We had just two activities for Day 06 in Shangri-La county today: visiting Napa Lake (also known as Napahai Nature Reserve) in the morning, and Pudacuo National Park in the afternoon. The Napa Lake is a vast grassland with surronuding mountains. The grasslands though were mostly dried up in winter, and looked drab – I’ve no doubt that it looks much in spring and summer. But the most popular activity for tourists like us visiting Napa Lake is horseback riding. The costs of the horseback riding experience wasn’t included in our tour package and was left as an optional experience: but since we were here, we went for it. The price per person was 280 RMB for the classic route, but our guide bargained it down to 200 RMB. Guests in the experience also haev the option of dressing up in traditional Tibetan clothes, though only the girls in the family went for it. The boys – basically myself and Peter – opted to keep it simple and made do wtih cowboy hats.
So, about the experience:
The horses are all tame and trained to listen to the horsemasters’ instructions – most of the time at least.
Horse riding isn’t the most comfortable experience for those of us not used to it, but you’d get used to it. One thing though: you’re required to grip the saddle handle at all times, which means if you’re fidgety about smartphone use, consider wearing some kind of harness or sling for your phone if you want to take pictures while on horseback. Otherwise, if your phone slips, it lands on the ground – which, depending on season, could be muddy. And even if not, there’s horse and cattle dung everywhere!
You might not get to ride together as a family. The horsemasters try to group horses that work well together, and I suspect the lead horse in each group is likely the horse who knows the route very well. Apparently my horse didn’t get along well with the other three that the rest of the family was riding on, so my horse trailed along a bit behind, and I could not join in for a family photo while all of us were on our horses.
I also recommend having the family photographer be the one who mounts first and be at the front. I didn’t think about that, and ended up mostly taking pictures of everyone’s behind. LOL.
Pictures!
Next post: Pudacuo National Park!