Breakfast was the simple 稀饭，馒头，鸡蛋 combi. While on the road, we saw kids walking to school and when they saw our jeep, they would stop and salute. ZK said that these kids (many of them are Tibetans) used to throw stones at jeeps. But thanks to the teachers in the school, they stopped doing that and replaced the stone-throwing act with saluting.
After passing by 丹巴, we break for lunch at a place called 塔贡. It had a kind of Tibetan style, with colorful paintings on the doors of the houses.
There was a monastery and the hill behind it was filled with hundreds of prayer flags. It was there that I saw real Tibetans with traditional clothes and Tibetan monks. There wasn’t much to see along the way except for villages building a bridge, and we reached 新都桥 in no time. This place is supposed to be the Heaven of all photographers (摄影师的天堂) but to me it is just a small town surrounded by mountains.
It was still very early (4pm) when we decided to stop for the day. ZK decided upon a little farmhouse kind of inn, with a nice grass patch outside. JH was unhappy that ZK was making the decision on our accommodation because he thought we should be the ones choosing since we were paying, not him. The place we stayed at was really “ulu”, no shops, not many people, nothing but mountains around. The town further up had more to offer but ZK said the shops there are not worth patronizing.
Since it was still early, we decided to climb the hill opposite us. According to the lady boss, there was an old and abandoned temple somewhere up there. The 5 of us went off exploring but ZK backed out at the last minute, for fear of altitude sickness. We walked along the road at the bottom of the hill trying to find a good and easy spot to climb. After 15min of walking, we couldn’t find a good path to start climbing. JH and Kenneth saw a little opening at the side of the hill and decided to go up from there. CCG and I felt that there must surely be a better path and thus did not follow. It was easy to tell who were the more adventurous ones (and who were the smarter ones).
As CCG and I made our way back, walking away from the hill, we turned around to see how far JH and Kenneth had gone. They were really quite fast because by then, I could only see 2 tiny figures struggling up the hill. Using my DV, I zoomed in on them. Some villagers were curious on my DV and asked me to show them the footage. They were simply amazed. The villagers could speak a little bit of Chinese and said JH and Kenneth had gone the wrong way. They said there is an easier route and asked a 10 yrs old boy to bring us there.
This kid that led us the way spoke very good Chinese. His name was ChenWen ZhenCuo (晨纹阵措, sounds like). This boy had a handsome face and was very talkative, asking where we came from. We didn’t tell him the answer initially and he started making a lot of guesses, but all within China. Finally when I told him I was from 新加坡, he thought I was from 新疆, and kept telling me his brother is there now. Later he “jio” his younger brother to join us and also his best friend. As we passed his school (which had the words “好好学习，天天向上”), he mentioned that his brother was 1st in standard for primary 2 while he got top 5 in his level. And he didn’t care if his friend felt “paiseh” or not and told us he got 倒数第二. But I can tell the 2 of them are really very close friends. He even asked his friend to show us the wound he suffered last year after being scalded by hot water.
Finally we reached the path leading up the hill. No climbing at all, just have to walk up. To thank the kids, we took photos with them and gave them all our chewing gums. They offered to go up with us but we declined. It would be a great embarrassment if we couldn’t make it to the top in front of them.
After bidding them goodbye, we walked slowly up the hill. Somewhere near the top, we began to feel breathless and light-headed due to the high altitude (we were already on highlands by then). Once we reached the top, there was a big plateau and many cows were grazing there. From there we had a good view of mountains around us and quite far away, there was a snow mountain, the Holy Mountain of the region. We could even see our hostel from there, which was just a tiny building looking from up there.
After we caught our breaths, I shouted out for JH and Kenneth but I guess they had already made their way back to the hostel. We went searching for the abandoned temple, not so much as to see it but to take pictures of it so as to prove to JH and Kenneth that we were there too.
After we done that, we slowly made our way down, almost forgetting from which path we came come from. It was easy to find the path in the end, just follow the shit of the cows. When we reached the hostel, the 2 were already back and we shared with them our experiences with the kids.
After dinner, ZK invited us to join him at the field for some men’s talk. 2 or 3 dogs were roaming around us, and a few piglets grazing on the field nearby. It was nice chatting in the open like that (except that it was too cold), watching the Holy Mountain changed color as the sun sets behind us. And it reminded me of the days when me and RV good friends went camping in Pulau Ubin many years ago, when we had a good chat under the stars, away from civilization. By nightfall it was getting too cold and we returned to our dorms. After this chit-chat session, I felt that the distance between ZK and us was closer. I was glad that happened because I would want to feel as if the 5 of us were traveling together, rather than 4 + 1 driver sort of mentality. And I began to feel that we could trust this ZK.
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