Sichuan (四川)

In Shangri-La we say goodbye to Jon's (different paths), and I continue with Ana, Niek, Mieke, Paulina and Michal to Sichuan Province.
We enter from the part that touches Tibet (60 years ago was Tibet...) and after a hard trip by bus (physically and visually beautiful) and passing points up to 4600m above sea level ...

We reach Xiangcheng (乡城 and 3200m altitude). We look for a acommodation and we visit yhe Tibetan monastery.

The accommodation where we sleep is a typical Tibetan house with painted illustrations walls. The man of the house ensures that when it gets dark will come the electricity ... and was false. There was not until I was taking a shower with the light of the tourch, about 22h, that they put the generator on!

The next morning we try to catch the bus that goes to Litang ( 理塘县and 4050m), but the transportation around this part of China is complicated ... At the end we took a mini van for a little more than the bus. The trip was again with spectacular views scenery and through the maximum elevation of 4670m between a vast meadow streams and rounded stones.

The day after arriving to Litang was the final horse tournament of a Tibetan nomads, 10 kilometers away from Litang exactly in the middle of the meadow surrounded by majestic mountains. We reach the camp when they were eating and preparing the horses for the tournament ... and after an hour, a lot of motorbikes and cars start arriving from all directions and aligned stacked alongside Buddhist monks who make the jury.
Start the tournament, the festival begins! We feel very luky.

When we went back to Litang we went to visit the Tibetan Monastery. And when we were going back to our hostel, we meet one Dutch man and one Corean girl. They were looking for the house where the 5th Dalai Lama was born. We join them on the research, and end in a house where people are dancing... eating and drinking ... We had a look inside, and it was a Tibetan wedding.
They invite us to sit and eat, we accept! Groups of women talking about their things and groups of men smoking, drinking and looking at women ... The luck has been with us all day!

To get to Chengdu (成都) it tooks 14 hours bus. The landscapes, as usual are amazing! More rain forest
when we going down as altitude, along the river Yala.

After several days arround the mountains, I lodged in Sim's Cosy Garden Hostel (which was recommended by Bruno) and really makes you feel at home.

We visit the Chengdu Panda Base and the Chengdu center. Massage and Dinner to say goodbye to Niek and Mieke at Bookworm.

The next day Ana and I went to The Ancient Town of Luodai (洛带) witch was full of people. In the central square there was a water festival with paper dragons and fish.

At the afternoon, movie and bed.

We despide of Ana (which flies to Shanhai) and I do session of films with Franc (Barcelona) and Ignacio (Pamplona).

Next morning I take the train to Guilin.

Some photos
2010-08-Sichuan (CN) https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZZpMKhFzEi2ojBJYA

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