August 31 - The 25,000

One last victory salute, as the New Long March reaches its final destination at Puyulong, a valley about 10 kilometers east of Ganzi County Town in Tibetan Sichuan. But before we get into the valediction, here's some pix from the last days of the Long March - during which we happened to pass through possibly the loveliest and least spoiled county we have ever visited.

Above and below is Cuoka Lake, which is about 40 km to the southwest of Xinlong. The temple on the lakeshore allegedly houses the helmet and spear of Tibetan folk hero King Gesar.

The lake teems with fish, but as at Cuopu Lake in Batang, the monks don't allow any fishing.

Try guessing which of these implements got us into trouble with the Xinlong police. "Are mules allowed to carry knives," I asked Yang Xiao as he strapped the offending weapon to Huami. "Of course, there's no law about that," he assured me. The cops were having none of it.

Above is Yixi Temple, the oldest （about 1,100 years） and most important Bon temple in the Kham region. Xinlong is unusual in that of all its 53 temples, not one belongs to the Dalai Lama's Gelu sect. Historically, Xinlong was a law unto itself, a lair for bandits and feared by all its neighbours. Zhang Guotao sent two regiments of his 4th Front Army into Xinlong in early April 1936 to prepare the way for Xiao Ke's 6ht Army Group. Zhang's men marched across Larima （below） and past Yixi, wherre the advance guard forged a good relationship with the temple's Living Buddhas. The monks took in several injured soldiers and cared for them after the Reds left. As with Songzanlin and Sanpeili, the Reds gave Yixi a banner commemorating their friendship. It read, "Yixi Temple is the Red Army's temple; the Red Army will always protect it." Ironically, the banner was lost in the Cultural Revolution when the Communists broke their promise and Yixi was destroyed. Only the thick walls of the main hall remained; what you see above was mostly reconstructed in the 1980s.

Larima is one of just two herding areas in Xinlong. It's touted as one of the major （potential） tourist attractions - like several others on today's page, this pic comes from the tourism bureau, who paid the famous Sichuan photographer Lv Linlong a fortune in cash, booze, cigs and （allegedly） girls to tour the area. Sadly, we had neither the time nor the money to visit - the road is similar to the one we suffered to reach Cuopu Lake, and the price about the same, about 500 yuan for the 60 km trip.

Bori Bridge, which easily tops Luding as the most unusual and attractive bridge of the Long March. It's about 600 years old; the 4th Front Army used it to cross the Yalong River on their way south to meet the 6th.

Bori Bridge is 35 kilometres north of Xinlong County Town. Parts of the span are leaning at 30 degrees or more, even though the bridge was renovated just four years ago.

The problem is that the old carpenters who used to fix up Bori Bridge are now dead. The bridge contains no nails at all, and no one locally has the knowledge to reconstruct it.

One of the struts fell off while Yang Xiao and Huami were crossing. The oldest fellow I could find insisted no one had ever fallen off - "Not like Luding Bridge!" he said.

Our old marching friend Lao Li （below, he's the Man in Black, in case you forgot） came this way last year. He made friends with these two teachers from the local primary school, Gala （getting a fright from Huami） and Xiamu. Lao Li insisted we say hello for him, and the young duo were kind enough to let us stay the night in their school.  

The children arrived for their first day of the new school year the next morning. They all live on the premises, 20 to a dorm room, 100 kids in all with eight teachers to look after them. There are no school fees in this area, and the same goes for the large new middle school 20 km up the road at Dagai.

This is one of the few remnants of the enormous fortified home that belonged to a man named Gongbulangji, nicknamed Buluman （“The One-Eyed”）. Although the son of an important Bori landowner, Buluman's family fortunes declined after his father was killed by Qing Dynasty forces and the lands distributed to other, China-friendly clans. In the late 1840s, Buluman turned to rebellion, organizing and arming slaves to rise against the local rulers all over the Kham region. Kham at the time was split up into a number of fiefdoms. Buluman conquered them all and united virtually the whole of Kham under his sway, freeing slaves and doing away with many restrictive traditional practices. The Qing Government also sent troops against him, but he defeated these as well. Ironically, he was finally overthrown by an army sent from Lhasa, which captured and executed his son. Gala said Buluman's own fate is uncertain – officially, he is held to have died in battle against the Lhasan army.

While he is touted as a Tibetan hero, the young teachers didn't think much of Buluman. Gala told the tale: "He liked feeding children until they were full, and then would take them to a high place and throw them off so that he could hear the sound they made when they hit the ground. He liked that sound. We don't really like Buluman."

Probably the most spectacular view of the Long March is 20 km north of Bori, where we rounded a bend to see the above - only better, because this picture doesn't include the Yalong River which flows just a few meters below the bottom of the frame. The mountain is Kawaluori, which at 5,992 meters is the highest peak visible anywhere on the Long March trail - and easily the most impressive, as our route took us within a kilometer of the lowest glaciers. Theoretically, you could count Mt Gongga as higher （at 7,556 meters it's the highest mountain in Sichuan）, but it is only rarely visible from Moxi, close to where Mao's 1st Front Army famously crossed Luding Bridge. The village is Dagai.

You have to come a long way to find slogans like this, left over from the Cultural Revolution in Dagai more than 30 years ago. It wished 10,000 years to Chairman Mao and suggests that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution be uncompromisingly carried forward.

Sadly for us, the picture of Kawaluori and Dagai above is another one borrowed from the tourism bureau. Although we pitched camp for two days, the weather never got any better than this.

This summer has been wet, wet, wet. The last days of the Long March were all shrouded in mist and rain, culminating in the biggest storm in five years -just five kilometers from safe harbour at the Golden Yak Hotel in Ganzi.

But back to Dagai, where the local ladies sport a hairstyle peculiar to that village. On the left is Zhaxilamu, right is Abusuoji.

And just to underline how disappointing the weather was, here's another view of Kawaluori, courtesy of the Xinlong Tourism Bureau.

This is what it looked it for us,

The mules were getting a bit shirty by this point. After nearly 200 kilometers in the Yalong River valley, they were short of a good feed. We made up some tsampa in the water bucket, but Shajima wouldn't share.

Poor Huami, oppressed by the nasty Shajima as usual. When time came to sell the mules, we said whoever bought them could have Shajima for free. If we had anywhere to keep him, we wouldn't have let Huami go - he's the sweetest animal outside of the Long March cats.

This milestone might only say 16, but for me it marked that magical 25,000 figure - the official distance of the Long March as claimed by Chairman Mao in 1935. That's 25,000 li, or 12,500 kilometers, or about 7,800 miles. It's taken the best part of five years to come this far. Just 34 more li beyond this point, my own Long March came to an end.

Right about here, in fact, where a donkey and some kids from the Tuoba Primary School joined the celebrations.

Yang Xiao tests out a mule alternative for future expeditions. Ganzi is a pretty poor place, such that no one here uses mules because there isn't enough fodder for them.

As mentioned above, celebrations shortly gave way to a blinding thunder- and hailstorm.

But things soon cleared up and we could settle down for a well-earned rest.

Goodnight, everybody, and thanks for reading!