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08.08.2007
- Don’t go there.. Last year a woman was killed – with a knife the bandits cut her
throat. And shortly before that a group from Shanghai was robbed. They took
everything. Even their clothes.. You must believe me!” Said Jimba - our Tibetan
police officer and newly found friend in need
It was a sunny but not to hot day when we left Labrang. With a new driver and a
new cook. Hat felt good…and we hoped that this new duo would be better than the
previous ones. We also had a new local guide - Tim, a soft-spoken Tibetan with
a good command of the English language. That was nice for a change. This guy
was recommended to us by the local police – so we where a bit suspicious first but
after a while we realized that this was our man. He took us around in the area
with ease and his knowledge of the Tibetan culture was extensive. A nice change
after many young college students from Lanzhou that were supposed to guides or
interpreters. They were neither.
My Swiss American friend Urs left us in Labrang for Montreal, Paris, Venice..
A true world traveler – instead we did head for a destination a bit closer.
Lang Musi or Lagamusi monastery is 200 km south of Labrang, located at the
border of Gansu Province and Sichuan. In fact there is a small river right in the
middle of this picturesque monastery town that is the borderline. Sichuan is a
much wealthier province and that is evident here too. The monastery on the
southern side is richer in ever sense.
It is a nice little town that is far more developed for visitors needs than Labrang.
And it is much smaller. He locals call it the Switzerland of the east…and yes; it
looks a bit like a Swiss valley.
The road from Labrang to Lagamusi was a stunningly beautiful one – through
pristine grasslands with locals moving their Yak herds on horseback. It was/is all
directly from a movie. But this area is changing too with these new roads. The
horses are doomed here too and will be sooner or later replaced by motorbikes.
Our two-day excursion to the Lagamusi monastery - also a yellow hat sect
monastery was a nice break…but it was time to move on.
The distance from Labrang to Sanke – our first “pit stop” at this leg is just 16 km.
Tim – our guide was insisting on that we stop there for the night..That we should
not go further.
The reason was that this area was/is supposed to be very dangerous.
- Don’t go there.. Last year a woman was killed – with a knife the bandits cut her
throat. And shortly before that a group from Shanghai was robbed. They took
everything. Even their clothes.. You must believe me!” Said Jimba - our Tibetan
police officer and newly found friend in need.
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“ Vankur 30.3. 1908
Since we left the town of Hochow – not a day has passed without somebody
warning and insisting that we should not take the route over the grasslands. It was
famed for constant robberies. The Jaj (police officer) that was supposed to escort
us past this area disappeared in Labrang and it was impossible to hire locals as
guides. He explanation was always the same – the route was too dangerous.
Gangs of up to 40 bandits were supposed to raid the area. These bandits were
supposed to be armed with modern shotguns. He terrain is remote and not
populated at all. High hills and mountains surround the route –perfect spots for
these criminals to keep an eye on possible by passers.
It sounded like it would be impossible to travel this route without any form of
incidents. This sounded a bit too much to be true – but I decided to be prepared
and arm my people with guns and also weapons from my collection of old weapons
such as swords and old musketeers.
Very soon I did realize that one of the soldiers that was supposed to join us had
just vanished - with a sword as big a he was.
We headed for the heights as prepared as we possibly could be. Bt nothing
extraordinary happened. In fact we did not encounter anybody – everything was
empty and silent. Only the storm was howling … “
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Our first camp was inside the fences of a farm on the outskirts of Sanke village,
the farmers were too scared of robbers so they took all the livestock closer to their
house for the night.
So there we sat and had dinner…almost waiting for something to happen. The
atmosphere was tense – at least among our crew. Kristian and I could not get into
t that mode. We tried to ease the atmosphere by laughing at a small incident
that happened that afternoon on the road up to Sanke - 13 km after Labrang, just
before entering Sanke and the grasslands there is a gate on the main road. These
gates are common everywhere in China when you enter a new county.
His gate had a big sign with the text “ welcome to the beautiful Sanke grasslands
“ and then there was another sign “ scenic spot”
Well, below this gate and sign - just by the road there was a small house that
looked more like a box. As we where approaching this gate - a young man
popped out of the box with something in his right hand. It turned out to be printed
entrance tickets with a picture of this scenic spot.
This guy insisted on selling entrance tickets to this scenic spot - 20 Yuan each!
This was the only road to Sanke and this was definitely not private territory. But
some locals had come up with the splendid idea of selling entrance tickets to dumb
visitors. Quite an entrepreneurship… goes without saying. We did not pay.
Next day we continued through this remote grassland area. No sign of anything
unusual. Or in fact anything. Not even the usual herds of goats or sheep could be
seen as we rode along. Newly put fences were everywhere. Ha is sad. Even the
rivers were fenced in.
We passed the whole dangerous area without any other problems that our truck
got stuck in the mud for a while and as the sun was setting we arrived to a small
village. Just before that village we did find a good spot by a river - that was not
fenced in. But as we were about to put up our tent one of the locals came by and
said – do not do that here. There are robbers everywhere. Please move to the
other side of the village. It is safer there and closer to the big road…
Hmm – we decided to obey. We were also told that one of the high ranking lamas
from Labrang had recently visited one of those remote villages where these
bandit were supposed to dwell- he had tried to convince them that robbing is not
acceptable. Bt people do believe that their centuries old way of proving their
masculinity does not go away easily. Besides it is profitable.
That night our horseman and our guide could not sleep at all. They kept watch.
And in the morning they were ever so happy to get out of this area.
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