To get to anything really remotely resembling the idyllic Shangri-La one must leave Shangri-La for a ten hour bus ride over mountainous roads. Of course the road is pretty bad. The way is mostly dirt and single lane at times with troubling landslides, rock fall, and construction. Never mind the exposed drop off on either side at any given time. Added comfort comes with rain, a full load and people smoking as they please. For a moment you might wonder what you’re doing but sometimes you might have to go through a little hell to get to heaven. Actually, the bus ride really isn’t really that bad if you’re not bothered by discomfort and a little danger.
The bus had been driven over from Deqin the day before and it had taken 20 hours due to road construction and landslide. It arrived in Shangri-la at 6am and the driver was able to get a good one hour sleep before hopping back on to drive a fresh new load of passengers back up to Deqin. At the bus station I met two other westerners for the ride. A young British lady by the name of Rosa and an older Italian woman making a long single night journey to catch a glimpse of the holy Tibetan Mountain, Kawa Karpo. I also met a young Chinese professional by the name of Sean who speaks good English.
From Shangri-La the Bus wastes no time climbing up into the heavens. The guide books says the route passes over 5000 meters three times. The road is quite bad and downright dangerous at times but our driver was excellent and obviously well experienced. I imagine he does it so often that he could do it in his sleep. Relatively speaking, I felt like we were in good hands. Although it’s a hard trip now, China is in the process of blasting, digging and tunneling one heck of an amazing new highway. Someday it will be a breeze getting to Deqin but for now, it’s an experience.
It rained for much of the trip and the four of us, who met on the bus, teamed up for a taxi to Feilai Si as soon as we arrived in a very wet and cold Deqin. Deqin is not the most attractive town but the mountains are quite impressive. Feilai Si is more desirable and affords a grand stand view of 6,740 meter Mt. Kawa Karpo. In Feilai Si we found accommodation at a hostel and hit the street for slim pickens in the order of food. In the process we met a nice young South African couple and invited them to join us over bowls of bland noodles.
The main reason for visiting the mountains in the vicinity of Kawa Karpo is that it offers some good hiking possibilities. The area is within the Shangri-la Meli Snow Mountain National Park. I was pretty unaware of what the region had to offer but with a little investigating and some good advice in Shangri-la I figured it might offer just what I was looking for.
Although I boarded the bus by myself and was fully prepared to figure out everything on my own by evening I was a part of a hiking group. Myself, Sean, Rosa, and the S. African couple decided to trek together. It would be more fun and easier for all of us. I love how this kind of stuff naturally happens when traveling. Language would not be an issue as Sean is Chinese and Rosa speaks good Chinese. We made plans to meet in the morning then hire transportation to take us for an hour and half drive to the a village where we could hike up to Ming Yong Glacier. Our plans after that were to head over to another trailhead for the night. The following day we planned to hike over a pass and into a valley with two villages that can only be reached by foot or horse. We planned to base ourselves out of the valley for some more hiking.
1 comment:
Good to hear from you again. We are leaving this morning.
zio frank
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