Xinglong County, The Secret Heart of Kham

I am waved off to this month's destination with a stern warning: "They have a saying in Xinlong: "If you don't cheat, steal or rob, you won't find a wife."

No one visits Xinlong County by accident. Highways 108 and 109, which lead west from the Chinese heartland to Lhasa, bypass Xinlong to the north and south. Most tourists don't think of making a detour; there isn't even a bus from Litang on Highway 108 to Xinlong's tiny county town, just over 100 kilometres' drive north. This remote place was once a haven for bandits, and the people of Litang still tell what I assume are tall stories about the iniquities of Xinlong.

 

Warriors of Tibet

The one road through Xinlong keeps company with the Yalong River all the way. Just over the border from Litang, the valley is narrow and forbidding. My partner and I are on foot and there is no space to rest: there's no shelter from the highland sun, and even at riverside we are still more than 3,000 metres above sea level. But within an hour this constricted artery suddenly bulges into a welcoming vista of ripening barley and three-story stone mansions. Although this village bears the very Chinese name of Heping ("Peace"), there is nothing of the Han people or culture here. We are greeted by tall men with high noses and dark, weathered faces that tie their long hair with a shock of red thread and loop it through an ivory ring, the traditional style of the Khampa, as the Tibetans of the Kham region are known.

Kham is vast. It stretches from the Shangri-La area of Northwest Yunnan across the whole of Sichuan's Ganzi Prefecture and into the Tibetan Autonomous Region itself. The Khampas are said to descend from Tibetan armies that conquered and occupied the region after King Songtsen Gampo unified Tibet in the 6th century. They intermarried with other border peoples and evolved a largely tribal culture. For much of its history, Kham was a fragmented collection of feuding fiefdoms. To outsiders, Kham was notorious for warriors and brigandage. Because it lies exactly between the two main trade routes into Tibet, mountainous Xinlong provided an ideal base for bandits.

The absence of traffic also made Xinlong resistant to change. It is the only county in Kham without a single lamasery belonging to the Geluk sect, the biggest of the six main sects of Tibetan Buddhism. Monks in Xinlong attribute the Geluk's absence to its relative youth (it was founded in the late 14th century, 600 years after the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet) and its reformist zeal. Geluk in Tibetan means "the system of virtue." Isolated and confident in their mountain stronghold, the Khampa of Xinlong saw no need for new-fangled ideas. Even today, Xinlong is notable for adherence to the Bon sect, closely connected to the Tibetans' pre-Buddhist animist religion.

 

Tall tales

Beyond Heping, the mountains close in once again. Villages number no more than eight or nine houses. Locals gesture at the looming mountains and say they run yak and goat herds "up top." While the villagers work on new buildings, dig tiny plots or fill holes in the crumbling blacktop, monks lounge by the roadside drinking tea and swapping gossip. Given the chance, stories from Xinlong's colourful past tumble out. One tells of a female warrior whose band fought the Red Army in the 1930s; another describes a 13th century monk who went to the court of Kublai Khan and tied an iron spear in a knot. The khan was so impressed he abandoned plans to send his army to Xinlong; instead the monk was ennobled and sent home to rule in the name of the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368).

North of the county town we beg a bed in the primary school at Bori. Below the schoolhouse the Yalong River is crossed by the most remarkable bridge I have ever seen. This is a wooden cantilever bridge built more than 600 years ago using no nails at all. It's a structure of the greatest charm as well as antiquity. Locals still drive cattle across it every morning and evening, but they may not be able to for much longer. The span is twisted at an angle of at least 30 degrees in the centre and seems ready to drop into the river at any moment. The bridge has been restored several times in the past, but the local masters who did the work died recently without training any successors. Even if the local government had the money, no one knows how to fix it.

It would be worth stopping here for the sight of the bridge alone, but Bori is also famous as the home of a man named Gongbulangji, nicknamed Buluman ("The One-Eyed"). He was the scion of a wealthy Bori clan, but the family fell from grace after Buluman's father was killed fighting Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) troops in the first half of the 19th century. The family's lands were divided and given to other, China-friendly clans. In the late 1840s, Buluman turned to rebellion, organizing and arming slaves to rise against, first, the new chief in Bori, then against the local rulers all over Kham. Buluman freed the slaves and united virtually the whole of Kham under his sway. The Qing government sent armies 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. Buluman's own fate is uncertain: officially, he is said to have died in battle against the Lhasan army.

While he is officially touted as a Tibetan "people's hero," teachers at the Bori primary school take a dim view of Buluman. He is alleged to have fed children until they were full, then taken them to the top of a cliff and thrown them off because he liked the sound they made when they hit the ground. I'm surprised anyone believes this tale, which is surely the invention of Buluman's enemies, just as the Kuomintang once spread rumours that the Red Army fed women and children to their mules (Tibetans evidently didn't know much about mules in those days).

It's a three-day walk from Bori to the northern border of Xinlong. The Yalong River cuts a dizzying course here. At times it completely reverses direction, and then almost immediately twists back through 180 degrees again. Any patch of flat, open ground is devoted to barley cultivation; campsites are hard to find, but late on the second day we cross a suspension bridge to where villagers have left a grassy space free for games and parties. We put up a tent and settle down to welcome a trickle of curious Tibetans.

Some time later, two ladies and an older man stopped by. After the usual chitchat about our homes, plans and the price of wild mushrooms, the man asks if I would like the younger woman as a wife.

Given that I haven't recently cheated or robbed anyone, nor stolen anybody's property, I take it that things aren't what they used to be in Xinlong. Still, this proposal creates a delicate situation. A blunt refusal may raise awkward questions along the lines of, "What wrong with her?" I opt for a face-saving ploy that relies on the fact that multiple spouses are quite common in Tibet.

"Thanks, but I’ve got two wives already," I answer. "Three would be too much trouble."

The man nods and smiles understandingly and we part as friends.

 

How to get there:

From Chengdu take the long-distance bus to Ganzi, a bone-shaking 16-hour marathon. From Ganzi to Xinlong County Town takes about three hours by local bus. To take the southern road, the Chengdu–Litang journey can also be managed in a very long day; from Litang to Xinlong County Town is either a six-day walk or 50 yuan and three hours in a minivan.

Where to stay

Despite what non-Xinlong Tibetans say, the people of Xinlong are much more likely to invite you into their homes than rob or kill you. For paid accommodation, the best bet is the Buluman Shanzuang, two kilometres south of the county town, which offers clean rooms (from about 90 yuan a night) and excellent food, including the famous Ya fish straight from the Yalong River.