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Editor¡¯s notes: Joseph Fullop is an active traveler in China and Central Asia who resides with his family in Bend, Oregon, USA. During the summer of 2004, he spent six weeks on the ancient tea trail. The tour is so attractive and unforgettable that he can remember all the details during the trail even after one year. Let¡¯s go along with his ancient tea trail and share with his story.
The Tea Trade has existed between areas of Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet for over 1,000 years. This trade has had a profound impact on both cultures and was one of the primary commodities, along with horses, that served as the reason to blaze roads and trails through some of the most dramatic mountain and canyon country in the world.
The trade for hardy Tibetan horses was a key to Chinese frontier policy from the Tang Dynasty onward. The robust Tibetan mounts were used extensively by Chinese cavalry who were entrusted with defending the Chinese frontiers from nomadic tribes from Central Asia. In return, Chinese tea became a mainstay in the diet and social life of Tibetans, as it remains today. Tea provided the necessary nutrients to offset the meat and dairy-dominated diet of Tibetans, and it also served to reinforce many of the social customs in the mountainous plateau country. Additionally, the tea trade was a financial resource which provided support for the widespread network of lamaseries that dot the Tibetan landscape. It also served to unite many of the far-flung and isolated Tibetan communities in eastern Tibet.
Tea was brought to the Tibetan highlands over a number of extended trade routes through the high passes and deep canyons of Tibet. The two primary routes started from tea source areas around Ya¡¯an in Sichuan province and Ximao in Yunnan province. The Ya¡¯an route ran directly west to modern day Kanding where tea was transshipped from human porters to yak caravans headed to Lhasa. The tea trail branched after Kanding ¨C the north branch running through the ancient Trehor kingdoms and through Derge while the south branch ran through Litang and the Chinese trading community of Batang and then via the spectacular canyons of the Lancang (Mekong) and Jinsha Jiang (Yangtze) river systems. Both branches rejoined in Chamdo in eastern Tibet to track west to Lhasa. The Yunnan route ran north through the canyons of the Jinsha Jiang and Lancang rivers to Chamdo where it joined the Ya¡¯an routes.
It was my objective to on this journey to explore the areas of western Sichuan province which had been the area of Kham in historic times and to track parts of the tea trail to Lhasa.
I began my journey in the summer lushness of Chengdu in Sichuan province and the tea fields around Ya¡¯an. The rich green of this area is a marked contrast to the drier, higher country to the west. The road ascended the heights of Mt. Erlan (3,000 meters) and then descended to Luding in the canyon of the river Dadu. Luding is famous for its iron chain bridge which was a critical link on the tea road to the west, and was also famous for a critical crossing of Dadu during the Long March. The road climbed back up to Kanding which was famous as a transshipment point on the tea route. Human porters would carry 100 kg.+ loads of tea on their backs from Ya¡¯an to Kanding where the tea would be sewn into yak leather bags for further transport by yak and mule caravan into Tibet.
Wooden block printing presses in Dege, Sichuan province where a wealth of ancient Tibetan literature and traditions have been preserved in the priceless libraries of the Dege Monastery
The famous chain bridge over the Dadu He at Luding which was also a critical link in the tea route from Ya'an to the west and Tibet. This bridge was also famous for the desperate charge of the red brigades during the Long March when the forces of the Koumintang tried to trap the red brigades in the western mountains of Sichuan.
From Kanding I followed the north branch of the tea trail up into the lush grasslands of the Trehor kingdoms ¨C Drango and Kandze and others ¨C which were a source area of the horses popular as a trade item back to China in earlier times. The richness of this area is evident in the lush fields, new houses, cars and rebuilt monasteries. The primarily Tibetan population has prospered under the local administration and economic policies of Sichuan. Lumbering has been prohibited and a new emphasis has been made on tourism and conservation. It is a spectacular area with the Kawalungring snow range to the south offering the possibility of numerous trekking routes into the high mountains. This area reminded me of a high altitude version of many of the snow mountain areas in the Rocky Mountains of North America. It seems likely that it will boom as a vacation destination in the future.
| On the ancient tea trail - part two |
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by: Joseph Fullop 2005-11-15 15:45:28 |
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China Tibet Information Center | |
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The north branch of the tea route continues over the Tro La pass (4,916 meters), one of the highest passes on the route to Lhasa and then descended into the watershed of the upper Jinsha Jiang. Derge was the next stop with its ancient wood block printing presses which are one of the historical treasures of the Tibetan culture. It is one of the most complete collections of Tibetan traditions preserved within its extensive archives of wood block prints.
I disconnected from the tea route to head south to the ridge top monastery of Katok with its Shangri-la like location. At Katok a festival was ongoing with tsechu dances commemorating the birth of Padmasambhava of Tibetan Buddhism. It was interesting to me to see large numbers of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims in many of the monasteries in Sichuan and Tibet. Pilgrims from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China are all playing an important role in the refurbishing and rebuilding of Tibetan monasteries through financial support. Similar support is also being provided by national, provincial and local level government. As prosperity begins to spread into the interior areas, Tibetan people themselves are getting the resources as well to rebuild the monasteries. The result is an extensive rebuilding of monasteries which will serve the spiritual needs of Buddhist pilgrims from near and far as well as reinforce the prosperity provided by tourism for the area from the outside.
From Katok I crossed the mountains to Kandze and the gorge of the Yalong Jiang river south to connect with the south branch of the Ya¡¯an tea route. Many of the houses and villages in the Yalong gorge have a distinctly fortified appearance perhaps from the tradition of local banditry which has historically been prevalent in the area. We reconnected to the tea trail in Litang in time for the Litang Horse Festival, a time when Tibetans from the surrounding areas converge on Litang in a holiday mood with festival tents and horse racing events. One can reflect back to the time of the tea trade when this historic festival must also have been a time when extensive horse buying must have taken place as well.
The tea route from Litang continues west over the Puborang snow mountains past the Tsopu Nature Reserve where possibilities exist for extensive overland trekking through spectacular alpine countryside. The descent is spectacular into the Yangtze river watershed and the relatively low altitude town of Batang which at 2,700 meters was a relief from the previous several weeks which had been spent at elevations mostly over 3,500 meters. Batang is unique in that it historically has sustained a large Chinese population in the midst of a primarily ethnic Tibetan population. It was also a center of European and American missionary activity and in the 1930¡¯s it housed a western medical hospital. It was a main stopover point on the tea route west.
From Batang the route of the tea trail crosses the upper Yangtze River over one of several massive bridges. The Yangtze at this point is still a massive and powerful body of water and would have been a significant obstacle to trade without bridges or ferries. We are now in Tibet proper or the TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region).
The route then makes a dramatic ascent of the Markam Shan mountains on the west side of the river and continues on to the market town of Gartok where the south branch of the Ya¡¯an route met with the Yunnan tea route from the south. This must have been a very strategic place in the tea trade. There is still considerable tea trade activity here as is evidenced by tea warehouses and tea stores in the town.
The combined tea route heads north along the valley of the Yu Chu which is also known for its gold deposits and strange rock formations. On the way to Chamdo the route passes the Pomda airport which gives access to this part of Tibet from Lhasa. As the Kham portion of TAR becomes more accessible to visitors from the outside this region has tremendous potential to attract tourism and the prosperity that comes with it. The spectacular canyons of the Nu Jiang (Salween) and Lancang in this area are three to four times the size of the Grand Canyon in North America. This area is referred to as the Land of Corrugations since its parallel peak and valley format resemble an extremely large scale sheet of corrugated roofing ¨C valleys of 2,000 meters in elevation with intervening ridges of 4,000 to 5,000 meters. It must have been a formidable obstacle to the tea caravans of old.
| On the ancient tea trail - part three |
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by: Joseph Fullop 2005-11-15 15:47:19 |
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China Tibet Information Center | |
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The tea route from Chamdo west to Lhasa extends through an area of rugged mountains via Lhorong, Banbar and Lhari. The automobile road had not been completed as of the summer of 2004 so we chose to take a different, more southerly route along the southern frontier of Tibet. This route, rarely traversed by westerners, required four separate sets of travel permits and considerable effort by our travel coordinators. We were now, once again, off the historic tea route.
Our route took us south from Chamdo through the spectacular gorge of the Nu Jiang and over the crest of the Hengduan Shan mountains ¨C we were now ascending into the area of 6,000 and 7,000 meter summits characteristic of the Central Plateau of Tibet. Once through the Ngajuk La pass we began a descent into the valley of the Parlung Tsangpo, a verdant, low altitude area that traditionally was at the margins of control from Lhasa. Somewhat off the beaten path, this was not an area associated with the historic tea trade. However, due to its low elevation it is an area that is currently being used to cultivate a high grade of tea ¨C the only place in Tibet where tea can be grown. It is also an area famous for its production of medicinal herbs.
This ¡°south road¡± to Lhasa is one of extreme beauty. The valley bottom tends to be heavily forested with alpine lakes and high snow-capped mountains and large glaciers. The rainfall is greater in this area due to its proximity to the crest of the Himalayas and the monsoon rains from India. The road is often closed by landslides ¨C in many places the road defies reality and is an engineering marvel in itself. At this point we were a scant 20 miles from where the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra), one of the giant rivers of Asia carves through the eastern edge of the Himalayas and makes a great bend around the massive Namchabarwa (7,756 meters) creating one of the deepest canyons on earth. According to Tibetan Buddhism, this is magic country.
We climbed out of the valley of the Parlung Tsangpo and over Serkhyem La pass and dropped into the valley of the Nyang Chu. We arrived in the low altitude town of Bayi which is notable as one of the largest concentrations of ethnic Chinese living in Tibet. Extensive fields of vegetables and wide modern streets made this place seem more like a suburb of Chengdu. This was an island in the middle of high mountains.
As we climbed up the valley of the Nyang Chu we rejoined the tea trail from Chamdo to the east. Over a final 5,000 meter pass, the Mamzhong La, we dropped into the watershed of the Kyi-Chu valley and Lhasa. This objective of our six week journey had taken us through some of the most challenging and beautiful terrain on earth ¨C deep gorges, snow-capped mountains, dark forests and high grasslands.
As I walked around the extensive market at the Jokhang Temple I saw one of the beloved objects of this adventure ¨C a block of brick tea. A casual inquiry into price indicated that the wholesale value in Lhasa was 5 times that in Sichuan. There was the fuel that powered the tea trails for a thousand years. | | |
