Last week was the Mid-Autumn Festival, so we had a whole week of school off (10/1 to 10/7). During this time, my roommate (Radek), Spanish Girl (Carlotta), and myself went on a trip. Below I'll share pictures of what went on in a chronological fashion. This was probably one of the best trips of my life, not that I've been on many trips.
10/1/2015
I barely got up in the morning because we were out doing things that we shouldn't be doing. Anyways, we got on the bus heading towards Kanding at 6AM, and I got to experience some real time Chinese driving. This part of the trip was supposed to take 10 hours, but of course while in China, we have to be prepared for anything. Two cars scraped each other and delayed our trip by 3-4 extra hours. One thing that I will never understand: they can't move the cars in a crash until either the police or the insurance company gets a photo of the crash. So while the police were on their way trying to get through the mass of cars, we just sat around and waited. After 17 hours of sitting on a bus, we finally arrived in Kanding. It was now 12AM and we needed to find our hostel. End of first day: Chinese traffic.
10/2/2015
After we got up, we met up with a two Chinese friends, grabbed some breakfast, and explored the city.
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| The Tibetans had these engravings in a lot of their mountains and rocks. They're quite pretty and colorful. It looks almost like Hinduism, but probably a part of their religious Buddhism. |
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| My roommate and I in a Tibetan Buddhism Temple. |
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| A little drive out of the city and up the side of the mountain and we can see snow covered mountain peaks. These colorful flags were hung around everywhere. |
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| And of course, had to end the night with some beer. This one wasn't bad at all. |
10/3/2015
This was another long day of sitting in the car, as we made our way to DaoCheng. We made a few stops along the way.
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| Here's the crew striking quite the beautiful pose on top of this Mountain. The trash on the ground isn't actually trash. Well, okay, it's trash, but the Tibetans threw it there. It is like some sort of offering. |
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| There was so much development in these towns that we passed by. |
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Race track. Just kidding, but it was almost like a race with the way these Tibetans were driving.
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| One of our Tibetan drivers and myself. He's quite the guy: super friendly, cool, and handsome. |
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| Beautiful place by the riverside that we stopped by. |
10/4/2015
This day was the start of our hike in YaDing. The hike wasn't bad, but add in the elevation and it was quite difficult. I remember at times I had to take in two breaths at once because one was just not enough. The first part of the hike was quite flat. However, it got very steep later on. We got there at 1PM and ended the hike at 7PM. Only six hours, but our bodies were completely exhausted and it was getting dark fast. We set up camp and went to bed, kind of...
I could not sleep at all. I woke up multiple times due to a really bad headache and how hard it was to breath. We slept at 4700meters (15,400ft) and I'll never forget how painful it was. However, the site to see when we woke up made up for it all. It was too dark to see when we made it to the campsite, but it was gorgeous with the sunrise.
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| Us when we woke up. It was probably around 30 degrees F. |
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| Beautiful lake. It probably had this color due to the minerals the snow melt brought with it. |
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Milk Lake from our campsite.
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| The Tibetans lived a few km away from our campsite, and they passed by us in the morning. Tibetans going to work. |
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| 5 Colors Lake. The lake really had five colors. |
10/6/2015
After we made it back down the mountain, we decided to go back to DaoCheng for one day while we look for a bus to Chengdu. We had one day to spend in DaoCheng, so we did a bunch of things.
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| Rented bikes and biked into the countryside. |
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| Tibetan house in a nearby village. These houses looks like they were made from bricks. |
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| Another house. There were a few kids around when we visited, and they would always ask for money first thing. It was quite sad because their parents probably taught them that. |
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The amount of Yaks and Horses were amazing. They would just wander about anywhere and even on the streets sometimes causing quite the panic from drivers.
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| This little guy was mad at Spanish Girl because she gave his sister two bills and only gave him one. He started bad mouthing us. I was dying the whole time. |
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| Just a normal day for Tibetans washing cars in the river. |
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| Unless you're like the guy on the left. His car got stuck and he couldn't get it out. A bunch of guys tried to push it, but of course it didn't work. He was quite happy about it, maybe the alcohol they were drinking had some effect. He was dancing on top of his car, and it was quite hysterical. |
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| A market we walked through. Quite the display of Yak meat. |
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| Nazi's symbol that they stole from the Hindus and Buddhists. This is where the swastika belongs. |
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| Our hostel. It was quite nice. Beautiful people, beautiful place. |
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| Close up of the window designs. |
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The food we had at a locally owned Tibetan restaurant. The stuff on the right is Yak meat and the stuff on the left are fried baozi. It was quite simple and amazing. The store owners were super nice.
(pictures from my roommate (Radek) and Spanish Girl (Carlota) who had a way better camera than I did)
That concludes the trip for the most part. We had a great time. It was very fun messing with the Tibetans. They love to joke and have fun, although it is a bit annoying when everyone approaches us. Every time we got off the bus or we walk down the street, they would approach us and ask us where we were going and whether or not we would like a ride.
I've had quite the fun talking with them and telling them that my ancestors are a part of an ethnic minority group in China just like them and that I'm not Chinese and that I come from the US. A lot of them tell me how they like President Obama because of how he treats the Dali Lama and of the recent meeting between the Chinese Prime Minister and Obama.
From this trip, the Tibetans are very beautiful people. The men are quite handsome, and they dress well. Even better than the ones from Chengdu, although they dress like Cowboys. The women are also very gorgeous and are friendly and kind.
Oh and 'WASAI!' followed by 'Beautiful Country!' was something one of our Tibetan drivers was shouting the whole time. I think it means something like 'WOW' or 'AMAZINGGG.' The driver could also speak pretty decent English which was surprising. Whenever a car passed him, he would stick out his middle finger and say 'HELLO! FUCK YOU!' It was quite the entertainment. Although, on the way back, one of our drivers started sniffing coke or something. It was quite disturbing and I was scared, but we made it back safe and sound.
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