After spending a cramped night sleeping on the floor of the filthy houses in Mundon (猛董) we hitched up our horses and set off up the hill to see the mountain Maidi Gangga (麦地贡嘎, Muti Konka). This involved a long haul up the hillside through burnt out forest. It culminated in this spectacular view of the valleys below, before we turned around a spur and into the Chang Haizi valley.
This photo taken with the cheap and cheerful Olympus XA.
Arty black and white pictures of Mengdong (Rock's "dreary hamlet of Mundon") on the edge of the Yalong canyon.
Arty black and white pictures of Mengdong (Rock's "drearry hamlet of Mundon") on the edge of the Yalong canyon. Taken with my old Leica IIIa which is almost as old as Rock's expedition.
This lake near Jiulong is now a tourist resort - funny how Joseph Rock never mentioned it despite passing by twice on his way between Muli and Kangding. Most people photograph it from the oppposite direction - this is looking south back towards the lake and the tourist cabins on the other side.
View of the sacred mountain framed by prayer flags in the early morning.
This is looking back towards Kangwu Shan - the pass between Jiulong and the dead-end valley (Yangwe Kong) leading to Sanyanlong.
This is the view back down to Sanyanlong in the Yangwe Kong valley after climbing up towards Mundon (Mengdong).
This is the lake below Miadi Gangga (Muti Konka) taken from an easterly direction looking towards the Yalong.
In 1923, two years befor Joseph Rock arrived there, two other Americans viited and photographed the Tibetan monastery at Choni (Zhuoni) in Gansu province. They were By Janet and Frederick Wulsin, wealthy Americans who were based in Beijing. Frederick was an aspiring naturalist and took a Graflex camera on this expedition. These are some of the many photogrpahs he and his wife took - and which are now in the archives of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. They are taken from the book Vanished Kingdoms by Mabel Cabot (daughter of Janet).
This picture is a silver breastplate worn by a Tibetan dancer at Choni, marked with astrological signs, at Cham-ngyon-wa festival, Kansu 1923.
