Chengdu, China
Taking the High Mountain Road-Almost to Tibet
How do you plan a trip in China without knowing the language or being familiar with ways to get around this huge land of over a billion people? It ain't easy! We found that out very quickly.
We couldn't have done it at all without the "bible" we later saw most Caucasians carrying under their arms-the Lonely Planet China guide. Through it, we located the China International Travel Service-with the help of the hotel business office. We got in touch with Mr. Henry Huang. We're in luck, we thought, believing he spoke some English. How wrong we were.
But blundering through our conversations with Henry, we managed to set up some tours-into big mountains we said, and down the Yangtze River. Mountains? I repeated, when he outlined his ideas-in broken English and Chinese. Yes, mountains, he said. River, we asked? Yes, river, he said.
He went away to plan. We went away to find several banks before we found the main Bank of China where we could get cash in Chinese yuans for the trip---they would not take credit cards in most locations. There were a few disasters along the way---like Nancy losing her credit card and calling America-with great difficulty-- to cancel it. And packing extra unneeded clothes now that we were not teaching and going through the ordeal of figuring out how to send them to America. (FEDEX, where are you when we need you?)
Finally, without a clue as to where we were headed, we did what Henry instructed. On faith, we took a plane from Jinan, the capitol of Shandong Province, to Chengdu in Sichuan Province. There someone would meet us to tell us our itinerary, he said. Our Chinese odyssey had begun.
But, unbeknownst to us, our daughters were worried. They hadn't heard from us for several days. Emily, my daughter, called Gail, Nancy's daughter. Where are our mothers, they asked each other? Nobody knew. By the time Emily got a Chinese friend to make a call to the Zibo Hotel (it took several hours and many calls) we had left with no forwarding address, Of course, we had no idea where we would be going because we could not understand Henry Huang's language and had left no forwarding address. Emily went into action at that point. What would any devoted daughter do under those dire circumstances?
Just what she did. She called the American Embassy in Beijing. Our Mothers Are Missing, she said. Can you find them? (They never did.)
Chengdu in Sichuan Province is the gateway to Tibet. Roads out of town lead to a land of giant panda bears, colorful Tibetan temples and monasteries, rugged high mountain peaks covered in dense fog, tiny terraces cut out of rocky slopes where corn and apples and peaches grow, and a land where the Tibetan people live by herding yaks, sheep and goats on high grassy slopes and along roads that lead to Lhasa.
An ancient Chinese poem says that the road to Sichuan is harder to travel than the road to heaven. The Sichuan-Tibet Highway, begun in 1950 and completed in 1954, is known as one of the world's highest, roughest, most dangerous-and most beautiful.
All of that is true-we can tell you after days of traveling on the northern route to Jiuzhai Gou. High up in the mountains in northern Sichuan, this World Heritage Site is a vast land of dense alpine forests, extraordinary emerald lakes, and huge waterfalls that resemble in miniature the incredible Iguazu Falls of Brazil. It is also a land of incredibly tortuous winding, never ending hair-pin turn, narrow two lane roads. Notoriously dangerous, these roads are not meant for the timid; you take your life in your hands as you chug high up through mountain after mountain pass in a third-class Chinese bus, peering far down at the roaring glacial river thousands of feet below.
When you get to your destination, you think you have found Shangri La. That 's what the Tibetan natives say.
For us, that was true!
We found this land of Shangri La after a 14-hour bus ride with our new Chinese friends on a tour to this fairy land of mountain beauty. The group of Chinese tourists was silent and wary when we climbed into their bus on the first morning. But after four and a half days of bumping and swaying and hanging on for dear life along terrifying mountain roads, hiking many kilometers through dense mountain forests, walking around jade-tinted lakes, finding your way with the mass of Chinese tourists by cramming into tiny buses that take you over dirt roads into the incredibly beautiful nature preserve, eating box lunches seated on stones along the side of mountain trails, and stepping on broad wooden planks as you navigate around huge waterfalls, though you are the only "round eyes," in a thousand miles, you are bound to bond with your companions. Even though you speak only a few words of their language, you manage to communicate many thoughts-good and bad--and when finally you depart from their tour, you have never-to-be-forgotten memories of a remarkable trip in the region of China approaching Tibet.
But it all began peacefully enough. Mr. Wong Pei Jiao (Long River) was our young guide on the tour. There were 20 of us in all. We two could communicate with him only slightly because of the language barrier, but what saved us was a Chinese couple who had lived in Vienna, Austria for a number of years and spoke fluent German. Nancy had lived in Germany, and the conversation that emerged was a hoot-it went from Chinese to broken German to pidgin English---that was how we learned what was happening, where to go, when to eat, and when there would be rest stops, for several days, sometimes in very comical ways!
That's how we found out we were headed for Jiuzhai Gou. It is a little known treasure of China where we were the only Caucasians that we saw among the thousands of Chinese hikers touring this remote fog-shrouded region of jagged mountain peaks and rushing rivers. This mountainous area can best be likened to a combination of Yosemite, the Rockies and the Tetons in the U.S., only you find ancient cobblestone paths instead of sleek highways, street artisans peddling yak skulls and cooking Mongolian barbecue over open fires instead of McDonalds, and Tibetans pulling oxen along the roads instead of guys on Harleys.
You also might live through an avalanche! At least that's what happened to us, and we will never forget it!
That day at Jouzhai Gou we had hiked many painful miles. By 4:30 p.m. our bones ached, we were dirty and worn out and ready to return to our bus back to the village. We thought that's what we were doing when we set out on the last hike, accompanied by our Chinese/German couple. We were told we had two routes to choose from for hiking. The first was along the bottom of the canyon where we saw most Chinese hiking. But if we took that route, we'd have to climb the mountain to the peak at the end of the trail. The other was a trail across the mountain half way up, more dangerous but we wouldn't have to make that impossible hike up the mountain at the end of the trail. (All this was taking place at an altitude of about 11-12,000 feet high.) So what else? We chose the high road.
Coming around the mountain toward the bus parked far up the mountain, we suddenly saw that an avalanche had just occurred. That's why the road was gone. To get by it we had to climb over the huge rocks and soft earth that marked the avalanche trail. We also had to move swiftly because boulders and rocks were still tumbling down the mountainside. We were at the end of our rope and totally out of breath, but finally, we walked swiftly over the avalanche trail, and exhausted, we finished the four kilometer hike up the mountain and made it to the bus-our last stop. We thought!
It was then we learned we were actually headed for yet another scenic view of a lake! We were speechless, but what could we do? We went to Long Lake, saw many Tibetans in colorful garb, and then turned to do the weary hike back!
By now rain was coming down in a fine mist. We headed back getting soaked, around the mountain we had just traversed. But trouble was brewing.
When we reached the avalanche area, we found that more landslides had tumbled down the mountain-and the road we had hiked an hour before was now gone! There was no path left, just a 20-30 foot steep drop where the road had been and a precipitous patch of rock and boulder and loose wet mud. The only way to get back was to slide down the mountain to get to a lower path and continue the hike.
We both said, "Oh God, we can't do that." We stood there for a moment and then it hit us. We had to slide down. There was no other way to get back.
I turned around facing the mountain and crawling backwards on my hands and knees, I reached for slippery footholds step by step beneath me. I knew if I slipped, I'd go careening down the mountain about a thousand feet to the canyon below. But I went slowly, carefully, finding secure toe holds before gingerly moving downward. My safeguard was a Tibetan man; he stood at the bottom of the slope, arms outstretched, indicating he'd stop my fall and catch me if I slipped. And he did! At the bottom he helped me get up safely and I got out of Nancy's way as she slipped down the slope.
Well, we got out of the landslide safely, and the rest is history. We were supposed to have an uneventful ride back to Chengdu the next day, but an avalanche buried the main road. Our guide argued with passengers but prevailed when he said we'd have to take an old dirt road 300 kilometers over the highest mountains to return to Chengdu. But that's another story.
Meanwhile, my thought for the day, as usual, was the headline I pictured if we didn't make it out of the mountains near Tibet.
"Two Crazy Americans Die in Avalanche in Himalayas." But that wasn't to be.
Instead the two crazy Americans were headed for the nuttiest adventure of all: Riding down the Yangtze in a rusted out Chinese boat!
[Go to China Part Four]
