Here is the portion of my trip from Chengdu to the border of Laos. More to follow I'm sure... but these are the good ones :)
Date(s): January 25, 2007. Album by John Pratt. 1 - 24 of 82 Total. 304 Visits.
1 Early morning on the journey from Kangding to Daocheng in western sichuan province, China. Please notice the guy relieving himself on the bus :)
2 Here I am at the point where our bus broke down, still disinterested. But, I began to take interest when I noticed that the bus drivers were trying to bend a steel wrench with a rock. "Ahhh...the start of every ..." View Comments...
3 Apparently, the water hose had cracked & repairs were needed. However, they didn't have a wrench that fit the nut that held the water hose in place. Consequently, with a little Macguyver ingenuity, I used some scotch tape and a peice of hacksaw blade to make the wrench small enough to fit. There-after all went well & I was the "Hero of the day." ... Though we did drive another 8 hours with a less than perfect water hose.
4 Stupas on a blue/black sky. The altitude makes from some nutty visions.
5 This lady wanted her picture taken with everyone.
6 She finally relaxed a little when I took her close-up.
7 Twas fun though. This is a little Tibetan Homestay that I had booked for a night while in Daocheng. I didn't stay there though... cause I still had a schedule at that point & my guidebook had mistakenly put me in a town that was 6 hours away from where I needed to catch the bus the next day. In retrospect... I should have stayed. What's one day anyway?
8 I did get to go to a Monestary on the outskirts of Daocheng though. There were only 4 monks there at the time. The rest you'll see later, as they were apparently road-tripping to bless another temple.
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10 Really pretty temple though.
11 And these birds were almost the size of turkeys. They were all inquisitive and stuff. Must have been the red hair.
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14 Traditional Tibetan houses. I should also mention that walking the 50 yards up this hill, I was completely winded. Thin air up there.
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16 A little hamlet that I wish I could've gotten to. In the middle of a valley, river on the left, no power lines, little plots of land on which to grow crops... truely beautiful.
17 This is a pass from Xiangcheng to Zhongdian. Must be at least 6000 meters. So high in fact that my Ipod, shut down soon there-after. "Passes almost never break ..." View Comments...
18 I should mention that traveling roads like this with no music is disconcerting; because the bus driver feels it his duty to drive as fast as possible, on a single track dirt road, with snow on it, with a 500 - 1000 meter drop off immediately to the right of the shoddy road. Color John - pale, from thinking I was going to die.
19 Butter Tea
20 Yummy Tibetan Eats
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22 Muchos dogs in Asia. These in Zhongdian were cool because they were all happy to meet up with each other in the morning/evening etc... and just wander around in little packs.
23 Heating element in most places. I wish I had one for my room. Twas COLD. "Looks like the Undall bric..." View Comments...
