Ngawa Tibetan And Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Day 9: Langmusi To Barkam, Transit In Zoigê

I didn’t know that I saw the Hui mosque the day I arrived in Langmusi. It was on the right side of the monastery near the bus stop and on the way to the hill that I trekked in that evening. I found out when I saw the photos I took that day.

Before getting on the bus back to Zoige (Ruoergai), I went inside the mosque but all doors were closed. I was at the Ruoergai station before 8:30AM but the tickets wrote that the bus to Xiaojin started at 12:10PM.

This place must be the highest place I’ve been to in this trip. It was cold today, too. I followed the Hanoian teacher girl to buy some flat peaches. They tasted just like other peaches I’d eaten before. But at least I tried.

After having potatoes and beef rice for lunch, I found a cat playing with my backpack hit belt.

After 1 hour, we were stuck again in a traffic jam for 1 and a half hours. First time I got to use my paper fan. 10 years later, Sichuan traffic jams were much more orderly and polite.

It was so hard to ask for the direction to Mt. Siguniang here because the station was closed when we arrived in Barkam aka Maerkang at 7:30PM. The bus driver told me there’d be one early tomorrow morning.

Then I leaded my team to find a hotel. I saw one looking kinda luxury next to the bus station. I realized that Chinese people used a face recognition machine to check in to the hotels here. After waiting for a while, I got the boot because I was a foreigner. I got the same result from one or two places nearby.

After wheeling my suitcase faster to the downtown worrying it would be dark soon, I saw another luxury hotel after crossing a small bridge. Luckily, they accepted 4 foreigners in 1 room. But the receptionist took so long to register me that I had to tell her I’d come back to get my passport after dinner.

The room was the most well-equipped I’d ever seen in Sichuan, and the bathroom looked extravagant too.

Later, when I was out seeking a place for dinner at 9:00 PM, I realized that this town was almost empty. It was hard to find a noodles restaurant that was open. Didn’t know why the chef kept laughing while talking to me. He didn’t believe I wasn’t Chinese until I showed him my passport. However, he cooked delicious noodles.

Elevation in Barkam was said to be 2,615 m.