Living my very own Amazing Race and Lost in Translation: Sichuan province

Showing posts with label Sichuan province. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Xiangcheng!

The changing scenery on the way from Litang to Xiangcheng!

Xiangcheng was the true surprise of the trip! Located cosily in a low valley it was nice, warm, quiet, beautiful & tourist-less! It`s recommended as a sleepover place to move on to Shangrila in Yunnan province, but we had arrived there early in the afternoon, so we had enough time to actually see the town & start liking it a lot!

Some houses of Xiangcheng..

Our (already drunk) guesthouse owner inivted us for a bottle of wine and we shared some culture.

Highly enjoyable stopover :)!!!
Next on to Shangrila...

Litang - a very high experience @ 4014 m!

The drive from Tagong to Litang (one of the highest towns in the world)...

Litang monastery @ sunset time

...was the most extreme of the whole trip because:
1) we crossed the highest passes of this trip (highest being 4718m)
2) we did that in complete darkness
3) driving on a high mountain dirt road (no road)`cause it was all under construction/destruction
4) ..and after several "almost breakdowns" our minibus finally broke down 10 km from Litang...around midnight...luckily we were 2 minibuses travelling together (they must have expected something like this to happen), so we were towed to Litang...arriving there after 1 am.

All in all SOMETHING TO REMEMBER!

Relaxed ambient of Litang

Tibetan new age horse ;)

Litangers :)

Praying time (takes a lot of time!)...circling around stupas, monasteries & spinning the prayer wheels

Teenage style hit - all the youngsters were wearing these funny looking caps!

Market. Yak meat

Litang monastery

Monastery school

...and again impressively bright colours and very chilled atmosphere!

Old Tibetan village in Litang

On the way to hang praying flags and fly Tibetan "wishing horses" (small pieces of paper you fly and make wishes)

Praying flags!

Minibus drivers gamble to win "package of 7 foreign passengers" - full minibus that means a guaranteed profit of the day without having to wait till the bus fills up (which is not guaranteed)!

..it will be a very beautiful & relaxed ride to Xiangcheng which will be described in the next post ;)

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Post Nr.100 goes to TAGONG with its wild Tibetan grasslands!!

I am very happy to announce that this is my 100th blog post and it`s all about TAGONG - the most beautiful & the coolest place of the Western Sichuan trip!

...so TAGONG (altitude 3700 m)
The Feeling - Tibet is in the air, high altitude makes me feel tipsy and makes sure of a slight headache in the evening!
The Drink - Ginger tea to prevent altitude sickness
The Sights - fantastic!

View from the terrace of Khampa Cafe & Arts centre (where we stayed for the night & had wonderful meals): the central square of Tagong with its monastery

Inspiring architecture

In the Tagong monastery: praying time

Tagong monastery..abundance of colours!

Having a look behind monastery: stupas

Central square.

Prayer wheels: according to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition spinning such a wheel will have the same effect as orally reciting the prayers

Scenery around Tagong

Friendly faces of Tagong

School. Doing homework. I had a nice chat with the kids while teacher was "not here"

Next morning we were ready for HORSE TREKKING in TAGONG GRASSLANDS!

My first minutes on the horse - white pregnant beauty Gummagadi! Previously I had been sitting on a horse once for 15 minutes, so I was real excited & tiny bit worried how it would work out :)
It worked out great! I absolutely loved it and now I want some more!!! :)

Me & our Tibetan guides Serga (he) & Sarapamu (she) that didn`t speak almost any Chinese, but we still managed to communicate just fine :)

Crossing river is fun especially when horse decides to make a drinking break in the middle of the river

Yaks

My white beauty Gummagadi

Riding high & low..

Scenery

Flora :)

Lunch break with a Tibetan family.
..it was amazing to hear how this little Tibetan cutie spoke perfect American English! Samso`s dad is Tibetan & her mom is American Angela running Khampa Cafe & Arts centre.