Moska

It’s called Mosca, which means auspicious and flat place in Tibetan, a small village hidden in the snow-capped mountains.

I want you to know about such a place. Maybe you have never heard its name, maybe you will never arrive here in your life. But so what? Now, you know.

All beautiful things and all good things are not easy to come by.

1

Let’s talk about Mosca’s geographical location first! Search online and you will get something like this: Mosca is located next to the Jinlong Snow Mountain in Danba, Sichuan. It is a canyon area in the Hengduan Mountains. It integrates snow mountains, forests, grasslands, glaciers and seas. It is a pure land that has not been over-exploited. .

Moska Village is home to more than 100 families, and most of those left behind are the elderly and children. There are two schools in the village. One is a Tibetan language school in Banpo. It has few students and mainly studies scriptures. A bilingual (Tibetan, Chinese) school in the village, where mostly boys study.

There have been more people in the village who can speak fluent Chinese in recent years, so communication is no problem.

Currently, the only means of transportation on the last stretch of the village is a large, shabby truck.

If it weren’t for the long and difficult road to the village, I don’t think I would have such a profound memory.

It took more than an hour to drive from Danba County to the entrance of Mosca Village, but was stopped. You had to take a local's car to get in, so you switched to a local's off-road vehicle. The Tibetan guy who is familiar with the route and has excellent driving skills calmly drove the car on the bumpy road. As you can imagine, sitting in the car and looking through the car window, there are cliffs that may slide from time to time on the left side of the road, but there are no cliffs on the right side of the road. There is a guardrail and a rushing river. From time to time, when I encounter a truck coming from the opposite direction, I have to back up to a slightly wider area to miss the truck.

That night, we happened to encounter a truck when we entered the village in a local off-road vehicle. We backed up several meters and kept adjusting the position of the truck in a place where we could miss the truck. Under the weak night light, Just ten centimeters before our wheels would fall off the cliff.

The local off-road vehicles could only take us to a place where the road was being built at that time. We had to walk through the road construction area ourselves, and then find a truck from the village to take us into the village.

In the starry night, it is drizzling, I am walking on a deserted road with my bag on my back, not knowing where the end point is.

I saw a glimmer of fire in the distance. That was a villager who stayed there specially. As long as someone entered the village, he would ride his motorcycle back to the village and call a truck to pick up the people.

On the way from the village entrance to the village, there was no network or signal.

We waited in the dark night, and the light of dawn was the truck with only one light on.

On the way into the village, the luckiest thing was to encounter a Tibetan takin, which Tibetans call mountain puppets.

2

Moska Village has signal, water, electricity, and the only public toilet.

The temple is in the center of the village. It is a gathering point, gathering people here around.

The villagers are simple and honest. Although many guests have come to the village in recent years and the village has changed little by little, the villagers are still kind.

Living in Tibetan homes, they are friendly and enthusiastic. It snowed heavily one night. When I woke up and stood on the second floor in the morning, it was already completely white outside. The branches are covered with ice flowers, and the roof is covered with thick snow.

After wrapping up tightly, we walked out of the village and came to the open area. There were travelers setting up tents by themselves. The small orange tents in the vast sky and earth looked particularly artistic. The mountains in the distance, the river nearby, and the Tibetans occasionally passing by in the mist. It's all very quiet and peaceful.

I started climbing before the sun broke through the clouds. It’s a mountain with a small slope, but you have to be extra cautious when climbing it because of the snow.

Climbing halfway up the mountain, you can see the entire village shrouded in clouds and mist. Sit on the ground and wait for the sun to rise.

I have seen the sunset in many places, and I have also waited for the sunrise on the beautiful Lugu Lake, but I have never seen a sunrise on the snow-capped mountains.

Waiting there quietly, without all the noise of the city, even the human voice is hidden. Some are just the sound of wind.

In front of you is the village at the foot of the mountain, on the left is the mountain broken by clouds and mist, on the right is the sun that can barely shine through, and behind is the blue sky that is half blocked by the mountain.

The most beautiful thing is the time of waiting. In a world like a splash-ink landscape painting, I am also the scenery.

3

In the beginning, I came for it---the groundhog.

The scientific name is marmot, and Tibetans call it snow pig. We are used to calling them prairie dogs or earthworms.

If I hadn’t accidentally seen the photo of a prairie dog living in harmony with a human, I wouldn’t have known that there was such a secret place so close to me in the world.

On the way back to the village after watching the sunrise, I met a small prairie dog. It was a little timid, but it still ran out of its hole and looked at me so longingly. I froze and looked at it too. That's how I met it.

I came here for it, but I was at a loss when I met it unexpectedly.

When it gets warmer and the sun comes out, the prairie dogs will come out to look for food.

I carried a bag of biscuits and looked for the prairie dog on the hillside of the plateau like a joy. Put some biscuits outside each mouse hole, and then wait to watch them eat. From a distance, I watched several of them fight when they were full. It was so cute.

There is one that I met after walking a long way. Holding the biscuit in my hand, I caught its attention, and it came to taste it, right next to me, and had a full meal. He even had the guts to climb onto my lap for a cookie stick, tomato flavored.

The plump groundhog looks so cute when eating. Lazy, really lazy, even to eat I can change from standing to squatting to lying down.

Timid marmots will stay far away from people and will not dare to run out of their holes to eat when they see food. The bold prairie dog will pretend that the crowd doesn't exist, just eating, acting cute, and posing for you for photos. There are also tough marmots, who are always ready to fight. They will not invite people when they see them from a distance, and they will hug their thighs if they are not given food.

I haven’t encountered any tough marmots. It is said that they will come out when the sun is good in the afternoon. Because it is lazy, its active time is only a few hours in the afternoon.

The weather on the plateau changes quickly. During the few hours we spent with the prairie dogs, we encountered sunshine, light rain, strong winds, and light snow. Later, when I got tired and returned to the Tibetan home, there was hail. .

Moska, it’s worth your time to travel thousands of miles across the mountains and ridges to come here!

Here, it can’t cleanse your soul, but it can give you a world where you can roam.

It is not the end of the world, but a poetic habitat forgotten by the world.