World China Sichuan Chengdu

Big trouble in little...

Tashi dele Jul 20, 2009

Right now I'm in Chengdu I'v been here for about 5 days but I leave to Tibet on Wednesday. I booked the train ticket, the highest train in the world, with three other kids, but the only seats they had available were hard seats, so it will be an interesting ride.

The road getting here form Yunnan was sick, a few days in the middle of nowhere with very few other travlers, filled with friendly tibetean villages in western Sichuan. The first town I stopped in, Litang was the home of the 3rd and 7th Dali Lama and sits at over 13000 ft. Here they still practice the Tibeteat Sky burial in which certain persons are allowed, or chose to have their bodies offered to the heavens after their death by means of ingestion through vultures. They don't charge any money to watch, they only ask that you don't take any photos. It was pretty graphic. Also while in town, a girl invites me to sit in on a tibetean class learning english to critique the teachers lesson plan, so naturally I agreed. On the way there we picked up another travler and after watching the class for about an hour, the girl is introduced in front of the class and me and the other guy start laughing at her, and then all the sudden the teacher breaks us into three groups and we each have to teach about a dozen tibeteat kids english for an hour, at the end of which they wanted me to sing a song. All I could think of was rudolph the red nose reindeer, because all the garbage trucks here play music, or christmas carols, like they are ice cream trucks. It was pretty funny.

From there the I headed east toward the town of Tagong. The roads were through steep, green, forest covered hills, dropping 5000 ft creating a maze of valleys and creeks that made going in a straight line impossible, and while mostly paved, the roads were ridiculously bumpy. Tagong lies in an area reminescent of montana, broad valleys and rolling hills, I got there with some other kids and we managed to catch their annual horse festival on its last day. We walked and hitchehiked for hours before we finally found it. A few thousand tibeteans at this little festival and we were the only foreigners. They held horse races and a talent show behind this monestary in the middle of a nowhere. While taking refuge from the rain in a tent a kind tibetean family offered us some milk tea. We accept, and before I know it the woman begins to drop three tablespoons of yak butter from a pair of chopsticks into my tea making it instantly yellow and rich. I finised the cup out of politness but kindly didn't ask for any more refils. There is a total solar ecclipse here on tuesday and the area around chengdu should be right in the path. Drew I hope your foot is getting better. Peace, Steve