Daocheng (稻城)
25 June 2019.
I bought a bus ticket to Yunnan’s Shangrila City upon reaching Daocheng. The bus would leave Daocheng the next day at 0600. I found a guesthouse near five minutes away from the bus station and called out for attention as no one was around. A Chinese man who owned the Guesthouse appeared from his room behind the counter and I asked if I could stay with a passport. He verbally approved my stay though when I later checked up the name of his guesthouse online on CTrip, the guesthouse was actually only meant for Chinese nationals. I was glad he accepted my stay though as other accommodation options could only be found at Daocheng town, which was two kilometres away from the bus station.
Finding a Guesthouse. 1111 hr.
“Are you going to town?” the owner asked.
“Yes, how do I walk there?”
“It will take you 20 minutes to walk to town. Why don’t you wait for a while whilst I get my laundry done.”
I got a ride to town in his electric motorcar. The Chinese man was a young chap from Heilongjiang in Northeast China and had come to Daocheng for a getaway when he decided to stay on and open a guesthouse. He dropped me off at a restaurant he recommended for lunch. I told him that I wanted the best potato strips (土豆丝) in town and his recommendation was honestly the best I had tasted. I finished the whole plate, with rice and a pot of tea.
Lunch in Daocheng City. 1205 hr. One of the best versions of Potato strip rice I had!
The streets of Daocheng was rather empty and quiet. Perhalps because it was a weekday. There didn’t seem to be a public bus, though I saw a public van picking up passengers. Daocheng’s cabs do not run by meter, instead they charge a flat fare as most passengers normally ask to go to a handful of common destinations. There are also no ICBC branches here.
White dust blowing about in the wind. 1326 hr.
I left the town at 1600 for a nap. When I woke up, there were voices outside my door. I opened my door, a young Chinese couple had just checked into the hostel and they were trying out the electric motor car.
“Would you like to go with them?” the boss asked. Glad that I was no longer the only guest for the night, I looked to the young couple. They seemed really friendly.
“Can I?”
“Sure, come with us!”
The boss handed them the keys and waved goodbye as they drove his electric car away from him, myself in the back seat. I was rather amused, the young couple had never driven an electric motorcar before and the boss trusted us rather easily with his only vehicle in the guesthouse. The ride was full of laughter and confusion as the cold wind blew into our faces.
“I think we’re driving in the wrong lane,”
“Can we drive onto the pavement?”
“There’s police though.”
“I probably need to make a U-turn somewhere.”
“I’m glad you’re taking the wheel,” I laughed.
We parked the little vehicle along the first alleyway we came to and walked to a hotpot restaurant. The couple was extremely pleasant, both of them have been working for a year after graduation just like myself, the guy worked in Shanghai as an engineer whilst the girl worked from as a gamer in her native Chengdu. They had taken a few days off work to travel together and were heading towards Chengdu. They seemed as shocked as I was to hear about the cost of my driving license in Singapore. I had spent nearly 20,000 yuan whilst theirs was a mere 3000 yuan in comparison. “5000 yuan of my driving expenditure came from retaking my driving tests,” I laughed. “Still, it’s still a hefty sum to pay even if I had passed my driving on my first try.”
Dinner. 1923 hr.
Sometime later, the couple disappeared on the pretext of going to the washroom and returned with chewing gum. The gum was a door gift which meant that they had paid the bill without my knowledge. I only wanted to pay them back my share but they would hear nothing of it. We rode back to the hostel in the dark just as the boss was lying out an exercise mat, getting ready for a workout in the courtyard of his guesthouse.
Once the couple returned to their room, I approached the boss to change some notes. I was going to stuff the exact amount I owed the couple beneath their door the next morning.
26 June 2019.
I never got the chance to do so. They left the hostel before me early before dawn. The boss was already awake, having seen the couple off. He waved me on, citing that I shouldn’t worry too much about the meal the couple treated yesterday and should just pay it forward in the future. It was pitch black outside the guesthouse. Whilst I was afraid, I tried to enjoy my silent walk for I knew the bus station was just up ahead.
Walking to the Bus Station. 0547 hr.
Leaving Daocheng. 0610 hr.
That day, there were two long distance buses leaving at 0600, one to Chengdu and one to Yunnan’s Shangrila City. My bus was half full, most of the people on board were foreigners. At the crack of dawn, we pulled away from Daocheng and for a long time, we were the only vehicle on the road winding through misty mountains. At 0830, we reached Xiangcheng, where we alighted and boarded a Yunnan Bus. Xiangcheng was the last town before we would enter Yunnan province.
The Sichuan leg of the Xinjiang-Singapore Overland journey is completed!
Click below to return to continue towards Yunnan Province.