Monthly Archives: October 2012

Waking up to the sound of the motel owner yelling through the door “Are you still here?”, we quickly scrambled to wash up and pack our things. The town of Mangkang had little to offer in terms of tourism, but was a fork in the road for people entering/exiting Tibet, as eastward you would continue to Sichuan, while southward you’d be heading towards Yunnan.

By the time we ate lunch, we’ve already missed the bus to Deqen by 6 hours. There was actually only ONE southbound road, and we figured we’ll just have to hitchhike our way down. Starting at about 1pm, we waited at the side of the road hoping someone would pick us up. Truck drivers were nice and usually slowed down to explain to us why they can’t pick us up (i.e. Stopping at the garbage grounds up ahead, not enough room) while every car would just bypass us. And after talking to so many people, we thought hitchhiking in/out of Tibet was easy!! Continue reading →

This day was not a good day. Again.

Waking up to the sound of a rattling bus engine, it was 5am and we were barely conscious. The rest was short and we’re now back on the dirt road winding, with our backs aching at every bump as we’ve been cramped on this piece of shit for 18hours.

Fast forward to 1pm, we arrived at a ‘truck stop’ town for lunch. The town was a brisk 4-6hrs away, so we were eating as quick as we can, thinking we can get there before dinner. Everybody had the same feeling, and were eating at a lightning speed. Problem was, when everyone was done, the drivers were still waiting for their dishes and taking their sweet time. One of the travelers barked “Maybe we should speed things up”, and the driver casually waved him off saying “You can’t rush a meal.”. So about 20 people were waiting for about 1hr as the drivers went on feasting on their freshly cooked dishes (while everyone else had pre-cooked dishes or noodles to save time). We finally departed at 2pm! Yayyy, back on the road and back to our cramped bed…. Continue reading →

This day was not a good day.

The bus terminal was closed by the time we arrived the previous day, and we had NO clue what time the bus would leave Linzhi to our next destination of Mangkang. Some people said 8am, some people said 7am. So just to be safe, the bus terminal opens at 7am and we got there right when it opened. Once we asked about the bus to Mangkang, we found out it leaves at 11am! So we idled around until the bus was ready.

The bus was a sleeper-bus headed to Chongqing for a 4-day journey, and we were expected to arrive tomorrow afternoon. Being a sleeper, there were no seats but just many ‘beds’, we’ve sat in these before but in Vietnam, and we have to say the one in Vietnam was much cleaner and better… Each ‘bed/seat’ was provided a blanket and a pillow, but the cotton that covered the brownish looking blanket looked tattered and musty. We looked to the sides and couldn’t help but notice the newer, cleaner and comfier looking buses that dotted the parking lot and figured how we managed to be lucky enough to get on the shittiest one… Continue reading →

We’re leaving Tibet and heading south-east to the province of Yunnan. Problem is, Kunming (our last Chinese destination) is about 2200km away and being very close to the National Holiday where citizens get about a week off in China, the number of tourists increased exponentially. On our way, we plan on stopping over at Shangri-la, Lijiang and Dali before finally arriving at Kunming.

Originally, there was a bus straight to Shangri-la, but the problem was that the buses from Lhasa for the next 3 days were already sold out!! So, our only option was to take the bus one stop at a time (since there’s only one road between Lhasa and Shangri-la), and our first stop would be Linzhi (aka Bayi or “Eight-One”, literally named after August 1st…haha strange), the supposed “lush valley and flowing rivers” region of Tibet. Considering the sparse vegetation and high altitude of other areas of Tibet, this could be easily understood since Linzhi has a much lower altitude and is situated close to the Yarlung river.

On the 8hr bus ride, we were once again blessed with Jacky Chan and his high-flying ways. Once he was done, the next movie was….. Aftershock (唐山大地震)…. okay? It was a great movie but not wanting to cry our eyes out, we got the driver to switch to music. The driver has some good taste in music, playing a good mix of old music remixed with a techno-background and some Tibetan songs.

Getting into town, it was pretty late and there wasn’t much to see. The town itself is situated in some pretty nice land with good views of the surrounding mountains, but like most other towns in Tibet its rather new and uninteresting. The best part about this place though….is that we found a congee place! At first we were a bit skeptical, but our desire of not wanting to eat Sichuan food overwhelmed everything and we risked our chances and were extremely happy we did!!! Yeahhhh. 

Waking up as early as possible, we wanted to see if we can get up onto the mountain tops where the ‘viewing platform’ is for you to see the Oracle Lake’s miraculous powers. This is the lake where high-lamas go for signs of the next Dalai Lama or other reincarnations of other high-lamas.

For commoners, it is purported we can see our past, present and future life….amazing!

When we got to the ticket-stop, we were told that there road to the mountain top is closed due to construction, and are only able to go down to the lake side. Nooo! Not content at the situation, we ignored the authorities like any respectable Chinese person, and still drove up into the mountains hehehe… On our way up, the roads were totally fine, thanks to the massive amounts of construction crews living in tents. Workers just woke up and haven’t really started working, so we whizzed past all of them before we hit the parking lot to the viewing platform.

It was short climb up to the top with stairs, and after a brisk 20minute climb we finally made it to the top. The funny thing was, our Tibetan driver wanted to come up with us, but he put his heritage to shame as he barely made it half way by the time we were at the top, and we can see him huffing and puffing down below…hehe

The beautiful part about the road closures is that we had the whole mountain top to ourselves! We’ll pay for it later, but that’s a different story. From our perspective at the mountain top, the lake was situated at the opposite end of a valley, compact and neatly shaped. The water itself was calm, unlike that of a reflection pond with a glacier towering behind it….but size isn’t what’s important here, it’s how you use it.

The Visions of Oracle Lake

Alan: A volcano emerged shortly after witnessing the lake. In my mind, this was to be Mount Vesuvius, reinforcing my notion that I was Roman/Italian in my prior life resulting in my interest in their architecture/food/arts. Sitting idly next to the volcano was a princess with long hair, and a vision of a wise old man with a crown appeared above her. Like a Etch-N-Sketch board, the whole image changed with a moment’s notice as the view now turned into a young man, resembling a prince, standing tall in an athletic stance. Another moment passed, another change, and this time it was a chef, walking briskly whilst holding high a platter of food. And the very last vision was that of a beach, with a very young girl happily chasing after a ball.

Jiajia: A lobster ( ha ha ha ). For the longest time, the vision of a lobster appeared on the surface of the lake and wouldn’t move. Next was a ying-yang face, before finally turning into a snow-capped mountain.

We stood there for almost 45minutes, and that was what we saw. Without looking very deeply into our visions and taking it for face value, a lobster is a pretty awesome vision no matter what context you put it in…hehehe. Our Tibetan driver has been here four times, and he’s never seen anything. Guess we’ve got a little more ‘seeds of wisdom’ than he does.

And with that was the end of our adventure and we headed back to town. Problem was, construction is now in full bloom and the 13km dirt path was dotted with asphalt pavers and excavators, all of whom knew we weren’t supposed to be on the trail and never bothered moving out of the way for us and turned a 1hr trip into 2hrs!! Oh well, it was all worth’d =P