Pilgrims trekking through snow-capped mountains and canyons: Ten routes to Tibet

From Lijiang to Lhasa, this nearly 2,000-kilometer journey has never lacked human presence: pilgrims, cyclists, volunteers, road and bridge builders, college students hitchhiking, stationed soldiers, women sowing seeds by the Lancang River, people from distant villages coming to celebrate with songs and drinks, young people waiting for buses to leave the mountains... "Mountain circumambulators" walk through the embrace of snow-capped mountains and canyons.

Laren, Tibetan, from Zhongdian County (now Shangri-La County), 43 years old. In 1982, he crawled all the way from his hometown to Lhasa on his knees and arrived four years later.

Our Tibetan driver, Master Laren, accompanied the *Kora* film crew for a while, but he hasn’t seen the movie and doesn’t like to talk about it. When asked too much, he’d just say, “Those are all exaggerations!” Many scenes were filmed in Diqing County. For a cycling newbie to ride from Lijiang to Lhasa in a month is almost impossible.

Thirty years ago, 13-year-old Laren set out from his hometown of Zhongdian to Lhasa on a pilgrimage. Over ten young villagers left together, crawling all the way on their knees. They arrived in Lhasa four years later, but one companion died on the road. Later, he went to Nepal and India, and when he returned to Zhongdian, he was already 20. In Nepal, he heard foreigners mention “Shambhala,” only to later realize they were talking about his hometown. In 2001, Zhongdian County was officially renamed Shangri-La County. “Undertaking a pilgrimage like this is important—it’s best done when you’re young.” Though he never attended school, the journey itself was his classroom.

Years later, Laren bought a Toyota 4500 and began driving along the Yunnan-Tibet Highway. He’s met all kinds of “mountain circumambulators”: wild-and-crazy Singaporean tourists, renowned photographers, faded pop singers, German women interested in Khampa culture, and public-minded volunteers... This road has always been imbued with many meanings of travel.

Laren holds the greatest respect for the true pilgrims on the road. Whenever he encounters them, he stops to chat about the hardships of the journey and leaves a bit of money for the elders—these pilgrims often travel with their families, camping and cooking along the roadside. A Tibetan folk song goes: “The dark earth I measured with my body, the white clouds I counted with my fingers, the steep cliffs I climbed like a ladder.”

Yan Jie, 21, a junior at Sichuan Conservatory of Music, traveled to the snow mountains in October 2011 and stayed to teach at the Baimang Snow Mountain Tibetan Primary School until May of this year.

Yan Jie came to Yunnan last year while traveling and passed through Baimang Snow Mountain, where she stayed to volunteer as a teacher at the Baimang Snow Mountain Tibetan Primary School. It’s said the school is mainly run by a living Buddha, whom the children call the “Living Buddha Principal.” The school originally operated in tents on the mountain before relocating downhill. Last year, a new school was built with a playground, classrooms, and dormitories. Vice Principal Dawa, from Qinghai, even had murals painted in the dormitory area. Initially, most students were Tibetan orphans, but later the school expanded to include children from impoverished families in Diqing Prefecture, as well as from Sichuan and Qinghai. “There aren’t many primary schools in this area that teach in three languages: Chinese, Tibetan, and English.”

There’s no internet at the school. Yan Jie found that writing letters by hand was a deeper way to express emotions. She wrote many letters to her parents, saying things she couldn’t say face-to-face. “People who come here often end up returning to help the school,” Vice Principal Dawa said. “Many students graduate and go to different places, but they all try to help the school in their own way.”

Volunteers like Yan Jie come every year, especially more during the summer. They stay for varying lengths of time. Yan Jie’s volunteering is also a form of learning—she can now speak some Tibetan and has begun to recognize complex Tibetan script. She says she’ll leave in May, when the rhododendrons of Baimang Snow Mountain bloom. She wants to see the brilliant sea of flowers before she goes.

Road construction worker, name unknown, ethnicity unknown, age unknown, background unknown. Building houses and repairing roads are the two most common projects seen along the Yunnan-Tibet Highway. Especially road repairs—many sections collapse and are fixed, then collapse again, in an endless cycle.

Drivers who regularly travel the Sichuan-Tibet and Yunnan-Tibet Highways know best: the typical Hengduan Mountains terrain, especially when it rains, often leads to landslides and mudflows. Due to the large altitude differences, you can experience all four seasons in a single day. Because it’s spring and the rainy season hasn’t fully arrived yet, it’s a precious working period on the plateau. Road workers are frequently seen along the route, from Shangri-La all the way to Yanjing. Bridges are being erected between canyons, with workers standing isolated in the middle of the gorges.

The nearly 2,000-kilometer Yunnan-Tibet Highway is accompanied by major rivers—the Jinsha, Lancang, and Nujiang. The Nujiang Bridge guards a treacherous point, where the Three Parallel Rivers converge. The area is crisscrossed with major rivers and streams, and the curves of the Nujiang Canyon twist like a coiled python.

Large trucks running along the Yunnan-Tibet Highway are decorated flamboyantly—with “lotus flowers,” “dharma wheels,” and prayer scarves. Many are Dongfeng-brand trucks. The road winds in sharp zigzags, featuring 72 major turns. The *Kora* movie captured this section. Xiong, who’s driven the Yunnan-Tibet Highway for over a decade, says the road is much better now—only recently paved with asphalt last year.

Stories from the road are recorded on the walls of Sister Xiang’s Travelers’ Inn, located opposite the Tongmai Army Post. Many have left impressions of this long road—for example, “If you’re full of sorrow, why not head westward? Witness the greatness of the builders of National Highway 318.” “Tongmai’s dangers are no longer dangerous; the Sichuan-Tibet route has become a commercial attraction...” Sister Xiang, a Sichuan native, is well-known along this road. She’s run her shop for over a decade, and drivers traveling the various Tibet routes all know her, including all sorts of cyclists and hikers. “These days, you often see people cycling down, then cycling back up.” She even posted updates about the inn’s latest developments on a cycling forum. Now the inn has wireless internet.

From Bomi to Nyingchi, after passing Tongmai, the narrow mountain road has sheer canyons visible outside the window. Crossing the Tongmai Bridge, remnants of the old bridge destroyed by floods lie beside it. The weather is warm, and lush wild grass grows along the riverbanks. It’s said to be bamboo flowering—a phenomenon that occurs once every sixty years or more. The bamboo flowers resemble reeds, producing fruit called “bamboo rice” that falls afterward, then the bamboo dies completely.

Li Congming, 45, from Dehua, Fujian. He’s been cycling since 1989 and has circled China by bike three times. Starting in October 2011, he planned to ride ten routes to Tibet consecutively.

After National Highway 214 reaches Mangkang, it merges with Sichuan-Tibet Highway 318. A stretch of dirt road kicks up thick dust, and amid the haze, two cyclists can be seen. These two riders from Hunan set out from Lijiang with Lhasa as their destination, following the route in the movie *Kora*. On uphill stretches, they push their bikes painfully forward, their full gear leaving only their eyes exposed. Originally a group of over ten cyclists, some ride faster, some slower, and often only two of similar strength end up riding together. Sometimes, they move through the dust, crawl to a high point, then smoothly descend, with snow-capped mountains and canyons forming the backdrop.

There are also solitary cyclists. On the night they reached Ranwu, amid heavy snowfall, a small tavern surrounded a Fujian man named Li Congming. He goes by the online alias “Lone Rider” and has been cycling across China since the late 1980s. Starting on October 1st last year, he planned to enter Tibet via ten different routes consecutively, aiming to complete the journey in 250 days. The group in the tavern erupted in amazement and admiration. A guy from Beijing’s Jimenqiao toasted him repeatedly, convinced Li Congming was incredible. Drunk, the man suddenly decided to buy a plane ticket to Lhasa, then hitchhike to Chengdu, seeing it as a great thirtieth-birthday gift to himself.