Litang County

Our school greenhouses, completed in June, 2007, may be seen at the primary schools in five townships: Xiongba, Lamaya, Juewu, and Labo, and Xiamula.  The easiest one to reach is Xiongba, which lies about one hour's drive on a paved highway outside the county seat.

Kangding County, Sha-de Township, Wayao Village. 

Visit the village of Wayao, which is about a 25 minute journey by taxi from Sha-de town.  Wayao has the oldest vernacular buildings in Tibet - four houses are at least 700 years old. Kham Aid Foundation led extensive repairs to one house belonging to a family called Gongtsa. For more about this project, see this video.

There is also a small but very old temple,  Khyi Lhakhang, with wall paintings that may be as much as 500 years old. 

The village and house owners are developing these houses, preparing to turn them into museums, guest houses, and places where you can eat, drink, and listen to stories.  Although many of there enterprises aren't quite off the ground yet, you can still see the houses and encourage the villagers to further develop the village's potential.  If you are granted admission to one of the houses, please give a tip of five yuan per visitor at each house - even if they don't have a ticket-selling system in place yet.

In this village, too, Kham Aid Foundation is assisting in the revival of their small primary school.  Volunteers repaired this school in 2007 and a grant from NVIDIA funded their teacher.

To reach Sha-de from Kangding you can board a bus bound for Jiulong (be sure to tell them you're going to Sha-de), or buy a ticket on the once-a-day direct Sha-de bus, OR ride in a shared taxi.  See this MAP. Either way, the ride takes 3-4 hours. Apart from the village enterprises, the town itself has a number of guesthouses and restaurants, including a family-owned Tibetan guesthouse between the town square and the river. 

After your visit to Sha-de you can continue south to Jiulong or reverse direction, head back to the crossroads town of Xinduqiao, and from there travel to other destinations such as Dege and Litang.

Kangding County, Sha-de Township, Laha Village

South of Sha-de town there is a village called Laha where the locals have restored an ancient tower. (Kham Aid didn't do the actual repairs, but we did monitor the project on behalf of the donor).  The interior of the tower has been completely rebuilt, with a stairway going right to the summit.  Again, if they don't have a ticket-selling system in place yet, please give a small tip to the person who lets you in, or take some pens, paper, books, or posters to the primary school that is next to the tower.

Sershul (Shiqu) and Dege Counties

Residents of these two counties received our most recent distribution of wheelchairs, and many were seen by Kham Aid volunteer medical personnel.  A list of individuals and their villages is given here.

Also in Sershul County are some school greenhouses built by Kham Aid.  Two are located in the county seat, at Sershul Chengguan Primary school and Sershul Middle School.  The third is located at the Mengsha Primary School in Mengsha Township.

Seng-ge Monastery, Dorakarmo Village, Tagong

Kham Aid Foundation supervised some roof repairs to the main temple of this monastery. Also, the new building to the front left of the main temple was built as part of our Construction Skills Training program.

Yala Mountain Charity School, Gerima Village, Tagong

Another segment of our construction skills training program was held at this school.  Kham Aid trainees, with the help of expert instructors Losang Dendrup and Shamba Gyatso, built the wall and the girls' classsroom building.  Some video of this project may be found here.

Drivers and others in this area who work with foreign travelers want to learn a bit of traveler's English.  If you're in the area and hiring a car, take the time to talk to your driver and teach him a few words.  For an introduction to people who'd like to learn from you, contact David Peng, davidpenn(at)gmail.com.

Deqen can be reached by bus from Shangrila (Zhongdian), or from the provincial capital of Kunming.

Ganzi County, Rongbatsa Township

Since 1998 Kham Aid Foundation has made several grants to Gyalten Rinpoche's school and Tibetan medicine clinic. Both are now flourishing.  The school is not open to the public but you may visit the clinic and speak to doctors there who will be glad to prescribe traditional medicines for any ailments you may have.

The clinic located just south of the main Ganzi-Dege highway, about 35 kilometers west of Ganzi Town.