From July 19 to August 12, I traveled from Kunming to Chengdu, capital of China’s Sichuan Province, via the minority towns of Yunnan’s northwest and the Tibet-Sichuan Highway. In the next series of posts, I will provide vignettes and photographs of some of the more memorable and interesting moments of the journey.
First, though, a few words about the general route I chose.
Usually I don’t really choose a “route”. I always have a general idea of where I’d like to go, but the places on my itinerary have no particular link; they’re simply included together due to geographic convenience.
On this trip, for whatever reason, my route took on added importance. I wanted to travel clockwise, avoiding any backtracking, detours, or flights. In a sense, my trip represented a progression from one place to the next, as if there were clear, rational reasons for going where I was going.
The trip began in Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province. It ended in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province. Despite some great differences, both cities are large provincial capitals that bear little resemblance, demographically or otherwise, to the provinces they represent. Both cities are quintessentially Chinese: big, crowded, polluted, and undergoing great change.
Yet Yunnan and Sichuan are extremely diverse provinces, containing more than two dozen of China’s fifty-four ethnic minority groups within their borders. Both have towering mountain peaks that contrast with low-lying valley land, and both have as much climactic diversity as the whole of China.
Beginning in Kunming, I traveled first to Dali, home base of Yunnan’s Bai population, and then to Lijiang, dominated by the Naxi. From there came Zhongdian, a town 3,200 meters high comprised of equal parts Naxi, Tibetan, and Han, and finally into the Sichuanese towns of Xiangcheng and Litang where Tibetans comprise the vast majority.
Heading east from Litang, I stopped two nights in Kangding, a town shared equally between the Tibetans and Han, and finally onto Chengdu, a Chinese metropolis a world apart from the Tibetan lands to the west. From there, a swift train journey brought me full circle back to Kunming, where I sit now back in my familiar apartment.
The journey took just three weeks- but I managed to pack plenty of good memories in that time. I’ll do my best to convey them to you in the next few days.
Stay tuned!
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