Kangding

Kangding, once called Dartsedo, sits in a steep gorge at about 2,560 metres where the Sichuan basin's roads meet the Tibetan plateau, and it was the market where Sichuan brick tea was traded for Tibetan horses, the pivot of the tea-horse road. It is best known nationally for the Kangding Love Song, a folk melody arranged in the 1940s that became one of the most widely sung Chinese songs of the century, and the town leans on it heavily. Two rivers meet in the centre, monasteries stand on the slopes, hot springs feed bathhouses in the valley, and the town serves as the staging point for travel deeper into Kham.

History

Kangding, Dartsedo in Tibetan, stood on the historical border between Tibetan and Han lands and was the capital of the Kingdom of Chakla; for centuries porters carried Han brick tea here from Chengdu to trade for Tibetan wool. An earthquake on 1 July 1786 ruined almost the whole town, which was renamed Kangding in 1904; as Tatsienlou it was known in France through travellers such as Évariste Huc and Joseph Gabet, Gabriel Bonvalot, Alexandra David-Néel and Victor Segalen (Wikipedia, Kangding).

What you'll find

• The gorge town - streets squeezed between steep walls at the rivers' meeting.
• The monasteries - Anjue and others on the slopes above.
• The hot springs - bathhouses in the valley outside town.
• The tea-horse history - the trading role that made the town.

When to go

May to October for accessible roads and mild days; winter is cold with snow on the passes. Altitude is noticeable and worth a night to adjust before going higher.

Good to know

The town itself is largely modern concrete in a spectacular setting rather than an old town. Weather is changeable and often wet. It functions mainly as a staging post.

Nearby

Tagong lies northwest; Hailuogou is south.