October 6 - All Downhill?

We crossed the Minshan range yesterday, putting Tibetan China behind us after more than three months in the highlands. Tonight we're in Meichuan, a dusty Han town that also has plenty of Hui Muslims. As usual, however, photos lag a few days behind, so here's how the final days on the Tibetan Plateau looked...

Don't let anyone tell you the Swamps are all drained and safe. In Hongyuan especially there are plenty of places that give a good idea what the Reds were looking at 70 years ago.

Even then, however, the only Reds that sank into the muck were ones that went the wrong way. There were safe paths, if only you could find them. Yang Xiao tested out this stretch by walking on his hiking sticks. He went about 20 meters before deciding that was quite far enough, as the bog was already around his ankles.

This is one of the most famous, or perhaps I should say notorious rivers of the Long March. The Tibetans call it the Gaqu and it was at this point that Fourth Front Army leader Zhang Guotao turned his army around, refusing to continue across the Swamps to join Chairman Mao. Zhang has been labelled a traitor ever since. He claimed the Gaqu was in flood and uncrossable. Local opinion was somewhat divided, but the balance leaned towards Zhang telling the truth. Whatever, the 4th turned south to eventual disaster, while Mao led his rump force north to glory.

At 3,500 meters above sea level, the Hongyuan Grasslands were already freezing at night in late September.

The Gaqu at dawn. You could wade across it at this point - and the combined Second and Fourth Front Armies crossed with no trouble in 1936 - but locals said the situation was nothing like this in 1935. The rains that year were intense, as Long March veterans' diaries testify, and only a few crossings were available. These were only known to locals, none of whom cooperated with the Reds. Nevertheless, the Reds had faced tougher challenges and there was plenty of wood for bridges at Chali just a day's march away. The suspicion lingers that Zhang Guotao just didn't fancy the Swamps - and I can't say I blame him. The land around the Gaqu even now is daunting enough. I went looking for water near sunset one evening and had to turn back empty-handed as I couldn't find any safe trail to the riverside.

We often had to ride Khampa across the various rivers that got in our way, but in this case he got away first...

...leaving me no choice but to do it the hard way.

Althought the Snow Mountains were officially well behind us in Hongyuan, there are still plenty of mountains just as high - they just don't seem so bad when you're starting from a plateau 3,500 meters up. This is Yang Xiao going the wrong way to Sedi over a nameless pass that clocked over 4,200 meters.

A tiny fraction of the vast prairie north of Sedi, the biggest and emptiest of all those we crossed.

We're bringing new sports to the Chinese countryside. As far as we know, there are no golf courses in Tibet, which is a shame given all the great fairways and tricky water hazards on the Grasslands/Swamps.

Plop! A hole-in-one, straight into the bog. None of the herders could be persuaded to give golf a go, sadly.

Some more of that prairie north of Sedi. Happy days for Khampa, who is now a Sad Horse in the northwest, where grass is at a premium and there's no barley at all.

Entering Hongyuan County Town, a monument to Deng Xiaoping Theory.

And leaving Hongyuan, an exhortation to the People's Liberation Army to use Long March Spirit.

We slept in one of these several times. It's a niu peng, a hut built by the herders to use when they happen to be in the area. Mostly they are on the winter grazing grounds, so when we passed they were all empty and ready to welcome three New Long Marchers.

The inside of the above niu peng. It doesn't have any windows but it keeps the rain out, which is the main thing. 

Sometimes we're lucky enough to find a really good niu peng with firewood at the ready. There was a storm raging that night, so we felt very snug and smug at finding this. And yes, we did pay for the firewood.

Off the Plateau at last. At 3,900 meters above sea level, the autumn colours were already out on the mountainside, though they haven't come out so well in this picture. From here we followed the stream all the way down to the White Dragon River where it turns up to Lazikou, only about 1,700 meters above sea level.