Above: Locals, young and old come out to dance to Tibetan music in Kangding’s square at night. Young ones in hip gear and oldies in the everyday traditional garb.
Kim had to wake about 0515 for his 0815 standby flight to Hong Kong. I had my bus for Kangding at 0900 so I didn’t have to rush. I’m travelling all by myself again, which I do often.
I managed to get a taxi easily to Xinnanmen Station. I was still a bit down about my travels, which is really unusual. I reckon it was a largely due to being drained by the crowds of Jiuzhaigou (and perhaps the shock of having to travel without accommodations prebooked, like in the good old days). It took me a couple of hours to snap out of it.
The first three plus hours of the ride was on motorways. The portion outside the city was on elevated motorways meaning that we flew over valleys, hills and rivers without meandering. There was also a tunnel which took about 9 minutes to get through.
Soon after leaving the motorway, we pulled into a large warehouse which was like a hostel-type servery. They put out freshly cooked food in individual portions. It was very well organised like many things in China; the chaos from the huge volume of people (or the nature of the people).
After the halfway stop, we continued to Kangding, arriving around 1800 after a 9h journey. My understanding is that my onward to Tagong tomorrow would be only possible by shared taxis. Pilik (from Israel) whom I met at the station told me that I could go by bus. Yep, upon enquiry, I managed to purchase a ticket for 0700 tomorrow morning.
I told him I was off to Yongzhu Guesthouse and he could tag along and share the taxi ride. We didn’t have much luck with taxis as they seemed not to want to head there, or they didn’t know where it was. Likewise for other people wanting to go to Zhilam Guesthouse, the American-run one. I finally thought I’d tell the taxis to go to Kangding Hotel instead, where it would be only a few seconds walk to Yongzhu. That worked beautifully.
Yongzhu had nice rooms for CNY120 but Pilik thought it was more sensible for me to join him in the dorm for CNY40. Perfect idea as it was going to be a very short stay for me. Pity about the squat toilet though. The guesthouse was run by a lovely Tibetan family who spoke to each other in Mandarin.
Out of curiosity, I asked the daughter if she could distinguish Chinese from Tibetan and she said she couldn’t with certainty. I said that even though I’m ethnically Chiense, I can’t tell some Koreans, Japanese and Tibetans from Chinese. We both laughed and agreed that it is easy with some but not with others.
Pilik and I grabbed dinner together and then stood in the square to enjoy the locals dancing to Tibetan music. It was a very social place for the locals and also for us. It seemed all the foreigners had converged here to chat; I met a Malay Malaysian (who looked Tibetan) who was travelling by himself.
Locals, young and old come out to dance to Tibetan music in Kangding’s square at night. Young ones in hip gear and oldies in the everyday traditional garb.
Kangding is the capital of the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture; I’m not sure whether that means any more than the Tibet Autonomous Region.
I retired early in preparation for the early bus tomorrow. Over the course of the day, I had returned to normal and regained most of my sense of adventure.