It was the summer of 2019, and we were back in China for the first time in four years.The whole family had returned to visit family, friends, and old haunts, but partway through the trip my oldest and I peeled off for a side mission—two weeks in western Sichuan, riding along with one of my closest friends, Jeremy, who was running bike tours out of Chengdu. He had two open seats in his support van if we could meet him up in Garzê.
That “if” turned into this story.
Yangjie → Kunming → Chengdu (The Easy Part)
July 20-21, 2019
We left our village in Yunnan, dropped down the 90 minute drive to Kunming for the night, crashed at a friend’s place, and the next morning boarded the high-speed rail to Chengdu. Door to door, it was an 9–10 hour travel day—six of those on the train.
The last time I’d done anything resembling this route was by bus, in the opposite direction, sometime in the mid-2000s. That trip took four days, featured roads that could generously be described as “aspirational,” and permanently recalibrated my understanding of patience. The bullet train felt like cheating.
We spent one night in Chengdu, repacked, and before dawn the next morning headed for the airport.
Kangding: Thin Air, Thick History
Our destination was Kangding, the gateway town to the Tibetan Plateau.
The flight itself was short—about 45 minutes to an hour—but the landing was memorable. Kangding Airport sits at roughly 4,280 meters (14,000+ feet), making it one of the highest commercial airports in the world. You feel it immediately when you step off the plane: thinner air, slower movements, deeper breaths.
Kangding is famous across China for an old folk song—“Kangding Love Song” (康定情歌). Nearly everyone in China can hum it, even if they’ve never been west of Chengdu. The town itself is an interesting split personality: half Chinese, half Tibetan, equal parts concrete and prayer flags.
I’d passed through Kangding once before, back in 2006, and honestly—it hadn’t changed much. Then and now, it’s primarily a jumping-off point: west toward the high grasslands of Garzê, or south along the old Burma Road toward Yunnan. In 2006, “highway” was an optimistic word for what was essentially a dirt track. I assume it’s paved now… but that old trip deserves its own post someday.
After landing, we grabbed a taxi straight to the bus station, planning to catch the 10–12 hour bus north to Garzê.
When the Plan Starts to Unravel
We arrived with a couple of hours to spare, which is exactly enough time in western China for your plan to dissolve.
Walking around outside the station, we started chatting with drivers heading in every direction imaginable. Eventually, I found a guy whose vehicle couldn’t decide whether it was a car or an SUV, who claimed he was heading to our destination as soon as he filled the seats.
“Filled” turned out to mean: seven Buddhist monks, my son, and me.
Fifteen minutes later, we were on the road.
Across the Plateau (Claustrophobia Edition)
The seating arrangement defied geometry.
- My son and I were crushed into the back row with a woman monk
- Four male monks were sardined into the middle
- Two more rode shotgun with the driver
The scenery, when we could see it, was spectacular—rolling grasslands, distant snow peaks, endless sky. Riding conditions, however, made appreciation difficult. No back windows opened. The monks seemed perfectly content. We were… less so.
Rest stops were pure bliss. Legs stretched. Lungs filled. Sanity briefly restored. Then—back into the car and off we went, the driver attacking the road like daylight was a personal insult.
Late in the afternoon, I caught a glimpse of Yala Snow Mountain glowing in the distance—one of the sacred peaks of the region, rising to around 5,800 meters. It was one of those moments that reminds you why you endure everything else.
Then night fell.
Rockslides, Gum, and Questionable Life Choices
By this point, Gavin and I had both noticed something deeply unsettling: the woman monk beside us was still chewing the same piece of gum she’d put in her mouth back in Kangding. Seven hours earlier.
It was no longer gum. It was… something else. And it made a sound.
Our mental stability began to erode.
The driver, meanwhile, showed zero concern for the pitch-black darkness now swallowing the road. At one point, we rounded a corner at speed and found several large boulders sprawled across the road, with smaller rocks still bouncing down from the cliff above.
The car stopped hard.
We sat in silence.
A window rolled down. A lighter flicked. The driver lit a cigarette and stared at the rockslide, either assessing geological risk or summoning courage—I couldn’t tell which. I suddenly understood why people smoke. I didn’t smoke, but I wanted one.
Cigarette still dangling, he decided thinking was overrated, stomped the gas, and we shot through the gap and back into the night.
The Mystery Village Detour
About an hour from Garzê, the driver suddenly turned off the main road.
No explanation.
We rolled into a small village and stopped in someone’s yard. Everyone got out. There was animated conversation. Bags were redistributed from behind the seats. Language barriers were… substantial.
We were invited inside, greeted warmly, given tea and snacks like this was all perfectly normal—which, for them, it probably was.
Eventually, another car arrived. We all transferred vehicles and headed out for the final stretch.
I never did figure out exactly why we changed cars, but my best guess is permits. Western Sichuan is still very much a patchwork of checkpoints, regulations, and unofficial workarounds.
Near midnight, we finally reached Garzê. I hadn’t booked a room, so we start asking around. The first two hotels we found were booked, but the second one, the night guard pointed at a small guard room that had two small beds crammed into a tiny room. He was kind enough to offer us one of the beds free of charge if we couldn’t find a place. Luckily, the next hotel we checked had a couple of rooms left, we checked in. It was in the tallest building in the town. Early in the morning, we went upstairs to the roof to get a look at our surroundings. It was going to be a good day!
Wise Clan in Stanland 
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