Five joined me on a trip through the eastern Tibetan lands of Kham and Amdo. They are places of awesome empty spaces to which the people add colour with their dress, prayer flags and architecture; and life with their welcoming and direct way of interacting with strangers passing by.
We cut south-north through the area, from Gyalthang (Ch Zhongdian) in Yunnan to Xining in Qinghai province – 2.000 kilometres along the shortest road, but we added another 1.000 of amazing detours via Pelyul (Ch Baiyu), Katok (Ch Gatuo) and Dege in Sichuan province and the Golok nomad area in Qinghai.
Unlike in the well-known triangle of Lhasa, Gyantse and Shigatse in Central Tibet there were no hordes of tourists. In fact we saw about five from abroad and five from China in three weeks – and zero during our detours. Unlike in Central Tibet there is no big influx of Han Chinese workers and traders. We travelled through a much purer Tibet than the Lhasa region is these days.
We were free to go anywhere – not a certainty for foreigners in these parts. Only at the junction that should lead us to Katok monastery we were stopped at a police checkpoint and told that we could not stay overnight in the area. I politely asked the young man in uniform to call his boss. He did, and was sorry to tell us his boss said ‘no’. I politely persisted, he called again, and he was even more sorry to tell us his boss still said ‘no’. We were allowed a daytime visit, before dark we were to be back at his checkpoint and move on.
One day we drove – make that: bumped, it was an awful stretch of road – along the Yangtse river between Baiyu and Dege. We were in Sichuan, across lay the other half of Kham in the Tibet Autonomous Region, forbidden territory for foreigners unless they have a travel permit. And these have been almost impossible to get in the past two years. I hope one day to have the opportunity to visit that other part of Kham.
For some more photo´s see http://www.flickr.com/photos/pieterneele/sets/72157627763666722/