June 4-6, 2010 - Litang, Sichuan, China

My time in Litang was certainly to prove more pleasant than the preceeding days.  As the grey weather on our arrival morning passed we were greeted by bright blue skies and sun with an intensity that you only get at high elevations.  Walking out away from Litang town the rolling grasslands give way to mountain on the left and more grass on the right - a spectacular setting at over 13,000 feet.  We walked to a "hot spring"  - another indoor, ignoring the amazing view, Chinese-style place - which was closed, messed around with solar water boiling device (which was amazingly effective and boiled a few mL of beer left in my bottle so fast it cracked the bottle - check one out here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cooker#Solar_kettles) and ate dinner at a local Tibetan restaurant.  The guidebooks say that Litang is really a wild west Tibetan frontier town.  I suppose I agree - it seems pretty authentically Tibetan and not over-touristed, that's for sure and it certainly was a cool place to spend a couple of days.  The main town area is a bit of a mess of a place really, but the town's setting and the monastery more than makes up for it.  The day after arrival we visisted the monastery/lamasery (I don't know if there's a difference?) which was free to enter and basically deserted.  In  3 main halls/temples we saw a couple of huge metal Buddhas and checked out the rooftop decorations on one hall from where we were afforded some spectacular views of the town and surrounding countryside.  In one hall we were lucky enough to find workers carving and painting the walls, ceiling and columns of a new room.  They let us climb up onto the scaffolding and watch them work for a little while - the process is even more involved that I'd imagined and they even let us paint a little.  Apparnently it takes a team of 5-6 painters about 2 months to complete one room - perhaps 5x10m.  Looking at the detail I can definitely believe that estimate, perhaps more.  Later in the afternon English and I climbed up one of the hills behind the town to an elevation of 4300 or 4400m.  The views from up there were nothing short of stunning - the depth of the mountains on the one side - peaks all 4000-5000m or more - is amazing - nowhere have I seen this many mountains in one place - range after range after range, staked as far as the eye can see (and from 4400m on a perfectly clear day you can see a long, long way!).  The rolling grasslands to the other side seem equally infinite.  Amazing.  And cold.  After a short time we descended through the old part of the town and played with some of the local kids.  The next day was alleged to be a sky burial day...but luck was not on our side.

 

Image 1 - painting in the temple