Sichuan Highlands (9 Days)
We love road journeys. They are by far our favourite way of traveling. We think the world of western China and the countries that border on this region – think Vietnam, Lao, Thailand, Myanmar, for example. On the Road Experiences is all about sharing with like-minded travelers just how beautiful a road journey in these varied lands can be. Now turn the page to find out what we’ve come to love so much…
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Itinerary Map …where you will travel…
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Yes, it is possible…
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Day-by-day…
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Itinerary Map
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Day1
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Shangri-La to Xiangcheng –
Yajiang to Danba –
On the Road to Shambhala
Across the heart of Kham
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Xiangcheng to Yading –
Danba to Rilong –
Sichuan’s Shangri-La
To the Four Sisters’ Mountains
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In Yading –
In Rilong –
Into the heart of beautiful Yading
Among Snow-capped Peaks (optional)
Day4 Yading to Litang –
Day 9
To the highest town in the world
Rilong to Chengdu –
Back to city life Day5 Litang to Yajiang -
Flying across the top of the world
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Yes, it is possible... The journey you are about to embark on – travelling across the eastern edge of the Himalayas from Shangri-La to Chengdu – is about seeing and experiencing many things for the first time. You will travel across one of China’s wildest regions, starting in Shangri-La and crossing the Yangtze, before driving into Sichuan, where you will visit the beautiful nature reserves of Yading and the Four Sisters Mountains, and drive through some of the region’s wonderful countryside, before reaching lowland Sichuan – China’s ‘Rice Bowl’ – and driving to Chengdu. You will drive alongside emerald streams that tumble through deep gorges, across high-altitude plains dotted with nomads’ tents – in short, through some of the world’s most stunning scenery. In the towns and villages en route you will mingle with friendly monks and local people dressed in traditional clothing, greeted with welcoming calls of ‘Ni Hao’ or ‘Tashi Delek’ (or even sometimes ‘Hello!’) and broad smiles. Catch wafts of juniper incense and the scent of yak butter lamps in beautiful temples, accompanied by the murmur of local visitors chanting prayers… All this, enjoyed from the freedom of your own car means that you can explore this amazing corner of Asia as few have been able to before – a true adventure!
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Day 1 On the Road to Shambhala
We then arrive in Ranwu. Ranwu is the first town that we come to in Sichuan Province – farewell Yunnan!
Today’s drive takes us north into Sichuan for the first time. The road is much narrower than you will have experienced so far on this trip, and there is one 60km section of dirt road, but the real star today is the scenery, not the road. As we leave Shangri-La and start the drive to Geza, we’re quickly enter deeper into the countryside than we have before, as the road passes through a thickly wooded valley, populated by famers and herders. The road is excellent along this stretch, with only sharp kerbs and one or two rather potholed sections to take your mind off the journey ahead.
Xiangcheng is known as Chatreng to the Tibetans. Despite the fact that the village has expanded considerably in recent years, there’s not much to see in the town itself, although there are some interesting shops selling prayer flags and copper pots. Xiangcheng’s temple and monastery sits on a hill above the town, and is worth visiting if we arrive mid-afternoon. The monastery is a famous for a small chörten decorated
The next part of the road also takes us over two high mountain passes, known rather literally in Chinese as Small Snowy Mountain and Big Snowy Mountain.
Driving Distance & Duration Distance: 220 km Duration: 6-7 hours Elevation Highest Daytime: 4600m Overnight: 3200m Hotel Zha Xi Grand Hotel, Xiangcheng (扎西大酒店) (***) with precious stones, erected in honour of one of the current Da-lai Lama’s teachers who hailed from Xiangcheng.
Day 2 Sichuan’s Shangri La Today we will continue north on the same road we arrived on yesterday afternoon. The road is generally good, although some sections have very steep drops to one side as well as occasional truck traffic. The scenery along the first part of the morning’s drive is stunning, and we will cross one pass of 4,750m, one of over 4,500m, and the road as a whole seldom drops below 4,000m.
and will take 2.5-3 hours. The road gets more mountainous, but remains relatively wide. In late afternoon we will arrive in Yading town, still 80km or so outside the heart of the Yading Nature Reserve.
Driving Distance & Duration Distance: 250 km Duration: 6 hours Elevation Highest Daytime: 4750m Overnight: 2900m Hotel Tibetan Style Theme Hotel, Yading (稻城摩梵主題酒店) (***)
When we reach the town of Sangdui, we will leave the S217 for the time being, and turn southeast towards Daocheng (Dapba in Tibetan) where we will stop for lunch. Daocheng is one of the higher places we have stopped in so far (3,750m). In the afternoon we will continue driving south from Daocheng to the town of Yading, shown on some maps as “Xianggelila”, and occasionally known as “Sichuan’s ShangriLa”. The drive is about 100km p13
Day 3 Into the heart of beautiful Yading
Mt Xia’nuo Duoji (Chana Dorje, 5958m) and Mt Xiannairi (Chenresig, 6032m). The Tibetan names of the three mountains refer to the Tibetan Buddhist Today we will drive into the Yading trinity of Bodhisattvas, and none of the peaks has ever been Nature Reserve. The road into the park from the town of Yading climbed. is very winding and occasionally Once inside the park, we will steep, but still quite broad. A have a picnic lunch by the side of drive of around 80km will take a lake and enjoy some free time us into the heart of the nature to explore and hike – don’t forget reserve. your camera! – before we drive back to Yading town in the late At the centre of Yading lie three afternoon. holy peaks, Mt Yangmaiyong (Jampelyang in Tibetan, 5958m),
Driving Distance & Duration Distance: 180 km Duration: 4-5 hours Elevation Highest Daytime: XXXXm Overnight: 2900m Hotel Tibetan Style Theme Hotel, Yading (稻城摩梵主題酒店) (***)
Day 4 To the highest town in the world Today’s drive starts out with a slight repeat of the day before yesterday’s route, as we retrace our steps to Daocheng before con-tinuing north to Litang – the highest per-manently inhabited town in the world, at 4,000m! The scenery remains wonderful as today’s drive takes you through an amazing range of scenery, from weird boulderstrewn landscapes to nomad encampments to vil-lages of traditional buildings protected by prayers written in stones on the hillsides surrounding them – and prayer flags everywhere. Tibetan Buddhism is a fusion of Buddhism with an earlier Tibetan religion, Bon. Bon is an animistic religion and its impact on Tibetan Buddhism is clear from the belief that the air, water and earth can help Bud-dhists to gain merit to help in their next rebirth. Every time a thread comes loose from a prayer flag, it purifies the air
and carries the prayer up to heaven. Litang is a fascinating town, and has a real Wild West feel to it – monks mingle with schoolchildren in tracksuits, wild-looking nomads ride into town on motorcycles while others lead folorn-looking horses around as they shop. Litang is a busy place, lying as it does on the major SichuanTibet highway, the G318 national road. While the town is famous as the birthplace of the seventh and tenth Dalai Lamas, there are few specific sights to see in the town (besides the temple itself, home to a statue of Sakyamuni said to have been carried from Lhasa on foot). The Wild West atmosphere here is genuine – please take
Driving Distance & Duration Distance: 250 km Duration: 5 hours Elevation Highest Daytime: 4000m Overnight: 4000m Hotel Chong Cao Hotel, Litang (理塘虫草大酒店) (***) great care of your belongings and make sure to keep the car locked whenever you are away from it. Finally, at the risk of too much repetition, please take care at this altitude.
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Day 5 Flying across the top of the world Au-tonomous Prefecture. Its splendid history brings people back to its prime days as the important stopover and ferry point for the ancient Tea and The road goes up and down, but barely below 4000m and we House Route. have to cross the Kazila Pass at an elevation of 4718meters. Today’s journey truly feels like you are flying across the top of the world on four wheels.
Along the way, you’ll pass countless yaks and sheep, as well as the black yak-hair tents that belong to the families shepherding these animals. It doesn’t seem possible that whole families could live in such an extreme climate with such basic provisions. But here they are, and happily too! Yajiang’s low altitude gains its reputation of being a nice stop on the G318. It is a mod-ern town within the traditional Kham Region of the eastern Tibet, now under the administation of Ganzi Tibetan
Driving Distance & Duration Distance: 135 km Duration: 3 hours Elevation Highest Daytime: 4700m Overnight: 2900m Hotel Yidu Hotel, Yajiang (驛都大酒店) (***)
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Day 6 Across the heart of Kham We leave Yijiang behind us and start our drive towards Xinduqiao at 3450m to Danba at 1860m. It is a wonderful 150km drive morphing from Muya Tibetan area to Jiarong Tibetan area. Muya, aka Minyak and Jiarong, aka Gyarong are two branches of the ethnic Tibetans living in Kham. Kham is one of the four Tibetan traditional regions – 1) Ngari: in the far west region of Tibet 2) U-Tsang: in the central region of Tibet 3) Kham in the southeast of Tibet 4) Amdo: in the northeast of Tibet. The road initially runs through rolling grasslands, past crystalclear streams, yellow poplar trees and Tibetan stone houses, before climbing out of the valley near Yala Snow Mountain.
After leaving the grasslands behind, we will be entering the deep, forested valleys of Jiarong. Soon we arrive in Danba. The town itself is not very special (although it is famous in Tibet for its beautiful ladies, who dress proudly in their traditional clothing), but the villages’ sourrounding Danba are beautiful and you will come across some watchtowers or diaolou. Some of these watchtowers, built for storage and protection, have for stood for almost a thousand years – surviving the earthquakes and tremors that occasionally shake these hills.
Driving Distance & Duration Distance: 150 km Duration: 3 hours Elevation Highest Daytime: 3300m Overnight: 1900m Hotel Meirengu Hotel, Danba (丹巴美人谷大酒店)
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Day 7 To the Four Sisters’ Mountains After a leisurely morning in Danba, exploring some beautiful villages we will continue our drive to Rilong, the base for sightseeing in the Four Sisters’ Mountain area. The main attraction of the Four Sisters Mountains is its unspoiled natural beauty. The unusual shapes of the mountain peaks are rarely seen anywhere else in the world, and in October will be covered with the unusual golden foliage of the region’s spruce trees. The blue sky, clouds and mist, snow peaks, ancient cypress forests, rushing waterfalls, and alpine meadows make this area a nature lovers dream. The park consists of four adjacent mountain peaks. It got its unusual name from a local Tibetan legend that says the four peaks are the embodiments of four pretty girls. p20
Driving Distance & Duration Distance: 110 km Duration: 3 hours Elevation Highest Daytime: 1900m Overnight: 3000m Hotel New Signing Mountains hotel, Rilong (新四姑娘山庄 ) (***)
Day 8 Among Snow-capped Peaks (Optional) Today is a day just to relax or to explore the mountains’ beauty. Our team is here to help you arrange your day. The Four Sisters Mountain Park has two entrances. By entering through the main entrance, you will be able to ride into the park on a small bus, stopping at various points en route, including a Tibetan farmers’ house (people still live inside the park) where you can sample yak milk and yak butter tea. The bus will also take you right up to the trailhead at the foot of the mountains, where on a clear day you will be able to see all four peaks as they tower above you.
continue to take care of the altitude, as the altitude inside the park is on average a few hundred meters higher than it is at the hotel. We will provide you with a packed lunch, and will meet up back at the hotel in the evening for a meal together.
Driving Distance & Duration Depending on your chosen activity Elevation Highest Daytime: 3400m Overnight: 3000m Hotel New Signing Mountains hotel, Rilong (新四姑娘山庄 ) (***)
If you choose to enter through the other park gate, you can walk into the park on foot and will enjoy a different view of the mountains, or ride through the park on horseback. If you choose this option, please p21
Day 9 Back to the city life Today it is finally time to say goodbye to the mountains of western Sichuan, and to return to the oxygen-rich Sichuan Basin. But beforehand, we will still have a last chance to enjoy the mountains as we crest one last pass before starting our descent. If time permits, it is possible to make a detour to Chengdu’s Panda Breeding Research Centre, home of Sichuan’s successful breeding program for giant pandas. The centre has a small population of giant pandas and red pandas, who are housed in spacious enclosures. The younger pandas in particular are a delight to watch! Once we leave the mountains behind, the volume of traffic will increase steadily as we approach the final destination of this drive: Chengdu. We will either bring you directly to the airport to continue your journey home, or bring you to your p22
selected hotel. We hope that you have enjoyed you journey with us across the highlands of south-west China, and in particular we hope that you feel you have seen a side of China and this region that others seldom get to experience.
Driving Distance & Duration Distance: 250 km Duration: 5 hours Elevation Highest Daytime: 3000m Overnight: 500m
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