This was one of the most fascinating locales we've stayed at, in China or anywhere else.
For two nights we stayed with a Tibetan family of three generations, in a village guesthouse overlooking a precipitous canyon. And it's not just any village -- this was the charming but mysterious Danba, often voted one of the most beautiful villages in China and a tentative addition to China's list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Each morning we started with a breakfast of fresh steamed bread and grain porridge, toured the countryside during the day, came home to play with the children in the afternoon then dined on a feast originating from the family's own organically planted fields. To two city dwelling office workers, it was Shangri-la.
Yes this was still part of our 18-Day Circle Route around Chengdu. We took a detour to the easternmost section of the Tibetan Plateau and traveled through the ethnic minority regions of Western Sichuan. Out of all these ethnic villages and towns, Danba was THE number one objective. This place is legendary among domestic Chinese backpackers, and I wasn't going to pass it up.
Getting here wasn't straightforward -- it was an grueling 8-hour bus ride from Ya'an (or 9.5 hours from Chengdu!) to Dartsedo / Kangding, followed by another full day's bus or private taxi from Dartsedo to the county town of Danba. Then there's the murderously rough and narrow switchback path to arrive at the heart of the village. The breathtaking scenery on the road was definitely worth it (see our trip reports from Xinduqiao and Tagong), but it was still tough work.
Except pre-booking a room was even tougher! Many guesthouses didn't even have websites, and those that did wouldn't use email at all! This was in late 2014 and things may have changed, but we had to either call them in Chinese or connect thru a Chinese messaging app known as QQ. We opted for installing QQ on our Android phone and using it to confirm our arrival ... all in Chinese. In terms of inconvenience this guesthouse rivaled our fax request in Japanese to book a Minshuku in Gokayama, and even that was quite a few years ago.
Jiaju Gema's Guesthouse was definitely one of the best in Danba in terms of amenities and comfort -- you won't believe the trouble it took to secure a room equipped with not only a private washroom, but with a Western style seated toilet. Here the squat toilet is the norm in most houses, and the really rustic ones would have one Tibetan style toilet -- a shielded balcony with a hole in the floor attached to a round tube extending towards a fertilizer dump -- to be shared by family members and visitors alike. Our guesthouse did have an old Tibetan style toilet, though it's now somewhat of a relic.
Arriving on a 9-hour journey from Dartsedo we didn't arrive until almost 18:00, and I was seriously worried that we would miss suppertime. In my experience suppers are typically early in agrarian societies, but that was the wrong assumption on this night -- our contact person Gema had to ride down to the county town and fetch a group of visitors from Beijing who had trouble finding her village.
Gema, principal operator of the family guesthouse, was also a young mother of two boys AND a performer in the village's traditional dance troupe AND a Ph.D. in agriculture. Unlike their counterparts in mainstream Han Chinese culture or even mainstream Tibetan culture, the women of Danba have long enjoyed high status as a vestige of an ancient tribal society of matriarchs.
The family dwelling may seem several hundred years old to the untrained eye, but according to Gema it was rebuilt only 15 years ago on their ancestral parcel of land. Rebuilding such a house is a labor of love and sweat, each stone laid and mortared by hand and each wooden beam hand-carved and painstakingly painted in the most brilliant of colors.
Whitewashed stone walls, trapezoid-shaped window sills and owl-like horns protruding from the four corners of the rooftop -- it's impossible to misidentify an indigenous Danba Tibetan house. Climbing those tree trunk-hewn ladders took a fair bit of balance, but the view from the top was worthwhile.
A landscape of archaic stone houses and ancient watchtowers could be seen for miles, scattering along a deep gorge that plunged towards the raging rapids of the Dajinchuan River.
Small as the guesthouse may seem, I counted at least 8 guestrooms sleeping close to 20 visitors on our first night. Most of the clientele came from various outdoorsmen clubs throughout China; independent travelers were the minority, and foreigners were almost unheard of.
Most of the guestrooms were classic Tibetan style rooms with these flamboyantly hand-painted box beds sleeping four. My wife wondered why we didn't book one of these exotic rooms, though she quickly understood after seeing the squat toilet.
Ours was one of four western style rooms equipped with a soft bed, satellite TV and the rarely seen seated toilet. Amenities were almost on par with economy hotel rooms in any Chinese city except for the lack of air conditioning / heating. This was early November, and it was cold at night at 2100m above sea level.
Dinner and breakfast were all included ... where else would guests eat in a secluded village with no real restaurants in a 5km radius? Even lunch could be easily arranged for a nominal fee of RMB 20 or so per person, serving whatever seasonal dishes the host family would eat.
Our first dinner was a rowdy communal affair with 17 other guests -- 3 long tables with 6 guests sharing an 8 course meal, with us being the only non-domestic travelers. Gema came out in full Tibetan regalia to perform a traditional song, half in Gyalrong Tibetan and half in standard Chinese, and poured Qingke Wine for each of us. I remember much less about the food than the conversation with the Beijingner photographer sitting across from me. I probably had a few cups too much.
Next evening's dinner was served in the courtyard as we were the only guests left. The portion -- 6 courses plus a soup! -- was way more than the two of us could finish. The broth of bellflower roots and lard was excellent and the home-cured bacon was also memorable.
But the best course was actually the bowl of brown rice stir-fried with lard and spring onions. I actually felt bad about not finishing the lovingly roasted cornbread, but I barely touched them as I just couldn't resist finishing the rice.
The daily breakfast of porridge and spicy pickles was more Sichuanese than Tibetan. Total cost of a room and two meals was a cheap RMB 100 per person per night, one of the best bargains we found on our 18-day trip. I get the feeling prices will go way up though, if Danba becomes successful in its World Heritage bid.
The host family of six would gather for meals inside their kitchen only after the guests had their share. I visited this kitchen at least four or five times daily, fetching hot water for my wife who was fighting remnants of a flu. Naturally we took it easy on the sightseeing, opting to hang around the village more, playing with the children and just chilling.
Gema's two boys shared a small and grubby bedroom beneath the stairs. The 6-year-old was an expert at formulating paper airplanes of various shapes and designs, and the 3-year-old was the family cat's best friend and worst nightmare. For a good 10 minutes this innocent kid demonstrated how to peel open a cat's closed eye lids and forcing it into submission by pulling on its tail ... all without getting seriously scratched or bitten.
This was the only Mainland Chinese family I had seen with two young boys; even families with two girls were rare, courtesy of the ever-changing interpretations of the infamous One Child Policy. But apparently ethnic minorities parents are allowed two kids regardless of gender, and in rural villages rules may be even more lax.
Located in the small hamlet of Jiaju, this guesthouse turned out to be a decent base for exploring all the other villages in the canyons of Danba. We hired a private driver to deliver us through some extremely rutted roads to the villages of Niega, Zhonglu and Suopo over two days. These will be covered in the upcoming articles.
Tibetan Villages of Danba Canyon - Part 1: Village Guesthouse
Reviewed by Laura
Published :
Rating : 4.5
Published :
Rating : 4.5
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