Deeper Into China's Mountains

The last few days couldn't have worked out any better.  During the last entry, the plan was to head to Yubeng - alone.  As usually happens when traveling alone, I met a larger group going on the Yubeng trek.  It ended up being a group of 5 Chinese travelers and me (the crew pictured above).  There were 2 guys from Hong Kong (Adrian and Tim; both young 20s and in law school) who spoke perfect English.  There was also 1 girl (Louise; my age) from Shanghai who spoke perfect English (and German) and who plans to pursue a PhD in anthropology in Deutschland.  There also was a young girl from inland China (no western name) as well as 1 guy from the Chinese army (i was told he was from the equivalent of our "Delta Force", but had been out for at least 2 years traveling his country...he didn't speak English so we did a lot of hand signals and grunting to communicate).  We all met for dinner and hopped in a mini van the next morning.  It was 1.5 hours to the hot springs of Xidang and then a 7 hour hike into Yubeng village (pronounced: u-bong).  Most of the hike is uphill with the last 2 hours a descent into the village.  This was definitively the most remote place i have been on my travels thus far.  Yes, Africa is very remote and they have far fewer resources, but East Africa is very accessible by 4x4 and there are dirt roads leading in and out of most places.  Yubeng is only accessible by horse or foot (only the weak take a horse - which are most Chinese "city" tourists - lazy buggers).  We hiked in by foot and carried our own gear.  Yubeng sits in a valley at the base of 4 sacred Tibetan peaks - Kawa Karpo and his 3 companions (these are all off limits for climbing to the peak because a group of famous Japanese mountain climbers died in the 1990s attempting to summit). 

 

We stayed at the Mystic Waterfall Guest House which is the last building (other than the Shenpu - a sacred temple) on the trail to the mountains.  This was very simple accommodation by western standards, but nice for the location - and the food was actually quite good.  We stayed for 2 nights and during our full day in Yubeng we climbed to the Sacred Waterfall.  This waterfall is sacred for local Tibetans (who are almost exclusively practicing Buddhists) and when you get to the waterfall you must walk clockwise through the water an odd number of times.  Needless to say, we all stayed true to local custom and stripped down to bare essentials and walked through the freezing glacial waterfall (it was sunny out, so we were just fine walked home half drenched). 

 

The next day we hiked out of he village and took a van all the way back to Shangri-La - passing quickly through Deqin and Feilai Si.  Along the way i decided to call the local guiding company in Shangri-La to see if they had any treks. 

 

And...the luck was in my favor, perhaps because i walked through the mystic waterfall!  3 random Americans were doing a trek to the Baima Nature Reserve the very next morning (i had been trying for days to get there and was effectively laughed because "nobody" camps out there).  But that is exactly what we did.  We had 3 days and 2 nights of camping; as well as a guide, cook and driver and good local Tibetan campfire meals.  We trekked for a 6 hours into the reserve during our 1 full day.  We had great views of the valley and surrounding mountains.  Our group was 2 guys and 2 girls; Christian, Maren and Shannon - they were all from the Rhode Island School of Design pursuing graduate degrees in Landscape Architecture.  We had a great experience with our local Tibetan crew and guide (Thupten - who spoke English quite well) and we also had quite a few laughs.

 

Exploring the Northwestern Yunnan Province here in China turned out to be exactly what i wanted to achieve.  Traveling alone has been an eye-opening experience because you get to meet many interesting people along the way.  The randomness of my travels and the lack of planning has also been fun, you would all be surprised how relaxed and go-with-the-flow these last few weeks have been.  One of my traveling companions commented (after I explained recent travels in Yunnan) that i travel "by the seat of my pants."  The last week or so couldn't be summed up any better than that and the randomness and lack of official planning has really added to the experience.  I now have plenty of new facebook friends and potential travel buddies after being in China (and India and Africa for that matter). Now off to Chengdu (the famous Panda research city) as a last stop off before heading back to Shanghai to fly home for family, friends, partying, weddings, and dare i say...a strict workout schedule!