注:为便于浏览,请点击下方的“只看该作者”。(恭喜此帖在“新年贺岁帖”评比活动中荣获一等奖)上篇:寻龙记 我常被一个问所困扰:对于人类的信仰,是真实存在的?还是虚无缥缈的?有人信奉如来观音弥勒佛;有人信奉上帝耶稣玛利亚;有人信奉狐仙关公灶王爷,有人信奉安拉胡大信天使。这些,到底哪个才是正根儿呢?要说无神论,那许多的灵异事件和民间巫术,却又为什么不能用科学来解释呢? 相信很多人都曾遇到过类似的事:一些善良诚实的老人或者山民,一辈子都没说过谎话,但却誓言旦旦的说他们遇到过不可思议的东西。对此,我一直抱着怀疑的态度,而上次的鬼宅探秘,发生了让人难以置信的灵异事件,更激发了我探索未知的欲望!我和娟子的探险系列:业余选手三探雨扇洞: https//bbs.8264.com/thread-1872892-1-1.html疯狂情侣再入深山冒险——探寻地狱中的宫殿。附多种洞穴生物!(毒帖,切勿模仿):https//bbs.8264.com/thread-1895956-1-1.html一路上有你,凶险的探寻之旅我没有一丝恐惧(孤岛烟儿炮鬼吹灯+鬼宅探秘)贺岁帖 :https//bbs.8264.com/thread-1988167-1-1.html我很喜欢在闲暇时间查阅一些神秘的地方和事件,如果有机会,我和娟子两人必要一探究竟。很久前就曾在网上看过两条这样的信息: 这两个帖子,有时间地点人物事件经过,而且还有很多目击者,不容得人不信。我去过很多农村,从东北到江南,无一例外,都有龙的传说。而且还有很多人自称亲眼见过。 龙,在中国传统文化中是权势、高贵、尊荣的象征,又是力量和无敌的志。 而在西方文化中,龙是一种凶暴的怪兽生巨翅,披鳞甲,有利爪,头小腹大,形象狰狞、丑陋;有飞翔、喷火、守财、护宝、破坏、吃人等习性;寓意天人对立,主要象征争战、灾难、恐怖;少有正面形象,主要象征邪恶。 无论是中国龙,还是西方龙,虽然都有很多目击者,但却无有一丝证据。这种神秘的巨兽是否真的存在,谁也解答不了。有幸,湖北赤壁的好友,约请我和娟子去做客,正好借此机会,我俩可以去探一探这个恐怖的洞穴。 我和娟子从相识到相知,四年半的光阴岁月,无数次的化险为夷,让我俩的感情愈加牢固,也让我俩开了眼界,长了见识,学到了很多在理论中学不到的东西。一个女汉子+一个男屌丝,两人连年的在草高林密的崇山峻岭中探险,光凭胆识远远不够,更多的是需要经验和运气。 在这里,我给亲爱的驴友们一点提示:户外运动风险级别高的,尽量不要轻易挑战。如果喜欢探洞,可以选择一些已经探明而且难度不大的洞穴,在探洞之前,多学习一些和洞穴有关的知识,装备很重要,最好有向导,至少三人以上团队,洞口有接应人员。我和娟子虽然也懂这些,但克制不住内心冒险的欲望,虽然积累了一点探洞经验,但像我俩这样,风险系数还是很大,所以请大家以我俩为戒,切勿效仿! 唉!每个帖子前面,都啰哩啰唆一大堆,继续下去没个头,赶紧转入正。 2013与2014的交接之日,我和娟子来到了位于湖北省赤壁市中伙铺镇一个叫莲花塘的小山村。好友的家依山傍水,风景秀丽。晚上吃饭的时候,好友叮嘱我俩说,天黑以后不能再出门,山里有不干净的东西,容易迷人。一切都入乡随俗吧,当晚听了好友的劝告,又详细的询问了去往纸棚郑家的路线,画好地图,就休息了。 第二天一大早,借了好友家的一辆摩托车,我和娟子就出发了。没想到山里的雾气这么大,能见度只有不足十米,只能慢慢的摸索前行。 途中摔倒在一滩烂泥中,苦了娟子,从摩托车后座上掉下去,腿都跪到了泥里。我还好,腿长站住了哈哈。 幸亏我和娟子两人穿的都是滑雪裤,防风防水效果很好。找到了一条小河,用湿毛巾擦了半天,就恢复如初了。 路上没有行人,沿途的几个小山村也几乎见不到人影。想打听一下路真是困难。终于在这个房子前看到了一个中年人,向他问路,他还不会说普通话,费了好大的劲儿,我才知道那个神秘的洞穴就在后面的山中。 太阳出来了,慢慢驱散了浓雾。这里也是典型的喀斯特地貌,弃车徒步,山里的轮廓依稀可辨。虽然山路难行,但正好运动一下,身上也能暖和暖和。 又见到一个砍柴的山民,再次询问了一下,确定了方位,终于在半山腰一片杂草丛中看到了洞口! 我和娟子奋力爬了上去,向黑漆漆的洞里观察,里面寂静无声。这个神秘而又恐怖的洞穴,会有什么等待我俩呢?进洞之前,我问娟子怕不怕,女汉子依旧坚定的摇头。简单准备了一下照明工具及绳索,深吸几口气,我俩就小心的踏入洞穴。 户外运动在大多数人的眼中是高山、白云、绿地、丛林……的代名词,是一项充满了阳光、鸟语、花香、活力与激情的运动。然而探洞者却用一种另类的玩法诠释户外运动,向向日葵色板官方展示了坚忍不拔、勇于探索的户外精神。我和娟子属于业余选手,装备和人员配备的不足,都足以致命。每次探洞,我俩都只能依靠经验和洞穴知识来保护自己,尽量的预见危险,躲避危险。这片未知的领域中,对我俩充满了诱惑,这些是很多人不能体验到的。 娟子戴的摩托车头盔是半覆式的,视线开阔。 而我戴的摩托车头盔,是全覆式的,眼睛只能看到正前方,但上下左右的视线都被遮挡,所以只能把头盔扔在洞外了。一切加倍小心吧,免得撞个头破血流。 脚下虽不平坦,但也可以勉强行进。在强光手电的光柱照射下,前面除了黑,就是一片雾茫茫。我不知道洞穴中哪个方位是东南角,不过还是按照鬼吹灯的老规矩,点燃一支蜡烛。仔细观察,火苗没有变化,燃烧正常,证明洞穴内的空气流通较好。然后收了蜡烛,绷紧神经,高度集中注意力,继续向深处走去。 沿途的洞道,还算宽阔。脑海里不禁想起人们所说这个洞穴中的两条巨龙,心里也有一丝忐忑。在洞口的时候,我就问过娟子:“如果真的遇到了龙,怎么办?” 女汉子轻描淡写的回答说:“那就认命吧!” 是啊,要是真的遇到了,除了认命,还有别的可以选择吗? 洞内的雾气明显比外面的雾气还要浓,湿度也很大,这是由于洞内外巨大的温差造成的。如果继续深入,雾气就会逐渐消失。洞腔上布满了密密麻麻的正在发育的鹅管,饱含碳酸钙的水,一滴一滴落下来,给这寂静黑暗的世界带来了一丝生机。 洞道一直向下延伸,从钙华的发育生长来看,没有人类破坏的迹象,这一点让我和娟子非常欣慰。应该是恐怖的传说,洞穴才能得以保存完好。 我俩也非常小心,除了脚印,尽量不给洞穴留下任何痕迹。 沿途的支洞,有大有小,有深有浅,我俩只是简单看一眼,就继续顺着主通道前行。我和娟子在探洞方面,积累了一点经验,如果不是特别相似的岔路,一般不做记。 在进入洞穴大概三四百米处,我突然发现有绿色植物!不可能啊!没有一丝光线的洞穴中,怎么会有绿色植物呢? 我蹲下身,仔细观察,认出这是几株菖蒲。菖蒲,为多年水生草本植物,该物种为中国植物图谱数据库收录的有毒植物,其毒性为全株有毒,根茎毒性较大。口服多量时会产生强烈的幻视。呵呵,鬼吹灯第一部——精绝古城中的尸香魔芋我没发现,却在这洞里发现了菖蒲,毕竟这两种植物,都有相似之处啊。 我和娟子曾在洞穴最深处,发现过透明植物,无枝叶,却开花。所以说,每次的探险,都能有新的发现,都能学到新的知识,这也是我俩热衷于此的原因。 就在距离这几株菖蒲不远处,又发现了一根动物的腿骨!很粗很大,不是人类的,应该是牛马之类的动物骨骸。其实在洞穴中发现这种东西并不稀奇,但这个洞穴既然有巨蟒的传闻,就不禁让人紧张了。由于我的相机,刚进洞的时候,镜头上了一层雾,拍照不是很清楚,所以我打算回来的时候再拍这根腿骨,可惜的是,回来的时候竟然忘了,遗憾啊! 继续向前走吧。眼前的雾气逐渐消退,视线变的清晰起来。我再次点燃蜡烛,火苗依旧没有变化。巨大的钟乳石开始出现,钙华发育多种多样,这让我和娟子很高兴。 这里出现了第一个洞厅,面积大概有近百平方。洞穴一般由狭窄的通道和宽敞的洞厅组成。大厅往往是几条通道相会的地方,且乱石密布。从通道进大厅容易,从大厅找通道口难。所以,当从一条狭窄的通道进入一个宽敞的洞厅时,一般都要在入口处作好反光路。不过这个洞厅的支洞在洞穴上方,所以我也没有必要做记了。 在神秘的洞中穿行,总是有独特的异景。 有活矫捷现的钟乳石,有各类的石笋石花色如白玉,质如凝脂;有壮美的洞窟瀑布,有神秘的洞中湖、洞中泉,雾气弥漫有如仙境。置身在这神奇的世界中,会使人忘了危险的存在。 一只纯黑色的,巨大的蝙蝠,孤单单的悬吊在洞壁边。我和娟子在三探雨扇洞的时候,曾遭到一只巨大蝙蝠的攻击,那只蝙蝠展开双翼能达到近一米!娟子眼疾手快的抢拍下来了。 这只蝙蝠的个头也不小,身长大概二十多厘米,如果张开翅膀,也会很惊人!平时我和 娟子探洞所见的蝙蝠都是灰色的果蝠,而这只蝙蝠明显不同于其他果蝠,应该属于食肉蝠。我慢慢靠近它,打开闪光灯近摄了一张,还好没惊动它,蝙蝠所携带的狂犬病毒可不是闹着玩儿的! 探洞的危险性,主要表现在地下水暴涨、毒气、迷路、野外动物以及洞顶落石等,所以,每一次探洞,都需要做足安全保障。同时探洞是技术性很强的活动,是对体能、技巧、经验等各方面最全面的体现,洞穴探险不像登山运动那样有终点目,甚至不知道等在旅途前面的是惊人的发现,还是艰难的挑战,这种未知性就是洞穴探险的最大魅力。洞穴探险可以分为两种:即水洞探险和干洞探险。 水洞的探险:水洞,是指洞内有常年地下水流的岩溶洞穴。水洞中探险有两种。一种是在地下廊道里有自由水面。一种情况是洞道没顶,全部充水或倒缸吸管。 干洞的探险:干洞是脱离了自由水面的化石洞,发育在地势较高的地方,发育的历史较长,洞内往往被各种多彩多姿的钟乳石所装饰。 目前我和娟子还不能确定这个洞穴到底属于哪一种类型,不过这个洞穴系统还是比较复杂。([]
Northern Wilderness, Solo Traverse of the Great Chang TangMr YANG Liusong, a Chinese who just finished the first solo traverse over Chang Tang by cycling from west to east in recorded human history, shared his stunning Expedition with all of us through the forum 8264 https//bbs.8264.com/thread-512349-1-1.html . In order to share his legendary journey with those who cannot read Chinese, I translate his story to English here, which has been approved by Mr YANG Liusong. Hope you guys enjoy it.为了让杨同学的传奇能让全世界的驴友分享,俺决定把杨同学的帖子翻译成英文。为了避免麻烦,俺先来个免责声明:1。杨同学不认识俺,也没有授权俺,如果他说不要翻译了那俺就随时终止;2。俺没有商业目的,译版版权归杨同学,俺啥也不要,也不承担法律责任;3。没有杨同学授权,不敢擅自发在国外网站,发在原帖处,荣誉归8264;4。俺英语水平有限,欢迎指正,欢迎转贴。 Northern Wilderness, Solo Traverse of the Great Chang TangBy Yang LiusongIt has been three months since I traversed the unpopulated region in the Great Chang Tang. There are many like-minded asking me about it. I now present this thread to briefly tell everybody about my journey.The starting point of this traverse was from the highest peak of the western part of the Tibetan plateau, Jieshan Daban, and the day was April 20, 2010.I was heading eastward passing Bungdag Co, Yanghu Co, Rola Co, and Kangzhagri Mountain, which crossed over the desolate region from west to east. The journey continued northward to enter the unpopulated area of Altun Mountains, through Hoh Xil Mountains, Kunlun Mountains, Whale lake, ..., finally met some people by the Aqqikkol Hu and then arrived in Huatugou by vehicle three days later and that day was July 5. It had been 77 days in total. I had been all alone 74 days after leaving Jieshan Daban until arriving inAqqikkol Hu, which was about 1400km and about four months.[The Great Chang Tang] In Tibetan, "Chang Tang" means northern empty wilderness while narrowly, means unpopulated region in northern part of Tibet. However, it actually indiCATes all of the no man's land in northern. The great Chang Tang includes desolate places in Northern Tibet, Hoh Xil, Alun Mountains, and Kunlun Mountains, which are interconnected to form the unique and super empty wilderness in the world. Only because Hoh Xil is the most known name, most people just think this vast land is equivalent to Hoh Xil. In reality, Hoh Xil is only a small piece of the Great Chang Tang both administratively and geologically. The Great Chang Tang, the last land to chase your freedom and dream.The route that I traversed ForeplayI arrived in Tibet in the early March, a couple of troubles bothered me. The brand new plug got its positive and negative wrongly connected; the rivets of my rucksack eASIly got broken from now and again; and a multi-functional charger got damaged and so on. Riding my bike to Ngari for warming up of this journey, lost my rucksack but later got it back; lost my camera bag and got it back later again, and finally lost a big bicycle pannier in the street of Gyangze town under the eyes of police, including clothes, solar panel and so on.Without much choice, I returned to Lhasa to adjust all the stuff I would need in the wilderness. Then I begged some luck by going to Nyingchi to enjoy the blossoms of peach trees and to take a hot spring bath. I even had the privilege to enjoy time with ten girls in the hot spring. I felt my bad luck had all gone and then returned to Lhasa again to prepare going to Ngari. I did not expect that I was cheated on by some hustler and lost some money and delayed my schedule for a week. I had to find a car myself quickly to Nagri. However, I lost the tool for fast-parting my rear wheel on my way to Nagri, where was a remote area in Tibet and nowhere to buy the tool. Even if there was one in Lhasa it would take at least ten days for a special delivery service. I was lucky that my mate Duola asked a driver to bring the tool for me from Lhasa. I thought there should be no more nightmare like this but the nozzle of my brand new multi-fuel stove was broken. The next day I tried everywhere to weld them back together. The first three shops could not do the welding for copper. The fourth one said they could do it but could not guarantee a sUCCess. The engineer said it would be ten Chinese yuans if it was a success. I agreed. Just in seconds, my nozzle became crap in a flash of lightening. I was so upset. Again, Duola helped me by bringing her own MSR oil stove and Dingding's sleeping bag to Nagri. That was already April 16 and I did not have much time to waste. The following day I found a vehicle heading to Jieshan Daban.The sand storm over Yarlung Zangbo RiverA lonely peach tree blossoming in Yarlung Zangbo Grand CanyonNatural hot spring in wild, me singing and drinking (photo by a friend of mine) Day 1(April 20), 16km, Camping 5192mIt was a truck with a full load of iron wastes, arriving in Jieshan Daban at 6'o clock in the morning. It was still night and extremely cold and dark. Driver was not bothered to pop his head out of the driving cab. I climbed up on the top of the iron wastes, taking my bicycle down. In a hurry, I punched my old water bag. Fortunately I had another MSR water bag given by a friend of mine otherwise I would definitely fail without even starting my journey. For the first time for me to set up the brand new tent in strong, cold winds. It would be impossible to do so if the tent was not a whole piece. Extremely cold outside, about -15C, might be lower than that, I put my head into the sleeping bag but was nearly suffocated to death, honestly. The smell of Dingding's sleeping bag was, lol, so extraordinary. I woke up around 11 o'clock. There were still strong winds outside so that I had to use my bodyweight to keep the tent in place. At the time when I just started to cook and eat, four patrolling soldiers approached me. To their surprise someone, in this season, camped in Jieshan Daban. I was so nervous and afraid they were the people to block my journey because I was caught and deported from the desolate land last year. Luckily the four soldiers did not know my destination and were very kind to me. After they left, I immediately packed my stuff and pushed my bike into the depths of the unpopulated area just in case anything unexpected happened.The bike was very heavy due to the provisions and hard to control. There was even a quite small hill that I had to remove my bike panniers to get over it. This really struck me because this happened even the path was still the hardship one at the moment and I could not imagine what I would do once I entered the uncertain, endless wilderness. Until now I had not met anyone, even the nomadic pastoralists. I remembered there were quite a few of them roaming at the edge of the northern Tibetan plateau last year. All of these indicated it was not the good pasture season in such low temperature and strong winds. Around 16km there was a sheep cote, where I passed it last year, east of Lungmu Co. I was exhausted at this point so that I decided to camp in here and to rest my head. After arranging tent everything I went out to look for the wetland discovered by Duola and Liumeng last year. I was determined to find it.There were many hot springs in the wetland which were underground water with a constant temperature. The wetland therefore became an ideal habitat for some fishes and weeds under such harsh weather, which was the very unique land feature of terrain in this over 5200m highland.Perpetual snow in the valley blown to corn shape by strong windsThis wetland was discovered by Duola and Liumeng. The workers at a nearby mine did not know it and I too missed it last yearUnderground water with a constant temperature, an ideal habitat for some fishes and weeds under such icy weather 感谢大伙儿支持和加分,不一一回复了。特别感谢多啦,希望能有机会一起喝酒吃肉。 Day 2 (April 21), 0km, Camping5192mBlustering gale all night, up and down like ocean waves. The next day rather than continuing to travel, I stayed inside the sheep cote, hesitating and pondering over. Indeed, there were so many problems before this journey;I did not have sufficient physical preparation;the load had already reached its limitation; I still coughed a lot;the weather was so extreme and cold. All in all, I did not think this journey was well prepared and I did not have confidence in completing this journey mentally and physically. To do, or not to do, it was the question. Similarly I did not have confidence in my facilities, not knowing whether all of them would work functionally or not. The fact was one of the rivets got broken again and the front rack came loose. In the afternoon, I replaced all the rivets of the panniers with screws I had prepared before. This was an excellent job I had done which gave me no further troubles throughout my whole journey. I also re-adjusted the front rack. However I did not think it would definitely all right because I did not have a tool to do it. When the darkness descended,I made up my mind to continue my journey, which, of course, was not beyond any imagination. Orchid-like weedsSmall springs everywhere, clear and chillyA thin layer of ice covering the fresh spring water The sheep cote, it was the door under the sleeping bag, which was in the same place as last year, everything looked like yesterdayThe wetland at duskLungmu Co at dusk. You could hear the gigantic sound of wind if the picture had a sound Day 3 (April 22), 52.4km, Camping 5145mGot up in the morning, could not put everything into the bags. Without much choice I had to throw away three portions of tsampa, elbow pads, and crampons. Following the road of the lead-zinicmine I found the side path to enter the wilderness, which was on the riverbed and very hard to see. I missed this side path last year so that I had to take a short cut into the wilderness directly then. That was why I had taken extra care to find the side path. The following journey was to get over a big hill, which lay 5275m above sea level and was the highest point of my whole journey. Around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I passed the side path leading to Orba Co and started a journey which was complete strange to me. I ate a piece of pilot breads, which was frozen like rocks so that I had to use my spade to crush it. At 6 o'clock in the evening, I had pushed plus rode my bicycle for about 32 km. I reckoned I should have been able to double this if I did no carry such heavy load. The wind became stronger and stronger. I opened the parasail kits and tested it. The result was far beyond what I expected. With the aid of the strong wind I was just like flying over the wilderness. After 8 o'clock in the evening, I started to observe the water Source and to get ready to camp. Map showed there were successive springs along the path and assembled to puddles. But I had overestimated the water source here in this land and in this season there were endless wilderness inside the valley, where I could not see a single drop of water. As it became darker and darker, I felt a little bit nervous which resulted in three spokes of the parasail broken and became a useless rubbish. Anyway, it helped me to move forward 20km more which benefited me a lot later on. When time approached 9.30 pm, it was almost completely dark. I had to lie my bike on the ground and went on to try to find water on the north side of the valley. This was a wide and flat sandy land, where I could not see any ditches there and further was complete darkness. I returned to get my GPS to look up the contours and found the south part of the valley was closer to a hill so I took the way. Finally I found a piece of ice in a ditch. I smashed about 20litre of ice. The ice was quite shallow scattered with sheep poo. On my way back, my eyes were hurt by strong winds, which got me a couple of days to recover. It was nearly 23 o'clock after I set up the tent. It also took about 40 mins to melt the ice. I was so tired and my appetite was completely spoiled. I then had a little bit of milk. I had never expected thing would go like this, it was so distressing. Streams along the path, ice everywhereThe river flew into Matou Hu, in whose north part there was a satellite lake, a wonderful ice-skating court It took 40mins to melt the ice in midnight Day 4 (April 23), 31km, Camping 5028mA cloudy day with gusts. From now and again, hails chased me from behind. Sunny spell. Heavy sandy land made me have to push my bike. At 3pm, I arrived at Luxing Hu, where there was a house made of clay. This was the last permanent building of my journey. Last year, Duola and Liumeng once lived in this house for three days without meeting anybody. It seemed it was the same but the truck parking in front of the house made me worry about. I went to the sheep cote first to check over, where there were only a few lambs following me everywhere I went later on. This made me feel warm in my heart. I observed farther places using my binoculars but could not see any people or sheeps. After making sure there were no people around I opened the locked door using a screwdriver. The living room was very clean. There were two boxes of beverages on the ground and a string of cured lamb legs hanging over in the interior room. A pot of water was on the top of the stove, lukewarm, which indicated the host must be not far away from his home. I filled up my water bag and left the house. I also put the screws back to the door in order not to leave any trace of my visiting. I then took a spanner from the toolbox of the truck, which gave me great help for the rest of the journey.I left the house as quickly as possible. After last year's experience, the nomadic pastoralists were the last people I wanted to meet. A few hundred meters away from the house, the vehicle traces were fading fast. Even downhill, I had to push rather than to ride because of the heavy loose sand. From the route point of view, only after Luxing Hu it was the real unpopulated land. After many days, I thought of the lamb legs from time to time. It was pity that I then had plenty of provisions and the bike was too heavy to carry anything more. Continue to melt the ice under the morning sunshine, all of the sheep poo had been removed carefullyCamping site, the little hill over there was the place where I got the ice last nightThe house by the Luxing Hu, empty, the last permanent building I saw throughout my journeyDay 5 (April 24), 19.8km, Camping 4951mSet off at 10.30 in the morning, the weather was similar to yesterday. Probably this road was the high plain or somewhere the wind passed so that it was so windy. The average wind speed was degree 6 but could reach degree 9 in the blick of an eye. The road was still full of sand and very heavy to walk on it. My eyes became worse under such harsh weather. About three o'clock in the afternoon, I saw something in my right, looked like antenna. I went closer to see what it was and found out it was an iron tower (the triangulation station). In 1970s, a joint team from Chinese three military regiments entered this area doing research. They have left a lot of triangulation stations and benchmarks, which I had the priviledge to see them today.At dusk, I approached to a spring by the Bungdag Co, which flew into the frozon lake. The sand and soil, brought by the strong wind, scattered on the surface of the ice all over the lake. There were so many cracks around the icey surface of the lake. I geussed it must be caused by the springs under the water rather than by melted ice. In the west of the Bungdag Co was the side path leading to Keriya Pass, where a SUV could reach directly. I had looked out any vehicle Tracks but failed. The cloudy sky started to snow. I set up the tent comfortably because I knew that I was safe having such a sweet spring beside me.Triangulation station erected by scientists from the joint research team on Chang Tang of three military regiments in 1971[size=+0]The gap between water and ice in Bungdag Co, I guessed there must be some springs under the lakeThe storm just above the ground, a chaotic darkness[size=+0]Icy Bungdag Co,one of the four biggest lakes in Northern Tibet, wild ducks flying over this vastness and lonenessSnowing at any time, should not happen so frequently like this in this seasonDay 6 (April 25), 4.3km, Camping 5002mWeathering landforms everywhere around this area. Spongy volcanic rocks could be found easily. I pushed my bike turning around a small hill, seeing a big river, the Yinshui He, flowing from Orba Co into Bungdag Co, which I had been to its upstream last year. It was also a passage for animal migration. The downstream of the river was extremely wide and broad. The thickess of the ice layer could reach one meter with the main stem in the middle course of the river, very deep. There were a few springs along the river, sweet and clear.I only went forward a little bit more than 4km but I had walked more than 20km for finding my way. It was not possible to cross the main stem, let alone the north bank of Bungdad Co. What I could only do was to try to find a shallow place to cross. But the southern area was a even larger piece of wetland and forced the road turn towards west. I spent a couple of hours but failed to find a good point to cross the river. In the afternoon, I decided to follow the edge of the wetland. When I reached the hill foot, the wetland finally disappeared. Around this area, there were clearly volcanic feature of terrain and I even found traces of pasturing and cairns made from volcanic rock.Here was the last pasturing trace I found throughout my journey, I guessed it was a summer pasture area. After this, there was no clear sign of human activities in this vast wilderness. I had been looking for my ways until it was dark. I made up my mind where to go TOMOrrow. The terrain here looked like Yardang landforms, as well as volcanic landforms The Yinshui He river from Orba CoSprings scattered all over the river bank, painted green by lovely algaeThe river was very deep. The mixture of green and amber colour showed the sand and mud carried by the melted iceThick layer of ice, sunken surface caused by strong gustsThe south course of the Yinshui He, countless small streams. To the right was the wetlandLooking for ways in the east, a trace of pasturing and the cairn made from spongy volcanic rocksMy camp, opposite to the hillDay 7 (April 26), 11km, Camping 5009mI moved forward to the direction I found yesterday, turning around the wetland and walking toward east. At 2pm, I was blocked by the zigzag Yinshui He again and I had no choice but to cross it. The river was about 700m wide, covered by ice which appeared very different. The hanging ice, the folding ice, the piling-up ice, the icy puddle, and the sleet were everywhere along the river bank. Having noticed all of these, I reckoned the river would be receding at dusk, which was why there were so many different shapes and forms of ice. I put my slipper on, going into the main stream of the river. I found there were at least three different courses of the river, the thickness of the surface ice varied and the river water reached above my knees. I sighed there would be no way back once I crossed this river. There are many ways in one's life too, you can only take it once and you will no long have the courage to repeat it.I pushed the bike crossing the river. Some of the ice was a bit soft, jamming the tyres so that I had to use my feet to break them first. Some of the ice was a bit thick but with half-melted underneath, sticking the the bike completely, some of the ice was half-water half-ice with a sandy riverbed, which was really hard to pass. I had to remove all of the panniers at the last stage of the crossing. I spent the whole four hours to cross the river, my legs got many bloody cuts. At 6pm, the surface ice was almost disappeared completely, the river level rapidly rising to a chaotic status. I thought if I hesitated a little bit at that time, I could not have the courage to cross this river under such circumstances. The river bank was unimaginably sandy and was quite steep. I had to unloaded the panniers again to reach the top of the bank. By the time of sunset, the weather became exceptionally good. The sunlight from the descending sun, the blue sky, the faint moon, .... I liked such a colorful and peaceful Chang Tang and very much enjoyed my camp and myself bathed in such beautiful colour.The ice like this was very thin and suspended, far away from the main stemHard surface with half-melted underneath, the soft sand at the botton was most scaryThe ice like this could easily jam the wheels, hard to get it outI had to unload the panniersChaotic water and terrible hails turned up in no timeThe Chang Tang at the moment liked it used to be,a mixture of cold and warm tones under the golden setting sun Day 8 (April 27), 14.6km, Camping 5112mLast night, I forgot to bring in the odometer, which was out of order due to the coldness in midnight. Since then I used GPS to check the mileage. The digital thermometer was no longer working. I had to use mercury thermometer to collect data. Night temperatures were basically between –15℃—–20℃ while the temperature inside my tent was about –10℃. The advantage of the integrated tent was that it limited the ventilation so to keep warm inside. However, it got clearly disadvantage of heavy condensation and dew. Every morning, there was plenty of frost inside the tent so that I had to put my hood on First Before fully getting dressed. The winds in Chang Tang finally became consistent with the pattern I had researched the other day no or very tiny wind in the morning, strong wind started after 2pm, and then at around 8pm its strength was reduced again. The accuracy of this prediction was about 80%.The road was very bad today. I walked whole afternoon in an ancient riverbed and it was so difficult that I had to use all of my strengths to move a small step forward and then to stop to breath, slower than a snail. After five hours' struggling, my eyes got wet when I saw the grassy river bank. Finally! The nightmare was over.Cold and clear morningHeavy morning condensation in the interior, a lot of frost to clearSuch dawning sunlight indicated a cloudy day ahead Day 9 (April 28), 18km, 5072mIn the morning I entered a range of sandy roads which were so terrible. The solar panel specially designed for GPS got short circuited. After checking it was found to be the diode got damaged. Luckily I got a replacement. Because the GPS was exclusively supplied by a solar panel so that it was no longer a problem for the power supplement of GPS. In a period of 70 days, I did replace the battery once, which saved me a lot of alkaline batteries. I did have another solar panel of 5.4 W which was used specifically for 7.5V Camera, DV and other digital facilities. Unlike water, I had never been short of power.At 7pm in the evening, I arrived at Pur Co. The surface of this lake was very odd the ice by the river bank rose and the river bank was broken, I reckoned that was due to the strong winds. The ice there was mingled with something yellow, could be the stain of alkali. There were many wild yaks on the other side of the lake. There could be two brown bears but I could not be for certain. On the east side of the lake, there was a peninsula leading to the centre of the lake. I camped just opposite to the peninsula. At night , I smashed the ice to get drinking water, which tasted alkali. For the first time I cooked the cereals, which was brought completely by accident. This was just because I found there was a little bit of extra space when I was in Nagri packing the stuff for this journey so that I bought two packs of cereals. It tasted disgusting, probably there was too much alkali in the water. I threw away half of it. Later I realised that probably I subconsciously felt that the provisions was so heavy. I would rather make it lighter at any cost.Dry all my stuff in the morning sun, a routine matterA faint dusk in Pur CoThe river bank pushed up by ice and opened like zipper by gustsThe pushed up surface of the iceThe place where I got my drinking water, a thin layer of ice behind the ablation corns The moment just before sun set, glittering Pur Co, nothing was the same差点儿没找到俺自己的帖子,原来变色了。多谢各位鼓励。 Day 10 (April 29), 16km, Camping 5141mIn the morning, I walked around the north bank of the Pur Co, where it were continuous ups and downs sprinkled with light yellow sprouts across the sparse grassland. The wild yaks clustered into small groups. All of a sudden, there was a group of five of them running towards me, blowing a huge cloud of dust with the power of thunderbolts,I believed that anyone who did not know the characters of the wild yaks must be frightened to death under such circumstances. The fact was the wild yaks in groups never injured people. Rushing to you just to show you its territory. When they approached people at certain distance, they would turn sharply and run away, and then stopped somewhere high to stare at you. You can not imagine that the wild yaks were very cautious animals compared with its almost one ton of weight. Their first reaction, when meeting people, was to raise their tails, the front hooves rubbing against the ground, the horns pointing forward, the eyes redden, and the long body hair shaking, all of which showed their determination to fight.This was the warning sign that you should retreat. However, you should realise that this was only a gesture that they were afraid of you and wanted to scare you away. The thing was that if you were not afraid of them and moved forward, they would run away in no time. There were only some mad yaks attacking people, which was really rare to happen. In Chang Tang, an experienced driver know that it is very dangerous to pass directly from two or three lonely wild yaks. They always tried to avoid confronting them directly. If this was not possible, they would lit a cigarette, smoking, to wait until the yaks walked away themselves. This was because the wild yaks really could attack vehicles, which was not completely rumors. I once asked them why I had not been attacked. They told me that because my bike was so small they would not be bothered to attack it. My own experience was that approaching a wild yak very slowly, do not look into its eyes, and ignored what it was doing. As long as it moved forward a little bit, just stop and give the yaks a little bit of time to think. Because if you forced the yak, it could be themost dangerous animal in the world and nothing could stop them killing. Even a gunshot could not kill it but only left a small hole in its skin. In the past, the nomads living near this land would use yaks' skin as chopping board which was very much endurable. At noon, I lost my balacLAVA, which was brand new and I had never used it once. I could not be bothered to go back tofind it. This resulted in that I had to have my fleece hat day and night in the rest of my journey, which did not provide fully protection from the sun in the plateau. But somehow I was all right, perhaps because my skin is similar to those of yaks, lol. At around half past one, I found a deserted Jeep, upside down. I felt it could be there for years and it could be the vehicle of someillegal HUNTERs. Nowadays, we have wildlife conservation reserves in Chang Tang and the animals here are well protected. However, some people kills the wild yaks to sell them as the domestic yak's meat. In general, it is worth 10,000 Chinese yuans for a single wild yak. Therefore many people take the risk to make money. They often enter the unpopulated areas to hunt and their activities can reach 200 km in diameter. This is why the wild yaks in the deep wilderness are less afraid of people than thoseat the boundaries of the Chang Tang region.There once happened that a wild yak mother revenged its baby's murder in the Altun mountains. Its horns pierced the killer's chest and held his body over its head for more than ten days, which was very touching.Around 3pm, I walked out of the Pur basin. The next point was Hong Shan Daban and then it was the Yueya Hu by the Toze Gangri. At this time I found a vehicle track from south to north. I checked over but could not find the way where they had gone. I took my map, GPS, and compass, climbing up a small hill to estimate the location of Hong Shan Daban. The mountain was very round and it was hard to find the mountain pass. After determining the locations of the Daban, I moved straightforward. When I passed a messy grassland, I saw something that I was reluctant to see more than hundreds of wild yaks' head scattered all over, which was definitely the scene of the illegal hunting. After that it was a very long ancient river bed with soft sand slowly rising until the foot of the mountain.There are some spines on the surface of the tongues of wild yaks, which are used by nomads in this area as combs. They use them from their teens to the time when their hair becomes silver.The deserted Jeep, could be left by illegal hunters years agoThe slaughtered wild yaks with the wheel size heads. Some of the skulls were chopped into half. Why was that? Could be taken away for making combs?My camp at the foot of the Daban underthe lingering golden rays of the setting sun. Tomorrow's weather must be wonderful, I reckoned Day 11(April 30), 20.4km, Camping 5120mThe surface of the road leading to Hong Shan Daban was very hard, most of them were small rocks, sort of gravels, plus a quite long downhill slope, I pushed my bike more than 20km for the first time after Luxing Hu. The mountain pass was quite flat, just like a broad ridge, it was 5256m above the sea level. Upon arriving at the pass, Toze Gangri of 6356m was in my sight clearly, very much round and there was no back bone like normal snow covered mountains. Most of the snow mountains in Chang Tang looked like this probably it was due to the geological movements. There were quite a few chirus or Tibetan antelopes in the valley but I was not interested in this kind of animals anymore after I witnessed a large scale of migration of such animals last year elsewhere.The herbivorous animals here are very quick to reach its original size of the population, such as wild yaks, chirus, Tibetan gazelle, pika, and marmot. When you go into the depths of the Chang Tang, you could hardly be surpised by the sudden appearance of the chirus because they are so common in here. At this time of year, the chirus have already male-female parted. You could see many pregnant female chirus but hardly see any males. According to recent research, Zonag Co is not the only lake for breeding. There are at least four of them in the whole Chang Tang. Zonag Co, Tuzi Hu, Heishi Beihu, and another lake I can not remember. I think there must be more than four of them and most of the populations do not migrant long way like most people used to think. They generally migrant from south to north between Central Mountains and Kunlun Mountains.The chirus looks very timid but are very curious about outside world. They are not really afraid of people, particularly in the depth of the Chang Tang. The nearest distance we can approach is about 30m. They just stare at you calmly and think who you are and why you move so slow. They would run in front of you. Look like they are afraid of you but the fact is they are playing with you. A man's own character shapes his fortune. This is of course suit for animals too. The chirus are the typical one. They have a super speed and a pair of sharp antlers. If they are crazy, three of them work together could easily kill a wolf. But as you might have known, their antlers are just for fighting to mate with females.Down the Daban there was a very steep and straight road, I tried to ride the bicycle but ended up with falling over. The front rack came loose and one of the pannier flew into valley. The foot of the mountain was the Yueya Hu covered by ice, which was alake full of heavy metal elements. Along the lake bank there were many stark rocks very much weathered, lining up just like castles or houses. This made me stop to investigate what they were from time to time, I did understand they were just rocks though but they were so real like the figures of real people. On of them even made me hide in a ditch, observing them again and again using my binoculars. There were also many black volcanic rocks. All in all, the features of this area were really unusual.Passed over the Yueya Hu, it was an endless ancient lake bed. What my GPS showed was this area was a big lake like tentacles. I looked around, it was endless wilderness without a piece of ice and a drop of water. Roughly, I estimated this lake bed was about 1200 square meters. I had to tell you that Chang Tang was a place where there was no high-resolution map. The marks in the map often were some kind of memory. Just like this ancient lake bed under my feet, may be it was full of water a few years ago. Who knows. Pushing the bike in such an endless lake bed was very easy to get lost. My mind was in a chaotic status too.The migration of the animals, photo taken last year The road rising up to the Daban, full of gravels, very hard, ideal for pushing your bikeThe Yueya Hu gazed at by the round and smooth Toze Gangri. At a glimpse, could you tell which was mountain, which was cloud?Ancient lake bed. The white stains were the alkali, look like ice. About wildlife (part 1)Declaration Personal experience for reference onlyDangerous wild animals and their threats to human beings are a ever-LASTING subject for those backpackers travelling in the wild.In Chang Tang, for example, there are two kinds of deadly animals, one is wolves and the other is brawn bears. As substitutes, wild yaks and crows might be dangerous to you in some circumstances that I will come back to this a little bit later on. As for how to protect yourself against these dangerous animals, I think the primary point is you do not try to hurt them because the emotions of human and animals are same instinctively. [Wolves]Throughout my journey, I met wolves a total of seven times, in which I confronted them five times. As you might have known that wolves have become more and more solitary animals, it is very rare they live in a large group nowadays. Please allow me off the point a little bit and talk about the ecological problems in Chang Tang. The problem is now not the decrease of the number of the chirus but the imbalance of the whole food chain, more specifically, the number of the animals on the higher trophic levels of the food chain has not yet reached its ideal level which results in this kind of imbalance. Particularly, the pikas and the marmots who have lost their predators rapidly expanse which results in the desertification of Chang Tang. As early as the middle of last century, wolves were the dominant predators in the vast wilderness. They became a threat not only to other preys but also nomads pasturing in this land. Therefore, the then government called on people to cull back the population of the wolves in Chang Tang, which resulted in the current situation directly. The last official record about wolves attacking humans was around 1970s, which happened in Bamaoqiongzong. A team of secientists was surrounded by a group of wolves and they had to shoot them using guns. Of course, at present in Chang Tang, wolves are absolutely lonely.In this traverse, the first time I encountered a pair of wolves, one of them staying in front of me pretending to attack me while the other staying behind me. This is the standard attacking strategy of wolves. First, you should not be nervous which can be easily detected by the predators. Second, you should not retreat even an inch because this means you are the prey rather than the predator. Do not make any large movement, of course you could take a picture if you feel safe to do so. You must look into its eyes for a few minutes or even half an hour. When the wolves can not work out who you are and consider you are not posing any danger to them, then they will leave. You should remember that wolves in this land do not lack of food and it is much easy for them to catch a pika than a human. Even if being hungry, they would evalsuate how easy to get you done, What you need to do is to show them that you are not interested in them and you are not afraid of them at all, let alone to show your ID card to them. As for the wolves family, really, I have not heard for ages. If you really have an encounter with them and they have no other choice, then it definitely depends on your forture. In fact, for so many year, it has been very rare to happen that wolves kill human. But the rumours are still there, in particular, the road connecting Xinjiang and Tibet.The nearest encounter with a wolf throughout my journey, no conflict at all[Brown Bears]Brown bears are real dangerous animals to human. Every year there are some accidents happened in some regions of Xinjiang on the north side of Kunkun Mountains and steppes in Northern Tibet. More than that the bears could attack your house, smash your windows, and eat your sheep. Therefore, in Northern Tibet some local councils give subsidies to the pastorarists for compensating the losses due to the bears because they are not allow to fight back and kill the bears except their lives are in great danger. Once there was a nomad taught me a method to protect yourself from bears. He told me to pick up a stick to feed the bear and the bear thinks the stick is your hand which tastes disgusting. So the bear would leave. It was so funny but the reality is to find a stick in this vast wilderness is just like you win the lottery.Bears are omonivorous animal who are generally not interested in human flesh. You can find that in most of accidents, the bears did not eat any of the human flesh rather they just smashed them for kind of fun that we could not understand. For the reason why bears kill human, one explanation is the conflict between human and wildlife in this extreme ecological environment. The nomads invade the habitats of the bears, which results in these conflicts. On the other hand, it might be because bears have quite high IQ so that they think it is much easy to kill a sheep in the cote rather than to kill a pika in the wild.I have met bears five times in my traverse, in two cases we were very close to each other. I had even walked with one of them for quite a while, just like we had a date for a walk. The fact is it is not that terrible like you might imagine. The same rules for dealing with wolves apply to bears. Never provoke dangerous animals. A bear can run at a speed of 40km/h, do you think you can compete this in a highland 5,000m above sea level?However, there is a situation where it is really dangerous, that is the encounter. It is not easy to control your instinctive reaction to the external dangers. Last year once I turned around a hill, there was a bear just in front of me. The bear of course was frightened by me with its front legs holding up, waving in the air and roaring. At that time I sat on the ground, ignoring it. The bear then left in a few minutes. Chang Tang is a vast land so that this is not that easy to happen. But if it does happen, really only God can bless you.The nearest encounter with a bear throughout my journey. This bear disappeared in a herd of wild yaks, which I had tried hard to spot, really weird About wildlife (part 2)Declaration personal experience for reference only.[Wild Yaks]I have talked about quite a few, like in the post of Day10. I will no longer talk about it.This was the funniest encounter with a solitary wild yak, who did not warn me. If I sat down, it sat down too. If I moved forward, it stopped. Could not imagine what it was thinking about.[Crows]Crows are dangerous only when you fall unconscious in the wilderness. Of course they will be the first to taste your flesh in that case. Unlike their cousinsliving in urban areas, the crows in Chang Tang have a larger body like eagles. When they fly over your head, you could feel like it is a piece of cloud. They are scavengers but like fresh meat too. It once happened that a baby was killed by crows relentlessly, let alone the lambs got killed by them. Once a nomad asked me for fireworks to scare the crows away. (They are sacred birds not to be killed by human)It is easy to defend yourself against crows, that is to keep fighting, never fall in the wilderness.A short break attracted the crows. Of course, they were miscalculating this time, photo taken last year[Strategies Adopted]At the time when I met the four soldiers in Jieshan Daban, they said there were many dangerous animals in the Northern Tibet and asked me if I had brought a shotgun. I think if they knew that I would enter Chang Tang they would definitely check if I really have a shotgun. The so-called defence facilities I brought with me were the fireworks and pepper spray. I had never used them. The fireworks were ruined and thrown away when I crossed a river and I had never opened the pepper spray. I even had never thought about this when camping in the night. The reason was I did not feel the needs. During the day time whenever I met any animals I had never touched the knife I had brought. I did not have anything to defend myself when I walked out to investigate the route. The Chang Tang is really a vast area so as to be very easy to detect anything strange.By the way, you'd better to avoid mating season's animals because even tamed rabbits could be aggressive in mating season.The thing is even if you have a gun, it is not very much helpful when bears attack you. Therefore, your attitude is most important.I can tell you something. Dogs are more dangerous than these wild animals. I had been chased by Tibetan dogs, pounced on by dogs in mating season, also besieged by a group of dogs. I really feel it is more useful to know how to defend a dog.Declaration again The above experience is from Chang Tang only. Of course, the more you prepared, the better. Day 12 (May 1), 23.8km, Camping 5117mToday was May 1 -- the Labour Day, I had been walking in some lake area marked in the map but clearly dried up. The lake basin was flat and hard so that I even pushed my bike more than 20km. Let it be the special treat for my May Day. After midday it became cloudy with growing winds. Since the Yueya Hu that I passed yesterday, there were no big lakes until Yanghu Co (My route would be between Jianshui Hu and Bairab Co), there was even no light alkaline water to drink so I had to pay extra attention not to miss any possible drinking water supply to fill up my water bag. There were a few very small lakes but all were alkaline puddles which was very shallow, whose depth was no more than the length of a half-finger. These puddles were covered with a hard shell of the mixture of salt and ice which smelled stinking and decaying when getting closer, must be toxic water I supposed. On the shore of this type of small lakes it was muddy soil and very hard to get closer.There was no sign of tundra at all.It was almost half past six when I found some snow corns in a ditch, which was the only drinking water supply of the day. There was a thin layer of melted ice on the surface of the ground near the snow corn, which was very hard to collect and was contaminated by the alkali. The snow corn was the yet melted thick snow, which was shaped like a corn by wind. The snow was quite hard and dry,porous like ice. I crushed a few snow corns, putting them into the water bag.They would be my drinking water tonight. These snow corns were the only one in today's wilderness, I reckoned the reason why they were not melted like others was the soil underneath contained large amount of ice blocks which acted as a freezer.Very strong gale in the night, it was hard to bear the sound of the vibration of the tent. Small single tent was good in the sense that it would not be blown away as long as you stayed inside. But you had to be very careful to set up the tent. I once did not pay much attention when doing so, the tent was blown away by winds, and rolling over like a Giant lantern ... I ran after it, got it back, and was exhausted. In general, it is not possible to fix the tent completely using tent pegs because they were not very much effective like large tents. It was snowing around 23 o'clock, the winds were howling from north,then the falling snow flakes landed on my tent quietly, I finally felt at peace and fell asleep. The flat ancient lake basin, assisting me walking more than 20kmSmall lake en route, toxic waterSnow corns, the only drinking water supply today Day 13 (May 2), 0km, Camping 5117mWaking up in the morning and opening the tent, the heavy snow outside must be sent by the God to force me have a break for the May Day. After lying in for a while, getting up and walking on the snowy ground out I went to have a look around. As first sight there were a herd of chirus. They were plainly to be spotted because they looked like a clear black straight line in the while snow. I returned to get my camera and then followed them to take some pictures. But they were very much alert and kept a quite long distance from me. I felt they were a group of pregnant females, instinctively protecting themselves from any potential harm. I was no longer short of water, the snow gave me a precious supply of drinking water. The problem was that they were very petrol consuming. I tool 8.6 litre of petrol and the oil stove was Duola's MSR. The pot was of 1.5 litre, mainly for boiling water. After several days' experiments, I found that the liquid water needed 16mins and 14-15mins to boil in the morning and evening, respectively. For ice, it would take 35-40mins while for snow it took 45-50mins. Melting snow was a very time and petrol consuming process so if I had a choice between snow and light alkaline water, most of time I would go with the latter. Lying inside the tent, listening to musics,I smoked a cigarette while gazing at the more and more chirus around me. Because it was very cold I had been wearing my shoes all the time. Now I just put my bare feet under the warm sun for some fresh air. I found three cuts in my hands and one in my sole. The cuts were about 4cm in length, looked terrible but it was actually all right really. Half of my toes were injured by to much walking, quite painful. I fetched my medicine bag and found I only got four patches of plasters, a serious mistake. One of the cuts in my hand had never been cured until I was out of this desolate land so as to feel like this finger would drop from my hand at any time. The others quickly recovered in a few days then new cuts appeared elsewhere. This process occurred periodically. I felt that it was somewhat related to the cold, dry weather and the lack of vitamins. The snow rapidly disappeared, which is unique phenomenon in Chang Tang. Because of the low air humidity and the high radiation from the sun, the snow was evaporating very fast, much quicker than the melting speed. Owing to this, the ground was generally still dry after the snow disappeared. In most cases, it would be only 2/5 left in the afternoon around 2 to 3 o'clock and small patches of ground could be seen. It would be completely all right for walking the next day. On the third day there could be some snow left in somewhere the sunlight hard to reach. So generally it could give you three days of water supply after a heavy snow like this. One of the pannier was broken, the most expensive one from deuter series, supposed to be waterproof. I will come back to it at some point later. Everything was covered by snow, no way out Lying in the middle of Chang Tang, listening to Tian Zhen's songs, and smoking Baisha cigarettes, what else can you ask for? The pregnant female chirus in migration, probably heading to Heishi Beihu to give birth([]
Northern Wilderness, Solo Traverse of the Great Chang TangMr YANG Liusong, a Chinese who just finished the first solo traverse over Chang Tang by cycling from west to east in recorded human history, shared his stunning Expedition with all of us through the forum 8264 https//bbs.8264.com/thread-512349-1-1.html . In order to share his legendary journey with those who cannot read Chinese, I translate his story to English here, which has been approved by Mr YANG Liusong. Hope you guys enjoy it.为了让杨同学的传奇能让全世界的驴友分享,俺决定把杨同学的帖子翻译成英文。为了避免麻烦,俺先来个免责声明:1。杨同学不认识俺,也没有授权俺,如果他说不要翻译了那俺就随时终止;2。俺没有商业目的,译版版权归杨同学,俺啥也不要,也不承担法律责任;3。没有杨同学授权,不敢擅自发在国外网站,发在原帖处,荣誉归8264;4。俺英语水平有限,欢迎指正,欢迎转贴。 Northern Wilderness, Solo Traverse of the Great Chang TangBy Yang LiusongIt has been three months since I traversed the unpopulated region in the Great Chang Tang. There are many like-minded asking me about it. I now present this thread to briefly tell everybody about my journey.The starting point of this traverse was from the highest peak of the western part of the Tibetan plateau, Jieshan Daban, and the day was April 20, 2010.I was heading eastward passing Bungdag Co, Yanghu Co, Rola Co, and Kangzhagri Mountain, which crossed over the desolate region from west to east. The journey continued northward to enter the unpopulated area of Altun Mountains, through Hoh Xil Mountains, Kunlun Mountains, Whale lake, ..., finally met some people by the Aqqikkol Hu and then arrived in Huatugou by vehicle three days later and that day was July 5. It had been 77 days in total. I had been all alone 74 days after leaving Jieshan Daban until arriving inAqqikkol Hu, which was about 1400km and about four months.[The Great Chang Tang] In Tibetan, "Chang Tang" means northern empty wilderness while narrowly, means unpopulated region in northern part of Tibet. However, it actually indiCATes all of the no man's land in northern. The great Chang Tang includes desolate places in Northern Tibet, Hoh Xil, Alun Mountains, and Kunlun Mountains, which are interconnected to form the unique and super empty wilderness in the world. Only because Hoh Xil is the most known name, most people just think this vast land is equivalent to Hoh Xil. In reality, Hoh Xil is only a small piece of the Great Chang Tang both administratively and geologically. The Great Chang Tang, the last land to chase your freedom and dream.The route that I traversed ForeplayI arrived in Tibet in the early March, a couple of troubles bothered me. The brand new plug got its positive and negative wrongly connected; the rivets of my rucksack eASIly got broken from now and again; and a multi-functional charger got damaged and so on. Riding my bike to Ngari for warming up of this journey, lost my rucksack but later got it back; lost my camera bag and got it back later again, and finally lost a big bicycle pannier in the street of Gyangze town under the eyes of police, including clothes, solar panel and so on.Without much choice, I returned to Lhasa to adjust all the stuff I would need in the wilderness. Then I begged some luck by going to Nyingchi to enjoy the blossoms of peach trees and to take a hot spring bath. I even had the privilege to enjoy time with ten girls in the hot spring. I felt my bad luck had all gone and then returned to Lhasa again to prepare going to Ngari. I did not expect that I was cheated on by some hustler and lost some money and delayed my schedule for a week. I had to find a car myself quickly to Nagri. However, I lost the tool for fast-parting my rear wheel on my way to Nagri, where was a remote area in Tibet and nowhere to buy the tool. Even if there was one in Lhasa it would take at least ten days for a special delivery service. I was lucky that my mate Duola asked a driver to bring the tool for me from Lhasa. I thought there should be no more nightmare like this but the nozzle of my brand new multi-fuel stove was broken. The next day I tried everywhere to weld them back together. The first three shops could not do the welding for copper. The fourth one said they could do it but could not guarantee a sUCCess. The engineer said it would be ten Chinese yuans if it was a success. I agreed. Just in seconds, my nozzle became crap in a flash of lightening. I was so upset. Again, Duola helped me by bringing her own MSR oil stove and Dingding's sleeping bag to Nagri. That was already April 16 and I did not have much time to waste. The following day I found a vehicle heading to Jieshan Daban.The sand storm over Yarlung Zangbo RiverA lonely peach tree blossoming in Yarlung Zangbo Grand CanyonNatural hot spring in wild, me singing and drinking (photo by a friend of mine) Day 1(April 20), 16km, Camping 5192mIt was a truck with a full load of iron wastes, arriving in Jieshan Daban at 6'o clock in the morning. It was still night and extremely cold and dark. Driver was not bothered to pop his head out of the driving cab. I climbed up on the top of the iron wastes, taking my bicycle down. In a hurry, I punched my old water bag. Fortunately I had another MSR water bag given by a friend of mine otherwise I would definitely fail without even starting my journey. For the first time for me to set up the brand new tent in strong, cold winds. It would be impossible to do so if the tent was not a whole piece. Extremely cold outside, about -15C, might be lower than that, I put my head into the sleeping bag but was nearly suffocated to death, honestly. The smell of Dingding's sleeping bag was, lol, so extraordinary. I woke up around 11 o'clock. There were still strong winds outside so that I had to use my bodyweight to keep the tent in place. At the time when I just started to cook and eat, four patrolling soldiers approached me. To their surprise someone, in this season, camped in Jieshan Daban. I was so nervous and afraid they were the people to block my journey because I was caught and deported from the desolate land last year. Luckily the four soldiers did not know my destination and were very kind to me. After they left, I immediately packed my stuff and pushed my bike into the depths of the unpopulated area just in case anything unexpected happened.The bike was very heavy due to the provisions and hard to control. There was even a quite small hill that I had to remove my bike panniers to get over it. This really struck me because this happened even the path was still the hardship one at the moment and I could not imagine what I would do once I entered the uncertain, endless wilderness. Until now I had not met anyone, even the nomadic pastoralists. I remembered there were quite a few of them roaming at the edge of the northern Tibetan plateau last year. All of these indicated it was not the good pasture season in such low temperature and strong winds. Around 16km there was a sheep cote, where I passed it last year, east of Lungmu Co. I was exhausted at this point so that I decided to camp in here and to rest my head. After arranging tent everything I went out to look for the wetland discovered by Duola and Liumeng last year. I was determined to find it.There were many hot springs in the wetland which were underground water with a constant temperature. The wetland therefore became an ideal habitat for some fishes and weeds under such harsh weather, which was the very unique land feature of terrain in this over 5200m highland.Perpetual snow in the valley blown to corn shape by strong windsThis wetland was discovered by Duola and Liumeng. The workers at a nearby mine did not know it and I too missed it last yearUnderground water with a constant temperature, an ideal habitat for some fishes and weeds under such icy weather 感谢大伙儿支持和加分,不一一回复了。特别感谢多啦,希望能有机会一起喝酒吃肉。 Day 2 (April 21), 0km, Camping5192mBlustering gale all night, up and down like ocean waves. The next day rather than continuing to travel, I stayed inside the sheep cote, hesitating and pondering over. Indeed, there were so many problems before this journey;I did not have sufficient physical preparation;the load had already reached its limitation; I still coughed a lot;the weather was so extreme and cold. All in all, I did not think this journey was well prepared and I did not have confidence in completing this journey mentally and physically. To do, or not to do, it was the question. Similarly I did not have confidence in my facilities, not knowing whether all of them would work functionally or not. The fact was one of the rivets got broken again and the front rack came loose. In the afternoon, I replaced all the rivets of the panniers with screws I had prepared before. This was an excellent job I had done which gave me no further troubles throughout my whole journey. I also re-adjusted the front rack. However I did not think it would definitely all right because I did not have a tool to do it. When the darkness descended,I made up my mind to continue my journey, which, of course, was not beyond any imagination. Orchid-like weedsSmall springs everywhere, clear and chillyA thin layer of ice covering the fresh spring water The sheep cote, it was the door under the sleeping bag, which was in the same place as last year, everything looked like yesterdayThe wetland at duskLungmu Co at dusk. You could hear the gigantic sound of wind if the picture had a sound Day 3 (April 22), 52.4km, Camping 5145mGot up in the morning, could not put everything into the bags. Without much choice I had to throw away three portions of tsampa, elbow pads, and crampons. Following the road of the lead-zinicmine I found the side path to enter the wilderness, which was on the riverbed and very hard to see. I missed this side path last year so that I had to take a short cut into the wilderness directly then. That was why I had taken extra care to find the side path. The following journey was to get over a big hill, which lay 5275m above sea level and was the highest point of my whole journey. Around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I passed the side path leading to Orba Co and started a journey which was complete strange to me. I ate a piece of pilot breads, which was frozen like rocks so that I had to use my spade to crush it. At 6 o'clock in the evening, I had pushed plus rode my bicycle for about 32 km. I reckoned I should have been able to double this if I did no carry such heavy load. The wind became stronger and stronger. I opened the parasail kits and tested it. The result was far beyond what I expected. With the aid of the strong wind I was just like flying over the wilderness. After 8 o'clock in the evening, I started to observe the water Source and to get ready to camp. Map showed there were successive springs along the path and assembled to puddles. But I had overestimated the water source here in this land and in this season there were endless wilderness inside the valley, where I could not see a single drop of water. As it became darker and darker, I felt a little bit nervous which resulted in three spokes of the parasail broken and became a useless rubbish. Anyway, it helped me to move forward 20km more which benefited me a lot later on. When time approached 9.30 pm, it was almost completely dark. I had to lie my bike on the ground and went on to try to find water on the north side of the valley. This was a wide and flat sandy land, where I could not see any ditches there and further was complete darkness. I returned to get my GPS to look up the contours and found the south part of the valley was closer to a hill so I took the way. Finally I found a piece of ice in a ditch. I smashed about 20litre of ice. The ice was quite shallow scattered with sheep poo. On my way back, my eyes were hurt by strong winds, which got me a couple of days to recover. It was nearly 23 o'clock after I set up the tent. It also took about 40 mins to melt the ice. I was so tired and my appetite was completely spoiled. I then had a little bit of milk. I had never expected thing would go like this, it was so distressing. Streams along the path, ice everywhereThe river flew into Matou Hu, in whose north part there was a satellite lake, a wonderful ice-skating court It took 40mins to melt the ice in midnight Day 4 (April 23), 31km, Camping 5028mA cloudy day with gusts. From now and again, hails chased me from behind. Sunny spell. Heavy sandy land made me have to push my bike. At 3pm, I arrived at Luxing Hu, where there was a house made of clay. This was the last permanent building of my journey. Last year, Duola and Liumeng once lived in this house for three days without meeting anybody. It seemed it was the same but the truck parking in front of the house made me worry about. I went to the sheep cote first to check over, where there were only a few lambs following me everywhere I went later on. This made me feel warm in my heart. I observed farther places using my binoculars but could not see any people or sheeps. After making sure there were no people around I opened the locked door using a screwdriver. The living room was very clean. There were two boxes of beverages on the ground and a string of cured lamb legs hanging over in the interior room. A pot of water was on the top of the stove, lukewarm, which indicated the host must be not far away from his home. I filled up my water bag and left the house. I also put the screws back to the door in order not to leave any trace of my visiting. I then took a spanner from the toolbox of the truck, which gave me great help for the rest of the journey.I left the house as quickly as possible. After last year's experience, the nomadic pastoralists were the last people I wanted to meet. A few hundred meters away from the house, the vehicle traces were fading fast. Even downhill, I had to push rather than to ride because of the heavy loose sand. From the route point of view, only after Luxing Hu it was the real unpopulated land. After many days, I thought of the lamb legs from time to time. It was pity that I then had plenty of provisions and the bike was too heavy to carry anything more. Continue to melt the ice under the morning sunshine, all of the sheep poo had been removed carefullyCamping site, the little hill over there was the place where I got the ice last nightThe house by the Luxing Hu, empty, the last permanent building I saw throughout my journeyDay 5 (April 24), 19.8km, Camping 4951mSet off at 10.30 in the morning, the weather was similar to yesterday. Probably this road was the high plain or somewhere the wind passed so that it was so windy. The average wind speed was degree 6 but could reach degree 9 in the blick of an eye. The road was still full of sand and very heavy to walk on it. My eyes became worse under such harsh weather. About three o'clock in the afternoon, I saw something in my right, looked like antenna. I went closer to see what it was and found out it was an iron tower (the triangulation station). In 1970s, a joint team from Chinese three military regiments entered this area doing research. They have left a lot of triangulation stations and benchmarks, which I had the priviledge to see them today.At dusk, I approached to a spring by the Bungdag Co, which flew into the frozon lake. The sand and soil, brought by the strong wind, scattered on the surface of the ice all over the lake. There were so many cracks around the icey surface of the lake. I geussed it must be caused by the springs under the water rather than by melted ice. In the west of the Bungdag Co was the side path leading to Keriya Pass, where a SUV could reach directly. I had looked out any vehicle Tracks but failed. The cloudy sky started to snow. I set up the tent comfortably because I knew that I was safe having such a sweet spring beside me.Triangulation station erected by scientists from the joint research team on Chang Tang of three military regiments in 1971[size=+0]The gap between water and ice in Bungdag Co, I guessed there must be some springs under the lakeThe storm just above the ground, a chaotic darkness[size=+0]Icy Bungdag Co,one of the four biggest lakes in Northern Tibet, wild ducks flying over this vastness and lonenessSnowing at any time, should not happen so frequently like this in this seasonDay 6 (April 25), 4.3km, Camping 5002mWeathering landforms everywhere around this area. Spongy volcanic rocks could be found easily. I pushed my bike turning around a small hill, seeing a big river, the Yinshui He, flowing from Orba Co into Bungdag Co, which I had been to its upstream last year. It was also a passage for animal migration. The downstream of the river was extremely wide and broad. The thickess of the ice layer could reach one meter with the main stem in the middle course of the river, very deep. There were a few springs along the river, sweet and clear.I only went forward a little bit more than 4km but I had walked more than 20km for finding my way. It was not possible to cross the main stem, let alone the north bank of Bungdad Co. What I could only do was to try to find a shallow place to cross. But the southern area was a even larger piece of wetland and forced the road turn towards west. I spent a couple of hours but failed to find a good point to cross the river. In the afternoon, I decided to follow the edge of the wetland. When I reached the hill foot, the wetland finally disappeared. Around this area, there were clearly volcanic feature of terrain and I even found traces of pasturing and cairns made from volcanic rock.Here was the last pasturing trace I found throughout my journey, I guessed it was a summer pasture area. After this, there was no clear sign of human activities in this vast wilderness. I had been looking for my ways until it was dark. I made up my mind where to go TOMOrrow. The terrain here looked like Yardang landforms, as well as volcanic landforms The Yinshui He river from Orba CoSprings scattered all over the river bank, painted green by lovely algaeThe river was very deep. The mixture of green and amber colour showed the sand and mud carried by the melted iceThick layer of ice, sunken surface caused by strong gustsThe south course of the Yinshui He, countless small streams. To the right was the wetlandLooking for ways in the east, a trace of pasturing and the cairn made from spongy volcanic rocksMy camp, opposite to the hillDay 7 (April 26), 11km, Camping 5009mI moved forward to the direction I found yesterday, turning around the wetland and walking toward east. At 2pm, I was blocked by the zigzag Yinshui He again and I had no choice but to cross it. The river was about 700m wide, covered by ice which appeared very different. The hanging ice, the folding ice, the piling-up ice, the icy puddle, and the sleet were everywhere along the river bank. Having noticed all of these, I reckoned the river would be receding at dusk, which was why there were so many different shapes and forms of ice. I put my slipper on, going into the main stream of the river. I found there were at least three different courses of the river, the thickness of the surface ice varied and the river water reached above my knees. I sighed there would be no way back once I crossed this river. There are many ways in one's life too, you can only take it once and you will no long have the courage to repeat it.I pushed the bike crossing the river. Some of the ice was a bit soft, jamming the tyres so that I had to use my feet to break them first. Some of the ice was a bit thick but with half-melted underneath, sticking the the bike completely, some of the ice was half-water half-ice with a sandy riverbed, which was really hard to pass. I had to remove all of the panniers at the last stage of the crossing. I spent the whole four hours to cross the river, my legs got many bloody cuts. At 6pm, the surface ice was almost disappeared completely, the river level rapidly rising to a chaotic status. I thought if I hesitated a little bit at that time, I could not have the courage to cross this river under such circumstances. The river bank was unimaginably sandy and was quite steep. I had to unloaded the panniers again to reach the top of the bank. By the time of sunset, the weather became exceptionally good. The sunlight from the descending sun, the blue sky, the faint moon, .... I liked such a colorful and peaceful Chang Tang and very much enjoyed my camp and myself bathed in such beautiful colour.The ice like this was very thin and suspended, far away from the main stemHard surface with half-melted underneath, the soft sand at the botton was most scaryThe ice like this could easily jam the wheels, hard to get it outI had to unload the panniersChaotic water and terrible hails turned up in no timeThe Chang Tang at the moment liked it used to be,a mixture of cold and warm tones under the golden setting sun Day 8 (April 27), 14.6km, Camping 5112mLast night, I forgot to bring in the odometer, which was out of order due to the coldness in midnight. Since then I used GPS to check the mileage. The digital thermometer was no longer working. I had to use mercury thermometer to collect data. Night temperatures were basically between –15℃—–20℃ while the temperature inside my tent was about –10℃. The advantage of the integrated tent was that it limited the ventilation so to keep warm inside. However, it got clearly disadvantage of heavy condensation and dew. Every morning, there was plenty of frost inside the tent so that I had to put my hood on First Before fully getting dressed. The winds in Chang Tang finally became consistent with the pattern I had researched the other day no or very tiny wind in the morning, strong wind started after 2pm, and then at around 8pm its strength was reduced again. The accuracy of this prediction was about 80%.The road was very bad today. I walked whole afternoon in an ancient riverbed and it was so difficult that I had to use all of my strengths to move a small step forward and then to stop to breath, slower than a snail. After five hours' struggling, my eyes got wet when I saw the grassy river bank. Finally! The nightmare was over.Cold and clear morningHeavy morning condensation in the interior, a lot of frost to clearSuch dawning sunlight indicated a cloudy day ahead Day 9 (April 28), 18km, 5072mIn the morning I entered a range of sandy roads which were so terrible. The solar panel specially designed for GPS got short circuited. After checking it was found to be the diode got damaged. Luckily I got a replacement. Because the GPS was exclusively supplied by a solar panel so that it was no longer a problem for the power supplement of GPS. In a period of 70 days, I did replace the battery once, which saved me a lot of alkaline batteries. I did have another solar panel of 5.4 W which was used specifically for 7.5V Camera, DV and other digital facilities. Unlike water, I had never been short of power.At 7pm in the evening, I arrived at Pur Co. The surface of this lake was very odd the ice by the river bank rose and the river bank was broken, I reckoned that was due to the strong winds. The ice there was mingled with something yellow, could be the stain of alkali. There were many wild yaks on the other side of the lake. There could be two brown bears but I could not be for certain. On the east side of the lake, there was a peninsula leading to the centre of the lake. I camped just opposite to the peninsula. At night , I smashed the ice to get drinking water, which tasted alkali. For the first time I cooked the cereals, which was brought completely by accident. This was just because I found there was a little bit of extra space when I was in Nagri packing the stuff for this journey so that I bought two packs of cereals. It tasted disgusting, probably there was too much alkali in the water. I threw away half of it. Later I realised that probably I subconsciously felt that the provisions was so heavy. I would rather make it lighter at any cost.Dry all my stuff in the morning sun, a routine matterA faint dusk in Pur CoThe river bank pushed up by ice and opened like zipper by gustsThe pushed up surface of the iceThe place where I got my drinking water, a thin layer of ice behind the ablation corns The moment just before sun set, glittering Pur Co, nothing was the same差点儿没找到俺自己的帖子,原来变色了。多谢各位鼓励。 Day 10 (April 29), 16km, Camping 5141mIn the morning, I walked around the north bank of the Pur Co, where it were continuous ups and downs sprinkled with light yellow sprouts across the sparse grassland. The wild yaks clustered into small groups. All of a sudden, there was a group of five of them running towards me, blowing a huge cloud of dust with the power of thunderbolts,I believed that anyone who did not know the characters of the wild yaks must be frightened to death under such circumstances. The fact was the wild yaks in groups never injured people. Rushing to you just to show you its territory. When they approached people at certain distance, they would turn sharply and run away, and then stopped somewhere high to stare at you. You can not imagine that the wild yaks were very cautious animals compared with its almost one ton of weight. Their first reaction, when meeting people, was to raise their tails, the front hooves rubbing against the ground, the horns pointing forward, the eyes redden, and the long body hair shaking, all of which showed their determination to fight.This was the warning sign that you should retreat. However, you should realise that this was only a gesture that they were afraid of you and wanted to scare you away. The thing was that if you were not afraid of them and moved forward, they would run away in no time. There were only some mad yaks attacking people, which was really rare to happen. In Chang Tang, an experienced driver know that it is very dangerous to pass directly from two or three lonely wild yaks. They always tried to avoid confronting them directly. If this was not possible, they would lit a cigarette, smoking, to wait until the yaks walked away themselves. This was because the wild yaks really could attack vehicles, which was not completely rumors. I once asked them why I had not been attacked. They told me that because my bike was so small they would not be bothered to attack it. My own experience was that approaching a wild yak very slowly, do not look into its eyes, and ignored what it was doing. As long as it moved forward a little bit, just stop and give the yaks a little bit of time to think. Because if you forced the yak, it could be themost dangerous animal in the world and nothing could stop them killing. Even a gunshot could not kill it but only left a small hole in its skin. In the past, the nomads living near this land would use yaks' skin as chopping board which was very much endurable. At noon, I lost my balacLAVA, which was brand new and I had never used it once. I could not be bothered to go back tofind it. This resulted in that I had to have my fleece hat day and night in the rest of my journey, which did not provide fully protection from the sun in the plateau. But somehow I was all right, perhaps because my skin is similar to those of yaks, lol. At around half past one, I found a deserted Jeep, upside down. I felt it could be there for years and it could be the vehicle of someillegal HUNTERs. Nowadays, we have wildlife conservation reserves in Chang Tang and the animals here are well protected. However, some people kills the wild yaks to sell them as the domestic yak's meat. In general, it is worth 10,000 Chinese yuans for a single wild yak. Therefore many people take the risk to make money. They often enter the unpopulated areas to hunt and their activities can reach 200 km in diameter. This is why the wild yaks in the deep wilderness are less afraid of people than thoseat the boundaries of the Chang Tang region.There once happened that a wild yak mother revenged its baby's murder in the Altun mountains. Its horns pierced the killer's chest and held his body over its head for more than ten days, which was very touching.Around 3pm, I walked out of the Pur basin. The next point was Hong Shan Daban and then it was the Yueya Hu by the Toze Gangri. At this time I found a vehicle track from south to north. I checked over but could not find the way where they had gone. I took my map, GPS, and compass, climbing up a small hill to estimate the location of Hong Shan Daban. The mountain was very round and it was hard to find the mountain pass. After determining the location of the Daban, I moved straightforward. When I passed a messy grassland, I saw something that I was reluctant to see more than hundreds of wild yaks' head scattered all over, which was definitely the scene of the illegal hunting. After that it was a very long ancient river bed with soft sand slowly rising until the foot of the mountain.There are some spines on the surface of the tongues of wild yaks, which are used by nomads in this area as combs. They use them from their teens to the time when their hair becomes silver.The deserted Jeep, could be left by illegal hunters years agoThe slaughtered wild yaks with the wheel size heads. Some of the skulls were chopped into half. Why was that? Could be taken away for making combs?My camp at the foot of the Daban underthe lingering golden rays of the setting sun. Tomorrow's weather must be wonderful, I reckoned Day 11(April 30), 20.4km, Camping 5120mThe surface of the road leading to Hong Shan Daban was very hard, most of them were small rocks, sort of gravels, plus a quite long downhill slope, I pushed my bike more than 20km for the first time after Luxing Hu. The mountain pass was quite flat, just like a broad ridge, it was 5256m above the sea level. Upon arriving at the pass, Toze Gangri of 6356m was in my sight clearly, very much round and there was no back bone like normal snow covered mountains. Most of the snow mountains in Chang Tang looked like this probably it was due to the geological movements. There were quite a few chirus or Tibetan antelopes in the valley but I was not interested in this kind of animals anymore after I witnessed a large scale of migration of such animals last year elsewhere.The herbivorous animals here are very quick to reach its original size of the population, such as wild yaks, chirus, Tibetan gazelle, pika, and marmot. When you go into the depths of the Chang Tang, you could hardly be surpised by the sudden appearance of the chirus because they are so common in here. At this time of year, the chirus have already male-female parted. You could see many pregnant female chirus but hardly see any males. According to recent research, Zonag Co is not the only lake for breeding. There are at least four of them in the whole Chang Tang. Zonag Co, Tuzi Hu, Heishi Beihu, and another lake I can not remember. I think there must be more than four of them and most of the populations do not migrant long way like most people used to think. They generally migrant from south to north between Central Mountains and Kunlun Mountains.The chirus looks very timid but are very curious about outside world. They are not really afraid of people, particularly in the depth of the Chang Tang. The nearest distance we can approach is about 30m. They just stare at you calmly and think who you are and why you move so slow. They would run in front of you. Look like they are afraid of you but the fact is they are playing with you. A man's own character shapes his fortune. This is of course suit for animals too. The chirus are the typical one. They have a super speed and a pair of sharp antlers. If they are crazy, three of them work together could easily kill a wolf. But as you might have known, their antlers are just for fighting to mate with females.Down the Daban there was a very steep and straight road, I tried to ride the bicycle but ended up with falling over. The front rack came loose and one of the pannier flew into valley. The foot of the mountain was the Yueya Hu covered by ice, which was alake full of heavy metal elements. Along the lake bank there were many stark rocks very much weathered, lining up just like castles or houses. This made me stop to investigate what they were from time to time, I did understand they were just rocks though but they were so real like the figures of real people. On of them even made me hide in a ditch, observing them again and again using my binoculars. There were also many black volcanic rocks. All in all, the features of this area were really unusual.Passed over the Yueya Hu, it was an endless ancient lake bed. What my GPS showed was this area was a big lake like tentacles. I looked around, it was endless wilderness without a piece of ice and a drop of water. Roughly, I estimated this lake bed was about 1200 square meters. I had to tell you that Chang Tang was a place where there was no high-resolution map. The marks in the map often were some kind of memory. Just like this ancient lake bed under my feet, may be it was full of water a few years ago. Who knows. Pushing the bike in such an endless lake bed was very easy to get lost. My mind was in a chaotic status too.The migration of the animals, photo taken last year The road rising up to the Daban, full of gravels, very hard, ideal for pushing your bikeThe Yueya Hu gazed at by the round and smooth Toze Gangri. At a glimpse, could you tell which was mountain, which was cloud?Ancient lake bed. The white stains were the alkali, look like ice. About wildlife (part 1)Declaration Personal experience for reference onlyDangerous wild animals and their threats to human beings are a ever-LASTING subject for those backpackers travelling in the wild.In Chang Tang, for example, there are two kinds of deadly animals, one is wolves and the other is brawn bears. As substitutes, wild yaks and crows might be dangerous to you in some circumstances that I will come back to this a little bit later on. As for how to protect yourself against these dangerous animals, I think the primary point is you do not try to hurt them because the emotions of human and animals are same instinctively. [Wolves]Throughout my journey, I met wolves a total of seven times, in which I confronted them five times. As you might have known that wolves have become more and more solitary animals, it is very rare they live in a large group nowadays. Please allow me off the point a little bit and talk about the ecological problems in Chang Tang. The problem is now not the decrease of the number of the chirus but the imbalance of the whole food chain, more specifically, the number of the animals on the higher trophic levels of the food chain has not yet reached its ideal level which results in this kind of imbalance. Particularly, the pikas and the marmots who have lost their predators rapidly expanse which results in the desertification of Chang Tang. As early as the middle of last century, wolves were the dominant predators in the vast wilderness. They became a threat not only to other preys but also nomads pasturing in this land. Therefore, the then government called on people to cull back the population of the wolves in Chang Tang, which resulted in the current situation directly. The last official record about wolves attacking humans was around 1970s, which happened in Bamaoqiongzong. A team of secientists was surrounded by a group of wolves and they had to shoot them using guns. Of course, at present in Chang Tang, wolves are absolutely lonely.In this traverse, the first time I encountered a pair of wolves, one of them staying in front of me pretending to attack me while the other staying behind me. This is the standard attacking strategy of wolves. First, you should not be nervous which can be easily detected by the predators. Second, you should not retreat even an inch because this means you are the prey rather than the predator. Do not make any large movement, of course you could take a picture if you feel safe to do so. You must look into its eyes for a few minutes or even half an hour. When the wolves can not work out who you are and consider you are not posing any danger to them, then they will leave. You should remember that wolves in this land do not lack of food and it is much easy for them to catch a pika than a human. Even if being hungry, they would evalsuate how easy to get you done, What you need to do is to show them that you are not interested in them and you are not afraid of them at all, let alone to show your ID card to them. As for the wolves family, really, I have not heard for ages. If you really have an encounter with them and they have no other choice, then it definitely depends on your forture. In fact, for so many year, it has been very rare to happen that wolves kill human. But the rumours are still there, in particular, the road connecting Xinjiang and Tibet.The nearest encounter with a wolf throughout my journey, no conflict at all[Brown Bears]Brown bears are real dangerous animals to human. Every year there are some accidents happened in some regions of Xinjiang on the north side of Kunkun Mountains and steppes in Northern Tibet. More than that the bears could attack your house, smash your windows, and eat your sheep. Therefore, in Northern Tibet some local councils give subsidies to the pastorarists for compensating the losses due to the bears because they are not allow to fight back and kill the bears except their lives are in great danger. Once there was a nomad taught me a method to protect yourself from bears. He told me to pick up a stick to feed the bear and the bear thinks the stick is your hand which tastes disgusting. So the bear would leave. It was so funny but the reality is to find a stick in this vast wilderness is just like you win the lottery.Bears are omonivorous animal who are generally not interested in human flesh. You can find that in most of accidents, the bears did not eat any of the human flesh rather they just smashed them for kind of fun that we could not understand. For the reason why bears kill human, one explanation is the conflict between human and wildlife in this extreme ecological environment. The nomads invade the habitats of the bears, which results in these conflicts. On the other hand, it might be because bears have quite high IQ so that they think it is much easy to kill a sheep in the cote rather than to kill a pika in the wild.I have met bears five times in my traverse, in two cases we were very close to each other. I had even walked with one of them for quite a while, just like we had a date for a walk. The fact is it is not that terrible like you might imagine. The same rules for dealing with wolves apply to bears. Never provoke dangerous animals. A bear can run at a speed of 40km/h, do you think you can compete this in a highland 5,000m above sea level?However, there is a situation where it is really dangerous, that is the encounter. It is not easy to control your instinctive reaction to the external dangers. Last year once I turned around a hill, there was a bear just in front of me. The bear of course was frightened by me with its front legs holding up, waving in the air and roaring. At that time I sat on the ground, ignoring it. The bear then left in a few minutes. Chang Tang is a vast land so that this is not that easy to happen. But if it does happen, really only God can bless you.The nearest encounter with a bear throughout my journey. This bear disappeared in a herd of wild yaks, which I had tried hard to spot, really weird About wildlife (part 2)Declaration personal experience for reference only.[Wild Yaks]I have talked about quite a few, like in the post of Day10. I will no longer talk about it.This was the funniest encounter with a solitary wild yak, who did not warn me. If I sat down, it sat down too. If I moved forward, it stopped. Could not imagine what it was thinking about.[Crows]Crows are dangerous only when you fall unconscious in the wilderness. Of course they will be the first to taste your flesh in that case. Unlike their cousinsliving in urban areas, the crows in Chang Tang have a larger body like eagles. When they fly over your head, you could feel like it is a piece of cloud. They are scavengers but like fresh meat too. It once happened that a baby was killed by crows relentlessly, let alone the lambs got killed by them. Once a nomad asked me for fireworks to scare the crows away. (They are sacred birds not to be killed by human)It is easy to defend yourself against crows, that is to keep fighting, never fall in the wilderness.A short break attracted the crows. Of course, they were miscalculating this time, photo taken last year[Strategies Adopted]At the time when I met the four soldiers in Jieshan Daban, they said there were many dangerous animals in the Northern Tibet and asked me if I had brought a shotgun. I think if they knew that I would enter Chang Tang they would definitely check if I really have a shotgun. The so-called defence facilities I brought with me were the fireworks and pepper spray. I had never used them. The fireworks were ruined and thrown away when I crossed a river and I had never opened the pepper spray. I even had never thought about this when camping in the night. The reason was I did not feel the needs. During the day time whenever I met any animals I had never touched the knife I had brought. I did not have anything to defend myself when I walked out to investigate the route. The Chang Tang is really a vast area so as to be very easy to detect anything strange.By the way, you'd better to avoid mating season's animals because even tamed rabbits could be aggressive in mating season.The thing is even if you have a gun, it is not very much helpful when bears attack you. Therefore, your attitude is most important.I can tell you something. Dogs are more dangerous than these wild animals. I had been chased by Tibetan dogs, pounced on by dogs in mating season, also besieged by a group of dogs. I really feel it is more useful to know how to defend a dog.Declaration again The above experience is from Chang Tang only. Of course, the more you prepared, the better. Day 12 (May 1), 23.8km, Camping 5117mToday was May 1 -- the Labour Day, I had been walking in some lake area marked in the map but clearly dried up. The lake basin was flat and hard so that I even pushed my bike more than 20km. Let it be the special treat for my May Day. After midday it became cloudy with growing winds. Since the Yueya Hu that I passed yesterday, there were no big lakes until Yanghu Co (My route would be between Jianshui Hu and Bairab Co), there was even no light alkaline water to drink so I had to pay extra attention not to miss any possible drinking water supply to fill up my water bag. There were a few very small lakes but all were alkaline puddles which was very shallow, whose depth was no more than the length of a half-finger. These puddles were covered with a hard shell of the mixture of salt and ice which smelled stinking and decaying when getting closer, must be toxic water I supposed. On the shore of this type of small lakes it was muddy soil and very hard to get closer.There was no sign of tundra at all.It was almost half past six when I found some snow corns in a ditch, which was the only drinking water supply of the day. There was a thin layer of melted ice on the surface of the ground near the snow corn, which was very hard to collect and was contaminated by the alkali. The snow corn was the yet melted thick snow, which was shaped like a corn by wind. The snow was quite hard and dry,porous like ice. I crushed a few snow corns, putting them into the water bag.They would be my drinking water tonight. These snow corns were the only one in today's wilderness, I reckoned the reason why they were not melted like others was the soil underneath contained large amount of ice blocks which acted as a freezer.Very strong gale in the night, it was hard to bear the sound of the vibration of the tent. Small single tent was good in the sense that it would not be blown away as long as you stayed inside. But you had to be very careful to set up the tent. I once did not pay much attention when doing so, the tent was blown away by winds, and rolling over like a Giant lantern ... I ran after it, got it back, and was exhausted. In general, it is not possible to fix the tent completely using tent pegs because they were not very much effective like large tents. It was snowing around 23 o'clock, the winds were howling from north,then the falling snow flakes landed on my tent quietly, I finally felt at peace and fell asleep. The flat ancient lake basin, assisting me walking more than 20kmSmall lake en route, toxic waterSnow corns, the only drinking water supply today Day 13 (May 2), 0km, Camping 5117mWaking up in the morning and opening the tent, the heavy snow outside must be sent by the God to force me have a break for the May Day. After lying in for a while, getting up and walking on the snowy ground out I went to have a look around. As first sight there were a herd of chirus. They were plainly to be spotted because they looked like a clear black straight line in the while snow. I returned to get my camera and then followed them to take some pictures. But they were very much alert and kept a quite long distance from me. I felt they were a group of pregnant females, instinctively protecting themselves from any potential harm. I was no longer short of water, the snow gave me a precious supply of drinking water. The problem was that they were very petrol consuming. I tool 8.6 litre of petrol and the oil stove was Duola's MSR. The pot was of 1.5 litre, mainly for boiling water. After several days' experiments, I found that the liquid water needed 16mins and 14-15mins to boil in the morning and evening, respectively. For ice, it would take 35-40mins while for snow it took 45-50mins. Melting snow was a very time and petrol consuming process so if I had a choice between snow and light alkaline water, most of time I would go with the latter. Lying inside the tent, listening to musics,I smoked a cigarette while gazing at the more and more chirus around me. Because it was very cold I had been wearing my shoes all the time. Now I just put my bare feet under the warm sun for some fresh air. I found three cuts in my hands and one in my sole. The cuts were about 4cm in length, looked terrible but it was actually all right really. Half of my toes were injured by to much walking, quite painful. I fetched my medicine bag and found I only got four patches of plasters, a serious mistake. One of the cuts in my hand had never been cured until I was out of this desolate land so as to feel like this finger would drop from my hand at any time. The others quickly recovered in a few days then new cuts appeared elsewhere. This process occurred periodically. I felt that it was somewhat related to the cold, dry weather and the lack of vitamins. The snow rapidly disappeared, which is unique phenomenon in Chang Tang. Because of the low air humidity and the high radiation from the sun, the snow was evaporating very fast, much quicker than the melting speed. Owing to this, the ground was generally still dry after the snow disappeared. In most cases, it would be only 2/5 left in the afternoon around 2 to 3 o'clock and small patches of ground could be seen. It would be completely all right for walking the next day. On the third day there could be some snow left in somewhere the sunlight hard to reach. So generally it could give you three days of water supply after a heavy snow like this. One of the pannier was broken, the most expensive one from deuter series, supposed to be waterproof. I will come back to it at some point later. Everything was covered by snow, no way out Lying in the middle of Chang Tang, listening to Tian Zhen's songs, and smoking Baisha cigarettes, what else can you ask for? The pregnant female chirus in migration, probably heading to Heishi Beihu to give birth([]
男驴若有点钱女驴就象苍蝇一样嗡的一声把你围上女驴若有点姿色男驴就象疯狗一样呼的一下把你缠住 ———以上之文,如有雷同,纯属巧合。作为背包客就简单多了,一个背包行走在天涯。。。2月23日从新加坡进入斯里兰卡—————3月14日进入马尔代夫途经尼、贾、丹、锡、康、努、马、加、卡、科贾夫纳的海上公路丹布拉石窟里的壁画狮子岩上的日光浴斯里兰卡航空的飞机闲着没事可以看看电视吃的喝的来了斯里兰卡的航空的食物还算丰富,但比起阿航就差运了,尤其让国内很多讲究生活情调的小白领所不能容忍的,是斯航竟然没有红酒供应,它妈妈的。。。下了飞机后的第一站先去尼甘布,一个在海边的小镇,从这里开始斯里兰卡之旅。到了尼甘布后找了一家旅馆住下。尼甘布早晨的海滩特别的宁静只有渔民们在海滩上忙碌着他们的营生刚刚捕捞上来的魔鬼鱼,这种鱼在马尔代夫的海边经常的看到。小时候也在上海吃过这种鱼,肉质一般。斯里兰卡各个景点的旅游图尼干布这个离机场比较近的海边小城,海滩质量不怎么好,水污染有些严重,只适合做简短地停留修整后再去斯里兰卡的各个方向,我是准备从这里坐夜班车去那个靠近印度的海边小城——贾夫纳。看那些从贾夫纳回来的小白领们一把鼻涕一把泪的描述贾夫纳的海上公路是如何如何的消魂,所以打算去看看。去贾夫纳的车不是在车站发的,需要坐34路公交车在Pereyamulla Junction下车(10min左右,做tutu也可以的,150rs),在这个Junction很容易找到一个叫做TAJ hotel 的门面,在这个小店里买好晚上21:30的过路车去贾夫纳的车票,晚上在这里上车。尼于布是一个基督教小城,所以随处可见教堂和相关的雕像、图画。([]
〖前言〗2013年8月7日上午,肯尼亚首都内罗毕乔默-肯雅塔国际机场爆发大火,烧毁国际到达大厅,机场关闭。听闻这个消息时,向日葵色板官方正在从安博塞利返回内罗比的路上。“既然机场关闭,向日葵色板官方是不是可以晚回几天?正好可以再去一次马赛马拉!”得知这条坏消息,我们的第一反应不是叹气,反倒有点幸灾乐祸。向日葵色板官方在马赛马拉只呆了三天,三天的时间,对于辽阔无边的马赛马拉草原来说哪里足够,只觉意犹未尽,诸多遗憾。8月8日,按原计划下午向日葵色板官方就将搭乘阿联酋航空返国。但一大早便得知消息,国际机场当天依旧关闭。清静和飞翔开始与旅行社及保险公司联系,75忙着联系更便宜的酒店,因为十有八九向日葵色板官方这天是无法离开了。走不了,但也去不了马赛马拉,因为正值马赛马拉的旺季,如果没有提前几个月预订住宿,根本是一房难求。午饭后,向日葵色板官方兵分两路:大部队去机场确认航班消息,我和蟋蟀头及75去希尔顿酒店预订当晚的住宿。因美亚保险认为机场火灾不在向日葵色板官方的保险范围之内,保险公司拒不承担向日葵色板官方滞留的任何费用,所以向日葵色板官方得找便宜一点的住宿。对于向日葵色板官方这类出行常住青旅或家庭旅馆的驴友来说,希尔顿这样的五星级酒店向来不在考虑之内。但,这是在内罗毕,向日葵色板官方必须为自己选择一个安全的酒店。而安全,往往则意味着昂贵。在希尔顿订好住宿后,向日葵色板官方三人赶到机场与大部队汇合。机场区的空气里依旧弥漫着一股浓烈的焦味,国际航班抵达区的建筑被浓烟熏黑,且部分坍塌。此情此景,惨不忍睹。对于向日葵色板官方这些滞留的客人将如何处置,机场与阿联酋航空没有任何表态。我们一无所获地离开机场,回到希尔顿。200美元/晚的住宿费,除了安全,向日葵色板官方并没得到更多。房间又小又旧,似乎连如家也不如,晚餐的费用又高得离谱,大家再也没有玩的心情,只一门心思想着回去。8月9日,一大早check out后赶到机场,机场早已是人潮汹涌,混乱不堪。向日葵色板官方挤在一个小通道处,在长不到十米的通道排了两三个小时,才总算安检完进入check-in大厅。原以为进去后便诸事大吉,谁知那只是等待的开始。check-in大厅里早已挤得人满为患,但离开的人少,进来的人却在源源不断地增加。在阿联酋团队check-in的柜台前又排队两小时后,方得知阿联酋当天并没增加一个航班,这意味着7号8号未离开的旅客将继续滞留。满怀希望的人群一片哗然,开始躁动不安。阿联酋航空的工作人员站在柜台上讲话,让非当天机票的乘客离开,“NO!NO!”滞留的旅客,而且大多是中国游客,喊着统一的口号,表示抗议。这样的劝退与躁动发生几个回合后,驻内罗毕的中国大使馆人员赶到,人群爆发出一阵掌声,集体喊着“我们要回家!我们要回家!”这样的场面我从未经历,有点震惊,也有点感动。大使馆参赞与各团队的领队交流后,又与阿联酋的工作人员沟通。但那晚,向日葵色板官方的等待并没有一个好的结束。八月的内罗毕,晚上凉风习习。机场上已搭了两天的帐篷,依然还在搭建中,黑人兄弟的工作效率,实在不能令人恭维。向日葵色板官方一群人站在机场的一块空地上,讨论我们的何去何从。讨论没有结果,唯一确定的是,先回酒店休息。在机场耗了一整天,大家都累了,身心俱疲。所幸的是,8月10日一大早,阿联酋航空便来电,要向日葵色板官方赶紧去机场。这一天,机场的秩序明显比前一天好很多,向日葵色板官方顺利地办完值机、通关、安检,直至坐到帐篷搭成的临时候机大厅时,心里才安定许多。心安之余,回想肯尼亚的这十多天旅程,只觉内心五味杂陈。原以为可以在肯尼亚无污染的大草原上畅快呼吸,享受天然氧吧,谁知灰尘铺天盖地,大家都用口罩或头巾捂着脸,每天回到房间都是蓬头垢面。原以为可以在内罗毕穿街走巷,享受逛街乐趣,谁知内罗毕安全堪忧,因抢劫时常发生,向日葵色板官方所停留的地方,除了餐厅,就是酒店。原以为只要在对的时节到了马赛马拉,每天都可以欣赏到角马过河的壮观场景,谁知这其实非常靠运气。但不得不承认,近距离看动物是多么美好的一件事。优雅的长颈鹿、温顺的斑马、性感的猎豹、稳重的大象、猥琐的鬣狗、霸气十足的狮子。。。当曾在动物园里才能看到的动物,忽然在我周围自由行走、奔跑,那感觉真是无以伦比的美妙。特别是当狮子情侣含情脉脉地对望时,那一刻,我的心瞬间被打动,化得如水一般温柔。当然,更多的故事,更多的细节,还是请与我一起,走进肯尼亚。 D1(7-29)上海——迪拜——内罗毕4点钟,天未亮,整个城市还在沉睡中,我俩便拎着行李从家里出发了,去浦东机场与朋友们汇合。向日葵色板官方将搭乘715的航班,经迪拜转机前往肯尼亚的首都内罗毕。在这之前,我只睡了3个小时。待飞机准时起飞时,我已进入沉沉的睡梦中。在梦中,我似乎进入了时光隧道,去往另一个不同维度的空间。但的确,那是另一个不同的国度,位于赤道上的东非国家——肯尼亚。抵达时,向日葵色板官方的时针将往回拨5个小时。时光倒流,在抵达肯尼亚的那一刻,梦想成真。 内罗毕国际机场,号称是东非最大、也最繁忙的机场,但在我们看来,小,且陈旧。繁忙却是真,当地时间傍晚19点过时,依然人流如潮,通关时,三四个关口处排着冗长的队伍。机场让人失望,但入住的酒店Crowne plaza却是当晚最大的惊喜了。出发之前,领队清静就说,肯尼亚的条件不太好, 即使五星级酒店,也不一定有wifi,也不保证有热水淋浴,千万不要用国内五星级酒店的准来衡量。所以,当向日葵色板官方走进酒店,便有人递上热毛巾和芒果汁,有人主动帮忙搬送行李,再到走进房间,眼前一亮,打开手机,免费联上wifi时,激动之情便难以言喻了。只是,酒店禁止吸烟,不仅只是酒店大堂等公共区域,所有房间都禁止抽烟。烟瘾难耐的蟋蟀头不甘心,让我打电话到前台,询问何处可以抽烟。话筒那边的声音,礼貌且明确:请下楼,走出酒店大门。如此严格的禁烟,是向日葵色板官方意想不到的,更意想不到的是,酒店居然在门口设有安检,所有的行李都必须通过安检。当时虽觉奇怪,却并不太为意,只是在后来的行程中,才渐渐明了其中的原因所在。 D2(7-30)内罗毕——马赛马拉 早餐后,向日葵色板官方便径直驱车离开酒店,没有在内罗毕作任何停留,直接驶向马赛马拉。座落在使馆区的Crowne plaza,似乎位于市区之外,仅几分钟而已,向日葵色板官方便已远离内罗毕,行驶在两边是乡村或镇子的公路上。而内罗毕的真实面貌,尚未见识。 向日葵色板官方团队20人,共租了六辆面包车,每辆车3-4人。我和蟋蟀头、龙之杰三人一辆。刚上车坐稳,蟋蟀头便要我和司机说,带向日葵色板官方去买打火机。司机约瑟夫Joseph一口答应。一边开车,一边回过头说道:“no problem.” 刹车没踩,车速没减,还回过头来说话,他这个举动吓坏了我,赶紧说道:“别转头,别转头!”我的话音刚落,约瑟夫又把头转了回来,举着手里的香烟告诉向日葵色板官方,“车里可以吸烟”。他这句话让蟋蟀头和龙之杰高兴不已,赶紧给约瑟夫递过去一支烟。因为,在这之前,向日葵色板官方的导游再三告诫,肯尼亚很多地方不能随便吸烟,比如公共场所、草原、车上。但刚出发,就有这样的破例,两个烟鬼当然兴奋不已。他俩兴奋,我却有另外的担忧。约瑟夫开车时只要说话,必定回头,这习惯令我最初非常担心行驶的安全问。但实际上,我当然是多虑了。黑人司机的脑袋后面似乎还长了另一双眼睛似的,他们即使回头说话,也能灵活地与对面的车辆擦肩而过。 9点过,向日葵色板官方途中的第一次停车,杜导说,东非大裂谷到了。东非大裂谷,这条长度相当于地球周长1/6的大裂谷,是大陆上最大的断裂带。深陷的地沟,犹如地球的一道巨大伤疤。位于肯尼亚的裂谷,只是东非大裂谷的一部分。在裂谷地带,发现了距今已经有350万年的“能人”(从猿到人过渡阶段的人)遗骨,诸多考古发现证明东非大裂谷是人类文明最古老的发源地之一。在人类起源问上,很多科学家支持“非洲起源说”,即目前生活在世界各地的现代人类的祖先在大约20万年前起源于非洲,然后在距今10万年以内离开非洲,向亚洲和欧洲扩散。我们其实都是非洲后裔,你相信吗?maybe。但眼前的大裂谷,因为角度问,并不能让向日葵色板官方感受到视觉上的震撼。眼见不一定为实,便是这个道理。在大裂谷观景点,蟋蟀头的最大收获,可能便是买到的两盒火柴。观景点旁边一个木雕礼品店,我问售货员是否有打火机出售?他摇头,然后从袋中掏出1盒火柴。我点点头,“这个也行。” 售价1美元,没有讨价还价。想再问他多买一盒,他跑去另一个房间,对另一个人叽叽咕咕一阵后,那个人不知从什么角落里又翻出一盒火柴。火柴难道是这里的稀缺货?我有点不明白。后来问约瑟夫,为何他们不卖打火机,只有火柴?他回答,因为打火机的气有伤身体,所以人们不爱用。真是这样吗?我半信半疑。 再一次停车时,正值中午时分,向日葵色板官方停在一家酒店午餐。下了车,男人们除了抽烟,便是纷纷抢着与黑人兄弟合影。他们的心思谁都明白,无非是想彰显一下自己的皮肤有多白。蟋蟀头之前一直说自己晒得太黑,现在他终于心理平衡了。不仅不黑,而且看起来似乎太白了。 向日葵色板官方的司机约瑟夫,英语说得比我溜。在曾经是英国殖民地的肯尼亚,英语是官方语言,课本全部是英语写成。所以,只要上过学读过书的肯尼亚人,都会说一口流利英语,而且还是英式口语。非洲是一夫多妻制,所以我很好奇,约瑟夫娶了几个妻子。当他回答我,没有结婚时,我大为诧异。再问他年龄,他告诉我,他43了。听闻他已43岁还没有结婚,我表示不相信。他淡淡地笑着,“结过婚,但现在离了。”后来聊起他的生意时,他才说,7~10月是肯尼亚的旺季,他几乎天天开车在外;即使淡季的时候,也是隔一周外出一周,聚少离多,所以就离婚了,而且没有儿女。现在正和一个中国女孩交往中。约瑟夫的坦诚相告,让我了解到现在的肯尼亚,城市中的男人们迫于经济上的压力,一夫多妻在减少,这种现象也许在农村会更为普遍。 午餐是自助餐。实际上,向日葵色板官方在肯尼亚这一路上,在酒店都是自助餐,如果在草原上,就是酒店准备的餐盒。非洲的饮食比想像中好。午餐后,继续上路。路边的植物,开始变得奇奇怪怪。 初来乍到,沿途的所有风景都令向日葵色板官方感觉新鲜,即使车没有停留片刻,向日葵色板官方手中的相机快门也没停歇过。在通往马赛马拉的前半段路程时,约瑟夫并不干涉向日葵色板官方拍照,但后半段路经一些小镇时,他便严禁我们拍照,“NO photo!”他说归说,向日葵色板官方拍归拍,并不太理会他的干涉。但没想到,他神情更加严肃地阻止道:“这里不要拍照!如果你们再拍,街上的人会拿石子扔向日葵色板官方的。”一边说,他一边晃着右臂,做出扔石子的举动。我看着路边的人们,他们中的有些人在向日葵色板官方经过时还会向向日葵色板官方挥挥手。我很难想像,如果我拍他们,下一刻,他就会捡起石头攻击向日葵色板官方。但约瑟夫的严肃劲告诉向日葵色板官方,他不是在瞎编故事,他一定亲身经历过,他的车可能就被那些石子砸坏过。 越接近马赛马拉,灰尘越大。当车从公路转入土路时,灰尘已是铺天盖地,迎着车袭来。即使车窗全部摇紧,也丝毫无用,在剧烈的颠簸中,车窗很容易就被颠开一条缝,然后缝隙越来越大。车中,一股干燥而呛人的土味,弥散开来。我和蟋蟀头都戴上了口罩,但过不了太久,蟋蟀头还是把口罩摘到了一边,“太闷了,气也喘不过来的感觉”。约瑟夫果然不愧有15年的车龄,驾驶经验丰富,即使路烂到极点,车七摇八颠,他也几乎不减速。别小看他这辆破面包车,可是改装过的拥有四驱的面包车。真正是面包车的外型,越野车的本领。车虽然颠得厉害,但向日葵色板官方还是睡着了。待再醒来时,蟋蟀头抹了下嘴巴,伸手向我要水喝,“我得喝口水把嘴里的土给咽下去。”他这话,把我刚喝进嘴里的水,差点喷出来。待向日葵色板官方六辆车终于全部停下来,向日葵色板官方可以下车透下风喘口气时,周围已是一片清新。“快看,那边的一群羚羊!”不知谁叫了一声,所有人的相机都对准了不远处草地上的一小群羚羊 。这是向日葵色板官方在草原上第一次看到动物,难免兴奋。但在后面的几天,这样的羚羊随处可见时,大家也就习以为常了。毕竟,这是非洲大草原上最最常见的一种动物。 上车,继续向前。刚刚进入马赛马拉的向日葵色板官方,新鲜、好奇、兴奋。显然,斑马比向日葵色板官方淡定许多。七八月是马赛马拉的冬季,枯黄的草色,一片片地蔓延开来,羚羊开始随处可见。向日葵色板官方的车停在了马赛村的门口。这些身披红布,手执一根木棒的男人,便是传说中连野兽也怕的骁勇善战的马赛人。我拿着一袋给小朋友们准备的棒棒糖跳下车,谁知,刚下车,这袋棒棒糖就几乎被这些男人们瓜分干净。去非洲之前,在书中了解到,马赛人不爱拍照,因为他们担心拍照会带走他们的灵魂。所以,我对去马赛村拍照心有顾忌。但是,这已不是一般的马赛村了,它已经商业化。早已见惯了各类游客,再加上我的棒棒糖,这些马赛男人都很乐意与我合影一张,即使把他们人手不离的木棒借我一用也是无所谓。 要识别马赛男人很容易,因为他们的装束很醒目:两块红底黑条或红底黑格的布,一块扎在腰上遮羞,一块披在肩上。马赛男人之所以喜欢身披红布,其实是为了吓跑狮子等野兽,保护他们赖以生存的牛群。随着时代的变迁,这块传统的红布不再是单一的红底黑条,也变换出多种样式,出现了黑条、黄条、蓝条或者黄格、蓝格,唯一不变的就是大红的底色。蟋蟀头提出要披一下他们身上的那块红布,那个马赛人立马答应,把自己身上的披风解下来,给蟋蟀头围上,再系个结,就OK了,穿戴十分容易。 这个说一口流利英语的马赛男人叫Peter,我注意到,甚至于他的装束都与其他马赛男人不一样。Peter指着距离我们不远的一个小门说道:“请大家抓紧时间,赶紧过来吧,我们为你们准备了节目。”那个用树枝扎起来的拱形小门便是马赛村的入口,低矮的入口与他们修长的身材完全不符。向日葵色板官方猜想是为防大型野兽进入才设计成这样的。参观马赛村并非免费,每人要收取35美元。这样一个自费项目让团队中的部分人有点犹豫不决,踌躇着是否要花200多人民币的门票去参观一个商业化的小村落。他们的犹而不决让Peter有点不耐烦了,大声地说道,“如果不参观村子,请不要再拍任何照片。”不能拍人,即使拍风景照也不行。最终,向日葵色板官方的团队一分为二,一部分去参观马赛村,另一部分则直接去酒店。关于值得不值得,每个人的心里都有把秤,且准不一,难以评判。我只是认为,既然已到了别人家门口了,人都站门口欢迎向日葵色板官方了,那就去吧,就算是一种礼仪。门票,就算是向日葵色板官方登门拜访的一点礼金而已。去亲朋好友家串门做客,向日葵色板官方还得拎点东西了,去别人村里作客送点礼品更是无可厚非。最重要的是,即使这已是一个对游客开放的马赛村,它也还是马赛村,是马赛人自己的家,而非一个临时搭建起来供游客参观的人工景点。跟着Peter进了马赛村。过那道拱门时,身材矮小如我,也得弯腰才能进入。村不大,零落地散着一些土坯砌成的房屋。低矮的土屋,与马赛人的身高同样不匹配。待向日葵色板官方一一进入,十几个马赛男人已经排成一排,准备为向日葵色板官方跳“勇士之舞”。“勇士之舞”是马赛男人的传统舞蹈,在他们的哼唱中,一个接一个的马赛人开始立定跳高,跳完一轮,再来一轮。除了绷紧小腿,笔直地往上跳,勇士之舞没有更多动作,手上也不需要多余的比划,只要尽可能地跳得高些就行。这真是我所见过的最简单的舞蹈。但其实,跳得高,跑得快,历来就是马赛人对勇士的认定准,这其实也与他们的游牧习性相关。(拍摄者:蟋蟀头) 跳完舞,Peter开始为向日葵色板官方介绍他们的村庄。Peter说,收来的门票钱是为六个村子的100多个孩子筹建学校而用。得知向日葵色板官方每人交的35美元将用来建学校时,我心里顿时宽慰了许多。我问Peter,他为何会说英语?因为在我的想法里,以游牧为生的马赛部落,遵循传统生活方式的马赛人,一口流利的英语,似乎与他们完全沾不上边。Peter告诉我,他上过学。他竟然上过学?我有点吃惊。再问,村里有多少人上过学时,他平静地说道:“两个人。”另一个人,便是他的弟弟。“你是村长吗?”我问。能有这样特殊待遇的人,在我看来,必定是特权阶层。“NO。my father is chief.” 原来,他是酋长的儿子。Peter很得意地告诉我,他有10个老婆?十个老婆?!太让人吃惊了,他怎么顾得过来?“你结婚了吗?”这次轮到他向我提问了。“结婚了。”我指了指正在拍照的蟋蟀头。“不过,他只有我一个老婆。”我补充道。“你老婆向我提了这么多问,看来她爱上我了。要不,你把她让给我吧!”Peter开玩笑地和蟋蟀头说道。“NO。”蟋蟀头摇着头答道。但后来,他后悔了,和我说,“我应该假装答应他,再看他打算用多少头牛来换你,你就知道你值多少头牛了!”他刚一说完,便被我狠狠地掐了一下。不过,以畜牧为生的马赛人,的确是用牲畜作为娶亲的聘礼,据说十头牛就可以娶一个老婆。 接下来,Peter就要带向日葵色板官方进屋去参观了。马赛人的房屋用泥土和牛龚搭建而成,屋顶则用茅草盖上。在马赛娶老婆,男人不用担心房子问,因为房屋都由老婆搭建,一个老婆一个屋子。门很小,依然只能弯腰进去。进去后是厅,除了一股难闻的骚味,小小的厅里什么也没有。如果要坐下来,对着门,靠墙的一侧有一条砌高的土堆,可以当沙发一用。而这难闻的味道,则来自牲畜。因为牲畜是马赛人的财产,有时晚上会让牛羊进屋,以防被野兽偷袭。所以,马赛人的房屋实际上是人畜共用,有股怪味也就在所难免了。侧面有个更小的门洞,钻进去,再向左转个弯,便是卧室了。这样的内部构造,其实是防止野兽或者敌人的贸然闯入。卧室小得可怜。靠右的地上用土稍微砌高点,再铺一些布,就是他们的床了。我有一个疑问,马赛人这么高的个子,这么短的床,岂不是从来都不能伸直腿睡觉?距离床边不到一米远的土灶,便是他们煮饭的地方。而墙上那个透着光亮的小洞,则是窗户。在我看来,说是窗户实在太不贴切,怎么看也只能说是个窗洞。在屋里生火煮东西,却只有这么小的两个窗孔换气,人住里面岂不要闷死?灯呢?屋里黑漆漆的一片,他们晚上用什么照明呢?杜导的解释是,马赛人的生活是日出而作,日落而息,天黑就睡觉了,根本用不着点灯。家徒四壁,马赛人的房屋真是把这个词解释得再透彻不过。(拍摄者:蟋蟀头)几个人挤在屋里,没呆多久,已觉缺氧,再加上屋内气味奇怪,我必须得出去透口气了。一出来,迎面便撞上一气质不凡的老者,他便是Peter的父亲——酋长大人。蟋蟀头按中国人的见面规矩,赶紧递上一支烟。老酋长把烟接过来,微笑不语。虽然他不会英语,向日葵色板官方无法更多交流,但老酋长的确是给人一种大家长的感觉。 令人惊讶的是,马赛人至今沿袭万年前钻木取火的传统。两个人搭手。把一束枯草杆垫在地上,草杆上再放一个带孔的木块,一人用手按紧这个木块,不让它移动。另一人则用一根木棍穿过木块的孔眼,并两手合掌转动木棍。18秒的时候,开始有烟冒出,不到30秒,那束枯草杆已有些许火星。马赛人便把木棍和木块拿开,用手捧着枯草杆,用嘴对着火星开始吹。烟雾越来越大,直至那束枯草杆燃起了红色的火苗。钻木取火成功,全过程仅1分钟15秒。但我永远是那个“为什么小姐”,从小到大都是如此。我从蟋蟀头那里拿来一盒火柴,问Peter,“你们为何不用火柴呢?这个更方便快捷。”说完,我掏出一根火柴,准备示范给他看,让他知道现代文明的厉害。哪知,第一根火柴竟然没划燃;换一根火柴,不行;再换一根。连换几根火柴后,Peter笑了,我却万分沮丧,并且无从解释。也许,是神不想破坏马赛人对钻木取火的执着吧,想借马赛人将这古老的传统保持下去,以告诉后人,向日葵色板官方人类曾经用这样的方式取火。令人啼笑皆非的是,随后Peter拿了一个带孔的木块问我,要不要买?而且开价不菲。 接着,女人们终于登场,为向日葵色板官方表演唱歌。与马赛男人相比,女人的穿着就色彩丰富许多,而且身形相对肥胖,不知这是否与生育有关。 一夫多妻,全世界男人的梦想。不能一夫多妻,但至少可以与老婆们合个影。男队友们都纷纷跑过去与马赛女人合影,领队清静跑得最快,顺利拔得头筹,75次之,飞翔第三。只是,老婆们却越来越少。可怜的蟋蟀头,轮到他时,只剩三个马赛女人了。但他还是很开心,跟着马赛女人一起边唱边扭。她们唱的是马赛语,可蟋蟀头,你唱的又是什么呢?虽然是第四个上场,但明显他很受马赛女人的欢迎,一起唱歌,还一边有所交流。只是,你们在说什么呢? 唱完几曲后,马赛女人们散去,Peter要继续带向日葵色板官方去参观。他指着房屋后面草地上围成半圆形的货摊说,“This is our market.”货摊上的东西无非是一些手链、项链和木制工艺品。Peter指着手链和项链告诉我说:“这些都是向日葵色板官方村里的女人做的。”然后指着木雕说,“这些都是向日葵色板官方男人做的。”“卖这些东西的收入也将用来建向日葵色板官方的学校。”看着这些做工粗糙,且大同小异的商品,这一次,我却有点怀疑了。真的是自己做的?真的会把钱用来建学校?无论如何,读过书的Peter已经不再是一个原始的马赛人了,也许,在他的意识里,早已植入了市场经济。不过后来再想想,即使这些收入不是用来建学校,而是用来改善他们的生活,也未尝不可。毕竟,他们的生活环境,真的不咋样。而事实上,随着时代的发展,旅游业的兴起,放牧早已不再是他们唯一的谋生手段。旅游收入,已经成为这些村庄重要的收入来源
西沙群岛,那片遥远的海疆,从儿时的电影、课文中就出现的美丽海域,终于成为了眼前触手可及的美景。经历了往返近48个小时的骇浪颠簸、晕船呕吐,当我庆幸终于离开不停摇动的甲板,踏上陆地时,却发现自己竟然不适应在陆地上行走,深一脚浅一脚,仿佛还停留在船上的状态。西沙群岛所有的美景、淳朴的渔民,都让我如此陶醉,如此留恋!这次的旅行非同寻常,刻骨铭心,醉生梦死,西沙的一切都让我中毒太深,据说解药藏在西沙的那些海岛上,看来,西沙还得再去一次,再去一次啊!像往常一样,从这个叫做北京的地方飞向美丽的海南岛,这次与以往任何一次旅行都不一样,将要乘坐一种叫做船的家伙出海,听说还是木制的渔船,兴奋、开心、好奇、纠结、忐忑,等等一并袭来,组成了一支出发进行曲,在沐浴着晨光的心间来回荡漾。南航的A380,传说中的巨无霸,绝对比麦当劳里的那个有型,身披金光,霸气十足!可惜了,这不是飞海南的,我乘坐的A330,比起这个家伙,寒酸啊!登机就睡觉,惯例!眼睛一闭、一睁,还是在天上,再一闭、一睁,海南岛到了!4月的海口已然湿热无比,吹着微微的海风,晃晃悠悠来到了市区。05年至今来过海南五六趟,海口几乎没有任何变化,交通依然混乱不堪,只是原来满大街的摩托车变成了清一色的电瓶车,在大街小巷横冲直闯,真是佩服海南人的车技和耐心!吃,旅行的一个永恒主!文昌鸡、东山羊、加积鸭、和乐蟹号称海南四大美食,均已尝遍。海口街头巷口那些本地人光顾的大排档才是真正的美食聚集地,简单挑几张这次吃过的东东,出海之前吃饱喝足,到时候晕船呕吐才有体力啊!正,正,扯了半天都跑,出海的时刻即将到来!夜色中的港口一片祥和,殊不知再过1个时辰,待到风高月夜之时,我等将随船潜入夜,悄悄向西沙海域进发!深夜23时左右,船只出发了,如果一切顺利,将在24个小时后抵达西沙海域。几乎在所有的影像或文字资料中,海都是唯美和浪漫的代名词。然而当渔船驶出港口,理想和现实的差距渐渐拉开。船长说这次我比较幸运,海况还算不错,寒流刚结束,台风季节还没到,所以没有大的风浪。尽管如此,半夜在深海,浪也达到了1米多高,躺在船顶的甲板上,来回晃悠。夜深时,呼啸的海风夹杂在孤单的马达轰鸣声中,听起来格外恐怖。海浪一声声打在甲板、船身,偶尔还夹杂着雨点飘来,机房也飘来是刺鼻柴油味严重刺激了我的神经,在支离破碎的梦境中晃悠到天明。晕船,是必须的,出发前为晕船做了充分准备,买了晕船药和晕船贴,不过为了体验晕船的奇妙感受,这些东西都没用上。天将明,海浪依然不减,干脆起床站到船头甲板去吹海风,看海上日出。驾驶舱位于船只顶部,摇晃也最厉害。而机舱工作人员常年要在震耳欲聋的噪音中工作。一下到底舱,各种机器一同工作产生的震耳欲聋的噪音迎面袭来,船上无时无刻不在的噪音原来是从这儿发出的。几十吨的渔船在大海中,如同一粒尘埃,严重的颠簸摧残着我,船体有时候倾斜近20°,晕得厉害,没撤,日出是看不下去了,爬回甲板继续平躺,船工说,即使在海上工作了几十年的老船员有时候也会晕船。同行的哥们问:“晕吗?”答:“晕!”又问:“想吐吗?”答:“想,可我舍不得,昨儿吃的,鲍鱼!”船工过来喊我去下层船舱吃饭,挣扎着爬到船舱里,一股刺鼻的柴油味袭来,连滚带爬又回到了上层甲板,脑袋伸向大海,眩晕加反胃,开吐。吐完靠着船舷坐在甲板上,舒服多了,当时心里就想,回程也是同样的航程,我靠,没法活了。船长说:晕船是避免不了的,吃了东西,吐了,那就再吃……在轰鸣的马达和颠簸中度过一个白天,晕乎乎的躺在甲板上,船上的生活可想而知很枯燥。大海上一切信号都消失,不能上网,手机也只能当做闹钟用。心里琢磨,从来没有过的体验,连续躺着超过20多个小时,突然又想到还有回程,瞬间心里那个凌乱啊!天色暗下来,远处海平线上隐约露出了一个灯塔,啊,是北礁!激动的差点内牛满面。过了北礁,到西沙就只剩下不到5个小时的航程了,亲,你们能体验兄弟我此刻的心情么!继续平躺,船体从灯塔旁悄然驶过。航灯塔,在儿时的印象中,就是一位老人孤独地坚守在塔顶,日复一日为过往的船只指引前行的航路。从内陆前往南中国海,第一站是北礁灯塔,这个灯塔作用十分重大,过往船只都要通过它来核对航海参数。塔高23米,顶灯射程能够达到15海里。远航过的人都能理解,在黑夜中的大海上,远方的灯塔就像家一样温暖。从日出到日落,又一天过去了,西沙越来越近!在大海上,无风三尺浪,看似平静的海面,船体还是来回摇晃。在白天的航行中,偶遇了海豚,共三只,远远地露出灰色的背鳍,突然跃出海面,优美的划出一道弧线,落水后便消失了!日落的过程无法用语言去形容,绚丽的色彩用任何镜头都难以表达。黑夜又将来临,从出发到现在,已经过了23个小时,西沙海域,向日葵色板官方终于抵达了!天黑了,无法登陆附近的岛屿,船长说明天早上涨潮后再登岛,今晚继续在船上打发时光。整整睡了近24个小时,现在精神亢奋,钓鱼是船上最普遍的娱乐活动。船工打开船头的照明灯,大伙开始钓鱼,各种钓具齐出动。有用杆的,有用卷筒的,有的直接攥着一根鱼线,都能钓上鱼。钓到的都是些稀奇古怪的鱼,生活在内地的我们基本上叫不出这些鱼的名字。不到一个小时的功夫,已经钓上来几十条鱼,生鱼片敞开供应,渔获在甲板上直接加工,很美味,像嫩牛肉一样,入口即化。太阳再次升起,美丽的西沙映入眼帘,海面深邃幽蓝,太阳从海中慢慢升起,一会金色的阳光遍铺满海面,海水也变成了碧绿色。银屿岛,抵达西沙后见到的第一个岛屿,远远看去就像一道美丽的金黄色线条。这个礁石岛面积只有0.01平方公里,海拔不足两米,随着涨潮,面积将变得更小。岛上有几座渔民的棚屋,有些渔民常年驻守在这里进行捕捞作业。今天我将登陆这个岛屿,在岛上浮潜、露营!这些位于大海中的珊瑚岛,四周水很浅,向日葵色板官方的渔船无法靠近,只能远远的停泊在深海区域,依靠渔民的小船往返接送。这种小船配备一个小马达,最大承载量6-8人。渔民站在船上疾驶的造型太酷了,可惜向日葵色板官方没有这个平衡能力。来西沙很仓促,几乎没有时间去整理装备,胡乱装了一大包就来了。从小船上直接跳进海里,双脚浸入海水的那一瞬间,海水暖暖的,心都快化了。由于西沙群岛没有对外开放,再加之其地理位置远离陆地,所以它的生态环境得以有效的保护,真正体验到了清澈见底、碧波浩渺的传说场景。无数次看到马尔代夫、大溪地等著名海滩的图片,也无数次憧憬,来到西沙后,一切憧憬都是神马浮云,惊叹、激动、恍惚……长期以来由于环境恶化、过度捕捞,国内很多渔场已面临无鱼可捞,海南也不例外,近海的渔业资源也近乎枯竭。对于祖祖辈辈把大海当做粮仓的渔民来说,面前就只有一条路:去更远的海。西沙的很多岛屿上都有常年驻守的渔民,每个岛多则数十人,少则3、4人。他们每次出海驻岛作业少则3、4个月,多则半年、一年,甚至更长。在这与世隔绝、杳无音讯的海岛上,白天与大海作伴,夜晚与星月相依,日出而作日入而息,简单、枯燥、寂寞,日复一日,年复一年。捕捞上来的螺、鱼、贝等分类存放在这样的塑料框里,泡在海水中养殖,不定期就会有大型的渔船来西沙收购,纯天然无污染。面对这样的大海,没有理由拒绝,不管你是否会游泳,都要跳进她的拥抱,与之嬉戏!面对这样的大海,端着相机的双手都在颤抖,处处是美景,都不知从何处下手了。同行的有两个哥们带了哈苏和大义617胶片机来创作,我只能借机摆个POSS。碧绿的海水蔚蓝的天空让你无法控制自己身体对它的亲近,这里是绝佳的浮潜天堂。一个猛子扎下海去,很多海洋的动植物立刻将你拥抱,那些可爱的热带鱼偶尔会调皮地“摩擦和戏弄”你一下,冷不丁也会窜出一条长达1米的不知名海鱼从身边缓缓游过,擦肩而过时还痞痞的斜眼藐你。所谓的海螺、贝壳、珊瑚之类的暂且放下,还有更多的东西诱惑着你,鲍鱼、八爪鱼、海胆、海参、石斑鱼等等,知道名字和不知道名字的,以前看过的还是从未谋面的,数不胜数,都等着你去零距离地亲密接触。水下拍摄,第一次尝试,借来同行哥们的佳能D10水下相机,尽情拍个够。水下相机的色彩还原效果特别出色,也有用防水袋装着普通单反的,但防水袋的塑料折射率太差,拍出的效果也不太好。第一天登岛后没有太多经验,赤膊上阵,结果强烈的紫外线让我吃尽了苦头,接下来的几天内都是长衣长裤、鞋袜齐全下海,还好保护措施及时补救,才没有晒伤,同行的好几个哥们浑身晒得像煮熟的龙虾,红通通的,两条大腿似乎穿了性感的红丝袜。对于珊瑚,大家并不陌生,除了水族馆,大多见到的都是加工过的珊瑚石,这里的海底遍布活珊瑚,一猛子扎到海底,轻轻的拿起一块珊瑚体,软软的,触角还在蠕动,拍张照,再缓缓将它们送回海底。这里的海水透明度高达几十米,岛屿周边因为有浅滩,海滩延伸出去50多米,水深大多是齐腰或齐胸。一个人静静的浮潜在这里,大海、鱼儿、珊瑚等做伴,时间和思维都停止了,爬在水面上发呆,体验从未有过的感觉。聊天、唠嗑、摆龙门阵……没有酒水饮料、没有零食小吃,大家就这样坐在珊瑚礁上,泡在海水中,一个下午的时光就这样悠闲的度过了!既然是中国的领土,必定要有象征主权的界碑,西沙每一个露出海面的岛屿上均有边防等单位设立的警示碑。风吹日晒,很多碑上的涂料均已褪色,在附近找到烧过木灰,涂抹上,才显示出那些碑刻上的国徽和说明文字。岛上没有任何接待条件,除了孤零零的几座渔民的木棚,扎营是最佳方案,超级海景房啊,面朝大海,春暖花开!傍晚退潮的时候,岛屿一侧从海平面上渐渐露出了一片金黄色的小岛,覆盖整座岛屿的都是细细的珊瑚贝壳的碎砂,如同海市蜃楼般的幻境。傍晚,出海捕鱼的渔民回来了,今天的收成不错,光这条红鱼,就足足20多斤重。海水退潮速度很快,原本潜水才能看到的海底逐渐抬出海平面,变成了成片的礁盘,夕阳映射在礁盘上,散发出炫目的金光。退潮后的海水似乎也平静了许多,浪花拍打礁石的节奏也很轻柔,美,要怎么说出口。一天就这样静静的走向结束,坐在礁盘上,遥望北方,家,就在那里!傍晚,在夕阳悄悄躲进地平线以后,夜空亦非平时所云的点点繁星,那种大小不等、交织相连、层次分明的星云恰似一幅立体的抽象三维图案悬挂在天际。海浪早已退去,海风也平静得恍如催眠。整个空间的色彩也由泛黄、金黄、火红、亮紫、暗红在过度。刚才提到今天出海渔民的渔获不错,除了大红鱼和一堆螺外,还有这些貌不惊人的石斑鱼,石斑在内地市场的身价动辄几百一斤。但,在西沙,从渔民手中购买,低廉的价格仿佛回到解放前。([]
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