National Day Travel Plan

While preparing to write this year’s National Day travel plan, I tried to recall where I went last National Day. I probably have amnesia, or remembering dates is just a difficult thing. Many past outings, besides the story framework that can still be recounted, those precise and detailed scenes have long become blurred. I remember I laughed, I got tired, I felt the release of seeing all the mountains below. But I can’t remember which day and with whom I laughed and got tired together. In the end, I had to search the article archives. It turns out last National Day I rode a bike with classmates to Qinghe Waterfall. The photos interspersed in the travelogue made the past vivid again. A bit like an old man, trembling as he takes out a well-preserved photo album, staring at them with tears streaming down his face, as things sealed away for decades gradually become clear again.

I was truly unwilling to accept it. Last National Day, because there were too many people, when facing challenges everyone acted independently. Under the influence of team consciousness, not a single person reached the destination. So not long ago, when deciding on the 2012 travel plan, I straightforwardly told them I wanted to retrace Gesala and called them to come “relive our youth” together. When Liao Lin was celebrating his birthday, I asked who wanted to go. I also asked in the Q group. Until now, no one has said they’d go again.

Later, just last week, a friend asked me where I was going for National Day. I still firmly said I was going to Gesala, going alone with a tent and sleeping bag on a bike to that place I couldn’t let go of. She said she didn’t know where to go for National Day. Having one or two people accompany you on the journey would be such a wonderful thing. I decisively forgot my oath from a minute ago and immediately asked her to come with me to Tengchong and Shangri-La that popped into my head.

Later she didn’t come to Yunnan. I still continued my travel plan. I couldn’t extinguish one dream and then pour cold water on another. I resolutely headed to Yunnan. Tengchong, like Dali and Lijiang, is nationally famous. Going there alone during National Day, besides looking at people, there’s nothing to see.

I decided to head to Shangri-La, then further west to Deqin to see Meili Snow Mountain. That place won’t have the crowds and extortion by unscrupulous merchants like Dali and Lijiang. Rather than saying I’m going to see scenery, I’d rather believe I’m going on a pilgrimage. In the movie Riding the Mountains, there’s a master riding along Route 214 to Lhasa who said he comes here every year, always hoping to see the sun illuminating the golden mountain, because it’s said that those who see it will have good luck for a year. Unfortunately, accompanying Zhang Shuhao on his bike ride, we still didn’t see it. He was so angry he jumped and stomped on the mountain. I want to go see the sun illuminating the golden mountain. I like the vigorous momentum it brings—the sense of existence that makes one feel small in the world.

At the foot of the snow mountain there’s also a beautiful village, very suitable for and only accessible by hiking. Going in and out once takes about three days. I looked at photos of this village. It’s not as beautiful as I imagined, but I feel that going there once, the feeling of being cut off from the world isn’t something you can experience just anywhere.

For this trip, I bought some equipment online: tent, backpack, sleeping bag, moisture-proof mat, trekking poles, flashlight—these alone cost 800 yuan. Additional equipment needed includes a survival knife, windbreaker pants, first aid medicine. My past one-way transportation fee was 130, and the Meili Snow Mountain ticket package was over 200. I estimate this trip will cost close to 2K.

While I’m still young—no mortgage, no car, no wife, parents don’t need support—go out and explore. Otherwise when I’m old, I won’t have the chance.