yowyowyow

Southern Sichuan: Kangding-Litang-Yading-Zhongdian

Posted on 20. Nov, 2009 by yoyo in Sichuan

Or: The Way Down South

 Recieving an email from Tal and Einat (friends from Israel) that they were going to stay in Litang for a couple of days, and having planned to meet them, I got myself a bus ticket to Litang. 86RMB 8-10hours, 6:00AM. all in all, Kangding is a nice peacefull town, and it’s monastery and temple are worth a visit, especially if they are your first Tibetan experience. there are a few walks around town, the only one I took was from Zhilam Guesthouse up the hill, over to the other side and down into town. nice views of the valley, and the city in it.

 The ride to Litang was not very special. now this is important to understand: I’ve just spent a little over a month with no Israelis around, I badly missed talking Hebrew. very very badly. as I got off the bus in Litang I spotted 3 tourists waiting at the station. imagine my happiness when I discovered one of them was Israeli. we spoke (HEBREW!!) for about two hours.

 Next stop was getting accomodation. knowing Tal and Einat were staying in Potala’s guesthouse I headed there. the staff is incredibly unfriendly, and Potala not being there, nobody spoke any English. (details). Litang itself is a dirty ugly town, but has a nice Tibetan temple under the monastery, which is being renovated. for us, the highlight of Litang was a Sky Burial ceremony we attended. to reach the ceremony you can either take a minivan from the main street, look for Kissan, he speaks ok English. for 5RMB per person he’ll take you there. the guesthouses offer the same service for 30RMB per person. the ceremony ground is about 20-30 minutes from town center, going South on the main street, turning left into the alleys and up a small hill. the burial site is in a small creak marked with a small white building. for more about the ceremony see.

 From Litang we wanted to reach Yading, which is a natural park surrounding a holy peek. we took a van to Daocheng (50RMB, 3hours, the bus is at 14:00, 47RMB), and stayed there for the night. see where. from Daocheng another 50RMB, 4hours drive took us to the park. the entrance fee is payed 30Km away from the entrance. 150RMB per person, 80RMB with a student card.

 The gate, which is not the actuall entrance, is where your tickets will be checked, and you can buy a map for 10RMB, in Chinese. the park itself is extremely Chinese-touristic oriented, with a paved road for electric cars, toilets, horses and what not. you can either walk around the whole mountain, about 13 hours, or just walk around. the scenery is very beautiful, and being off-season, almost empty. we had a very bad weather, it was cold, snowy and windy, which forced us to give up most of the trail and spend only one night there, see where.

 The way out of the park is treaky, as not too many minivans were available, and they all wanted double the price we paid to get there. a huge lucky break for us was that the driver who brought us there arrived suddenly, taking us for 62RMB each.

 Spending another night in Daocheng, we caught a 6AM bus to Zhongdian, Yunnan province. the bus was full, so we had to sit on stolls. 109RMB. better buy a ticket ahead. the ride South was extremely beautiful, although very long and uncormftable.

 General information about Yading:

Good places for information are:

http://chinabackpacker.info/dest/d27.html

http://www.chinatrekking.com/destinations/sichuan/yading

For maps, I would recommend getting a normal topographic one before coming, as the touristic one you can buy is quite poor, although it should do if you plan to do only the normal circumbulating route.

Tags: blogsherpa, China, Sichuan