Too High

Half way to Litung lies a small town, Kangding (pronounced Candy) with gushing rapids running right through the centre, neatly dividing it into two, and brightly coloured buddhas painted onto the mountainside above. Its here that China begins to really feel like Tibet – where green tea becomes ‘butter tea’ – a salty milky frothy drink which tastes like its fresh from the Yak - and where bright red cheeks give away the people’s true Tibetan mountain blood.

We stayed at the top of town, in a hostel where travellers congregate on their way into the highlands. Talk soon turned to the Litang horse festival, where we learned that there had been trouble earlier in the week. The festival is one of the few traditional meeting places for Tibetans from all over the Kahm region of Tibet (part of which is in China, and part in the Tibetan Autonomous Region); and for that reason the horse festival has been politicised by the Chinese ‘occupation’ as a rare chance for Tibetans to come together and voice their unhappiness. Consequently, the second day of the festival had been marked by political protest, soon descending into a stand off with the Chinese army; and then riots in which a Tibetan man was shot and killed by the military. Things had apparently calmed down, and the festival was still going, but it was to be the last ever horse festival of this kind that the Chinese would tolerate. We decided it was still worth the chance.

The next day we were up at the crack of dawn (she didn’t seem to mind - J) to begin what has to be one of the bumpiest, uncomfortable and yet stunning drives. Beautiful mountain countryside, ravines and waterfalls, dotted with grey brick Tibetan houses with multi-coloured windowsills. After a few hours, every bump in the road (and there were many) could be felt through the ancient bus seats, making the bus trip almost as much of an endurance test as climbing the mountain itself. We drove higher and higher, (the night before we’d been asked how high we’d been before; our response was, um, “is that a metaphorical question?”). We past a sign that said, scarily, 4600m . From a height of 2500 the previous night, we had climbed over two thousand metres in a matter of hours. I turned to Jonny, who was looking exceedingly pale. I feared the worst; travel sickness being one of the few minor ailments Jonny doesn’t suffer from.

Altitude sickness is a strange thing. If you’ve had it before it doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily get it again. And if you’re a super fit trekker accustomed to high altitude you can get it just as easily as someone who isn’t. Either way, at best its unpleasant, at worst it can be extremely serious. Jonny had suffered once before, in Peru; my only experience of altitude sickness had been a legendary New Years Day hangover in 1997, when I swore blind I had it (at 1400m), and passed out in the back of the car for the afternoon while the family went skiing.

An hour and a half later we were in Litung. Two hours later we found out there had been more arrests the previous day and two monks had been arrested for handing out political leaflets. Three hours later, we were both in a real state with extreme headaches and being violently sick. There was only one thing for it: we had to get down the mountain as soon as possible. Early next morning we found ourselves going back the way we came. Tibet and the horse festival had been screwed by China. And we had been screwed by Tibet.

Museum Peace

"The Great Wall Climber"

We've spent the last week or two ticking so many tourist boxes en route to Sechuan, that I think we might be 'templed out' before we've even reached Nepal!! Mind you, the four hour trek along the Great Wall just outside Beijing was truly great (even if I did twist my ankle stupidly jumping out of a watch tower), and the Terracotta Warriors were definitely worth the queue, as were some spectacular cave temples called the Longmen Caves - a UNESCO world heritage sight that we hadn't realised even existed.


Thousands of Buddha's carved into a rockface, from 1" to 100' high, all with different expressions and meanings...not that we knew what the meanings were as most of the explanation, as ever, was in Chinese. We're getting used to putting our own spin on things!

The Chinese approach to museums is interesting, to say the least. The Forbidden City in Beijing suffers from the fact that almost all its interior treasures got taken to Taiwan, where they now sit in a reputedly amazing museum. Those few that were left are now behind window panes which haven’t been cleaned for years. I’m all for repatriation of the world’s treasures to their rightful places (Elgin Marbles anyone?) but to be honest, at least for the moment some of those might be better off where they are. In Pingyao, a perfectly preserved old town just outside Beijing, the tourists crowd in to see a slice of old China. It’s like a movie set – and all the more interesting because its still very much a working (if increasingly touristy) town. But when the very artefacts which they’ve come to see are, quite literally, left outside to rust in the rain, you have to wonder how long this gravy train can last.

"Pingyao - last vestiges of reality before tourism sets in..."

So now we have arrived in Chengdu, capital of Sechuan, where much to Jonny's annoyance, he's discovered he can't stand the aftertaste of the world famous Sechuan Pepper (its a bit like detergent to the wrong tongue), leaving me to deal with the spicy hot pot, and him to put up with the milder version... certainly not playing to type!

We've just got wind of an annual Horse festival in Litung, near the Tibet/China border which is about 300 km west of Chengdu. Its apparently an amazingly colourful experience and involves all kinds of horse racing, skill demonstration and general 'wow' horsemanship. It finishes in a few days time, so if we're going to catch it, we've got to get the early bus (8 hours, then another 8 hours and a climb to over 4000m so hopefully no altitude sickness!).

Beginning in Beijing

We’d heard a lot about Beijing before we left London; mainly as the subject of much derision for its over-pollution, overpopulation, and over-demolition. But for us it was nothing if not a pleasant surprise.

True, the legendary traffic fumes choke the sunlight so you rarely see more than a haze over ”Old Peking” (you wake up coughing as if you’d smoked a packet of Benson and Hedges the night before) but despite this and the enormous scale of the place, which perhaps only dedicated urban dwellers can really enjoy, Beijing is one of the most relaxed capital cities I have ever been to.


Even the ubiquitous Tianannmen Square scammers aren’t very savvy in the grand scheme of things: we met a few travellers who had managed to scam them right back. Still, the vast majority of people treat westerners as somewhere between minor celebrities and the subject of much hilarity: we frequently turned around to find ourselves suddenly the subject of a group photograph - no questions asked!


Wandering through the Hutongs, its easy to see how the old style of Chinese living is disappearing very quickly in the name of ‘progress’, and with it much of the community feeling that living cheek-by-jowl demands. But that said, when traditional Hutongs lack basic sanitation, and whole families are living in rooms no larger than a double bedroom, perhaps progress really is the only way forward. Either way, the decision has been made. It ain’t pretty, but Beijing is now a thoroughly modern city.