Living in Beijing does not do wonders for the lungs, I discovered. I huffed and puffed my way up to the 14,000-foot Nazongla Pass. It was anticlimactic. There were prayer flags and Tibetan horsemen and a soda stand in a small clearing, but no panoramic mountain views.
We didn't get the views until we arrived at the village of Upper Yubeng. That and its sister village, Lower Yubeng, were nestled in a beautiful valley right at the foot of the Kawa Karpo range. Snow peaks pierced the sky in every direction. The best part was that people had to get here by foot or on horseback: roads had not been built yet, though no doubt many locals would appreciate easier transport options.
In recent years, Chinese backpackers had begun flocking to the valley. Locals were building wooden guesthouses in every corner of the two villages. We walked down to the very end of Lower Yubeng, where we found the Mystic Waterfall Lodge, one of the older and more popular guesthouses. The Tibetan owner, Aqinbu, had been putting up travelers for years in simple wooden rooms.
What the lodge lacked in creature comforts it made up for in the view: a small monastery, home to a lone monk, sat across from the lodge, and behind that rose the snow mountains.
"You won't find a more beautiful spot in Yunnan," Aqinbu said.
We happily threw off our boots and plopped down on our balcony. We sipped cups of tea while watching the snow peaks turn pink with the setting sun, then fade to blue as twilight set in.
The next day, Tini and I did a three-hour hike up to the Mystic Waterfall, in a cirque of mountains. The entire way, we met Tibetan pilgrims carrying bundles of food and green bamboo walking sticks. A grandfather in a gray suit walked next to his grandson, and a mother carried a baby in a sling over her back. "Tashi delek," we said to each other — "Hello" in Tibetan.
Right before we reached the waterfall, we ran into Ngawang, a young monk wearing sunglasses and brandishing a digital camera. He was coming back from the falls. I had seen him at our lodge the night we arrived. He had taken a few days off from his religious studies to travel here with two Chinese friends.
"I've been to the waterfall seven times," he said. "It's a holy place, like so many other places here. Have you been to Mystic Lake?"
He pointed to somewhere high up the mountains, hidden in the trees. I shook my head.
"Neither have I," he said. "Not many monks I know have gone. It's a long walk and very far away."
So the next day, we went.
