China

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.