Name: Faran Cohel

Age: 22

From: Israel

Songpan is a Tibetan village in the mountains 10 hours from Chengdu, China.  Most travelers go horse trekking to Ice Mountain from Songpan.  When you show up in Songpan there are plenty of guest houses where you can arrange horse treks for 1,2 or 3 days!!  We opted for the 3 day trek!!

The first night includes a homestay with a Tibetan family.  I enjoyed meeting and spending time with these people but the language barrier restricted our interaction.

It rained throughout the night creating fields of thick, brown mud everywhere!!  And this was my first time on a horse!!  It was sooo bad that the other travelers were falling off of their horses!!  Not only was it muddy but the temperature plummeted and it began to snow!!  This slowly was turning the mud into ice!!  It got so bad that at one point we all got off of the horses and walked.  This was not as easy as it sounds!!  We kept falling and falling and falling.  When we got back we were frozen to the bone, muddy and wet!!

This experience was hard at the time but truly amazing as well!!  It was a stunningly beautiful place, the people were welcoming we just had some bad luck!!  I would tell people to get your butt to Songpan and go horse trekking!!  Only word of advise would be to go for one or two days and not three!!!  … unless you are an experienced rider!!!