This year a University from Canada, decided to partner with Extravagant Yak for a portion of one of their travel studies. Extravagant Yak organized 7 days for them between Chengdu, Lijiang, and Shangri-la.
The travel study started in Chengdu where they visited a few businesses in and around the city. Extravagant Yak (and our sister company Simple Bikes) hosted the group at our office to introduce our business(es), values, and answer the students’ questions as they related it to what they were learning in their courses (predominately focused on human resources and marketing).
They had several other company visits in Chengdu (through some of their own connections), but they also had a little time to have fun. They spent their second morning at the Giant Panda Research Center, which is an iconic stop before leaving Chengdu.
As the students had visited a few businesses in Chengdu already, we planned some activities for them to do in Lijiang that took them beyond the classroom and their business visits. On the day they arrived in Lijiang, we took the group to watch the Lijiang Impression Show in the afternoon. The Lijiang Impression Show is a cultural performance which demonstrates the traditions and lifestyle of the Naxi, Bai, and Yi ethnicities in the area. Afterwards, the students got to explore Lijiang Old Town before settling down to dinner.
After breakfast, we took them to Jade Mountain (approximately 4400 meters high). Some of students had never been this high before but they overcame the change in altitude and enjoyed the sights of Jade Mountain. In the afternoon, they drove to Shangri-la, with a stop at Tiger Leaping Gorge along the way.
Still being business students, they visited Nixi Pottery to learn how these locally made products are bringing benefit to local people through enhancing the tourism industry. The students not only learned about the pottery business, but also had a little experiential learning as they tried their hands at making pottery cups.
In the afternoon, they visited Songzan Lugu Lodge and had another business visit there. The general manager (ZhangLing) of the lodge shared Songzan’s business development to date, and their vision for the future. She also answered the student’s questions about HR and marketing in their local business setting. After a big day of presentations and discussions, the students enjoyed dinner at this wonderful lodge to see a little of this business in action!
In the morning, the students visited Benzilan Wood Bowls production sites, followed by a visit to the Shangri-La Beer factory. Students had a tour of the beer factory and got to see some of the steps it takes to produce food products in a factory setting. The founder of Shangri-la Beer shared his story about being an entrepreneur, some of the business challenges, and plans for future. Students were particularly interested in the sales and marketing this company has done to become a nationally recognized product.
In the morning, they visited Arokhampa Boutique Hotel. The founder Tapa shared how he started the business, and how he’s working to introduce and preserve Tibetan culture through the hotel industry. Both he and the students appreciated discussing HR, staff management, and marketing topics, etc. The group enjoyed lunch at Arokahampa, to further see the culture and service of this boutique hotel.
After lunch, they visited a handicraft shop managed by Tashi Reqing. Tashi has been working in the handicraft field for a long time, so he was a great local professional to ask due to his history in the local business setting. He walked the group through how his work and his team benefited the local Tibetan community through their business ventures.
Overall, we only got to show this group from Canada around for a week before they continued on to other parts of China, but we enjoyed every minute that we got to spend with them. There’s something really exciting about watching others learn – particularly when it’s in a setting we’ve come to know well. Extravagant Yak has known for quite some time that there are some Tibetan small business gems that are flourishing in the communities around us, so to have a group of business professors and students come here to see, encourage, and learn from our Tibetan neighbors was a joy!
Curious about Student trips and Travel study programs? Get a taste of what we have to offer and email us your questions.
Something is wrong. I can tell by the flight arrival board that my photo tour group has arrived long enough for them to go through customs and get their bags. By now they could have even stopped for a leisurely meal. I’m standing on tip toes and craning my neck just in case they didn’t go to the other exit gate.
Then I see him by the baggage carousels—Ron Nickel, the Digital Media instructor for Prairie College in Alberta, Canada, waves his hands. He approaches. The rope barricades keep about 40 feet between us. Ron yells, “our bags didn’t make it.” (Not a great way to start a tour in Tibet). We fill out forms and cross fingers (that the bags arrive before we leave Chengdu in two days). Then, our fourth annual Prairie Digital Media Eastern Tibet Photo Tour commences as we head to the hotel. Despite missing their bags because of a too-tight connection in Beijing, the group is in high spirits.
The hotel is warm, welcoming and serves an amazing international buffet breakfast. So, after a good sleep and hot shower, the group is cheerful and excited for the Giant Panda Research Breeding Center tour scheduled for the morning. Throughout the day our operations manager calls the airport every couple of hours. Still no bags. We plan to leave the next morning for Kangding.
We hit Jinli Walking Street for hotpot and Sichuan Opera dinner-theater style. Even after seeing it dozens of times, the face changing performance amazes and bewilders me. Just like that, we are kids again at a magic show. Delighted and slightly overwhelmed by the sensory overload of the Jinli commercial atmosphere, we weave through tens of thousands of tourists who have descended upon Jinli for the May 1st holiday. My phone rings. The bags are at the hotel. Relief.
The next morning, we load the van and sing “The Greatest Showman” tunes on the way out of Chengdu. Spirits are very high. A Million Dreams and expectations flutter through our imaginations of what we may encounter when we reach Eastern Tibet.
Thanks to a newly constructed highway from Ya’an to Kangding, our driving time is kept to under four hours. This is Ron Nickel’s fourth trip and he and I are the only ones who know how fast four hours is. Four years ago, the same leg took 13 hours due to a landslide and traffic accident. The song Come Alive keeps us dreaming with our eyes wide open as we pull into Kangding.
The next day we hear there is a monk who has recently graduated from Harvard and is keeping the temple on top of Paoma Mountain. Through Kris, our friend at Zhilam hostel, we schedule a time to interview him, but the climb up the mountain stairway proves that most of us do not yet have our “altitude legs” under us.
We arrive over an hour late to our appointment. But Shamba is still smiling as we arrive haggard and catching our breath. Shamba is a handsome man in his late twenties and graciously forgives our tardiness. He gives us a brief tour of the temple and then takes us up to the roof for a breathtaking view of Kangding. It feels like we’re Walking a Tightrope. Shamba turns out to be an avid photographer. Ron and he geek out for a bit on camera bodies and lenses and then he sits for a quick photo shoot.
The next morning we rise early (4:30am!) to drive up to the Yajiagen pass for a sunrise shoot of the mountains. Negotiating lack of sleep for the promise of great time-lapses in the cold feels a bit like getting the short end in The Other Side, but proves to be totally worth it! That afternoon, the staff at Zhilam hostel help us arrange a couple of Tibetan models to sit for a photo shoot.
We find a beautiful, old, abandoned, broken-down house that works really well for a backdrop. It starts to rain just as we get set up, so we quickly run down the hill to a new Tibetan guesthouse below the monastery. The glassed-in atrium is a perfect plan B.
After two days in Kangding, feeling full and acclimated, we drive out to Tagong in search of our next adventure. The pass takes us up past 4200 meters. Come Alive beckons us to reach for the sky and to keep dreaming with our eyes wide open. With our eyes wide open, we see Mt. Gongga on the horizon. The peak emerges for about 40 seconds from surrounding thunderclouds—enough time to snap a few pixelated iphone shots.
We zoom past an old man on the side of the road and Ron yells, “Stop!…Turn around. I want to talk to that man.” I obey and somehow turn my 8-passenger van around on the narrow road with ditches on both sides. The man is a 67-year-old Khamba nomad and is selling yoghurt.
I translate for Ron, “These photographers would like to pay you to take your photo. Is that ok?” The man smiled an enthusiastic yes and quickly shuffled into his little hut. “Where is he going?” Ron asks. “I don’t know,” I reply. After a few moments, the old man comes out wearing his sheep wool Tibetan coat. Now Ron is smiling, “Perfect.”
The next morning, we rise stupid-early, to catch the sunrise over the golden-roofed temple in Tagong. Somehow, Never Enough echoes through my head as we hike up the Tagong hill in the brisk cold of the dark morning: “towers of gold are still too little…”
Khamba Cafe proves to be an excellent spot for a western breakfast. Orders of fried eggs sunny-side-up, toast, bacon, and crepes show up on our table accompanied by steaming cups of hot tea and coffee. A most welcome breakfast. We are all sunny-side-up now.
On our way out of town, we stop by the Black Stone Forest National Park. The park has only been open for one year. The wooden bridge walkways still appear new and carry us right into the heart of the Emyn-Muil-esque forest of purply rock outcroppings. Every angle is a beautiful photo op.
We hop back in the van and continue toward Danba. About an hour outside of Danba, we stop beside a swimming hole. We discovered the spot last year and Ron says it was one of his highlights. He came prepared this time with a bathing suit.
Nervous about undressing my less-than-chiseled frame in front of others, I remember the lines to This is Me, “I am brave, I am bruised [or chubby around the waist], this is who I’m meant to be,” and finally work up the courage to jump into the still-thawing snow melt…and then immediately yelp like a six-year-old girl as I clumsily scramble out of the water before hypothermia sets in. The shock and the rush of blood to my extremities gives me a sense of relaxed euphoria. We dry off, hop back in the van, and play Come Alive again. Totally worth it.
Danba is a little slice of heaven. It’s the good life. For a farmland town perched high above a river valley, the view is heavenly; the people, hearty; the food, healthy. Ageh, our guesthouse proprietor assures us there are no GMO’s, no harmful pesticides and no hormones given to animals. We believe him because the food leaves you feeling refreshed and satisfied with no sluggishness afterwards.
In the course of a meal, our appetites get recalibrated. Who knew that a day in Danba would redefine “food” for us. Ageh’s sister-in-law agrees to be a model for a photo shoot at dusk on the rooftop. The photographers each have their turn shooting and holding flash umbrellas.
Our last full day is spent in Four Sisters Mountain Town in a newly developed boutique tourist section. Newly renovated boutique guesthouses, hostels and restaurants line the streets—all with a wood-log facade that reminds us vaguely of Whistler ski resort town in British Columbia. It’s cute. And still in development.
We catch private vehicles up to a ridge where you can see every snow mountain in a hundred miles in every direction. Some of us hike up to 4,500 meters for an even better view. It is both literally and figuratively the summit of our amazing ten-day journey through Eastern Tibet.
As we drive back to Chengdu, we sing From Now On, “And we will come back home. We will come back home…Home Again!” The four-hour drive goes quickly. We reward ourselves with a hefty meal from the Blue Frog in Taikooli. And, yes…it gives us all a food coma and fogs our memories of the heavenly manna from Danba.
After a light lunch the next day, we head to the airport, say our farewells and our see-you-next-years. The Extravagant Yak-hosted Prairie Digital Media photography practicum hits another home run and looks forward to doing it again in 2019.
If you’re interested in joining an Extravagant Yak photo tour, exploring any area of Tibet, or just singing The Greatest Showman on repeat on beautiful mountain roads, contact us at info@extravagantyak.com.
Want to explore these areas yourself? Drop us a line at info@extravagantyak.com.
This is our 4th year working with Leman International School (LIS). At the beginning of April, seven students, three teachers, and two guides from Extravagant Yak took an adventure to an area in Eastern Tibet. Although the tour was short with a few challenges, they were willing participants and found ways to give back to their host communities through partnership with a local school and a few small businesses.
This was the hardest day as it was a long drive to Leman’s destination (Kangding) and the road was quite challenging. Even with this, the students enjoyed getting to see the mountains as they drove by, and what school trip wouldn’t be complete without a bus ride to provide plenty of time for group bonding?
In the evening, Leman joined some of the local people at the square to watch and learn traditional Tibetan circle dancing. Some of the students even gave it a shot, so hopefully they picked up some new moves!
After breakfast, the group packed a picnic lunch and started on a hike to the top of Kangding grassland where nomadic families herd yaks during the summertime. This hike takes two and a half hours, and the grassland plateau sits at 3,200 meters high.
While it is a decent hike for participants who aren’t used to hiking, the students were good sports about the adventure, and everyone made it to the top still smiling. The group enjoyed the gorgeous views from the grasslands as they got to marvel at the surrounding snowy mountains, colourful Tibetan prayer flags, and all the blue sky (something you don’t always get in the city).
In the afternoon, the group visited two local Tibetan restaurants to interview the owners as the students will be writing articles about these small businesses (to be posted on the www.Tibetpedia.com website in the future). For dinner, they enjoyed local Tibetan food, particularly as they got to try yak meat and Tibetan momos.
As the group left Kangding, they purchased some food for the local migrant school they would be visiting in Tagong and set off for the grasslands. The journey may have felt like the bus kept going up, up, and up because in order to get to Tagong, they went through Zheduo Mountain Pass which sits at an elevation of 4,200 meters. The students loved the beauty of the mountains and were captivated by the villages of nomadic families.
Continuing their exploration of Tibetan small businesses, the group stopped in Xinduqiao to visit a barley beer factory which is run by a Tibetan nomad. While at the factory, they learnt about the process of brewing, and the time and effort it has taken to start a new business and build the processing plant as they have. Two students interviewed the owner to prepare an article for Tibetpedia.
It was late afternoon when the group arrived in Tagong, and their first stop was the local school. Leman brought donations in the form of food and warm clothing for Tagong’s local school.
The local students and teachers were grateful for Leman’s generosity, and the students from both schools spent the rest of the afternoon painting, playing basketball, and generally spending some quality time with one another. These students might come from different backgrounds, but it’s amazing how much people (or children) can have in common. It was a busy day, but an overall enjoyable one for all involved.
The group spent the night at a beautiful homestay in a mountain valley where they star watched and enjoyed the amazing night sky! The students interviewed the owner about the homestay and the horseback trekking business.
One their last day, the group visited the Tagong Monastery that was originally built in 1644. After experiencing the amazing buildings and grounds, and hearing the history from our guides, the group headed to the airport which is the third-highest in the world.
The group took the short, 45-minute flight, back home to Chengdu. While they may have been sad to leave this place of beauty, and even more beautiful people, we think the students will be talking about this trip for quite some time.
We appreciate Leman International School and the partnership we have continued to have with them. Education is important to us as a company, and no matter the age of the guests we want to immerse them into the Tibetan culture so that they may take away an experience of a lifetime. We appreciate it all the more when our guests are young because we know they will carry the experience with them for a very long time!
To learn more about Extravagant Yak Student Trips click here or email us at info@extravagantyak.com for more info.
We ran our third annual photography workshop tour in Tibet with Prairie Digital Media students from Canada and the United States. This year we used our Tibet Wild Frontier itinerary through Eastern Tibet and it was a huge success.
The tour commenced in Chengdu, where we visited the Pandas, ate hot pot, and walked with the crowds down the “ancient street” at Jinli. We then drove to Kangding, where we acclimatized, had a snow mountain sunrise shoot at Yajiagen Mountain Pass, and a meandering hike on Paoma Mountain. After two full days exploring the beauty of Kangding, we departed for Tagong.
We then took the scenic way through Xinduqiao, stopping every five minutes (a slight exaggeration) for photo ops. The next morning, we beat the sun to the top of the hill to capture a spectacular dawn over Yala Mountain and the monastery. That afternoon we explored the Anyi Gompa (nunnery) and nearby monastery where we were surprised to discover a large colony of rabbits on the monastery grounds (literally hundreds). We made our way back to town and enjoyed an incredible meal at the Khampa Cafe. We departed early the next morning for Danba via Bamei.
Just before arriving at Bamei, we stopped at the newly opened National Black Stone Forest Park. It was Extravagant Yak’s first time at the park, but we are always interested in finding new places for our guests to explore. The raised walkways, stunning rock projections and the scenery blew us away. We had planned to spend an hour or so there, but it quickly stretched to three.
After a late lunch in Bamei and some more photo ops in town, we veered off of the 317 highway toward Danba. The weather that day was superbly favourable for epic landscape shots as we climbed the pass that drops you on the north face of Yala. The stretch of road between Bamei and Danba is my favourite in all of China.
On that three-and-a-half-hour ride, you get a bit of everything: vast plateau valleys, snow mountains, and a steep, winding river valley that eventually opens up into the green valley towns of the Danba area. I can’t think of another road in the world that is as enjoyable to drive. One of the photographers pined after his motorcycle and hoped to one day return to do a motorbike tour through the area.
After pulling through Danba town, we crossed a tall, arched bridge and wound our way up a newly paved mountain road to Zhonglu village. Perched high up on the side of a mountain, the village is host to several of the ancient towers that pepper the valley. We enjoyed fresh, organic, home-grown, home-cooked meals at our guesthouse.
A famous model from the village was willing to “sit” for a couple of hours of shooting. The photographers each took twenty minutes with her to create their desired shots. After two nights in Danba, we stayed a night in Four Sisters Mountain Village and caught a sunrise shoot of the mountain from the lookout.
The drive back to Chengdu from Four Sisters Mountain was incredibly beautiful, until close to Dujiangyan, where the greens and blues from the mountain passes faded into the different shades of gray of the urban lowlands. Yet, Dujiangyan also had its own mystique. We visited the Ancient Irrigation System in town (after Apple Maps led us on a wild goose chase) and enjoyed the ancient Chinese architecture, which somehow goes well with the misty fog of the Qingcheng Mountain river basin.
We arrived back in Chengdu still with enough time for everyone to do their souvenir shopping and a couple more photoshoots. I was especially blessed by this group, as their tip to me was in the form of taking an hour to do some family shots for us. I’ve included some of my favourite photos from the trip dotted throughout the article. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do, and maybe this will stir the longing in you to see the mystic Tibetan lands for yourself someday soon.
If you like the sound of this itinerary check out our Eastern Tibet Photo Tour.
In September, we once again hosted 3 student groups from Leman International School (Chengdu). This year we added two more destinations to our student trip tour products: Shangri-la and Songpan.
This student trip was designed as a cultural and service tour. Our goal was to help the students to develop a sense of responsibility for community service along with an introduction to Tibetan culture, history and lifestyle. The students explored the old city together, visited Songzanlin Monastery, and made a trip to the Shambala Tibetan Cultural Museum. At the Thanka painting center, the students had a chance to try their hand at traditional Thangka painting and to learn about the history of Tibetan Buddhism.
One of the highlights was helping a local farmer pick potatoes. They prepared for the trip by fundraising in order to buy food for the Shangri La Orphanage. At the orphanage, they enjoyed playing, dancing and talking with the kids. This trip helped the students gain an appreciation for their own life and it developed in them a consciousness and eagerness to help others.
Grade 8-9 student trip to Amdo Tibetan area of Heishui was a rewarding trip. Our goal of the trip was to help the students develop their outdoor survival skills along with their knowledge of Tibetan culture and geography. The students thrived on the challenge of setting up camp for the first night and cooking their own food over the campfire.
They visited a local Tibetan Buddhist monastery, ate lunch with a local Tibetan family, and experienced the beauty of Heishui Glacier Park by taking a gondola to the base of the glacier at 4,800m. A particular highlight at the glacier park was snow, which some of the students had never seen before! While their bodies struggled to find oxygen at this elevation, they had a lot of fun making snowmen and throwing snowballs!
Grade 6-7 trip to Muni Valley was a huge success. Our goal was a fun adventure that exposed the students to new environments, ideas, and plenty of culture! Over four days the students visited the memorial museum of the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, Taoping Qiang Village, Muni Tibetan valley, Zhaga waterfall, and Songpan old town. They enjoyed the unique cultural experience of staying at a local Tibetan family’s guest house, and they helped the family make a traditional dinner.
They also helped the family pick mushrooms and vegetables from a nearby mountain field. Experiencing such a different environment was stretching for some of the kids, but they quickly learned to adapt and appreciate a lifestyle that is more common than many of them realized. Along the way, they gained more awareness of the diversity of Sichuan’s local cultures as well!