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★ Cross Traverse Mountains —16 days from Cheng Du to Dege (Tibetan border)
Difficulty: Moderate
If you use Google Earth® software to check the map of Sichuan ,you will find that there is a mountain system goes from north to south and there are four big rivers among different canyons. That’s called the Traverse Mountains, formed by the great crashing between the India plate and the Asia plate—the movement of the earth crust. The geologic traverse caused the culture traverse. In different canyons you could see different culture, although the distance is not far between two mountain lines and people in canyons are all the same ethnic.
This 16-day trip will start from Chengdu—the capital of Sichuan province, head northwest all the way to the boundary of Sichuan and Tibet—The Gold Sand River(upper section of the Yangtze), we will cross 5 major mountain passes, meet 4 sects of Tibetan Buddhism monastery and 4 branches of Tibetan . Here is the day by day itinerary:
Group meets in Chengdu, half day warm up by cycling in the downtown, if time is enough, we could cycle to the Panda park, if not, enjoy tea in local traditional tea house is still a good choice.
Tea House in Chengdu : Chengdu , since thousands years ago, it is a marketing place, tea house culture is unique here, it is not only a place for relax, also a place of information port. All kinds of citizen crowded in tea house in order to get information they need. Some times we could see some tea-service-art.
Panda park: As we know, Panda is a unique animal that only life in western China , and Sichuan owns most of Pandas. This Panda park was built up for adult pandas to give birth easier.
We will drive out of Chengdu to Dujiangyan Dujiangyan river project is a world-class wonder. It was built 3000 years ago, probably it is the only world heritage that still works. The ideal of “take advantage of the river force” theory is an amazing case of liquid logic. After Dujiangyan we keep driving to Wolong, check in to hotel and do a warm up cycling before we getting higher altitude. Wolong, a national nature conservancy park, it contains a valley which has wild Pandas and a tributary of Ming river, we will have a two hours trek in a virgin forest for searching Lesser Panda (Red Panda) .
Drive out from Wolong to the foot of the Balang Mountain pass, start “climbing”, the landscape is very similar as Swiss mountain area, as the road winding up, we will have a nice view of creeks, valley, snow mountains, grassland. The downhill of this mountain is lot of fun, end by Rilongguan, the Chinese Chamonix ( a mountain village of The Alps )
A long downhill day along Xiaojin River all the way to Danba. Danba, is famous for: ancient watch towers, beauty girls, and magic geography. There are five rivers flow around this small town, like a five-angle star on map: The Daking, Xiaojin, Yak, Geshitza join to The Dadu river which flows to The Yangtze. Along these rivers there are many Gyarong Tibetan villages, these mountain villagers’ ancestors built lots of stone watch towers for defense them from attacking by enemy thousand years ago. Hospitable villagers there will give you a deep memory.
In the morning, we cycle down stream along the Dadu river, cross a hanging bridge, and hike up hill to an old village and discover the watch towers. Probably climb up on of them. In the afternoon, we cycle up stream along the Daking river and up to another mountain village called Jiaju, spend a night there in a Tibetan guesthouse, wondering around, discover the culture.
We will cycle down hill to Danba town and have breakfast. Then drive up stream along the Yak river to a hot spring, have a quickly washing. Then start riding up hill—the second major mountain pass called Gada. Keep down hill after the mountain pass, we will visit our first Tibetan Monastery of Yellow Sect, called Gadashangbalin—where the 11th Dalai Lama was born and which was used to be the summer palace of the 7th Dalai Lama. Bamay is a small quiet town full of Kangpa Tibetan horse man.
We are riding into grass land, which is quite a different culture than the last few days. Nomads are herding outside, and fork songs spread in the wind. The third major mountain pass is much easier than the last two but the landscape is still impressive.
It is really a daydream to see so many luxury villas today. The architecture style there is called “Bonko”, which uses a large number of logs. It is a rolling road on a relaxing day.
A hard mountain pass is Luoguo which has three tops to torture us. Tibetan nuns can be seen when we are climbing up from a small village. They may curiously stop you and ask you strange questions, like, “ How could you change your eyes into blue?” Kangpa people are located in this open area. Sometimes they even want to have a photo with you dressed up in a traditional long gown.
This ride has more nomads, more Kangpa people, more monasteries, bigger grass land and no big mountain pass. Everything should be perfect today.
This is the highest mountain pass called Qola which has an altitude of 5050m. .
The next stop is Dege, a small town near the Gold Sand river. It is the center of the Kangpa culture. We will visit a traditional printing house which prints Buddhism bibles, and a unique monastery which feeds Hinduism gods. In the afternoon we will cycle to the Tibetan border and drive back.
We will mostly drive, but choose some nice down hill cycling.
We will mostly drive, but choose some nice down hill cycling
The next stop is Kangding, capital of Ganzi Tibetan Autonomic Prefecture. This is a town deep in the Daxueshan canyon, a VIT of the Tea-Horse trading road.
This is a 5-7 hours drive. We will watch a Sichuan Opera called Face Change during dinner. The we will enjoy a good dream.
Tour price:
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