Day 19: Tagong

Originally after Zhonglu we planned to go to Bamei to look for a small village accessible only by a river boat. After arriving in Bamei (another bumpy ride), the locals told us that there was no such village. So we shared a ride with two Chinese girls to Tagong, known for its vast grassland.

Tagong is at the same altitude as Lhasa (3,700 meters). On the evening of our arrival in Tagong, we developed symptoms caused by high altitude sickness, i.e. pounding headache, nauseous. The old Tibetan woman running the guesthouse brewed us a tea with special Tibetan herbs. Katy and I just lied on the bed until the next afternoon.

On our last evening in Tagong, we managed to do some “horse-riding”, i.e. some poor soul walking and leading the horses which Katy and I were sitting on. Despite the cheesy act, the view from the top of the hill overlooking the grassland was amazing.

We spent only two days in Tagong and decided check out because the Chinese government had tightened the security measures in Western Sichuan (due to the upcoming Olympics). There were about 40 armed riot police officers marching up and down the main street of Tagong when we were there. The atmosphere was pretty tense. Many shops were closed and only a handful of tourists stayed.










Our meal options were fairly limited due to the shop closure. After a few pretty bad meals, we asked the guesthouse owner if we could eat with them on our last evening in Tagong. She asked us if beef, vegetable and some noodles were OK with us. Sure, we can do steak with greens and noodles on the side anytime. Finally a real Tibetan home cooking on the grassland! Oh boy, did we get our expectations high. The dinner was basically a soup with minced beef, bak choy and white noodles. We could barely finish ours while her second son had three huge bowls.

Our original plan was to go to Litang. From there, we could either go to Tibet or Yunan. Unfortunately some 250,000 troops were already stationed in Litang, and all foreigners (including Taiwanese) were forbidden to enter the city. So we decided to return to Chengdu and go to Guizhou/Guilin instead. That is the closest that we would be from Tibet for this trip. Along the way, we saw several armed checkpoints. When we entered Chengdu, two armed police officer came aboard for a quick inspection. We were glad to leave Tagong.

Photos from left to right: 1) & 2) prayer flags on top of a hill, 3) Tibetan man handing out prayer paper during our bus ride for good luck, 4) view of a surreal mountain in Bamei