Few places in the Tibetan frontier have historically been as "cosmopolitan" as the Mili region. A vortex of the frontier melting pot, Tibetans live alongside ethnic groups such as the Yi, the Naxi, the Bai, Moso, and, more recently, Han Chinese. This trip offers insight into an astonishing micro-variation of the Tibetan world. It walks the visitor through a multi-ethnic corridor, where various cultural realms have traditionally overlapped.
 Meeting in Kunming (Yunnan) we fly to Gyalthang (3,344 m), southern-most Tibetan town and historical caravan port. We spend a few days exploring the town and its surroundings while allowing our bodies to acclimatise to the altitude.
Sights include the chalet-style adobe houses of Dokhar Dzong (old town), 17th-century Sumtsenling Monastery built by the 5th Dalai Lama, and the revered Gyalwa Ringa temple in the countryside.
Land cruising northwards over the Gongnag-la and the Jarong-la, two mountain passes, and the forested hills of the Baimang Nature Reserve, we reach Chatreng, a former dependency of the principality of Lithang. The main site in this largely agricultural and staunchly Gelug area is the fortress-like Sampheling Monastery. Several times besieged, destroyed, and rebuilt in the last 100 years, it has recently been completely moved and splendidly restored on the outskirts of town.
 We enter the mountainous Mili region from the north through the Gangkarling Nature Reserve. A steep, meandering trail leads us to this secluded place. Hiking, driving, and riding on horse-back, we explore the former kingdom’s 15,000 square km tract of pristine forests, and the remnants of the old palaces of the Mili lama-kings who traditionally resided in three monasteries in rotation.
An actively functioning monastery today, Mili Gonchen was rebuilt at the foot of Mt. Sartseto just by the ruins of the old palace. Here the Mili king received National Geographic botanist/explorer Joseph Rock in the first half of the 20th century. From this point we also have breath-taking vistas of the surrounding mountains. We meet the monastery’s Tibetan and Moso monks and novices, as well as the Yi inhabitants of the surrounding hills.
 We leave Mili by way of Tharlam, a center of the matriarchic Tibeto-Burman Moso people. Sights include the Gelugpa monastery Trame Gonpa built in the typical Sino-Tibetan frontier style, as well as Lake Lathak embraced by Mt. Sengge Karmo, a hill tract in the shape of a white snowlion at the lake shore.
From Tharlam we continue by road to Jang Sadam (Lijiang), the capital of the ancient Naxi kingdom, and a center of Naxi culture. We explore the old town with its labyrinthine waterways and the narrow cobbled streets.
A direct flight takes us to Kunming the next day.
|
