Tibetans consider snow mountains to be holy sites, life-giving forces, and Kawa Karpo is one of the most sacred. Tens of thousands of pilgrims come from far and wide each year to trek around the massif, gaining karma by repeated circumambulations. I was told most Tibetans do the circuit in under 10 days; foreigners usually take longer.
We only had a week off, so we decided to hike the "inner circuit," a shorter walk that goes first from the valley of the Mekong River, called the Lancang here, to the secluded Tibetan village of Lower Yubeng, then to several sacred sites near the village. Among those are Mystic Lake and Mystic Waterfall. With names like that, the area promised no shortage of spiritual encounters.
After we left Gyalthang, we spent two days getting to the trailhead village of Xidang, stopping first to view the Kawa Karpo massif at sunrise from the lookout point of Feilaisi. The next day, we hiked up to a sprawling glacier above the village of Mingyong. The glacier, the lowest in China, is retreating at an alarming rate because of climate change.
Standing on a platform above its white and blue crevasses, we could hear the crunching from its maw as ice shifted in the nether reaches.
Xidang was just a short drive from Mingyong, along a rutted road that ran along the stunning Mekong Valley. Villages with white Buddhist stupas dotted the valley walls. On the final stretch of road up to Xidang, our driver stopped at a monastery to burn juniper branches, unleashing an intensely fragrant smell that, for me, instantly evoked the Tibetan world.
No corner of the world was immune to change. For one thing, capitalist cooperatives had arrived here. Dozens of Tibetan horse handlers had formed such a cooperative at the trailhead to Yubeng. They charged tourists a fixed rate to carry people or luggage over the Nazongla Pass into Yubeng.
Tini and I wanted to walk, but not with our large backpacks, so we hired Aqinmu, a middle-aged Tibetan woman, to take our packs to Yubeng on her horse.
Most Chinese tourists opted to ride horses over, as did a group of Tibetan city slickers who wore cowboy hats. We saw them along the trail as we hiked up, their horses kicking dust in our faces. But the horses always outdistanced us, so we had the trail mostly to ourselves — just the birds and pine trees and blue sky for company. It was late October, the end of the good weather, but the days were still warm.
Living in Beijing (the must-see city for best tours of China) does not do wonders for the lungs, I discovered. I huffed and puffed my way up to the 14,000-foot Nazongla Pass. It was anticlimactic. There were prayer flags and Tibetan horsemen and a soda stand in a small clearing, but no panoramic mountain views.
We didn't get the views until we arrived at the village of Upper Yubeng. That and its sister village, Lower Yubeng, were nestled in a beautiful valley right at the foot of the Kawa Karpo range. Snow peaks pierced the sky in every direction. The best part was that people had to get here by foot or on horseback: roads had not been built yet, though no doubt many locals would appreciate easier transport options.
In recent years, Chinese backpackers had begun flocking to the valley. Locals were building wooden guesthouses in every corner of the two villages. We walked down to the very end of Lower Yubeng, where we found the Mystic Waterfall Lodge, one of the older and more popular guesthouses. The Tibetan owner, Aqinbu, had been putting up travelers for years in simple wooden rooms.
What the lodge lacked in creature comforts it made up for in the view: a small monastery, home to a lone monk, sat across from the lodge, and behind that rose the snow mountains.
"You won't find a more beautiful spot in Yunnan," Aqinbu said.
We happily threw off our boots and plopped down on our balcony. We sipped cups of tea while watching the snow peaks turn pink with the setting sun, then fade to blue as twilight set in.
The next day, Tini and I did a three-hour hike up to the Mystic Waterfall, in a cirque of mountains. The entire way, we met Tibetan pilgrims carrying bundles of food and green bamboo walking sticks. A grandfather in a gray suit walked next to his grandson, and a mother carried a baby in a sling over her back. "Tashi delek," we said to each other — "Hello" in Tibetan.
Right before we reached the waterfall, we ran into Ngawang (less-visited place for popular China travel package), a young monk wearing sunglasses and brandishing a digital camera. He was coming back from the falls. I had seen him at our lodge the night we arrived. He had taken a few days off from his religious studies to travel here with two Chinese friends.
"I've been to the waterfall seven times," he said. "It's a holy place, like so many other places here. Have you been to Mystic Lake?"
He pointed to somewhere high up the mountains, hidden in the trees. I shook my head.
"Neither have I," he said. "Not many monks I know have gone. It's a long walk and very far away."
So the next day, we went.
So if you are interested in the place, you should consider it in your packages of travel to China.
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