April 19 2013: Benzilan - Shangri-La
Starting the day with devotions
I
woke up excited to finally be On The Road To Shangri-La. As a bit of a let down, I should explain that
this Shangri-La is a purely Chinese invention; they simply changed the name of
a town with the largest Buddhist monastery in China from Zhongdian to
Shangri-La in 2002 (I suspect for tourist reasons!). So if you are planning to
get there, yes, there is a small airstrip, and there are internal China
flights, but all listed in going to Zhongdian, not S-L!
Before
getting really into the day’s journey, we stopped at the absolutely idyllic
Tibetan village of Gonjo. At this point
I need to digress and describe our team:
Superb
team-leader Jackson, an energetic Canadian-educated HKer who also speaks fluent
Mandarin and loves fast cars (Jackson had driven groups of Maserati and Ferrari
motorheads through China before joining the OTRIC team in their comfy but
robust 4WD Pradas) and also loves his food (extra digression – how come so many
HKers eat such huge amounts of food and stay so lithe? Not fair);
as
mentioned our most-important person, lead car driver Gu, who kept our cars
clean and running and full of petrol with no effort on our part! A stellar guy,
who could no doubt run a marathon smoking a fag and swigging his nightly
(small) bottle of Mao Tai rice spirit.
Then
there was Stone Lee, a Lijiang native who now lives in Shangri-La, he speaks
good English and was our “local” liaison man, sweet and helpful, but a complete
non-believer, so I did see him get in a bit of a squabble with a very
belligerent young monk when he wouldn’t buy the joss sticks and kow-tow!
And
then there was Jeff, I’ve saved him till last because his is the longest story
– he’s an attractive mountaineer of indeterminate age, Canadian born of
Hungarian and English parents, raised in Switzerland and has now lived in
Shangri-La for ten years. This was his
first OTRIC trip and he was nervous about spending 10 days + in cars, so quite
relieved when we proved to be an energetic bunch with a great interest in his
mountain stories and much-travelled life.
The reason he had been asked to join our ride was that we were following
a large section of something dear to his heart – the Tea Horse Trail from
Shangri-La to Lhasa. Sponsored by Penguin, Jeff led an expedition along the
whole route – for more info check his website www.jefffuchs.com Tea has long been a passion of his – another
site he has is www.tea-and-mountain-journals.com. We were so lucky to have his knowledge of so
many subjects, always imparted in a modest and inspiring way.
Anyway,
the point of all this is that the little village of Gonjo – remember I
mentioned that, see start of para? – was one of the places that he visited on
the Tea Horse Trail expedition, so we went off the road up a side valley to
find it. We were lucky enough to find
the old lady who sheltered them at home, plus nearby were two working wood bowl
craftsmen who sold through her daughter’s connections; it was so fascinating
watching the skill of these artisans. It
was a wonderful family setting and we were invited to tea and to share a tiny
bit of their lives – I will let the photos tell the full tale.
 |
| Entering Gonjo |
 |
| The specks are the dust which flew everywhere ! |
This wonderful old lady had actually ridden the Tea Horse Trail herself, dressed as a man.
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| Jeff shares old times |
The house is next to the Luding Bridge, crossed by the Red Army in 1935 during the Long March, whilst retreating from the Kuomingtang. The crossing was one of the key episodes of the Long March and a replica of the bridge features in the Long March museum in Shangri-La.
It
was then a fairly leisurely drive through lush alpine forests and over one high
stupa-adorned pass at 4,292 meters and on through the UNESCO heritage sie of
Baima National reserve. Nearly all the
rhododendrons in the world originated in this area and we were lucky to find
swathes of pink ones in full bloom later on – see Day 10. Sadly, we did not spot one of the promised
red pandas or snow leopards supposedly still roaming there.
And
then we came round a corner and the great grasslands of Shangri-La were before
us – such a contrast after our many days in the mountains! The famed Ganden
Sumtseling monastery sits on a hill up above the main town, with other small
villages of large Tibetan farmsteads dotting the plain. Some have to move house
lock, stock and barrel in wet summers, but like much of China, the whole of
Yunnan has suffered many years of drought and several high mountain villagers
have had to move further down hill as their lands become barren through lack of
rain
The
beautiful Ganden Sumtseling monastery has had the main parts recently
repainted, and whilst very splendiferous, the colours were a little too bright for us
and it’ll be better in a few years when it’s aged.
However I was enchanted by a small weather-beaten section further down where I found a lovely monk to bless a prayer bracelet for me. I missed the smell of yak-butter candles that overpowers the monasteries we visited in Tibet many years ago; here, joss sticks are the order of the day, as in HK.
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However I was enchanted by a small weather-beaten section further down where I found a lovely monk to bless a prayer bracelet for me. I missed the smell of yak-butter candles that overpowers the monasteries we visited in Tibet many years ago; here, joss sticks are the order of the day, as in HK.
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