Kham Again

From Tiger Leaping Gorge, we headed further north into Tibetan Yunnan, where we approached the high altitude plateaux at an altogether more sensible pace. Before Tiger Leaping Gorge, we’d taken in the very beautiful but distinctly touristy town of Lijiang, whose great saviour was the amazing quality of its arts and crafts, but wanted to get further off the beaten track, if we could. We got to Zhongdian, recently re-christened Shangri-La to help bring in tourist trade after it was named as the subject of the 1930s British novel Lost Horizon (available in all good Yunnan bookshops).

Its 80% Tibetan here, with a few other minority groups, and really feels it: cold and crisp with the kind of amazing quality of light that you get at very high altitudes; Tibetan people of all ages dancing in a circle in the town square at dusk; being served deep fried yak cheese with sugar for breakfast (surprisingly tasty!).

Shangri La was our stopping off point to get to Deqin (Day-chin), which we’d heard was a largely unspoilt region. Its difficult to get to, being at least two days journey from the nearest airport or train station, and is only just opening up to tourism. We stayed at a little Tibetan trekking lodge – traditionally built in brick and wood and with space to keep animals below (newly converted to a shower block for backpackers) and with murals and paintings on all the walls.

Leaving our big packs behind and taking the barest essentials, we did a steep four hour trek uphill to a mountain pass. From there it was an hour downhill to a little village called Yebong. The facilities here are basic, to say the least. In fact, we’ve got quite used to decent backpacker hostels and clean, warm surroundings in almost all of the places we’ve stayed. Here it was rough and ready – four newly constructed hostels in a row on the side of the valley, with planks knocked together and thin mattresses for beds, one shower shack outside – solar powered shower though, not bad - and a ‘thunder-box’ on the path outside.

But to make up for the lack of creature comforts, Yebong is a valley truly deserving of the moniker ‘stunning’. There is no road, people get around on foot and mule and I guessed that this was how the Swiss Alps may have looked, in the days before carver skis and cable cars. Waking up in the morning and looking out over the valley, it was difficult to keep your balance: the feast for the eyes was too much to take in.

From Yebong you can trek to waterfalls and glaciers – all difficult climbs (for us) through thick mud and steep forest, but really worth it when you get there. We went in a group as it’s easy to get lost. The area is so new to tourism there aren’t any decent maps to be had; one man nearly didn’t find his way back and a search party was sent out to find him.

Getting back after the day’s trekking, we ate at the hostel. This wasn’t as straightforward as it sounds, as Jonny had to go into the kitchen (which was only lit by one dim light bulb) and order according to what he could see on the shelves. Spying a piece of meat, he flapped his arms in the universal sign of the chicken, and received a nod of the head. Great, he thought, chicken with vegetables. A short while later, much to the dismay of the group of Israeli’s who we’d been trekking with, a beautifully cooked piece of pork was served up. His excuse? In Tibet, pigs must fly! The flying pig was closely followed by a huge pot of casserole, containing an entire chicken, which had been duly chased around the yard and sacrificed for our dinner. Head, claws, everything was included!

It can't be long before this kind of life is a thing of the past for Deqin. It's certainly true that where backpackers go, a couple of years later the Chinese tour groups will follow. Deqin's saving grace at the moment is the lack of road but given that the Chinese government have built a train to Tibet's isolated capital, Lhasa, and are half way to finishing their highway to Everest base camp, unspoilt parts of Tibet are increasingly difficult to find.