The Road to Litang

Another epic and memorable adventure we went through yesterday. As told, we left early to catch the jeep we rented for 100euro. First a quick breakfast at our favourite 3x4m restaurant: noodles!
If you rent a jeep with a driver in China, you shouldn't be surprised if a second guy turns up and starts moving your luggage in the trunk to fit in himself, but no problem, the trunk was big enough. So we left. While driving, we again saw the most beautiful landscapes. Stunning autumn colours fill the grasslands and valleys, and the higher we climbed, the valleys became dryer. We stopped several times to take pictures, and passed passes of +4000m. We never did more hairpin bends in our life. And then we noticed that our driver's eyelids started falling down... and that's not exactly what you would like to see when looking down cliffs of tens or hundreds of meters down every turn the car makes. Suddenly it became clear why he had taken a break to wash his face and had started to smoke one cigarette after the other. Eline grabbed his shoulder and told Orchid, the girlfriend of the other Belgian guy, that this guy ws falling asleep. She translated, but the guy just laughed. Chinese can't admit if they are making mistakes or if they can't finnish the task. They loose face then, and would rather die (with us). (stup... other culture). We were terrified, and asked more picture stops.
It became better! A few kilometers before we arrived in Xiancheng... boom! flat tire! And yes, we were still enjoying excellent views at deadly hights. great! We stopped, had a llok, and suddenly they started shouting that we should get back in. We were going to drive with a leaking tire (back right wheel). Luckily, it was only a kilometer or so, and the cliffs were gone after a few hundred meters.

We paid, took our gear and head for the busstation. Steven and Orchid wanted to continue to Litang, in stead of spending the night and catch the bus the next morning (at 6). as there wasn't much to see, we agreed to share a taxi again. We also couldn't go to Daocheng, as this town is the reason that there was no public travel to this region. There are struggles between the villages there (where minorities live who don't really like each other), and according to some rumours here in Litang, already 20 casualties would have been reported, but it's impossible to get good information here.

Time for bargaining...no. In Xiancheng, they have a fixed price of 50euro (500Yuan), and all had sworn in front of the temple never to go lower!!!! Primitive cartel deals!!! This is an outrage!! Have you ever seen something like it? Little bastards... So no choice, an oath is an oath. We took off again. The driver was a maniak, and the back seat was horribly bumby. But after a few kilometers, we were stopped by another car. We had to change cars with this taxi, so neither of the drivers had to spend the night in another city. Our driver told us he wasn't dressed either to go to Litang (and Chinese don't think 5 hours in advance, or even about the next hairpin bend). But we agreed, as it was cheaper (this one wasn't from Xiancheng, so no oath) and more comfortable. He was also faster, much faster, dangerously faster! While doing deadly bends again, the smell of burned rubber filled the car (not joking). But this guy at least looked more competent than the previous one. We stopped again at a pass, where Steven's watch quoted 4500m. The view was magnificent. THe road ahead was still long. We saw a rainbow from above, drove through landscapes that could come straight out of Lord of the Rings, and passed a town where a circus had pitched its tent. It was long dark when we arrived in Litang, at 4015m.
We headed for Mr Zheng's restaurant, whom Steven knows. A great friendly Chinese man who opened his restaurant especilly for us and made us dinner. Then we went to sleep. The other couple had scared us, as we could hev bad dreams and shortness of breath when sleeping, but luckily, we had a great night of sleep.

Today we are taking it easy, to get used to the thin air and the altitude. Hight sickness would be a monstrous spoiler. So here we are in an Internet cafe, blogging and uploading pictures. We will also book our Tibet trip from here, but we are running out of time for the rest of our trip. We don't want to rush through these marvellous regions. But that endangers our encounter with my parents in Laos and Cambodja, as well as our well deserved week of beach in Thailand. We'll see, maybe we'll come back a week later :-). Time for some hard decisions....

Keep on writing reactions, keep on reading. And if we don't write something in the next week, please visit Benjamin's blog, it's great, and their stories will make you laugh and shiver.

One final remark. I (F) got many compliments about the pictures on Flickr, but do know that only 50% of those photos are mine, Eline has an even share.

See you in Chengdu, or earlier if possible.