us for his charity.  In the end we forced Y10 upon him and also gave him Mike's umbrella that he'd been carrying around and never using.

By 11:30am the rain had stopped and we left the poor fellow we'd imposed upon to whatever he normally does and continued on our way meeting a bunch of young monks who we guessed were on a pilgramage to Lhasa.  By now though my feet, legs, hips and shoulders were in agony.  We must have been at quite a high altitude and the wet pack was extra heavy, but hardest was mentally not having a clue as to how far we would have to walk.  I put my Walkman on blasting a tape of hard-core techno into my brain and tried to keep pace with the beats and block everything else out - it helped a bit.

Just as we were giving up we bumped into the Beijing-to-Lhasa Chinese cyclist again who was cadging some food from a household.  He kindly arranged a ride for us on a tractor no bigger than a lawnmower for Y30 each which we bartered down to Y15 each.  However, as we waited for him to finish his lunch a proper tractor with a trailer came along and we managed to secure a ride in the trailer for Y5 each.

It was so nice to be travelling along and not be putting one foot in front of the other.  Actually the ride was great fun as we bounced up and down on the back, the trailer having no suspension at all and the big rear wheels of the tractor having no mud guards so we were being pelted by mud and splattered with cow dung.

Me & John (above); Mike (below)

After half an hour we came across a little landslide.  It wasn't too bad except for one huge boulder in the middle which was blocking the way and resisted all of our efforts to try heave it down the hill.  So they unhitched the trailer and off went the tractor back the way we had come.  Soon however they were back with a box of dynamite and were shoving it under the offending boulder and making sure us westerners were well out of reach of any danger.  I had visions of the whole hill collapsing into the valley below, but credit to the guy after a dramatic countdown and blast the boulder was gone and the road still sort of intact - enough for us to drive over anyway.

We did 20km crouched down bouncing along on the back of this trailer which didn't take too long, but at the back of our minds was apprehension as we know the next stop was THE landslide - the big one we had been hearing about now for days and worrying about.

WOW, were we right to have been worried - it was huge, a whole hillside totally wiped away and having slid into the river.

Worse still the earth was very wet, loose, muddy and dangerous.

We were not the first people to have been across it, but probably were after the torrential rain of earlier that day.  Well, there was no going back now so we carefully inched our way across.

It took about 3/4 hour to get across with our packs to this spot in the photo above where you can see the road disappear under the rubble.  And who should be there waiting for us but the PSB, however we had promised to help Herr, which we learnt was the name of the cyclist guy, to cross with his bike which he dismantled into sections to make it lighter to carry.  By the time we had got the various parts across the PSB had got bored and wandered off.

The road only lasted for less than 50m before another small landslide, but caught between them were a group of ten trucks that were stuck with no way to go - they must have been there when the landslide happened which would have been really frightening.  The drivers were camped out under their vehicles waiting for the road to be mended - I expect it was a long wait.

It was then we realised we had another 8km to walk to Tangmai, the next village - ahhh - do we have to?  We managed 6km when, just as we were about to colapse Herr organised a "lawnmower" tractor to take us the rest of the way.

It was long after dark that we arrived in the courtyard of the quite impressive hotel.  With a huge sense of achievement we realised tonight we would eat a decent meal, sleep in a warm bed, be dry and had survived an incredible few days.

PRC - Day 43 - Pomi 波? to the middle of nowhere - crossing landslides

Warm but mostly cloudy

We woke early and were up and about by 7am, sneaking to the edge of town to try get a lift.  The three horses in the photo wandered up the road and then saw us and started to turn around and then just stopped where they are in the photo eyeing us and not moving.

We had thoughts of stealing them and riding to Lhasa, but before we could put our crazy ideas into action, they wandered back into town and we were left alone at the side of the road.

Very few vehicles were going past us, but those that were were not interested to give us a lift.  By 10:30am we'd had no success and thought perhaps that we were too close to town making the locals afraid to pick us up in case they would get hassle from the PSB.  We walked a couple of kilometres up the road until we came to a natural cave in which we could shelter if it started to rain, which from the clouds above seemed a good possibility.

While waiting there we met a Chinese lad who was on an epic journey from his home in Beijing heading to Lhasa on an old, really heavy mountain bike - quite a trip!

Finally at 1pm a jeep picked us up and gave us the most comfortable ride we'd had so far in China.  We hoped he was taking us the 80km or so to the huge landslide which we had now come to terms with as a reality, but, alas, after half an hour he stopped to go into quite a plush residence.

We were dumped onto the road, but he didn't ask for any money for the lift which was a first.  However, this meant we were in the middle of nowhere on one of the quietest roads in existence.

The few people around stared at us like we were freaks, but we were immune to this by now.  It wasn't until an hour later that one guy approached us and, through sign language, made us understand that no vehicles were going to go by and that we should walk.  So we picked up our bags and walked for about 3km until we saw the reason there would be no traffic - the road had been completely covered in boulders and rocks from a landslide and water was running in torrents over them.  No car was going any further for a long time along this section of the road.

This put us in a strange position.  It was good in a way to finally find out why our journey was being so difficult - this was the one and only road for a huge distance around us and if it was not possible to go the whole way east-to-west then it became obvious why no-one except very very local traffic was travelling upon it.  But now we knew that on the other side there would also be no traffic and we were pretty certain this was not the big landslide everyone had been telling us about, so what about the next 60km that we estimated was to go until that?  There was almost certainly going to be no transport at all.

We sat down for five minutes to consider our options, but that was a waste of time really as we all knew we would go on regardless - we'd come too far to think of going back - plus the PSB were behind us.  We thought we heard a military jet plane flying over, but could see nothing and soon realised that what we had heard was another avalanche up to our right, much higher up in the mountains.

There was nothing for it but to take off our shoes and socks, roll up our trousers and wade through.  Mike went first and got through the deepest, fastest part reasonably quickly.

I tried to follow his steps, but very suddenly the flow increased and the freezing cold water was flowing very quickly as high as to my bum.  Then the rocks and boulders a little up stream started to roll in my direction from the new force of the flow.  I had little choice but to retreat and fast, which really wasn't easy carrying the heavy rucksack and with legs fast becoming numb from the ice cold water, plus trying to keep upright on the very unstable boulders under my bare feet.  Suddenly I had no breath as the altitude also took its toll and my legs buckled and I was in the water.  The intense cold must have shocked me so much that I practically jumped up and managed to climb out suffering no more than wet jeans.

We realised that the extra water may have been caused by the landslide we had heard just before and waited for the water and rocks to settle down a bit again, then John & I holding each others' arms for support waded across again.

Finally we were across, but it had taken us over an hour and a half to go just 50m along where the road had once been.  Our feet were incredibly numb from the cold, but this hid the pain from the bruises we had suffered from the rocks being swept against our ankles in the very strong current.

[We later found out that this landslide had only happened late the night before.  If only we had not been caught by the PSB...]

Knowing there was no chance of transport we put our shoes on and walked and walked not really having any idea what to expect.

After 10km our voyage was stopped once more and again we were going to have to put ourselves in great danger. This time what had probably under normal circumstances been just a little tributary stream had become a raging torrent of water, which had altered its course and was no longer flowing under the bridge that had been built to carry the road.  Instead it was tearing down the hill making new embankments as it went along.  Twenty metres further down it joined the big river which you certainly would not want to be swept into.

There were some locals there and they had pushed a log of a thin tree across to make a temporary bridge.  However, by the time we had scrambled down the steep, muddy banks you can see in this photo to water level the river was flowing very fast over the top of the tree making it far too dangerous to risk crossing, especially with our big packs.

We know we had to go across - behind us was nothing for miles and it was getting dark, but we also realised the danger of where we were, a long, long way from help if one of us were to fall in.  As we stood pondering what to do, we saw some stones shift and realised the trunk had been blocking their progress downstream creating a little dam as they were wedged up against it.  Now the top of the log was clear and being the nearest I just went for it.  It was incredibly scary to tightrope across and the part below where John is (in the white T-shirt) in the photo looked very deep and the roar of the water and the rocks moving was just incredible.

With huge amounts of adrenaline pumping through our systems we seemed to fly up the embankment on the other side even though it was very wet and muddy.

By now it was 7:30pm and it was almost dark.

Some people who had stayed behind to watch us cross seemed to be telling us there was somewhere to sleep further up the road, but unhampered by heavy, wet rucksacks they went on ahead and we lost track of them.  By 9:30pm it was totally pitch dark and we were in something of a forest and could see no lights anywhere ahead.

As the situation we found ourselves in sunk in and the excitement of the day wore off our bodies started screaming at us that we hadn't eaten since breakfast and our drinking water had run out hours ago.  We stumbled on for a while, but our torches were pathetic from weak batteries and the damp, and although we could basically make out the path, it was uneven and we were exhausted.

We found a little clearing in the trees at the side of the road and collapsed into our sleeping bags and prayed it wouldn't rain.

Quite a day!

PRC - Day 42 - Pomi 波? - Arrested by PSB

Mixed weather

We got up early and had a most wonderful breakfast of a sort of long doughnut which you dipped in warm, sweet milk - not a grain of rice in sight - bliss!

However, the day was quickly to sour.  As we were finishing breakfast a man from the Public Security Bureau (PSB), ie the police, came in and asked to see our papers.  We did not know what a permit to travel in Tibet would look like, as in, was it a stamp in your passport or a piece of paper, so we played a bit dumb, not wanting to show anything.

We were escorted to the police station where we were told we were in town illegally.  They fetched a guy who was the local school's English teacher to translate.  His English was so-so, but he seemed to relish interrogating us.  It seemed they wanted each of us to pay Y100 as a fine.  We were not sure if we were actually illegal or they wee just trying to extort money from us.  Our concerns were threefold - 1) we did not want sending back to Yunnan and having to go all the way around to Lhasa; 2) we didn't want them to ruin or confiscate any photographic films we had taken of our trip, especially those of the day before and the fabulous views we'd taken on the way here; 3) xxx 

We decided to stall for time, mainly to see if it was going to be a real fine or whether the money was just destined for someone's back pocket...  Our story was we had come from Lhasa, which was where our passports were in the Nepalese Embassy awaiting visas so we could travel on to the Nepalese border once we returned there.  We were merely killing a few days by taking this side trip as we waited for the paperwork to be processed and we also insisted that the government tourist department in Lhasa had said we were okay to come here as we waited.  This we hoped would at least would solve problem one, that of being sent back to Yunnan.

Then they wanted to remove the film from Mike & John's cameras which they had on them.  Luckily for me I'd left mine in my backpack and I told them I did not have one or that it was broken, hoping and praying they would not later want to search our belongings.  We refused to let them open the cameras and said they should contact their superiors and/or the British Embassy.

Eventually, they could waste no more of their lunch break on us and we were told to report back at 3:30pm and we were let free in the little town.

It was a relief to be out of the police station for a while, but still very stressful.  "Character building," Mike called it.

We decided it would be wise to get our bags ready so that if we were allowed to go, which we still thought a good possibility, we could quickly get to the edge of town and see if we could hitch a ride to the next little village, at least, where there would be no authorities.  We hung around for three hours for the reception lady to come back and let us into our rooms and I hid my camera and all our films in some bushes just in case things didn't go well and then we could later sneak back and get them at night.

Back at the station at 3:30pm things seemed calmer.  The questions had stopped and one guy was shouting into a CB radio contraption at the top of his voice while we sat at the other side of the room.  This went on for almost an hour with his only reply being static to the point where it was quite comical to us, but we tried to be respectful and not giggle.

Eventually, they gave up and through the teacher/interpreter, who could hardly keep a straight face himself as he said the words, told us they had contacted their superiors who said we were to report to them at another town further (back) down the road and we were free to go. The other's camera equipment was then returned untouched.

This was face saving for them at it's most blatant, as they had not even taken our names or nationalities, but was a huge relief.  Having said that, where else were we going to go? - there was only one road...

We grabbed our bags, retrieved our stash from the bushes and walked to the edge of town, but by this time it was 6pm and no-one was going anywhere as it would soon be dark.

At 6:30pm the teacher/interpreter/interrogator who was far from our favourite person in the world right then from giving us quite a hard time at the station rode along on his bicycle and started going on about making big money with Chinese herbs.  It was a little surreal.

We just wanted him to go away and were somewhat aloof at first, but his attitude was very different now we were away from the authorities and his friend soon turned up who was a jolly little fellow who invited us back to their quarters for some food.  Realising the hopelessness of our situation as it got dark and we had no lodgings and no hope of a lift out of town, we went with them and it turned out to be a most unexpected evening.

Without every apologising for being harsh on us in the station, we were made very aware of his feelings towards the PSB and that the "interrogation" he has given us was not from his heart, but just playing his role in this little community.

Both guys were teachers a the local school and were Han Chinese who had been appointed to their posts in this god-forsaken wilderness by the government.  Neither of them liked Bomi, but they had little choice but to stay for a three year contract, however upon completion, it opened up all sorts of doors for them, basically allowing them to choose where they wanted to live and work anywhere in China.  Their jobs seemed quite difficult as they explained the local Tibetans hated school and especially learning English.

They earned Y300 a month, but insisted and paying for what was quite a banquet including all our drinks, which must have been at least Y30.

The menu was probably not quite what we would have chosen ourselves, and John was more than a little squeamish, but Mike and I gamely picked away at the dishes before eventually asking what they were.

We wished we had remained ignorant.  Our esteemed teachers had bought for us

MENU

A cold dish of pig's liver & chilies

Fried pig's intestine & chilies

Chilies, with small chilies & mixed 
with another type of chili (quite spicy this one)

Shredded fried potato with a little chili

Boiled rice

Beer

Jasmine tea

Full, the teachers helped us find somewhere to sleep for the night and promised to help us the next day to find a lift out of town.

Then to cap off a very strange day we went to a little street stall, the only place still open, and there standing resplendent on the top shelf was a jar of Nescafe.  It was just so out of place as we hadn’t seen anything western for so long, and nowhere had served coffee since Dali, but here was this jar sort of glowing and shining with pride of place on the centre of the top shelf.

We had to buy it.

Wherever we stayed all throughout China, even in the most rural of places you are given a large, gaudy thermos of boiled water to drink, so we were able to make our own coffee in our room and spent the next few hours savouring it, smoking and discussing our strange, strange day.

PRC - Day 41 - Bamda to Rawu to Pomi by Jeep - One of the best days of my life!

Warm with some sun - cool later

Another 6am get up (which now we were so far west, but everything is still based on Beijing time is more like 4am - ie very dark and cold).  However today even I thought it was worth it to get out of Bamda at last and little was I to know this was going to be one of the best days of my life.

Not that you would expect that being confined to the open back of a jeep with suspect suspension over dirt track roads with nothing to sit upon but your rucksack could ever be a near highlight of a life, but this day I got my first view of the Himalayas, hunted rabbit, cheated death many times, witnessed the antics of two fine but crazy fellows who were our drivers, and best of all travelled at crazy speeds down one of the world's most amazing roads hugging rivers one minute before clinging onto mountain sides the next - awesome day.

Being on the open back of the jeep meant we got excellent views of all of the amazing scenery and before long we were descending hundreds of meters around about 20 hairpin bends with the jeep often being forced to reverse back and forth to get around.

Down and round and down and round until we reached the river which was swollen from heavy rain and was rapids most of the way, dirty brown with all the silt it was carrying.

The road hugged the side of the river for a while and in places was very narrow where the water had eaten away at the banks and washed part of the track away.  Not that the drivers slowed down much.

As the valley opened out a little the drivers would occasionally pull over to the side and stop.  We couldn't work out what they were doing to start with, but they had little rifles and would crouch down low and scuttle up a hill and then lay flat.  They were hunting wild rabbit and took it very seriously, but were a bit hopeless eventually catching nothing.  It was amusing to watch though and on the last stop they gave me a go.  I was no better.

We passed through some little villages way out in the middle of nowhere with a few fields of pasture and a small herd of yaks, or these ones below which are probably half cow, half yak which are easier to domesticate.

Slowly we were gaining in altitude and the mountains to the south of us were getting higher and higher, until we saw some valleys with glaciers in them in the distance.

And then some mountains with snow capped peaks which got us excited.

We stopped for our packed lunch which we had bought from the restaurant in Bamda and the drivers boiled some water on a little kerosene stove for tea.  I don't think we could have been happier munching on hard boiled eggs miles away from anyone else.

Soon after lunch we had made the 184km to Rawu where we had an hour and a half break.

Rawu is basically about 10 single storey wooden shacks either side of the road protected by some hills.  The people here were fascinated by us but were very, very wary to come close.  After half an hour of watching us from behind the corner of a building a little boy of around seven and his older sister came over to us waiting near the jeep.

They found the hair on our arms and legs amazing and rubbed their grubby little hands up my arm to see what it would feel like.  The little girl pointed at my sunglasses which I passed to her, but it was a long time before she dared to put them on.  I am sure she had never seen anything like them before and was so impressed she tried to steal them off me.

Unfortunately there was absolutely no way they were going to let us take their photo.

So is was back on the jeep and a perfect afternoon of driving and scenery of mountains, glaciers and later some lakes.

We had one pit stop for the drivers to haggle over buying some mushrooms where we saw this little boy with a buttermilk tea maker on his back, but he was very shy and hid behind the tree everytime he saw a camera.

We had one more stop to wash all the dust off the jeep in a stream, so we could arrive in Bomi in style and I snapped this picture of the trusty vehicle as we arrived about 6pm.

Later, as we were having dinner in a little restaurant, we were chatting to some of the locals in there trying to find a way to carry on our journey west.  Our Chinese skills, by necessity and lots of repetition, had become reasonable for these conversations now, but one round faced little fellow seemed to be indicating that there was a huge landslide 80km further down the road and he kept pointing to the word, "Danger" in our phrase book. Oh well, we had come this far already, so we decided to carry on until we saw the landslide, if indeed it did exist, and see if there was a way around it and just hoped we wouldn't have to come all the way back.

After dinner we bumped into Christophe & Rory who'd had a dreadful ride the day before shut in the back of a truck with drums of chemicals and little to see through the tarpaulin sides.  They were more than a little jealous of our cheap and scenic journey.

As we all went our different ways to bed Rory's last words were, "I hope you haven't used up all your good luck."

If only he had known what was to befall us...

PRC - Day 36 - Zogang 左贡 to Bamda 邦达

Alt: 4180





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PRC - Day 35 - Deqin 德欽 to Mangkam 芒康 to Zogang 左贡

Rain at first, then warm & sunny - cold later and at altitude

Alt: from 3550m to 3,900, dropping to  2,100m then 
up to over 5,100 before finishing at 3,850m

I'd set my alarm for 6am so we could see from our window if there were any trucks heading north, mainly to see if anything was going that way and they were setting off earlier than than we were getting up.  But it was raining and very quiet so we went back to sleep.  By 7am the rain had stopped, but it was still very quiet, so we again went back to sleep.

Soon after, Rory told us the mini-bus had materialised from the day before which would take all of us to a place called Bangda 邦達, which was well over the Tibetan border.  If we weren't allowed and there were checkpoints, with eleven of us we would easily be seen, but this seemed like our only chance so we decided to go for it.

Fifteen minutes later we were all crammed in a little bus on what was to be one of the best journeys of my life, and also one of the most frightening!

The group consisted of:

Mike (S Africa) , John and me (UK)

Rory (Australia) & Christophe (France)

Patrick & Valerie (France)

Matt & Vicky (UK)

Joanna (UK)

Walter (Belgium)

They were an excellent crew to travel with and were always in good humour on what was to be a very long and uncomfortable journey.

Finally we were out of Deqin - it had happened all so suddenly it was a little hard to believe at first.  Initially the road sticks to the hills, but then heads towards a river and drops steeply to around 2100m.  The scenery was breathtaking and wild, though the drops down to the river from the dirt track we were on were huge, steep and scary. As we crossed a river we realised we were in Tibet 西藏 and everyone was very excited and patting each other on the back.

Just over one month ago I had never dreamed I would be in Communist China - now I was in Feudal Tibet.

[I don't understand or remember the river's flow in this photo - seems to flow up a waterfall we cannot see]

The road was in pretty terrible condition and in places non existent.

At the more dangerous parts of the road (such as in the photo above) where a landslide had buried the track, the driver made us get out as he drove over, but other times he just gunned the engine and drove over, the bus tipping precariously towards the large drop down to the river on one side.

We broke down a few times, first from a cracked oil sump from grounding on a rock, which was ingeniously mended with a bit of an aluminium drinks can.  All the way we had to stop at little streams to put water in the radiator which was instantly boiling again.  We also had many tire blow outs.

All in all progress was not too fast, but it was an amazing experience and unbelievable scenery.

We stuck with the river until 130km into the journey slowly rising back up to 3,000m before leaving it to head in a more northerly direction and climbing to over 4,100m at one point travelling up a wider valley which continues at around 3,700m heading towards Mangkam 芒康

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A - Deqin 德欽

B- Mangkam 芒康

It seemed there was to be a checkpoint at Mangkam, the first major town we were to come to - ahem, so I guess we are not meant to be here - oh well...

The original idea according to our best translators was that we would walk around the town while the bus drove through empty and we would meet at the other side.  Seemed reasonable enough.  However, seen as Mike and I were the star translators and we didn't yet know the words for, "sneak around" or "other side" this was not what happened at all.  We hung around just before entering the town, waited until it went dark, climbed back on the bus, those with blond hair or long hair donned hats and all ducked down below the windows as if asleep or better yet, invisible, and through we went.  Ah yes, then we understood the driver, but when you are learning, "wait and go when dark" does sound like, "go round and meet other side."

The checkpoint was empty; the guard had gone home.  Somewhat relieved we found ourselves through the checkpoint without having the traverse the outer-lying rice paddies like something out of Apocalypse Now.

By now we had done about 220km and it had taken almost 12 hours, but the next section was all up hill and, due to our illegal status was having to be done in the dark. What I think none of us realised was that we were going to cross one of the highest naviagable roads in the world going over 5,100m in altitude.


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A - Mangkam 芒康
B - Zogang 左贡

I lost track of time, but after some amount of it we stopped at a restaurant which as we piled in they closed all the shutters, locked the doors, I guess so no one would report us and we were fed a meal of fried spam, chillies and boiled rice.  The food was surprisingly nice, but by now most of us had severe headaches from the high altitude, but we couldn't stop - the driver and us wanted to press on and get well away from the check points of Mangkam and also eventually to a lower level.

But there was to be no respite at first and we headed up and up amazingly over 5100m [about same as base camp for Everest; on 18th Sept 1996 I went though Taglang Pass between Manali & Leh in India at 5,328m which advertises itself as the second highest navigable pass in the world] and it got colder and colder.  Thankfully, when eventually we did head back down it really did alleviate our altitude sickness very quickly, though it did give us worry on the brakes which were either steaming or smoking - which ever, not a good sign.

We spent the night in a warm valley in a little hotel at a place called Zogang 左贡 at about 3850m having travelled a gruelling 378km (235 miles).  The sky was crystal clear giving us the most spectacular view of the stars I had ever seen - awesome day.

We went to bed exhausted, but exhilarated by what we knew would be a very unique and special day of our lives.

PRC - Day 34 - Deqin 德欽

Sunny & quite warm

Alt: 3550m

Still we couldn't find a away out of Deqin, but we were putting a lot more effort into the task now.

The few people who would take us were asking prices we just didn't have the money for.  At one point some of the other forigners thought they had a little bus we could all go on and share he cost, but then they could not find the guy and it all fell through.

So we played snooker again and this time the crowds were even bigger.  Inspired by the support and cheers everyone gave if you made a pot, I played some stunning shots and won.  It was a great afternoon and the locals were certainly a carefree and happy bunch, very welcoming to this odd crowd of foreigners who had invaded.  Perhaps they could foresee a future of easy tourist money, but I think they were genuinely glad to have us there as a distraction for their daily life.

Some Chinese botanists were staying in the room next to ours who spoke very good English, but more importantly to us, had two great big Landcrusers.  Mike and I spent hours talking to them, faining interest in flowers, hoping to get a lift out of them, but eventually we discovered they were going back south.

Rumours and schemes were flying back and forth between the eleven of us relating what various locals had told us as we enquired about lifts.  Some times we were feeding wrong information where we thought we might get a lift just for the three of us, but other times it seemed we would be better all to go together and so we were cooperating.  They were all doing the same thing.

Miscommunication due to the language barrier was still the biggest problem, but by now Mike and I between us were getting quite good using the words we had learnt, our phrase books and sign language.  The French people in the group were not even that proficient at English, so Mike and I would be ushered into cafes or up the street to talk to some guy who they thought was a potential driver.

Using hand signals to talk was very confusing as the locals really did not grasp some of the miming we did, which were really obvious to the other westerners.  The phrase book was useful sometimes, but other people couldn't read the symbols we were showing, either because they spoke another language such as Tibetan, or perhaps because they were illiterate.  More frustratingly was those who could read the phrase book were fascinated by it and were as interested in reading it rather than discussing lifts.  It forced us to learn to speak as much as possible which was good and really helped for the rest of the trip.

Then there was the whole question of whether we were allowed to go into Tibet at all.  Some people were saying it was off limits to foreigners and we had no chance of getting to Lhasa that way, but others were equally sure of the opposite.  One guy who could speak English, told us as far as the United Nations was concerned Tibet was now open to all and if stopped we should fight it out to be allowed to continue our journey.

The other worrying thing was the state of the road itself and whether it was safe or even passable.  Some guys seemed to be telling us the road was impassable at one stage, which would certainly explain the lack of traffic heading that way.

We decided to sleep on it...

PRC - Day 33 - Deqin 德欽

Mixed weather
Alt: 3550m

An easy day with lots of time spent in little restaurants and trying to find a way to get a lift to carry on our journey.  We were not 100% sure it was either wise or possible, but continued to give it our best shot.  Communicating was very difficult as this town was really not used to foreigners and the people we would speak to just couldn't accept we could not speak fluent Chinese and would rant away at us.


We played snooker in what must rate as one of the most beautiful settings for a snooker hall, however, it was outdoors and in this rather unforgiving climate so the tables had really seen better days and were warped, had huge holes or lumps and the cues were little more than broom sticks, usually with a slight bend in them.  What crazy golf is to real golf, this was to real snooker.


A huge crowd built up to watch the foreigners play, which was a bit embarassing as I was terrible.

It was really hard having to negotiate your balls around huge lumps in the table.

Later we had a meal meeting some of the other westerners who had arrived the day before.  They were Rory from Australia and Christophe from France who had met on the road and were now travelling together.

We ended the day with more cards and a bottle of jui

PRC - Day 32 - Deqin 德欽

Warm & quite bright at times

Alt: 3550m

The Chinese like to do their chores at a set time of day, such as mopping and cleaning.  If a lazy forigner is still in bed when this time arrives, then they will just work around you.  Thus I was woken at 10:30am to the swish of a mop and clatter of ash trays.

Taking a shower was a long and drawn out process, first to get the hot water switched on, then trying to wash in it due to the water pressure being so low that even at its lowest setting, the electric heater was making the water hot enough to scald you.

The hotel people told us we had to register with the local police as Deqin was not yet officially open to foreigners.  So after a good fried noodle breakfast, again with chillies that we had not asked for, we paid a visit to the little police post, signed our names all with no trouble.

Public transport went no further into Tibet and so now we knew we would have to search for a jeep or truck driver who would take us on the next stretch.  Our quest was fruitless on this day, but we wandered around Deqin, said hello to the friendly locals, ate, drank tea, ate, drank more tea and ate more - all with chillies, but we had resigned ourselves to this by now.

Deqin

Nine other westerners arrived on the bus from Zhongdian that afternoon, which disappointed us because it meant we would have much more competition for lifts if they were also planning to head west.

At night time we watched a very comical local 'disco' with old fashioned nationalistic songs and a sort of ballroom dancing style, mainly with girls dancing with girls, and boys with boys, though all dressed up in suits, ties and farming boots. After a while we decided playing cards in our room again was more exciting.

PRC - Day 31 - Zhongdian 中甸 to Deqin 德欽

Rain & fog

Alt: 3200m to 3550m with higher passes on the road

A day of sitting on an old bus from 7:30am to 4:30pm heading the 187km to Deqin 德欽, a little town further north towards the Sichuan and Tibetan borders.  It was quite relaxing and uneventful, but we seemed to be climbing uphill most of the time so the bus was slow.  Indeed, the road goes over some high passes and at the highest sections it was very cold with snow on the ground.  Some of the views were good, but generally the weather was poor and visibility was not more than about 5 metres for hours which was a bit unnerving as the road twisted and turned giving you tunnel vision.  Some of the locals were looking decidedly ill.

Deqin seemed a nice little place upon our arrival nestled into a sloping valley with really only one main street which was very steep in places.  It took almost an hour to barter for a reasonable rate for a room (Y10 each) with a Japanese guy helping us.  He was pretending he was Chinese from a far off province to ease the way and was communicating using writing which is similar to both countries for some words.  The hotel was quite good though and was supposed to have hot showers which was going to be important at this altitude.

We were off the normal backpackers trail now - no cafes serving banana milkshakes and menus in English, so for dinner we were in a local place.  Menus were chalked onto the walls in Chinese and other scripts, we guessed Tibetan, but were of course useless to us  We were invited into the kitchen and pointed at various ingredients we wanted putting together, eg eggs and tomatoes or some Chinese mushrooms and green vegetables, said "chow" = "fry" and let them get on with it.  As much as possible we tried to stick with vegetables, there being no refrigerators in sight.  With boiled rice and a few beers it was a lovely meal, though, without us asking, everything had been laced with hot chillies.

The little town was dead after our meal, so we ended up playing cards in our room.

PRC - Day 18 - Dali, Yunnan 云南大理

PRC - Day 17 - Dali, Yunnan 云南大理

PRC - Day 15 - Dali, Yunnan 云南大理

PRC - Day 4 - Day trip up the Li River to Xingping

]The journey took 3 hours and 20 minutes due to the river being very high and the current strong.  In places we were hardly moving at all.

The villagers were tending their lands

and fishermen using cormorants to fish with, the birds having a ring around its neck to prevent it from swallowing the fish

Buffalo cooled themselves in the shallower water near the banks

But is was the scenery that is most impresive, with the impressive, almost surreal limestone hills carved by the water all around.

PRC - Day 3 - Arrival in Yangshou

PRC - Day 2 - Guangzhou to Wuzhou

Wuzhou market

Flooded road (see train powerlines)