This the Ford F150 of Western Sichuan. Every farmer drove one if they weren't riding a motorcycle. The contraption looked like it was from a fantasy. It belched and sputtered and was so reminescent of a horse and buggy with the engine sitting way out in front dragging the rest of the vehicle behind it.

The dentist is in, and I'm not sure what the man in the cape sitting next to him was doing.

Traveling from Litang to Xiangcheng, instead of taking a bus, we negotiated a ride with two guys transporting a bunch of stuff but not enough to fill their entire mini-bus. It was the nicest ride we took--we had a lot of space to spread out. And our traveling companions were very nice, constantly offering us cigarettes and Tibetan music.

I have no pictures of Xiangcheng. It was another Tibetan city, more developed than Litang. We slept there and that was about it. But this picture is from our hostel in Shanggelila--Shangri-La.

This is an Italian fellow married to a Chinese woman named Helen. I remember her name because we ate at the restaurant called Helen's. I had the best pizza I've had in China there. He was a nice guy whose Chinese was ridiculously bad. Mixing the Italian accent with the Chinese tones is not a recipe for success or beauty. But he loved living in China. He used the word "trekking" a lot. He loved to trek through the Alps, through Italy, through the area where he lived now.

Lots and lots of prayer flags.