Posts

Posted on

Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Day 6: Tagong Grassland

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 was kind enough to do so.

Because of the heavy rain yesterday evening and night, there was water everywhere. Anyway, I tried to keep up with Alex. We couldn’t cross the river, that’s why we made it a long way to the top of a hill. Because the path was so small, I decided that my health and fear of heights weren’t good enough for trekking more. My speed must have restrained Alex because he wanted to do a big round passing several mountains. Without me, he could enjoy his trek even more. I parted ways with Alex and found my own way to go back to the hostel.

The way down was scary. I was very proud to stand alone on the top of the mountain, but then looking down made me frightened. I was scared of heights. There was no track, and the way was steep enough I had to walk very slowly and choose a good place to step on. At least, I wasn’t scared of snakes because there was no bush here. The fright didn’t go because after the mountain came the big field with muddy areas. And I saw some vultures whose voices scared me all the more. I nearly ran pass that field because I was afraid of becoming “the elephant of Tran Hung Dao”. After that, the thrill wasn’t over when some guys stared at me on the way back to the hostel. But I decided to pretend to be calm and took a leisure walk back. I left my camera with Alex, so I couldn’t take any pic on the way back.

Alex came back then we had fried rice for lunch with some eggs. The food made me miss my Daddy.

I decided to take a nap for about 1 hour then Alex woke me up and we went to see the golden temple (Lhagang Monastery) near the town center. Unluckily, there was no way in, so we went to the Tagong Monastery instead. This was the monastery near our hostel. We bought the tickets but dammit, the place was under reconstruction, we couldn’t see many things.

Alex got a lil bit sunburned on his face, but I still encouraged him to trek the mountain behind the monastery by himself. At 3:00 PM, I went back to the hostel watching a movie and waited for Alex. He was so healthy. I envied him.

I was the first person that marked on Vietnam on the world map in this hostel. I was so proud of myself.

P.s.: P.s.: Elevation in Tagong was said to be from 3,700 m. Later, Alex told me that Tagong was his favorite place on our trip. I understood why.

P.p.s: THIS PART I WROTE WHEN I GOT BACK HOME:
“Having been to Tagong Grassland is like having been to Lhasa.” That was a nice saying I needed in order to get rid of my fear of Tagong’s mountain trekking.

Posted on

Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Day 5: Kangding To Tagong Grassland

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 late. Thinking that his reading of comic books was very boring, I dragged him down the hill again to buy some ice creams. Ice creams here were effing good.

We checked out of the Zhilam Hostel and waited for the bus at the Princess Bridge. The bus came on time, but the Israeli guy Gal wasn’t. He must have been going to somewhere else. We had to leave him behind.

The bus reached the Tagong Grassland at 5 PM. We passed some places where there were clouds outside the small bus. I dozed off sometimes so couldn’t enjoy the view much.

Like in Kangding, we stayed in another dorm room, but with more people. The hostel was operated by a Tibetan family whose living room was shared with the guests, there was no curtain in the dorm room this time. So a guy heard of my Vietnamese talk with Alex. Then I learned that he spoke Vietnamese, too. He was a Vietnamese Danish guy. He was very nice and as old as the Israeli guy, 22 years of age. He said he was studying Chinese. He also knew how to speak many other languages. He understood Vietnamese, but couldn’t speak much. I joked with Alex that Vietnamese was no more our secret language here like in Kangding.

Even though I was tired, I still walked around to find some peanuts and stuff to hang clothes in the room.

We had dinner at a place with an English menu, and bought some Coke. We met the Gal and his gang here. They were so noisy that they ruined my mood to eat.

Was clueless if there would be a horse racing festival tomorrow. But I already told Alex that I didn’t wanna ride any animal. I won’t ever do it in my life, I guess.

Posted on

Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Day 4: Kangding

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 would be so hard to hike up a mountain. I was so surprised by Alex’s health. He might look like a nerd, but he was indeed a sportsman. We made it to the top around noon. The feet were like stone in my mouth, but I felt so happy and proud of myself somehow.

I was wrong again to think that going down was easier. The damn shoes hurt my big toes too much that I felt nothing at my feet on the latter half of the journey. Somewhere along the line, I couldn’t stand no more and decided to walk barefoot despite Alex’s objection. What a relief! One hour of walking barefoot was a lot easier to me.

I intended to take the cable car in the afternoon, but because of my slow speed, we finished the hike too late, so I decided to delay the cable car visit until next morning.

Before dinner, I watched “The soloist part 2” movie with Alex. We wandered around after that, then hesitated but finally chose a rice restaurant. They served rice with spinach and tofu. We ate on the street, not even the sidewalk. People were staring at us, mostly at Alex, I guessed.

In the end, Alex’s destination moved from Litang to the Tagong because rumor had it that there would be a horse festival the day after tomorrow.

P.s.: Elevation in Kangding was said to be from 2,800 m.

Posted on

Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Day 3: Chengdu To Kangding

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 jam for 3 hours. Cars and buses and trucks ran everywhere on the road, making it worse. Because people in the other lane couldn’t move ahead when people in this lane didn’t retreat.

Then the road to Kangding held a lot of fun. I saw many beautiful scenes, river one side and mountain the other side of the road, passing by big tunnels. At last, the bus made it in Kangding around 8 PM.

On the way to find a hostel, we met a 22 year-old Israeli guy named Gal. As we didn’t know where to stay in Kangding, we went with him to find a place. Finally, we all headed to a place called Zhilam Hostel uphill. Its decoration had a feel of Tibetan though its owners were foreigners.

I was very tired. If Alex hadn’t carried my backpack, I couldn’t have made it to the hostel at all.

It was the first time I shared a dorm room with strangers. I was a lil bit bothered by the smelly stuff of a Western couple. There was just curtains dividing our beds so I just hoped there would be no thief.

At 9 PM, the 3 of us went out to find food. Because Gal didn’t eat pork, and there was only barbecued food and hotpot, I bought only milk, and tried an ice cream. The ice cream surprised me. It tasted like it was the best ice cream I’ve ever had in my life. Alex tried something like a Chinese pizza.

Then Alex and I watched the movie “The soloist” (part 1) together before calling it a night.

Posted on

Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Day 2: Chengdu Panda Base

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: sleeping, eating breakfast, playing with each other, even lazily hanging on a tree.

Alex decided to have mapo tofu for lunch. That was my nightmare. It was so spicy I hardly ate anything except rice. Even Alex felt it spicy.

It was still raining in the afternoon. But we still took a stroll to the People’s Park with rented umbrellas from the hostel. On the way back, we took the wrong bus. I realized that it went to the airport instead of the hostel.

It wasn’t late, so we stopped to discover the Wenshu Temple’s walkways. The streets around this temple were perfect for walking. We took some pictures here.

I told Alex to walk back because maybe we could luckily find the shuttle car on the way back to the Sim’s Cozy Garden Hostel. I was right. The driver was pleased to bring us back. We were lucky.

After finishing the second part of the Italian movie we watched yesterday, we found a good place to have dinner: I had wonton and Alex had noodles. Such a good meal!

I tried to buy 2 peaches in a fruit store. Dammit! Peaches in China looked big but tasted bad. There was mostly water inside.

© 2009-2024 NgocNga.net. All rights reserved.