Ranniao Lake & Linzhi

Hong Kong Highland Exploration Team 2006

Author：Jasmine Ma

Picture：莫炳亮及Hong Kong Highland Exploration Team

23rd July
Ranniao Lake , Linzhi

When driving between Ranniao Lake and Linzhi , never tried to open the car windows nor attempted to get out of the car. Because there was a kind of leech ( Bloodsucker) with the size of 3 cm and they stay on the trees . They would jump on human’s body to suck their blood without making a sound . We were told 6 out of 10 guys were sucked by leeches after they got out of the cars. The scenery in Linzhi was unexpectedly beautiful , places were heavily forested and with water running on the valleys. Yaluzangbujiang Gorge in Linzhi was the deepest gorge in the world. We could see yellow sand ,sharp stones , steep cliffs , rushing riptides everywhere in Tibet . Only Linzhi got a large piece of wet and wild forest in the province.

24th July
Linzhi , Zedang

Shortly after recovered from Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) , we have met a bus running in crazy manner. It cut in and out between the lanes at a sudden and most of the time occupied two lanes .The bus driver behaved like the king of the road and attempted to push our cars down the cliff. Eventually , we had all overtaken that bus and we noticed the bus driver was very upset about our performance. After 30 minutes with jokes and cheerful atmosphere , we had encountered an accident. A small white sedan car rushed against us on the wrong side without any intention to slow down. In order not to kill the guys in that small car , my father ( driver of car no.8) steered to the left and hit on the bank and damaged the front left tire and suspension system and my father’s right hand was injured too. We were lucky , our car was several meters from the cliff edge. Thanks to the rigidity of the Lexus 470 , we were well protected from injury . My younger brother was calm enough to ask the cars at the front to come back and stay with us. My younger sister was very smart and got off the car to take photos of that small car. After the photo taking , my sister started to cry and tears fell beyond her control. The tears were hot and rains were cold ! We didn’t know what to do about the accident. The cars passing by without stopping to lent us a helping hand , some of them even pressed the horns hard and blamed us for blocking their way. The bus we overtook half an hour ago arrived and the driver laughed at us , what a shame ! The guys in that small car didn’t fasten their seatbelts and we saw them lying up side down inside with bloody faces, how could we pour salt on the wounds ?

Our team members helped to save the lady passenger out and reported police , the people around just took a look like seeing movies and did nothing. When the police came , the driver pretended to be dead trying to squeeze money from us. Anyway , we worked together to get him out of the wreck , and I had found one of his limb was particularly thinner , it was abnormal , he looked like suffering from poliomyelitis. Why was that a man like him could get a driving license and drive on the road ? We wondered how could he get the strength to press the brake ?

After the police withdrawn , we acted as traffic policemen for 6 hours to avoid further traffic accidents. The car no.8 was then carried by a Dongfeng Truck for repair . The No.8 car was throwing ups and downs on the truck and I felt it looked like crying and tried to stay with us. It saved our life , we appreciated that.

25th July
Zedang , Rikeze

My father went to the police station with his assistant and we moved on . In the morning, we visited Yongbulakong. Yongbulakong was located at the east bank of Yalong River. It was the first palace in Tibetan history and then became a Buddhist temple. Yongbulakong was not large in size but it occupied the whole mountain and with more than 2000 years history. It lay in a mountain which looked like a deer’s rear limb. Yongbulakong meant a palace lying on the deer’s rear limb. We left that holy place for Rikeze and unconsciously we had entered Rear Tibet. Rikeze was the second largest city in Tibet and was considered the best garden in Tibet.

26th July
Rikeze , Dingri , Baiba

Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world with altitude of 8844 m .Though we could see the highest tip of the world but our moods were low. That was the second day after the accident and my father was busy in Lhasa with the repair job. We never worried about the damaged car as my father could always do that properly with his skill and expertise. What we worried most was my father would be treated unjustly as I remembered the police judged that was my father’s fault and speculated he was driving on the wrong side !

27th July

It seemed my father had some special help from somewhere in the darkness. My mother just kept silent and considered us as innocent kids. We just couldn’t believe we were so closed to the world of imagination which was always so remote from us before we came. It was only 180km from our designated base which was with altitude 6,000 m .

Mount Everest was not as splendid as we first imagine , my father told me it would be much beautiful if we view that from Nepal side . We could only see gloomy sky and road works everywhere. We had more to mention about Mount Everest . The kids we met looked like Nepalese and the mountain roads with more than 10 circles going round and round.