Chengdu and Western Sichuan report
We went to Chengdu as our entry point to Tibet. In this case I mean not just UTsang (the Tibetan name for the TAR) but also the Kham area of western Sichuan. We arrived at the Chengdu airport and were met by a car sent by Sim's Cozy Guesthouse. BTW, we learned that on domestic Chinese airlines you may carry 2 500 ml bottles of liquid, but each must be opened and smelled by security. We found Sim's quite a good place to stay with the exception of the construction work next door, which goes on from 7 am to 7 pm. It's not too annoying but adds to the constant background noise of China. We found an enjoyable day to be taking the #1 bus from a stop not two blocks from Sim's to the WuHou temple gardens and then the #302 to the Green Ram Temple. The latter was particularly enjoyable because they don't allow the tour guides to use their powered megaphones. We then took the #302 back to Sim's. This route gave us a good tour of the City. That night we went to the Sichuan Opera for tourists, which actually only had one segment of opera and the rest acrobats, comedy, etc. Enjoyable. The next day we took a day trip to the Sanxingdui Museum north of the city. This has to be one of the very best museums in China. If you like the Shang bronzes in the Shanghai Museum or if you are at all interested in history, this is an absolute must. And this is one of the few places where the senior discount also applies to non-Chinese. From there we went to the Dujiangxdu Irrigation Project. This is an interesting place to visit but unless you are a civil engineer you may not really appreciate what it is all about. For most folks I would say, give it a pass. Sim's provided us with car and driver for Y400 for the day.
Now there are lots of different ways to visit the Kham areas of western Sichuan. One that is intesting is a loop from and back to Chengdu. The preferred direction is Chengdu>Rilong>Danba>Tagong Grasslands>Chengdu. Because a landslide had closed the road to Rilong at Wolong, we went the opposite direction. The advantage of the preferred direction is easier bus ticket purchases. You begin with buying a ticket to XioJin and get off at Rilong. And you can get from Tagong to Kanding in the morning and back to Chengdu the same day. If you go the way we did Chengdu>Kanding>Tagong>Danba>Rilong>Chengdu, you are forced into an overnight in Kanding, which is only helpful in making acclimatisation a little easier with the overnight at modest elevation. The buses leave for Kanding everyhour, so just get to the station about 45 minutes before your bus and you will probably be ok. We took the 0900 bus. It took less than 7 hours. In Kanding we stayed at the Tai Nin Business Hotel. Come out of the bus station, turn right and start walking up the street. Look for the gold fake columns on the first building on the left. At the sign "Foreign Accommodations Approved", or something like that, go upstairs. Nice room for Y120 dble.
We had intended to take the bus to Tagong but the bus ticket office would not sell a ticket to Tagong. We found out later that we should have asked for a ticket to DaoFu and then get off in Tagong. By the time we got back to the bus station the bus was sold out. The next morning we tried to negotiate a minibus ride but the driver quoted us a price of Y400 each to go to Tagong. We refused that and stood around looking stupid trying to figure out what to do. A young Chinese woman took pity on us and asked if she could help. She then asked the minibus driver for the price and was told Y90. When she told him, "my friends want to go to Tagong and Y90 is ok", he was quite outraged but finally agreed. The bus was full a minute later when a young Tibetan girl signed on but we didn't leave until the other bus to Tagong was full. Some sort of a duopoly agreement I guess. We finally left at 0715. The trip took 4 hours.
In Tagong we wanted to follow a prior recommendation on TT and stay at Gayla's Guesthouse. Actually she met the bus, but we thought she was wanting us to see a jewelry shop so we ignored her - just say Gayla's to the people meeting the bus and you will be ok. Otherwise, here are the directions to this hidden treasure: Looking down at the town square the temple is at the top of a rectangle. Sally's restaurant (good but very limited menu) is at the top left corner. To find Gayla's go to the lower left hand corner. Go down the narrow track. make a turn and go in the gate with the red door. The rooms are nicely decorated - you have to see the dorm room even if you don't stay there. It's spectacular. It was Y20/person/night. Back to the lower righthand corner of the square is a series of jewelry shops. Next to them is a restaurant with an English name - something about Chendu I seem to remember. Next to that is a small restaurant with an English translation menu on the wall. We really enjoyed this restaurant and ate there several times. Very inexpensive too.
The Khampa Cultural Center organized a two-day horse tour for us out to a nomad camp. We bailed on the horses after about 3 hours. I was just annoyed at a troublesome pony but my wife was really in pain from a poorly cushioned saddle. We walked back to town rather than ride the ponies down. It was a very enjoyable and beautiful valley. Moral of this story is, if you are not already experienced riding horses, this is not the time and place to start. Others who made the entire trek reported they were very pleased with it. There are several other good hikes out of town. The easiest is to make you way up to the big chorten across the main road from the temple and then just follow the ridge up as far as you want to go. You will get great views of the town and the surroundings and will be walking through yak herds. The valley we went up is on the opposite side of the river. There is a lammasary there (only men allowed to go inside) that is active and training monks. You could just take a taxi up to a point just short of the lammasary, walk up the valley a ways and then hike back to town for an enjoyable day hike.
There is a regular 16-passenger bus between Tagong and Danba. Arrives Tagong at 1100 and leaves when full or 1200. Leaves from right in front of the little restaurant described above. Be there at 1100 and pay for your seat or put you stuff on board. Fare is Y30 each. The trip from Bamei to Danba down a magnificant gorge was worth the entire trip. At one point you could see a car down in the bottom of the gorge. The driver stopped for everyone to gawk and take pictures several times. Since the bus was having some problems with its brakes, there was added excitement to the trip (that's putting it rather mildly).
In Danba we stayed at the Golden Yak Hotel, as previously recommended on TT. Unfortunately, the instructions for finding it given earlier are wrong. If you follow those instructions you are taken precisely to the Flower Spring Hotel, which does not accept foreigners. To find the Golden Yak, take a left out of the bus station and walk down to the bridge over the river, about 20-25m. Look across the bridge to spot the part of the building facing you that is painted pink. That's it. Cost was Y60/night for a dbl.
In Danba we hired a taxi to take us out to Jiaju, a Tibetan farming village up in the hills. It is possible to spend the night here in some of the homes. We looked at one and found it potentially a very interesting stay - the only problem would be with the room on the third floor and the toilet on the first floor if you need to find it in the middle of the night. We noticed many of the homes were using solar hot water and solar cookers. We wandered through the village and through their fields. The taxi then took us out to the Suopo viewing area and dropped us off at the Km147 road to hike, as described in LP. As described it is about 90 minutes up. There is a watch tower right next to the road about 3/4 of the way up. This was a very nice hike and easily worth the effort. Our taxi met us back at the Km147 marker not more than 10 minutes after we got down. We paid him Y80 for the day's travels.
To go to Rilong, we took a minibus from near the bus station to XioJin for Y20 each. At XioJin we were going to go to the bus station to buy our tickets to Chengdu for two days later but another minibus driver was eager to take us to Rilong right then if we would pay double the normal rate to "fill out" his van. That made our cost Y40 each. We decided that was a better use of our time that wandering through XioJin trying to find the bus station. Again, the trip itself was well worth the price of admission.
Now Rilong deserves some explanation. All the maps you see are rather misleading. Think of Rilong as a letter "U" lying on its side, with the legs pointing to the left. The top leg points to XioJin and the bottom leg points to Wolong and Chengdu. Old Rilong is off the main road toward the bottom of the hill as you enter from XioJin. Our minibus dropped us off at the 4star hotel. This is in the center of the top leg. There's no English on its signs but you will recognize it as being right on the main road and it has a police outpost right in its parking lot next to a bridge. This can be your main reference point. Standing on the bridge next to the police outpost and facing away from the hotel you will see on your right a white strip mall building. There are two restaurants in that building. We liked the first, smaller one. The aunt of the woman who runs this restaurant is also a bus ticket provider extrordinare. She can get you a bus ticket back to Chengdu and get you a seat. If you buy a ticket at the Rilong bus station they will not guarantee you a seat on the bus.
There are several reasonable rate hotels in Rilong, but most chased me off the minute they saw me come in the door. I think they must not have been ok'd for foreigners. The one we found that was the best deal was the Sheng Shan (name is in English above the doors). Cost was Y160 for a dble. Oh, look carefully at the room they offer you - they are not spending money on maintenance. Our bathroom drains were plugged up so there was a constant swimming pool on the bathroom floor. Here is how you find it. Starting from the 4star hotel, you walk quite some distance along the main road, around the end of the U and back to the middle of the top leg. Since the Sheng Shan is directly behind the 4star hotel, there is a short cut through the parking lot, up the plastic-covered stairs. It would be too complicated to explain here, so just wait for some locals to walk through the parking lot and up the stairs and follow them. Don't take the dirt track or the route over the wood plank. When you've gone by the coal pile and through the blue-green door, you will know you are on the right trail.
We met a very nice Chinese couple who were staying in the Sheng Shan who wanted to go on the Shuagqiao Valley trip in the afternoon. We split a taxi to take us out to the gate (Y50 total) and wait for us. The admission ticket plus the tourist bus (the only way you can do it) is Y150 each. Had not planned to do this because of the cost, but am glad we did. This valley is spectacular. It is like 10 Yosemitie valley's strung end to end. The tourist bus races up to the end where it lets you out to wander over some established walkways. Sounds hokey, but it is more protective of the environment than just letting people wander wherever they want. Then on the way back it stops at 5 different places where you have similar walkways. One place you are let off and picked up 2 km downriver. They are eagerly building more, longer walkways so you will be able to take much longer walks next year. It was well worth the cost.
Now the real advantage of the Sheng Shan is its location. Find the little white building next after the Sheng Shan toward Wolong. The first "store" is the ticket booth for the Haizi Valley hike. The second "store" in the building is the bus station. The entrance to the Haizi Valley hike is across the road at the large wood sign for the Panda Preserve (I don't think there are any Pandas here). The maps are all misleading so ignore them. This is a ridge hike, not a valley hike at first. You go up a steep ridge to a series of chortens along the ridge. At the third chorten you get great views of the 4sisters. You can continue hiking along the ridge. Because of the elevation it is difficult to hike as fast as you are used to, so you won't make great distance. We got to the point were we rounded the ridge and could see the valley we were heading into but were still way short of the first lake. We turned back after lunch when it started to rain. Fortunately it never got to be more than hard sprinkle. The one problem was the terribly muddy spots on the trail churned up by the horses all the tour groups were riding up into the valley. From the amount of gear they were taking I think they intended to spend the night. One group from an alpine club in Japan intended to make an assault on one of the peaks. Even our short hike was quite enjoyable and well worth it.
The first bus came through Rilong (from XioJin) for Chendu about 0800. We paid Y70 each. There are at least four buses about 30 minutes apart. The road conditions back to Chengdu are terrible. As a result we made what was supposed to be a 6 hour trip in 11 hours. All four of the buses were travelling together after a while because of the contruction delays. The route we travelled was quite spectacular. The taxi back from the bus station to Sim's was Y40 because the bus station is quite a ways out.
So tomorrow we leave on a plane for Lhasa.
