Some guys from the hostel were going to Konga Shan (Konga Mountain) for a two day trip. It seemed a bit to expensive for us, the price that they proposed but, at the end, we accepted the offer. We really didn’t know where we were going, just, we saw some photos of this mountain and we thought it looks nice to visit 🙂 We were two foreigners with a few Chinese guys and our Chinese driver. Mostly all the time we have been in the car, driving from one place to another but it was totally worth it! Why? Just look at the photos 🙂
Finally we saw our Konga Mountain (7556 m above the sea level), the highest mountain in Sichuan province. We had to wait a bit to have a nice view on the moutain.
On our way back we were passing some Tibetan villages. As soon as we saw that something is going on in one of these villages, we stopped the car and decided to stay in that village for some time. We saw so many people in their traditional clothes, talking to each other in a big circle. Actually, there was only one man in the middle of the circle talking to other men who were standing near him. The Tibetan women were sitting somewhere else, watching the men. Finally, they told us that today is a horse race in this village and all people from nearby came to see the competition! How happy we were to see it! We just thought that we are so lucky to be able to participate in such a relevant event for this people and of course for us – foreigners. Other Chinese who were with us in the car weren’t that happy as we were but it didn’t matter for us 😉
Later, we went back to Kangding. So how to get to Kangding? You just need to take a bus from Chengdu (don’t remember exactly the name of the bus station but it is easy to find online). The bus takes you about 9 hours, it depends on the road conditions. There is no possibility to change money in Kangding so if you want to change money, do it in Chengdu. However, you can easily find an ATM in Kangding.
What to visit in Kangding? There are some really original buddhist monasteries. Kangding is like a first city from Chengdu to see Tibetan influence, smiling monks on the road, old monasteries etc…
If you want to see more photos go to this page: http://nicolascastermans.wix.com/the-wangders#!konga-mountain/yf47i