Tibetan Villages of Danba Canyon - Part 1: Village Guesthouse

This was one of the most fascinating locales we've stayed at, in China or anywhere else.



For two nights we stayed with a Tibetan family of three generations, in a village guesthouse overlooking a precipitous canyon. And it's not just any village -- this was the charming but mysterious Danba, often voted one of the most beautiful villages in China and a tentative addition to China's list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.



Each morning we started with a breakfast of fresh steamed bread and grain porridge, toured the countryside during the day, came home to play with the children in the afternoon then dined on a feast originating from the family's own organically planted fields. To two city dwelling office workers, it was Shangri-la.



Yes this was still part of our 18-Day Circle Route around Chengdu. We took a detour to the easternmost section of the Tibetan Plateau and traveled through the ethnic minority regions of Western Sichuan. Out of all these ethnic villages and towns, Danba was THE number one objective. This place is legendary among domestic Chinese backpackers, and I wasn't going to pass it up.



Getting here wasn't straightforward -- it was an grueling 8-hour bus ride from Ya'an (or 9.5 hours from Chengdu!) to Dartsedo / Kangding, followed by another full day's bus or private taxi from Dartsedo to the county town of Danba. Then there's the murderously rough and narrow switchback path to arrive at the heart of the village. The breathtaking scenery on the road was definitely worth it (see our trip reports from Xinduqiao and Tagong), but it was still tough work.



Except pre-booking a room was even tougher! Many guesthouses didn't even have websites, and those that did wouldn't use email at all! This was in late 2014 and things may have changed, but we had to either call them in Chinese or connect thru a Chinese messaging app known as QQ. We opted for installing QQ on our Android phone and using it to confirm our arrival ... all in Chinese. In terms of inconvenience this guesthouse rivaled our fax request in Japanese to book a Minshuku in Gokayama, and even that was quite a few years ago.



Jiaju Gema's Guesthouse was definitely one of the best in Danba in terms of amenities and comfort -- you won't believe the trouble it took to secure a room equipped with not only a private washroom, but with a Western style seated toilet. Here the squat toilet is the norm in most houses, and the really rustic ones would have one Tibetan style toilet -- a shielded balcony with a hole in the floor attached to a round tube extending towards a fertilizer dump -- to be shared by family members and visitors alike. Our guesthouse did have an old Tibetan style toilet, though it's now somewhat of a relic.



Arriving on a 9-hour journey from Dartsedo we didn't arrive until almost 18:00, and I was seriously worried that we would miss suppertime. In my experience suppers are typically early in agrarian societies, but that was the wrong assumption on this night -- our contact person Gema had to ride down to the county town and fetch a group of visitors from Beijing who had trouble finding her village.



Gema, principal operator of the family guesthouse, was also a young mother of two boys AND a performer in the village's traditional dance troupe AND a Ph.D. in agriculture. Unlike their counterparts in mainstream Han Chinese culture or even mainstream Tibetan culture, the women of Danba have long enjoyed high status as a vestige of an ancient tribal society of matriarchs.



The family dwelling may seem several hundred years old to the untrained eye, but according to Gema it was rebuilt only 15 years ago on their ancestral parcel of land. Rebuilding such a house is a labor of love and sweat, each stone laid and mortared by hand and each wooden beam hand-carved and painstakingly painted in the most brilliant of colors.



Whitewashed stone walls, trapezoid-shaped window sills and owl-like horns protruding from the four corners of the rooftop -- it's impossible to misidentify an indigenous Danba Tibetan house. Climbing those tree trunk-hewn ladders took a fair bit of balance, but the view from the top was worthwhile.



A landscape of archaic stone houses and ancient watchtowers could be seen for miles, scattering along a deep gorge that plunged towards the raging rapids of the Dajinchuan River.



Small as the guesthouse may seem, I counted at least 8 guestrooms sleeping close to 20 visitors on our first night. Most of the clientele came from various outdoorsmen clubs throughout China; independent travelers were the minority, and foreigners were almost unheard of.



Most of the guestrooms were classic Tibetan style rooms with these flamboyantly hand-painted box beds sleeping four. My wife wondered why we didn't book one of these exotic rooms, though she quickly understood after seeing the squat toilet.



Ours was one of four western style rooms equipped with a soft bed, satellite TV and the rarely seen seated toilet. Amenities were almost on par with economy hotel rooms in any Chinese city except for the lack of air conditioning / heating. This was early November, and it was cold at night at 2100m above sea level.



Dinner and breakfast were all included ... where else would guests eat in a secluded village with no real restaurants in a 5km radius? Even lunch could be easily arranged for a nominal fee of RMB 20 or so per person, serving whatever seasonal dishes the host family would eat.



Our first dinner was a rowdy communal affair with 17 other guests -- 3 long tables with 6 guests sharing an 8 course meal, with us being the only non-domestic travelers. Gema came out in full Tibetan regalia to perform a traditional song, half in Gyalrong Tibetan and half in standard Chinese, and poured Qingke Wine for each of us. I remember much less about the food than the conversation with the Beijingner photographer sitting across from me. I probably had a few cups too much.



Next evening's dinner was served in the courtyard as we were the only guests left. The portion -- 6 courses plus a soup! -- was way more than the two of us could finish. The broth of bellflower roots and lard was excellent and the home-cured bacon was also memorable.



But the best course was actually the bowl of brown rice stir-fried with lard and spring onions. I actually felt bad about not finishing the lovingly roasted cornbread, but I barely touched them as I just couldn't resist finishing the rice.



The daily breakfast of porridge and spicy pickles was more Sichuanese than Tibetan. Total cost of a room and two meals was a cheap RMB 100 per person per night, one of the best bargains we found on our 18-day trip. I get the feeling prices will go way up though, if Danba becomes successful in its World Heritage bid.



The host family of six would gather for meals inside their kitchen only after the guests had their share. I visited this kitchen at least four or five times daily, fetching hot water for my wife who was fighting remnants of a flu. Naturally we took it easy on the sightseeing, opting to hang around the village more, playing with the children and just chilling.



Gema's two boys shared a small and grubby bedroom beneath the stairs. The 6-year-old was an expert at formulating paper airplanes of various shapes and designs, and the 3-year-old was the family cat's best friend and worst nightmare. For a good 10 minutes this innocent kid demonstrated how to peel open a cat's closed eye lids and forcing it into submission by pulling on its tail ... all without getting seriously scratched or bitten.



This was the only Mainland Chinese family I had seen with two young boys; even families with two girls were rare, courtesy of the ever-changing interpretations of the infamous One Child Policy. But apparently ethnic minorities parents are allowed two kids regardless of gender, and in rural villages rules may be even more lax.



Located in the small hamlet of Jiaju, this guesthouse turned out to be a decent base for exploring all the other villages in the canyons of Danba. We hired a private driver to deliver us through some extremely rutted roads to the villages of Niega, Zhonglu and Suopo over two days. These will be covered in the upcoming articles.

On Tibetan Roads - Part 2: Lhagang Lamasery to Danba Canyon

First full day on the Tibetan Plateau and we arrived at a town higher than Lhasa in elevation.

Not a smart move for two out-of-shape office workers living at sea level our entire lives. Within 24 hours we moved from an elevation of 500m at the Ancient Town of Shangli to 3700m at a small Tibetan settlement known as Lhagang / Tagong. Good thing we'd been taking Tibetan Rhodiola as a herbal remedy to combat altitude sickness.



But we hardly felt any effect from the altitude -- or perhaps we're just full of adrenaline, having finally arrived in ethnic Tibetan territory after a grueling 8-hour bus ride from Ya'an the previous day. There was something exotic in everything we saw, heard and smelled, and I was just happy that months of planning had paid off.



For foreigners like ourselves it takes a certain degree of luck to enter this pristinely beautiful region in the eastern Tibetan Plateau. This is Western Sichuan, a traditionally Tibetan annex in a primarily Han Chinese province. Political volatility can spark and travel restrictions can pop up any moment. We were careful to avoid the Tibetan New Year when political unrest tends to intensify, but even so we're never sure about our chance of arrival until we finally arrived.



Leading the way on this day was a most honest and dependable Tibetan driver, who went by the Chinese name of Gao as well as the Tibetan name of Abu. Finding a good private driver wasn't easy: all I could do was to randomly pick one out of a small list of drivers recommended by Chinese bloggers. We ended up hiring about five different private drivers on our trip, and Gao Shifu was among the two that I would recommend to fellow travelers.



Through 250km of winding mountain roads Gao Shifu would deliver us from the ethnic Tibetan town of Dartsedo / Kangding, over the saddle of Mount Zheduo to Xinduqiao, then up to Lhagang where we're stopping for a late lunch. In the afternoon we would journey north and settle into a village guesthouse overlooking the canyons of Danba for the next couple of nights.



Lhagang. Tagong. Whatever you call this dusty semi-nomadic settlement, it's probably been here since prehistoric times, arising out of practicality for herders of the surrounding steppes to congregate and trade their flocks. To this day it still exists as a market town for several nomadic clans nearby, even though times have changed and the caterpillar fungus has overtaken yaks as most valuable commodity.



Since time immemorial this has been the homeland of the Khampa, a distinct branch of Tibetans known for being fiercely independent from both Lhasa and Beijing throughout history. Hints of their ferocious warrior genes can still be spotted in the physique of the dagger-carrying males, but it's mostly the genuine warm smiles of the women that welcomed us.



One peculiar sight in town was the clever use of parabolic reflectors for heating water, which is especially important at such high altitudes where water takes much more effort to boil. Archimedes would be proud.



Gao Shifu took us to his favorite roadside restaurant, conveniently located on the townsquare opposite the Lamasery. The driver usually gets a small kickback from the business he brings, a practice we're fully aware of and accept as the local custom. Besides, prices here were definitely cheaper than in Chengdu.



These wild mushrooms were in season as we visited in late autumn. We ordered three dishes and a soup to share between the two of us plus Gao Shifu -- taking care of the driver's meals is another one of those unspoken rules of hiring a private vehicle in China. Though if the trip goes multiple days, drivers are often able to negotiate with the hotels / guesthouses to get his own room for free in exchange for bringing in business.



Seeing that the back of the restaurant doubled as a store for the local specialty of yak jerky, we decided to order some Red Braised Yak Meat for lunch. The meat wasn't as tough and fibrous as we expected, and carried a stronger beef flavor compared to the Albertan beef that we're used to in Canada. At RMB 50 (CAD$8.7) this heap of yak meat was already the most expensive dish of the day.



Under cloudless blue skies we wandered into the courtyard at one of the best known lamaseries outside of Tibet Proper. The 1300-year-old Lhagang Lamasery is not only a treasure house of medieval Tibetan art and fabled relics, but is also home to about 200 lamas and boarding students.



Khampas from all over the region arrived to worship in their most respectful and extravagant outfit of wooly Chuba. Out in the courtyard resident teenage lamas juggled to balance Buddhism studies versus tuning their old motorcycles or playing with apps on their phones. These are all facets of a fascinating culture to which we, and the Western world in general, have very limited exposure unfortunately.



Visitors are allowed to enter the heavily curtained sanctuary hall after taking off their shoes, and it's just unspoken that ladies should never wear anything too revealing ... not that anyone would in this cold climate. Photography seemed to be unallowed officially, but we saw a group of Chinese travelers asking the custodian for permission to take non-flash pictures and we simply followed suit. But it didn't matter -- the mystique inside was just impossible for me to capture on camera.



Venerated inside were 1000-year-old statues adorned with the most vivid colors and wrapped in gold leaves. The Sakyamuni statue is said to be an exact copy of the one inside Potala Palace, meaning that for the Khampa of the surrounding region a visit here is almost as effective as a long pilgrimage to Lhasa.



These images were taken exactly 2 weeks before the 2014 Kangding Earthquake. Little did we know at the time that the region would be devastated and some of the Lamasery's priceless murals and statues would be forever damaged. While Lhagang was quite close to the epicenter, luckily the area was so sparsely populated that only a handful of houses collapsed and casualties were few ... as far as Chinese earthquakes go.



North of the Lamasery the valley opens into wide alpine steppes and gentle rolling hills where Tibetan cowboys and their nomadic clans roam. Twice a year they would return in full Khampa attire for equestrian games and festivals in the shadow of the white Stupas. Herding is still the principal way of life in this eastern part of Kham territory.



It's a wild and romantic lifestyle, one that has enticed a few Westerners to forego material comfort and settle down in the nearby plateaus as modern day hermits. There's also the Khampa Café and Guesthouse in town which is owned by an American and her Tibetan husband. With a relatively mild climate (for the Tibetan Plateau!), close proximity to resupplying in Chengdu, less political hassles than in Tibet Proper and a unique and colorful tribal culture, I can see the appeal of moving here for a cheap retirement.



There's also the appeal of breathtaking sceneries in the shadow of the venerated Zhara Lhatse, better known by its Chinese name of Yala Snow Mountain. While its full Tibetan name roughly translates to Mountain of the Eastern White Yak, we did not encountered even a fully beige one through our travels.



From Lhagang we set out again in the northern direction towards Danba, passing by a peculiar rock formation known as the Stone Forest of Bamei at about the 50km mark. We did not stop for long periods anywhere as Gao Shifu was slightly anxious to arrive at Danba with a couple hours to spare before sundown. At the time we didn't know why.



We did make one more stop in Bamei when our van climbed over a 4000m mountain saddle with a sweeping panoramic view of these Khampa steppes. You won't find even sheep at this altitude -- stocky Tibetan steeds and wooly yaks are all the locals can breed in this extreme climate.



Closer to the county boundary of Danba we had a glimpse of the mountaineers' route into the holy mountain. Not to be confused with the Yala Peak of Nepal, the jagged crest of Yala Snow Mountain is extremely technical and I'm not aware if anyone has succeeded in reaching the summit.



As the afternoon wound down our driver became increasingly concerned about his safe return to Dartsedo that night. "We are different from the Han Chinese," warned Gao in the most serious tone, "Absolutely do not travel on these roads after dark." He recounted stories of 21st Century motorcycle bandits that echoed myths of Khampa warriors of old, their Tibetan daggers ready to prey upon anyone trespassing their ancestral land. So according to at least one Khampa this ancient land is still the lawless wild west of China, even in 2014.

"I'll be safe as long as I make it back to Lhagang before sundown," concluded Gao, "Just don't travel at night north of Lhagang."



We said goodbye to Gao Shifu soon after entering the canyons of Danba, transferring to a different van prearranged by Gao so that he could return safely to Lhagang in time. From here we still had to take the bumpy potholed ride to our guesthouse in the Village of Jiaju, which turned out to be another adventure in itself ...