Return to Muli monastery (木里大寺) after twenty years

If you’ve read this blog you’ll be aware that I first visited Muli monastery (Muli Dasi, 木里大寺) in 1994 on my first exploratory trip to try check out the travels of Joseph Rock. That solo trip was something of a landmark because it showed me that Rock’s maps were accurate and that the places he described were still there, although much changed since the glory days of the 1920s. 

When I saw it in the 1990s, Muli monastery was a spooky place. Just a couple of rebuilt temples and a handful of monks remained of the once thriving Tibetan Buddhist monastic complex on the side of a hill in the majestic canyon of the Litang river.

I subsequently made a couple of return trips, with the aim of exploring further beyond Muli to the Konkaling (Yading) mountains. Both attempts failed due to various factors: bad weather, a lack of accurate topographic maps and a breakdown in team cohesion between the other New Zealand tramping companions.

With the advent of the internet, I’ve been able to keep an occasional eye on developments in Muli from afar.  Over the last two decades I’ve seen reports of how the temple has been upgraded, with shiny new buildings constructed. I also read on Chinese website that the once isolated Muli valley had been opened up to development and tourism. 

When I visited there was only a poor quality dirt track road over the pass from Lugu Lake to the nearby village of Wachang, which itself was a collection of grim and utilitarian Soviet-era buildings. There was a better road down the valley to the town of new Muli (Bowa), which was open to trucks and buses. However, even this sealed road had some very dangerous sections that scared the life out of me.

So it has been interesting to revisit Muli for the first time in twenty years and see how it has changed. I went courtesy of Professor Zhu Dan of Sichuan University and his colleague Professor Wang Liang of Nantong University, both Rock-o-philes like myself.

This time the journey from Lugu Lake in a Landcruiser was relatively quick and easy, taking just three hours driving, not three days walking as per my first visit. The road over the Mt Gibboh Pass has now been sealed, and is good quality. En route we stopped in the same places I had rested at in 1994: Lijiasun, Renjom Gompa and Wujiao (more of these visits later).

The route itself was not much different from that I described in 1994 – a long looping track up the wooded valley to the pass over some limestone crags of Mt Gibboh. The only difference now was a sealed road and a couple of roadside viewing points – and toilets – for the sightseers. Because there were now more cars on the road. While in 1994 I had seen but one vehicle all day - a 4WD that got stuck fording a creek – this time there were cars passing every ten minutes or so: mostly independent tourists by the look of it. There was also a small settlement – Yangbude – near the pass which I hadn’t noticed before. The ‘Mt Gibboh’ pass itself was now titled Luopuluo Shan.

On our way we stopped at one of the many artificial water pools/ponds that have been created by the local government as a resource for fighting forest fires – of which there have been some terrible ones in the Muli area recently. And everywhere there are signs warning that no fires or smoking are allowed anywhere in the forest zone.

We stopped at the pass to take some photos but on the way in to Muli the weather at the top was foggy and damp, so we got no views. Descending to Wachang, we emerged from the cloud to see the sweeping green valley below us.

Arriving in Wachang (瓦厂) was a revelation – it was still a one street town, but the scruffy old buildings had been upgraded to modern multistorey apartments and a spanking new school. The scuzzy old concrete hotels had been replaced by neat Tibetan-style wooden guesthouses. There was even a Joseph Rock noodle restaurant.

I recognised some of the old buildings still standing from my first visit – the poky restaurant where I’d slaked my thirst after that marathon hike over the mountain was now a clothes shop. The post office was also still there – but the grotty post office hotel was – thankfully – long gone.

We checked in to the Kangsa Zhusu at the bottom end of town and had a wander up the main street. When I showed some of my old photos to a local woman she recognised one of the Tibetan  ‘hunters’ I’d taken a snap of up in the hills back in 1995, and she later brought him over to us to have a little reunion – we were both older and greyer than the original photo! He now helped run a shop in town and told me about his kids now going to college and settling down in the big city of Xichang.

That evening we had a great dinner with many dishes at the restaurant next to the Kangsa Hotel.

The following day – 27 September - we had a day out visiting the monastery. It was mild weather as we drove the 3km road round the hills to the monastery complex. It was barely recognisable from my previous visits, now comprising several grand temples, that had been rebuilt around 2015. The centrepiece was a building containing a replica of the Big Qiangba Buddha, 28 metres high and made from copper, coated with gold leaf.

I spent the day wandering around the monastery buildings, findings the original old temple now abandoned and used for storage. The old ruins of the 1920s monastery have been preserved, with protective walls and scaffolding placed around them.

During the day we were introduced to several current monks, who looked at my old photos of young adolescent monks from 1994 and recognised a few. They pointed to each one, saying where they had gone to – some to nearby monasteries, some further afield, to Lhasa, India or even Belgium. After snacking on walnuts and tea in the monk’s hall, several of the original monks who they’d tracked down were ushered in and we sat around chatting for a while. We even got to do a reunion photo in the same courtyard of the old temple.

Similarly, Zhu Dan was eager to do a then-and-now photo of one of Rock’s photos, taken with Mt Mitzuga’s crags as a backdrop. He located the likely spot, now overshadowed by the monk’s three-storey high accommodation block, and we recreated the group photo, even copying the same body gestures of Rock’s retinue.

I also walked off to the edge of the site to try find the place where I’d taken my original then-and-now photo of the side view of the old and new [destroyed] monastery complexes. It wasn’t easy to find – the old track had now been paved over with a car park, and the area had a sightseeing platform and wooden staircase. I think I found the right place, but you be the judge:

A local official and Buddhist adviser told us that the monastery was now the home of the 10th Living Buddha of Muli, Bianma Renqing, a local lad whose bio says that he studied at the Beijing Advanced Buddhist College.

We spent much of the day filming with the guys from Sichuan University and doing some interviews with various people on camera. I had to pose in various locations that I’d previously visited, and even ride my bike around for the cameras, followed by a drone.

So I was pretty exhausted by the time we drove back to Wachang – for another big dinner, this time at the Tibetan barbecue/hotpot restaurant at the top of town.

One last 1990s vs 2024 photos of Muli: