Tibetan/Qiang Peoples Cultural Interactive Tours ABA Tibetan/Qiang Autonomous Regions, Sichuan

Duration: 3 weeks
Offered: Spring/Summer
Land costs: from $ 3,000

In north central Sichuan is a vast area of mountains, grasslands, deep forests, and rivers known collectively as Aba. Two of Chinas' fifty-six minority peoples dominate the area-Tibetans and Qiang. Tibetans here are much the same as Tibetans anywhere except that they speak a dialect of Tibetan known as Amdo. We will travel through the area by landcruiser, and at times, by foot to get to roadless sites. We will have the opportunity to drink tea with nomads in their black yak hair tents, listen to chanting in prayer halls of monasteries representing all sects of Tibetan Buddhism. We also tour Bon monasteries that are beginning to thrive again in this area of Sichuan. Bonism was the animistic religion which pre dated the arrival of Buddhism Tibet. From both Tibetan and Bon monks and Lamas, lectures will be given on their religion and the historical relationship between the two.

The Qiang, like the Tibetans, have a culture quite distinctive from the Han Chinese people. Many historians and anthropologists believe that the Qiang are the origin of both the Tibetan and Han peoples. In Qiang dominated areas, we visit villages and learn of their festivals, history, and unique shamanistic religion from local guides. The trip through Aba, also includes trekking options in the beautiful Four Sisters(Siguniang) mountains, and in the unparalleled beauty of the Juzai Gou valleys in the north. No trip to Aba is complete without touring the vast wildflower strewn grasslands that characterize so much of this region. Here we will camp in our own tents often near nomads and their herds of wild yak. This trip has something for all in the beauty of remote northern Sichuan.