Sunday, August 08, 2021

Return trip to Muli - an armchair traveller visit via bilibili videos

 


As described on this blog, almost 30 years ago I did one of my first trips in Rock's footsteps to Muli monastery. Back in the 1990s there was no proper road from Lugu Lake to Muli - hell there wasn't even a map! I took a chance an followed Rock's map and found the trail was still as he described it. Much of it was dirt track and sometimes just a faint trail through the fields. I tramped over the mountains and through the forests via Yongning, Hot Springs (Wenquan), Wujiao and then up over the mountain pass and down into the Muli vally. It took me three days. Saw very few people en route, just a few wild Tibetan and Naxi locals.

Well now you can do the same trip in a few hours on a good road - as this guy shows in his video of a motorbike trip from Lugu Lake to Muli monastery. The route is much the same but now there are multiple police/militia checkpoints [to check for cigarettes or any fire-related materials - they had catastrophic forest fires in Muli]. There's also a few tourist scenic viewing points installed at places such as the Gibboh Mountain pass - in contrast to the bleak place we paused at. The biggest change of course is Muli monastery. Now a very opulent and grandiose series of buildings, not the dilapidated single building we found (it's still there but now massively overshadowed by the big monastery buildings). 

So I don't think I'll be returning to Muli. But I would still like to visit the other more remote monasteries that Rock described in the area - Kangpu and Waerdje - at some point. 


2 comments:

Unknown said...

约十几年前我从昆明去了木里。去拍摄木里大寺时,无意中拍到了废弃的建筑,应该就是你文中所提到的旧寺。正在拍照中,被僧人召回,我以为是不让拍摄,结果是告诉我,我拍摄的位置,蚂蝗非常多。我顿时感觉身上有异样,脱裤检查,的确被蚂蝗叮咬了。

Unknown said...

给前一位留言者, 听到你说被蚂蝗咬了,表示抱歉:(
我还没有去过木里。真想走一走不同的地方啊!