China travel stories: Langmusi, Shangri-La, Tagong Grassland, and more. Scenic photos, Buddhist wisdom, and personal reflections from Sichuan to Yunnan.
We climbed a mountain across a river from 8 AM to 4 PM. We started very early when there were clouds over them, but when we reached the top, it was all sunny. My big toes didn’t hurt me much like the hike in Kangding. My feet surely preferred walking on the grass to on … Read more
Alex and I met Gal at the bus station where we tried to buy 2 tickets to Ganzi aka Kandze. Gal was on the bus with us. There was another fireworks when the bus was about to start for Ganzi. It took us 11 hours to reach there. The bus stopped a few times at … Read more
As the hotel owner told us to go to the Zhonglu Tibetan Village at 8 AM, we went downstairs on time. However, we had to wait for 1 hour for an Aussie couple. The Aussie couple were old, but they were nice. They talked to us a lot, about their trips to Eastern Europe and … Read more
We got up very early, then packed up and went downstairs. At 9 or so, we checked out. At 10 AM, we went out to find a bus or minivan to Ganzi. There was none. Even though it rained, many people didn’t leave Tagong. Maybe they all headed to the horse festival somewhere. So we … Read more
We woke up early at 6:30 AM, had some peanuts for breakfast, then trekked the Tagong mountains with my sandals. I have to admit that my sandals were not made for going on dam places like these grass fields. Sometimes, I had to jump over or Alex had to lift me up to pass. He … Read more
I got up early. Knowing that Alex didn’t have a good night sleep the day before, I didn’t wake him up. Waiting bored me so I decided to go down the hill to buy some dumplings. Yesterday, I wanted to try the cable car, but today I had to cancel it because Alex woke up … Read more
In the hostel, I heard that there was no bus to Garzê aka Ganzi. After discussing, Alex chose to go to Litang instead. And then he decided to trek the mountain behind the hostel. We headed downhill for some food like Chinese pizzas, then went up to begin our journey. I didn’t know that it … Read more
Very early in the morning, we checked out of the guesthouse and went to the West Chengdu Bus Station (also called Chadianzi) at 8 AM. The tickets showed us that we had to wait 3 hours for the bus to start for Kangding. Just when we left the city streets, there was a big traffic … Read more
We took a panda tour to visit the world famous giant pandas in the Chengdu Panda Base. They were so lovely, cutie… and I could use all beautiful adjectives I knew to describe such a creature. Even it was raining this morning, I felt so lucky to see the pandas in many of their positions: … Read more