Tibet

I never made it to Tibet, or, at least not the region that the Chinese governement defines as Tibet. But let's make one thing clear; you don't have to go to Lahsa to experience Tibetan culture!

As early as in Russia I met travellers that recommended me to go to the tibetan areas in Western Sichuan. And since it is really expencive and a lot of hassle to a travel permit and tour guide and every thing you need to be alowed to travel to Lahsa, I decided to head up into the mountains in Sichuan and explore some of the many tibetan villages that can be found in this area. And it was definetely not a bad decition.

I left Chengdu early one morning headinbg for KangDing where I had my first encounter with TIbetan culture. Even thoug it was only a seven hour bus ride, the differences were obvious. Beautiful women with long black hair in thick braids down to their waists, big and bright jewlery in every color and traditional tibetan clothes. The men, on the other hand, are the cowboys of the east. Most of them have long hair hanging loose under their cowboy hats, big leather jackets with a purple or yellow scarf around their waste as a belt. And of course, the motor bike. Western Sichuan is definelty China's Wild!

After a few days in KangDing (making christmas cookies and putting up christmas decoration with the family that ran the hostel I was staying at) I joined some other travellers and we went higher up in the mountains to a village called Tagong. Here the modern buildings are replaced by stone houses with colorful decorations around the windows and the doors. There are no Chinese to see any more, and the well used " Ni Hao" is replaced by the Tibetan "Tashi dale". This is truly TIbet.

The surrounding nature with hills, never ending grass land and snow capped mountains in the horizon is stunning. The hills are covered in praying flagsand tibetan writing.It's beautiful, there is nothing more to say about it! We spent a whole day just walking around, wandering the streets and looking. The people, the nature, the village, everything was just so different from anything else I've seen in China. It was just like entering another country.

I love what I have seen so far, and this is only the beginning of my TIbetan experience.