Into the Wilderness: Songpan Revisited

The tale of my Sichuan travels is written as a continuous story and starts on the entry "In Chengdu" on Nov. 5th, 2008. For context and continuity, feel free to start back at that point and read on forward first if you have not already done so.

After Huanglong (黃龍) we came back into Songpan (松潘) for the 4th time on the trip already. After getting a good night's rest, we got up the next morning with the intention of exploring the city a bit, before resuming our hitchhiking journey to Maoxian (茂縣).

Larry came back early in the morning, with two huge, circular loaves of bread:

"We had these last time we were here, right?" I asked.
"Yes, though we only tried the one on the left," Larry responded. He continued, ""The loaf on the left is baked with an electric mold, while the one on the right uses heat conduction. There were around 5-6 shops that made breads like the one on the left, but I could only find one shop that used heat conduction."
"I see."
"And I met the owner of that one shop, and told him I'll be back, perhaps to learn his art! So let's go pay him a visit."

So we headed out to pay the breadmaker a visit. on the way, it was apparent that the bread was one of the signature local foods in the area:

We headed down the main road before turning into a small, almost rural alleyway on the left:

As we went down the alleyway, we saw that there was a wooden door to humble house on the right. When we stepped through, we saw the lady of the house.

Larry greeted her heartily. “Hey! Mrs. Ma! How are you! So good to see you so soon! Is Mr. Ma in?"

Mrs. Ma greeted us warmly and bade us to put down our bags and sit for a little bit. Her cat, which was lying in the courtyard, looked up at us curiously.

Mr. Ma soon came out. "Hi! How are all of you?"

"Very good, Mr. Ma! I brought some of my friends with me! I wanted them to come take a look at your shop."
"Ah, of course! Let me give ou a tour."

He walks us over to one of the rooms, where he makes the breads and bakes them. A number of breads baked this morning were already on display:

He talked a little bit about the bread's history here in Songpan, and then offered to teach us how to make it. We had to decline, since we did not have that much time, but perhaps one day we will take him up on it.

Next, we headed to the walls of Songpan. As we neared the North Gate, we once again see the statues of Princess Wencheng (文成公主) and Tibetan King Songtsän Gampo (松贊干布):

Princess Wencheng was betrothed to Songtsän Gampo back in the Tang Dynasty, in a successful attempt to keep the peace between the Han Chinese and Tibetans in the region.

Behind the statue, was Songpan's city walls, one of the few Chinese cities still with its walls intact:

The wall is quite thick:

Which is apparent on at the top of the wall too:

I had climbed on top of the wall to take a look:

Admission to the North Wall is 60 RMB, though later I would find out the South Wall is free. On the North Wall, they had quite a few seige and city defense weapons on display:

As well as cannons:

And statues of the commanders holding down the fort:

Walls cover three sides of the city - the fourth is the mountain, and the wall is anchored into it:

Songpan from the city walls:

Outside the city walls (with clouds that looked as if they're from the Simpsons cartoon):

I continued walking on top of the wall. There was an road following the wall on the inside. It bends as the wall does at the corner:

After touring the North Wall, which is separated from the South Wall by a stream (it's strange how there is a river going through the middle of the city, which is linked by a bridge in the middle), I went to tour the South Wall. As mentioned earlier, it was free of charge, and unlike the North Wall, there were actually other people on this wall as well. In fact, some people were lying on top of the wall, relaxing: