Finally a good nights sleep - 7 hours - and in one of the grungier hotels we stayed in.

While today’s ride is short, it crosses the mountain range, and reaches one of China’s well preserved natural wonders, the Yading National Park.

Today’s route in blue

The scenery along the route surpassed that from yesterday, reminding me of the Andean highlands in Colombia, and we climbed up to >4000 MASL. At the peak, temperatures dropped to 5 degrees, which is the lowest it’s been thus far. The roads were damp so speeds were very low.

Winding road ascending from Xiangchen

Tibetan village near the tree line

About 30km from town, we passed by a Tibetan temple (Zhagu Temple), with gold roof highlights contrasting against the reddish brown highlands.

Trying out a new pose…at Zhagu Temple

Once we reached town, it was a bit of a rush to get everything organised:

1. Dropped off laundry at the shop (quite expensive, 130 yuan)
2. Checked in to hotel and packed a bag to overnight in the park (if good)
3. Set off for the National Park

Yading National Park is set among the mountains, the next range over from town, and we caught a series of buses to get there. The utilisation rate of tourist infrastructure was probably the lowest I’ve ever seen - hundreds of buses for ferrying tourists that lay empty, with probably 300-500 tourists at the entire park. A pair of livestreamers sat at an otherwise empty entrance.

Livestreamer 1

Livestreamer 2

I took the opportunity to ride a horse to a lake in the park and then walked back ~2KMs. I was incredibly impressed by the tourist infrastructure.

Chonggu Meadows

Gonggacuo Lake

The park had a series of wooden paths, complete with bins every 30 metres or so, booths with toilets, coffee, water, food, and oxygen (and even powerbanks!). All manner of domestic tourists visited, ranging from the elderly, to young children.

Prayer flags along the route

Cheeky monkeys at the entrance

Upon returning, I hitched a ride back to the hotel with a private tour group I had befriended, and had a bite of dinner. Interestingly enough there were two Europeans eating nearby, German and Swiss university students who were on exchange in Singapore. We ended up having a great conversation and shared a beer before retiring for the evening.

Tomorrow; Litang!

• No fuel added
• 2 unique interactions
• 25g coffee consumed
• 119 KMs traveled

Route to date