Day 6 100506: My First Snow Mountain!

We had an expensive Western breakfast in Sims in the morning. Bacon sandwich with fruits. There is another breakfast set which costs 22rmb, the most expensive food in Sims. That we intend to order on our very last day of our tour. It was a rainy morning and hence we had our breakfast in their little Japanese-style hut, called the “glass room”. An old couple shared the room with us, an Austrian guy and his Indonesian Chinese wife. Both are seasoned travelers, and had been to places like Nepal and some other parts of Tibet. Kenneth was the one talking to them (esp. the Austrian guy) for most of the time as both of them knew much about the geography of Tibet.

At 8am, our jeep driver Mr. Zeng (shall call him ZK for Zeng Kun from now), came to pick us up. One of the gals in Sims came out to see us off. The first thing we had to do was to buy supplies for our trip. ZK brought us to a small mart but being inexperience, we didn’t know what to buy and how many to buy. He suggested chocolate, dried beef, and other high energy food. Water was his major concern also and he told us to buy as much as possible as it might get more expensive when we enter Tibet.

With our grocery done, we hit the road immediately. I was feeling pretty excited, even though it would only be a few days later before we enter Tibet. The ride was a little bumpy but tolerable. Our first stop was 卧龙, a rather developed town due to its most famous attraction: Panda Zoo. We had our lunch there and again it was Sichuan food. We took this opportunity to ask ZK what exactly is that spice that made our mouths numb. The answer is: 花椒. From then on, we kept a look out for this little devil in our food.

Along the way, ZK was telling us that Tibetans can also be found in Sichuan area, particular 阿坝州, and the Tibetan tribe is known as 藏羌族 (pronounced as Zang Qiang). From a far, we saw our first snow mountain, 八郎雪山 and we will be going over it. Although I have seen snow before, going over a snow mountain would be a great first experience.

After some winding mountain roads, we finally reached the snow mountain and everyone got out of the jeep. It wasn’t as cold as we would expect, and we weren’t wearing much, just a t-shirt and a jacket.

It was then when I was seized by altitude sickness and I felt giddy and headache all of a sudden. It seemed like the altitude sickness pill I ate had not taken effect yet (it is a Chinese medicine we bought at a pharmacy, 红景天). After drinking some coca cola, I was feeling much better.

On the way down the mountain, Kenneth had to ask the driver to stop as he needed to vomit. Motion sickness. He was sitting at the back, in the middle seat which suffers the greatest impact of the bumpy ride. Thereafter, CCG gave him a motion sickness pill and we told him to take the passenger seat in front. From then on, that was his permanent seat.

When we reached the bottom, we were supposed to enter a tourist attraction. It is some sort of long canal or valley, which I can’t remember because we never went in in the end. Our driver told us to give him a call once we were done and he drove off to take a break. The entrance fee was rather high, 80rmb plus 50rmb of bus ride in the area. We decided that it was not worth the money but our driver had already left. Kenneth threw up some more but felt much better thereafter. We began calling ZK using our hp but there must be something wrong with our auto-roaming service. ZK said he will not pick up the call but just let it ring and he will come and fetch us.

We went in search of a public phone but couldn’t find one. In the end, we found a store and asked the store owner if we could borrow his phone. Still, we couldn’t get through to ZK hp. Guess his hp number is registered under a different province. We went back to the tourist attraction reception area and asked the man in charge for help. He made a call to ZK using his hp and told ZK to come and fetch us. It was very kind of him.

ZK came and we all left the place, now searching for a place to stay. There wasn’t any town nearby and so we settled for a small motel along the road. A very sloppy and simple place to sleep that’s all. But still considered clean. Kenneth fell out by then and stayed there to rest.


Whereas JH, CCG and I left to explore the surroundings. We had our first encounters with kids but weren’t sure if they were Tibetans, probably not. 2 boys were playing water along a small stream and we went over to take pictures with them.

Further down the road, we met a brother and his sister, who was nicely dressed up like a doll. She asked us for $, in a sheepish manner but we didn’t give them of course. Not nice to give kids $. She was smiling all the time and looked really adorable.

We bid them goodbye and after walking away some distance, the girl suddenly shouted at us and when we turn around, we saw her spitting at us! Sigh… And I thought the little girl was cute…

We played with the goats along the road, challenged a dog which was tied to a tree, climb a little hill, etc until we were tired and returned to the motel. Dinner was some simple dishes, and our driver offered to demonstrate his cooking skills to us.

Bathing was a struggle at night. First we had to fill up the water tank. Then we had to switch on the heater to boil the water. The heater is nothing but a coil placed inside the tank. And it probably took 1 hr to boil the water. I couldn’t wait that long and decided to bathe in cold water. If the rest of the days on the road are going to be like this, no hot water bath, I think I will go mad.