There was no new snow on the ground this morning so we left immediately for Mei Li Xue Shan. I was a little worried about getting stranded up there, but the thought of seeing some high 6000 meter peaks was too enticing. Plus, how many folks get to see them in winter? The weather looked promising. I sat in the back seat for the first part of the trip, which was to take around 5-6 hours, and started feeling dizzy as we ascended into the mountains. Switching to the front, I started to enjoy the ride again as we passed numerous temples, pagodas, and farms perched above high precipices.

Another snowy village

I love this shot down into the valley in the arid country. Actually, those farms and houses are not the bottom of the valley. It’s actually much farther down, much farther!

The snow eventually vanished as we entered arid country without hardly any trees. At one point, some finely dressed young people who were curiously loitering on the side of the road raised a ribbon, blocking our way. A small offering of money entitled us to a sip or two of some strong licquor and good wishes for safe passage in the mountains. Later, we arrived at the final village before our destination where we discovered we couldn’t continue – “too much snow”, so the police blocking the way said (there was naught but sunshine and warmth down in the valley). So, we had some lunch and then asked to drive up a little ways for some views. We then were told that we could indeed try to go up to the mountain area at 2pm. This was a theme for the past 24 hours – we can go/we can’t go…back and forth, back and forth.

The road beyond the village wasn’t exactly safe, not because of the snow, but the potential for landslides. Check out the lefthand wall in the first pic. We saw two or three small boulders tumble in front of us on this trip. Yikes. The snow was much safer.

More grand vistas opened up and the snow increased greatly. After a couple of hours of bouncing in the snow (the road was well plowed by the way), the driver noticed smoke rising from the engine. “Please just be steam”, I thought, but no such luck. Two of the belts and slipped off and one was shredded. The spare was doubled the size, so the driver and James spent a couple of hours with my swiss army knife trying to make it fit. It looked pretty dubious and sure enough, it didn’t work. OK, so we’re not going to the snow mountain. Descending wouldn’t strain the engine so much (maybe the brakes instead) so the driver reasoned and we started down. Within five minutes, we rant into a caravan of our driver’s friends who quickly produced a spare belt. All of the other tourists got out and began snapping away with their big fancy cameras.

Some low 14k hills in the distance. I wanna see the big ones!

Here are some examples of the aforementioned back and forth:

“Oh, we can’t go to the snow mountain because of the storms in China.”
“Oh, we can go because of the sudden good weather!”
“Oh, we can’t go because of the approaching snow storm.”
“Oh, we can go because no snow fell!”
“Oh, we can’t go because the police won’t let us.”
“Oh, we can try at 2pm!”
“Oh, we can’t because the car broke down.”
“Oh we can because the driver’s friends are here with a spare!”
“Oh, we can’t because the friends can’t fix the belts.”
“Oh, maybe we can tag along with one of the other cars!…”

“No! Too crowded.”

“Let’s see here….”, With a little help from our friends.

A nice looking spire in the distance

We left dejected. Before we were off of the bumpy snow-plowed road, I fell asleep…somehow managing to catch a few z’s between the endless sharp curves. I awoke when the car came to a halt back in the village where the police had originally halted us. The driver was gone and Li Zhen (“James”, remember) told me he was buying something. He then appeared through the car window and produced three flashlights. What? “The headlights aren’t working, so we’ll use these.” What??! Aw man… “Don’t worry. It’s only thirty minutes to Shangri-La.”, the driver consoled us with a blatant lie. I didn’t say anything, but I knew it was nowhere close to thirty minutes. It was at least an hour. At least.

The driver sped out of the village like a bat out of Hell, obviously trying to outrun the sun. The night crept in and our eyes adjusted, but that didn’t prevent our car from nearly flattening a party of people in the middle of the road around a sharp corner. The driver slammed on the brakes and the car skidded to a stop as the crowed scattered out of the way. Before I could regain my senses, the began shouting at us (rightfully so) and the driver slammed on the gas and sped off again, even dodging more people! Before too long, it became too dark and the three or four hour comedy of holding a flashlight outside the passenger window began. I found myself getting angry at the situation: the car breaking down, the driver not disclosing the problem with the lights until the final hour, and now the ridiculous situation of James having to hold the flashlight out of the window.

As we left the dry area and entered back into the cold northern slopes, the temperature dropped and it began snowing. Aw, just great! Somehow, it wasn’t a problem, except the car was perpetually freezing. Maybe it was too cold and windy to stick. Curve after curve…finally the lights of Shangri-La appeared. In Shangri-La, we needed to make the decision of staying there or pressing on to the village outside of Tiger Leaping Gorge, our next intended destination. The driver said that he could use the lights now that it was an issue of battery power (maybe no power to the alternator?). Oh yeah, and the “thirty minutes” to get to Shangri-La was really two hours. We decided to head for Tiger Leaping Gorge since that section of road was much more manageable than the previous.

But, did the driver turn on the headlights? No. Only in certain important areas like around checkpoints or when other cars passed us. He ended up smacking a big block of ice then stopped the car to inspect the damage (nothing to prevent us from continuing), to which I could only shake my head and sarcastically remark, “Well, that’s what happens with no headlights”. I have to hand it to James for manning the flashlight for the entire trip. I just sat back in the back and shivered. I asked James why the lights weren’t on. He just replied, “I don’t know.” I accepted that, not in the mood to discuss it. I complained loudly, in English, about not paying the guy when we got back. Of course, I knew there was no way we could do that, but I really felt like it. When the driver asked, “What’s he saying?” I quickly interjected, “Oh, I’m just really cold!” Some of these guys carry machetes.

We arrived at a cheap hotel around 11:30pm which promised hot water. We had a tasty late dinner in a cavernous and deserted restaurant. Somehow, no one elected to sit in any of the large (Western-style) chairs, but instead we squatted at the kid’s table (not really the kids table, but most of the tables I sat at on this trip featured chairs so small the my knees often rubbed against my chin). I was so looking forward to a hot shower; that would make it all right. I had already begun to settle down once we arrived. I couldn’t keep pouting after the three of us sat down and enjoyed that good meal. However, the shower water couldn’t muster beyond a little warmer than “damn cold” so I shivered and cursed. The bed was very comfortable though and the heated mattress made it snug. I slept soundly until 8am the following morning.