Shangri-La
{prologue}
days of journey
driving a jeep
drifting around
looking at blue sky and white cloud
seeing the endless grassland
stepping on the snow-capped mountain
walking through the glacier
This is the meaning of travel
begin in China, Chengdu.
(1)
Going towards Ganzi region and passed through Four ladies Mountains, we could still see those four peaks when we were standing on the Bridge of Cat's Nose. Once we went into the mountains, we lost what we have seen before. Holam said it was same as what Su Shi had made in his famous poem
" I do not know the true face of Lushan Mountains
Only because I am in the mountains themselves"
maybe it is true.
(2)
Today we drove the car for more than 10 hours, went across BaLong Mountains, which is 4487 metres above sea level. It was quite strange. I had a little bit altitude sickness when I went to Tibet few years ago, and had serious headache that night I stayed at River Tal. However, this time I was totally free of it, except for increasing heart beating when getting on or off the car. I have asked the local people, they said it was difficult to explain altitude sickness. Some 80-year-old men were fine, some young men aged 30 died, it just all depended on your luck. I did not really believe that, maybe altitude sickness also had immunization.
(3)
The sky of the plateau is especially low, seems that deep blue sky with horizontal white cloud could be touched easily. Soft winds knead the grass, hugging it low, with cows and sheeps on it - somehow it is all about.
Deep and secluded valleys, pine trees, the mountain ranges, continue endlessly without pause; at the lower places, there are rips with clear streams and little villages. "China has a vast territory and abundant resources" - this sentence is not exaggerated. Sometimes being a chinese, we need to find something to be self-conceited; if not it would be too uninteresting.
Tibetan stockaded villages are depended on the mountains: Tibetans, cows, sheeps, horses - become pictures, the harmony of Heaven, Earth and Man unfolds to us. Even the cars pass through the mountain, those meanderings are passionate. Crossing over those unknown mountains again and again, and could never tell where to start.
(To be continued...)
