Dege and Dzongsar

Tashi Delek, Bonjour

Your website is really good. It is my dream to get to Dzongsar.

• Last year, April 2007, I visited Lijiang in Yunnan Province, China. Stayed at a small Naxi village up behind the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain for a week. Then traveled north by bus to Zhongdian and flew out of there to Lhasa, Tibet. I fulfilled a forty year old dream to visit the Potala and discovered the Jhokang temple, the Bharkor and Drak Yerpa.
  
  On returning to Australia I had the notion to visit somewhere remote within the Tibetan cultural area. I found, at Dege in Western Sichuan, China, a monastery that still printed books by hand. The text pages cut into blocks of wood then hand printed. Then I discovered that just south of Dege was the interesting valley of the MeChu all in high detail on Google Earth. All this area is known traditionally as Kham. Now part of Sichuan but very, very, Tibetan. It has a long and involved history, sometimes independent of Lhasa or the Chinese, sometimes under the sway of one or the other.
  
  Over several months, to March 2008, I had been planning a trip to Dege and the MeChu valley. I had printed detailed screen shots of the area from Google Earth. Researched every detail I could find on the Net. Amassed a library of around 20 books on the area and became an armchair professor on Khamba culture and history.
  
  Air tickets to Chengdu via Guangzhou were bought and the bus journey from Chengdu to Dege researched in detail. It would take 5 days to reach Dege from Sydney, Australia, if the roads were clear of snow and weather permitted. Two days of flying and three by road. As the departure day of March 21st approached I was full of trepidation. On March 10th in Lhasa there had been some violent conflicts between Tibetans and the Chinese. This mortal conflict had spread to other areas outside Lhasa, in particular the area that I was to pass though. Never the less I boarded the plane and set off for what was hopefully to be a journey of a lifetime.
  
  The nett result of which was a heartbreaking, but not unexpected, moment at the outskirts of Kangding in Western Sichuan. The only local foreboding I got was from the hotel receptionist in Chengdu who thought “it might be a little bit dangerous up there”. The Internet of course had lots of stuff indicating a likely shut down of Tibetan areas. The Chinese were shooting the Tibetan protesters. On top of that I met an American couple who were locked in their hotel at Maniganggo with a police car outside overnight. They had got through but had to turn back because the man had been bitten by a Tibetan mastiff and needed rabies shots. So my thinking was; if the mouth of hell appeared on route, I would pass through at any cost. How naive. It only took a light machine gun to stop me dead, figuratively speaking.
  
  The report below was one that I emailed home from Chengdu.
  
  Tuesday 25th March, Chengdu, Sichuan
  
  Ticket was easy to buy in Chengdu, no restrictions and the ticket clerk was very helpful. Boarded the bus to Kangding, first town up in the Himalayas, early on Monday morning and off we go. The first 8 seats of the bus are occupied by, a Tibetan family of 6 adults, a Buddhist Nun and me. The rest of the bus is filled with Han Chinese and a young Tibetan woman who got on outside of Chengdu.
  
  One incident along the way was where the bus left behind the Tibetan woman at the lunch stop. Half an hour later a car caught the bus up at a filling station. 3 Tibetans got out and dragged the bus driver away and proceeded to beat him, though I think it was only scare tactics they were using, he seemed none the worse for it. After 30 minutes all settled down and the 3 Tibetans drove away. I noticed they had thoughtfully removed their number plates from the car. Smart cookies. So off we go again.
  
  Well, after a total of 6 hours on the bus we arrive at the outskirts of Kangding, at a military road block. On gets an armed soldier and a policeman who proceeded to check ID cards. They get to me very quickly, sitting up the front surrounded by Tibetans. In almost, but not quite, perfectly bad English, they ask for my passport then motioned me to get off the bus. The Nun was made to get off too, but she later returned. There were about 4 soldiers and 5 police with 3 riot squad soldiers in the distant background. They dragged my bag out of the hold of the bus and parked me in their little tin command post. None of them can speak a word of English so the conversation gets a bit stuck. The upshot is that they want me to turn back. I try and barter for options like 1 night in Kangding but this seems to make them a bit angry so I change the subject, and with my map in hand ask where I can go next. They indicate Chengdu or Luding. I opt for Luding being only about an hour back down the road. Got there ok and found the bus station hotel and head for reception. If you think the above was a bit scary then the next bit was an international incident.
  
  Approached reception, showing my pearly white teeth to give a good impression and asked for a room. They seemed to be a bit agitated at this and make a phone call. After much misunderstanding it seems they want me to sit and wait for someone. Great, they’ve sent for an English translator, how nice. But wait, there’s more. 20 minutes later 4 police and 2 senior, what look like the usual “secret police”, arrive. It’s only a small town so I think this was almost their entire police force. None of them at this stage have a word of English. The guy in charge was continually giving me the evil eye. I used a great deal of “I don’t understand”. Works beautifully if you don’t want the conversation to go anywhere. They kept asking me the same question and got more and more agitated when I just shrugged. The bus station ticket clerk, at this point, came over and solved the problem with a bit of old fashioned sign language; I had to give them my passport. She also had the notion to show the police my ticket from Chengdu to Kangding to support my claim to have been turned back earlier. Smart young lady, she should have been chief-of-police.
  
  Finally a police woman turned up who had reasonable English skills considering the area we were in. Lots of questions at this stage. Why was I in Luding, was I an imperial spy, did I know G.Bush, stuff like that. She told me that Luding was no-go and that I would have to return to Chengdu but at first they couldn’t find a seat on the next long distance bus. It was then suggested I stay the night in the hotel which sparked off a chain of paperwork, everything in triplicate all handwritten. Then horrors, they found a seat on the slow local bus to Chengdu on which I got, escorted between 2 police across the bus station yard. So briefly I was famous in Luding. I won’t say there was a crowd but there were enough loosely grouped spectators to have formed one. Well after 16 hours on the road, 12 hours of bus travel, half-an-hour for lunch and the rest in military custody I finally made it back to Chengdu at 11.00pm feeling very dejected and slightly anti Chinese.
  
  I spent 2 more days in Chengdu. Enough time to visit the heavily policed Tibetan Quarter of town and to arrange an air ticket to Tokyo, Japan, where it was Cherry Blossom Week. I plan to return to Kangding and from there to Dege and the MeChu in October, subject of course as to what happens when the Olympic Torch passes through Tibet in June and at the August Olympics in Beijing.

Tashi Delek, Laurence of Australia