The story of Daocheng is never ending. I tried to add explaination for some of the pictures I have shown you. Please click here to see them.

I am going to write a travelogue of on a Autumn trip from Chengdu to Daocheng-Yading. This idea of the trip is initialized by my girl friend. She read about Daocheng on the net and decided to go to the last Shangri-la. It turned out to be one of the best decisions we have ever made. The trip itself is an adventure, let along the beautiful scenes we saw in the Tibetan area. I didn’t thought about recording the jorney, until I read Chan Joon Yee‘s Almost Shangrila. Given I am very busy at day time and seldom can I find some time to sit down to write, the progress may be slow, and some times I may pause, but I will have a try.

Before I begin, I quote my email to one of my friends here. You may get some idea about trip in advance.

We were thinking about go to Jiu Zai Gou, but due to the national holiday, we decided to go further so it will not be so crowded.

Daocheng is very far from Chengdu. We took 3 days + almost two nights to get there. Sometimes we arrive the place we live (no hotel there) after 2:00 AM, sometime we need to start as early as 5:00 AM. Four-ladies Mountain is on the way of our first day trip. It looks very nice. I have decided to separately go there someday.

We stayed the first night at Xin Du Qiao and arrived in Daocheng the second night. The village of Yading, where the snow mountain pictures were taken, is another 110 KM from Daocheng. The road condition is terrible, the maximum speed for the bus is about 20-30 KM/hour.

Even Yading is not the end of the journey. The next morning, we rode horses to march toward the top of the mountain. It is the first time I ride a horse for the whole day.

Compared with Jiu Zai Gou, the area is completely undeveloped. There are no roads, no water, no electricity power, no house, and no food. We use horses as transportation tools, we used candles, we lived in tents and we brought rice, oil and vegetables from Daocheng county to the place we stayed. Beside the unbelievable beautiful scene, it is an unforgettable journey itself.

The seven days from Chengdu to Daocheng is very impressive. Many things happened during the trip and I got to know a lot of people too. Here is the schedule of the trip.

Day 1:

Chengdu – Xinduqiao (8:00 AM to 12:30 AM), stayed at Xinduqiao

Day 2:

Xinduqiao – Daocheng (10:30 AM – 2:00 AM), stayed at Daocheng

Day 3:

Daocheng – Yading (10:30 AM – 5:00 PM), stayed at Yading

Day 4:

Yading – Luorong Cattle Field – Yading

Day 5:

Yading – Daocheng (3:00 PM – 7:00 PM)

Day 6:

Daocheng – Xinduqiao (6:00 AM – 8:00 PM)

Day 7:

Xinduqiao – Chengdu ( 5:00 AM – 6:00 PM)

….

Look at the snow mountains!

See more photos

I have returned to Shanghai from Daocheng. It is a hard trip but very interesting and unforgetable trip. The snow mountains and the grass lands are so beautiful – I promise it is the most beautiful place in the world. It is really the Shangrila. I didn’t have time to upload all the photos I took yet, but I will do it little by little in the following days.

After seven days, I finally returned to the civilization world. I have been unable to access electrocity, mobile phone – sometimes even telephone, water pipes…. for seven days. It is the odd world – the natural world. I am very excited to tell you all about the trip, but hold a minute. I need some time to rest and all the long stories need some time to tell.

This is a short message from Dao Cheng. After 30+ hours of bus, I finally arrived in Dao Cheng. The Internet access is not easy here. Thanks for Xue Long Zi from Yading.net to provide his computer and modem.

One of the 191 pictures I have taken is here.

Updated Nov 28, 2002

Luo Ye Hong’s Photo in

Xinduqiao

    Miss Luo comes from Fuzhou. She has been an independent

traveler or explorer for some time. She brought much liveliness to the group.

Caca and Xiaobai’s photo in Daocheng

    Caca and Xiaobai come from Wenzhou and they work for Wenzhou

Daily. It is an admirable to be the editor of the travel column. See their

professional photos.

Video in Daocheng

    Cautious: The video size is large – 48M in size

Jiuzhaigou by Maphis

    Maphis’s photos in Jiuzhaigou. He did much better job to

express the waters and mountains in Jiuzhaigou using his camera.

Daocheng Photos by Cuanyu

    I met Cuanyu in a very

interesting way. He obviously explored more in Daocheng than me. Take a look

at photos he took.

Questions and Answered about Daocheng

Other great resources

Trekking in the Yading

Reserve, Dabpa by Pamela Logan