Hitchhiking from Deqin to Litang pt. 1

I decide to hitchhike from Deqin to Litang (in Sichuan Province). The first day is easy travelling and involves no more than thirty minutes walking and only three trucks. The first peak we cross, it starts snowing.

Along the way, a dump truck emptying its load is upended and the driver runs out once the front wheels land.

I spend the night in the same town we stayed at along the way to Deqin.

The first bend of the Jinsha River.

The second day I wake up at dawn to make it to Xiangcheng by nightfall. In the morning I need to take a boat across the Jinsha River to reach the highway to Sichuan. this saves a thirty kilometre detour.

A girl from the local school gives me directions to the pier, and decides to escort me after seeing the clueless look on my face. We get to the boat and no one is around, the girl rings the number on the boat and says the driver won’t be around any time soon. She runs over to the other pier, calls the number for the boat on the opposite side of the river and says it will be here any minute. Two hours later the boat driver arrives and makes the trip, charging me 10 Yuan for it.

On the other side of the river I manage to find several lifts and spend only two hours walking. The last of these is a Tibetan motorbike driver who looks like he belongs in a western. When we arrive at his village, he offers me a lunch and several hours pass before I realise that I need to be on my way.