Sep 17 23:09 Jz Club Deqin德钦
When we left at 7:30 am from De Rong 得荣, the sun was already up. We drove along the beautiful river inside the valley – Ive hardly seen water of this beautiful green color in China. About 20 minutes later, Were just talking about how bad the environment was damaged here because there are not many trees on the mountain side and it would very easy to have landslide, we found the road in front of us was blocked because of the landslide. Gao helped a motorcycle to get out of the mud and found that it was too deep for our jeep to go through. We had to wait for the road team to come and fix it. I was glad that I had 3G card so that I can get on the internet in the car. We chatted with other cars around and found several tourists also from Hangzhou and a group of photography fans from Jiangsu. They were all surprised to find that we drove from Hangzhou and still planning to go into Tibet – honestly this is really nothing comparing with Gaos experience, but I was still a little happy about the fact I finally decided to make this trip.
It only took the government about 1 hour to fix the road for us to go through – I was amazed at the efficiency.
After another 20 minutes, we are at the first turn of Jinsha River 金沙江(Golden Sand River). It was truly magnificent! Two rivers merged into one (one is brown and the other is green which was from Ya Jiang雅江) then the color of the water changed completely. I understood finally why it was called Golden Sand. We drove another 100 KM or so, passing by a beautiful town in the middle of the valley Bengzilan奔子栏, climbing another couple of big mountains. The road was newly paved so very smooth, but most turns were extremely sharp, many were 180 degree so it was quite dangerous. But the whole way was just truly amazing, unbelievably beautiful, almost unreal. I could understand totally how James Hilton would have lost his breath when he landed here. This area is the real Shangrila. I wouldnt want to leave.
After one big mountain, suddenly the whole horizon opened and a huge lake was in front of us situated in the middle of the mountains. All of us started to scream： Thats Napa lake 纳帕海, a seasonal lake right opens the door to Zhongdian 中甸 – now called Shangri-la. Blue sky, white clouds, green water, yellow farm, white Tibetan houses and the dark mountains surround… I believe this is close to heaven.
We only had a quick lunch in the Zhongdian town center and didnt really do anything else – it has already become too touristy in the past 5 years. Gao said it was totally a different place now from when he was here in 2001 – he spent his Chinese new year alone in a small hostel in Zhongdian because of the bad weather. He was the only one in the hostel, even the employees all left for home and asked him to lock the doors. That was quite special experience for him so he was eager to find his memory in this town – however, he was very disappointed. We also didnt visit the Songzanlin Temple 松赞林寺since the ticket was just too expensive (85RMB per person) and we had to take their bus up which would take us forever.
There was no regret since the real beautiful part of Shangrila is really on the way. The road going back north to Deqin德钦 was even more beautiful! We reached a under-the-construction watching tower: the architecture was really wonderful: simple and completely in harmony with the nature – we saw it from below on the road but didnt know what it was until we passed by later. There from the balcony, we had the most magnificent view of the Jinsha River Turn金沙第一弯. We were so overwhelmed by the view that we didnt even want to leave although we still had about 120 KM to go.
But the day still hasnt ended, the highlight of the day was Mt. Kawadgarbo卡瓦格博峰 （梅里雪山） – one of the eight holiest mountains in Tibetan religion and one of the most difficult to see – most of the year it has its veil closed and groups and groups of tourists came to Deqin德钦/Feilai Temple 飞来寺staying there for days just in order to see the true face of the mountain. We were so lucky that we saw it on the way: first it was half covered by clouds, but when it got closer to sunset, suddenly the light shed on the top mountain and the snow and glacier completely glowed through – I believed this was probably one of the most overwhelming view Ive ever seen in my life. All thirteen mountains covered by snow (not completely since its still summer) shine under the golden sunlight. Truly amazing!!!!
Mt. Kawadgarbo (highest peak at 6740 meter) is still a virgin mountain and in 1991 it happened one of the worst mountain climbing disaster in history – 17 Japanese/Chinese climbers all died in a snowfall. After that, Japanese Kyoto University team tried again in 1996 but failed again. Mt. Kawadgarbo is viewed as a God protecting Tibetans so for them, it is totally unacceptable for people trying to climb it. When the climbers came in 1991, local Tibetans prayed for the Kawadgarbo God to show his power and punish the people offending him. And it did happen – the disaster was really mysterious and all team members disappeared overnight. Their body pieces were not shown up until 7 years later. In 2000, Chinese government announced that the Mt. Kawadgarbo is forbidden to climb in order to respect the Tibetan religion. For me, this makes a lot of sense: there are lots of mountains to climb in the world and local culture/religion should be respected. Lots of climbers climb for fame and ego which is quite disgraceful: Gao told us the story in 2001 at Mt. Everest – one Australian climber ignored the asking for help message from a British climber and didnt take the chance to rescue him in order to reach the summit himself. I couldnt believe how selfish some people could be.
We stayed at the Jz club at Feilai Temple which is facing the Mt. Kawadgabo, hoping to see the sunrise on the mountain the next morning. The inn is opened by the owner of Jz Club in Shanghai which I really liked. Unfortunately the owner was away in Tibet for over a month so the employees ran away. There was nobody really cleans up the rooms so the hygiene was really a problem. Couldnt care much and slept in my own sleeping bag overnight.