Litang, China
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Ooops, sorry I'm slowly catching up! Anyway when I arrived in
Chengdu I sorted out my ticket to Kanding the first leg of my journey out to Western Sichuan. The bus journey was like most other bus journeys in China so I did my best at just sleeping through it. Kanding wasn't the nicest city in the world but when I arrived at my hostel there seemed to be a lot of action going on. The hostel was full of Buddhist monks and I finally found out that we were expecting a Buddhist VIP. Soon a big trumpet appeared, everyone started to line up (I was bustled into a line with a stick of incense) and we waited expectantly. Suddenly a car arrived and locals started throwing things and getting all very excited. The VIP then went upstairs in our hostel (!) where he received people to bless their scarves! (pics 1-3) After all the madness had calmed down, I wandered into town where I got rained on. I decided that it would be best to leave Kanding the next day so I booked my onwards ticket to Litang, a town over 4000m at the edge of the Tibetan plateau
. The bus journey was pretty amazing, we had hardly left Kanding before there were beautiful snow mountains in sight. Unfortunately I was sitting next to a chain smoking/chain spitting Chinese guy who had hogged the window seat so I couldn't take any photos. Eventually we hit clouds so I decided to take a nap. I awoke to find that we were driving through snow! Yes while you were all having 32 degrees back in England, I was surrounded by snow! Finally though our bus gave up on us and the last hour involved going uphill at 5km/h and coasting downhill until eventually we saw Litang on the plain ahead of us and arrived in a dusty town in the middle of nowhere. That evening we ate dinner and took a well deserved rest. The next morning I awoke with my first case of squits in China. At first I thought it might be altitude sickness, but I soon decided it was the dodgy roadside cafe from the day before. A Dutch guy I met did however get really severe headaches from the altitude during his time in Litang. Anyway after a morning nursing myself I finally decided I could make it out of the hotel to explore the Lamasary. It was really beautiful (pic 4) and is fully active with over 1000 monks. We looked around the large hall and then as we walked out discovered a huge yak hanging from the ceiling... (pic 5) well I really wasn't expecting that! I have no idea what it was doing there! Outside the temple was a Stupa and beautiful Mani stones (pic 6) and then I climbed a hill to get a view of the surrounding area. After visiting the temple I spent some time sneaking up on the locals and taking photos (Pics 7-10). Actually here the locals were so friendly, always ready to greet you with a hello and a smile, they were much less intimidating that in other places in China. Finally it was time to cope with the bus station... They knew nothing, especially what time buses went, and wouldn't sell you a ticket either! Eventually we cut out losses and the next day we took a taxi with some crazy Tibetans to Doacheng, a town at 4800m...
