In the Lechao Bar in Kangding, capital of the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, western China, the bar's owner is educating me about the city’s diverse demographics. “There are so many ethnicities here. Han, Tibetan, Hui, Yi,” says 28-year-old Tibetan Luo Song Dengren, policeman by day, bar proprietor and performer by night. With the city’s urban centre situated at around 2,500 metres altitude in a deep gorge in the Hengduan Mountains, Kangding has the feel of a gateway to the far more rustic and smaller settlements further up the range. Locals are clad in traditional clothing – riding boots, knee-length black coats and cowboy hats for men, ornate headdresses, wooden bead necklaces and long skirts for women. But the city of over 100,000 has in recent years been subjected to China’s trademark rapid development and attempted Han homogenisation; high-rise hotels and office buildings have sprung up where more primitive dwellings once sat next to the white waters of the Zheduo and Yala rivers. The diverse cultures of China’s minority populations that call this mountain city home persist, however, and Luo Song Dengren is an eager guide to this former border post between Tibet and China, a centre of trade and stage for warfare in centuries past. Best bars in Chengdu to sample the city’s underground music scene Lechao is the centre of the nascent modern music scene in Kangding, he tells me. He took over the bar in 2017 and renovated it in the style of an American roadhouse, decking the walls out in motorcycle parts and number plates. Luo Song Dengren studied in Chengdu, about four hours away by car, and although he relocated his parents, wife and young child there, he wanted to stay in Kangding to help grow the music scene, where most of the songs heard around the city are still performed in the classical Tibetan style. When he tells me about all the peoples who call Kangding home, he is really speaking of the potential the place has to breed something unique. “We hope we can get all those musical influences together and see what comes out of it,” he says in between sets on stage at Lechao, where he sings and plays guitar, along with friends and other bar employees, to patrons sat at tables laden with cheap six-packs of watery Snow Beer. He excuses himself from our table to play Kangding Qingge ( Kangding Love Song ), a folk tune known throughout China, and one the local tourist authorities and business owners have keyed on as a promotional tool, naming the city's central square “Love Song Square,” and so on. The song is a crowd favourite. “Music is life for Tibetans,” Luo Song Dengren says, sitting down again, sipping on a water as he does every night (he declines alcohol due to his Buddhist faith). “When we used work in the fields or herding, we sang. Singing is a way for us to share our stories and our history. In times when life was very hard for us, singing was our only pleasure.” The next day, my photographer friend and I decide to attempt a pale facsimile of another Tibetan tradition, undertaking a small portion of a hike up to the grasslands above Kangding, just as the nomadic Tibetan people would with their herds of yak. We take the winding road past Zhilam Hostel, a popular accommodation option that, like many businesses in Kangding, closes during the coldest months from mid-December to the middle of March. Dried yak meat hangs from the top windows of the two-storey houses we pass; occasionally we lose our footing on the ice. Past a clothing workshop, a set of stairs to the right leads up to the narrow hiking trail, a sign saying “Up to Grasslands” pointing the way. On our way up, we pass a small group of horses walking languidly along the snow-covered trail, which is devoid of human footprints save our own. At a large pen a few more horses graze. The way up has been marked by old stone grave sites, and at the bottom end of the pen, some people have come to pay their respects. They burn pine boughs, and toss ghost money into the fire to send to the deceased in the afterlife – a Han ritual before a final resting place festooned with Tibetan prayer flags. Back in the city after our short expedition, we refuel at Himalayan Coffee and Trading, sipping on brews made from beans roasted in the mountain air and satiating our hunger with slices of home-made carrot cake. After a walk through the traditional Guoda Market, the lane at times slick with blood from the morning yak slaughter, we head up the other side of the valley wall, Paoma Mountain, gaining entrance to the hiking trail by taking the stairs up past the Tashi Yongdeng Tibetan Bar on Dongda Street. The trail is also lined with prayer flags, and leads up to a scenic area, a small plateau also accessible by gondola. How a Tibetan hotelier born in exile helped put Shangri-La on the map The place is deserted, a lone horse on a circular riding path and the woman taking the ticket fee the only souls around. Or so we think, until the barking of a small pack of dogs and a woman calling out from a nearby house beckon us over. Inside the home, a Tibe tan family from Shiqu sells souvenirs and some basic food for tourists, sparse this time of year. The house is warmed by keeping the electric stove running. In the bedroom, one of the women retires to recite her mantras, attempting to teach them to a small boy who would rather chase the family cat around the living room. After some tea and pork dumplings, we say our goodbyes, and head back down the mountain, passing a small monastery tended by a few monks. Later that night we meet up with Luo Song Dengren again, along with his friend, A-Ze, who works in construction. They take us to Malaya Tibetan Restaurant for thin-sliced, raw, frozen yak meat, blood sausage, and fried yogurt, along with yak butter tea, a drink that takes some getting used to. The food is rich and hearty, heavy on meat and varying forms of yak milk. The traditional Tibetan cuisine is different to what we enjoyed on our first night in the city at Kangba Kitchen, a 20-year-old Sichuan rechao or “low-budget eatery”, where nearly all the dishes featured the Sichuan peppercorn with its famed spicy kick. Zhao Rengao, who has worked in the kitchen there for 12 years, says with a shrug that when it comes to food, Tibetan and Sichuan culinary cultures have yet to come together. “In Kangding,” he says, “Sichuan food is popular, but the Tibetans enjoy their own cuisine.” On our last night in Kangding, the lanterns along the river light up down the gorge, towards the mani stones carved with Buddhist mantras highlighted on a cliff face at the bottom end of the city. In Love Song Square, locals gather for a nightly dance session to music blaring from speakers at the four corners. As we pass a snow bank, a light smack on the side of the hood of my jacket wheels my gaze to the left, where a woman stands by a collection of snowballs, smiling. A friendly snowball fight has erupted, combatants laughing and running for cover. In the chilly evening air, the white lights adorning the trees of Paoma Mountain glitter like stars, bidding us farewell from the gateway to Garze. When to go May to October is considered high season in Kangding, before the temperature drops below zero. During these warmer months, trekking in the nearby mountains and further afield at Gongga Shan is made easier by the absence of snow. Getting there Buses leave from Chengdu East bus station three times daily, the trip taking anywhere from five to seven hours, depending on road conditions, a ticket costing 116 yuan (US$17). Outside the station and others in Chengdu, private drivers are also available for hire. Their rate depends on your negotiating skills, but they will get you there faster. Sichuan Airlines also has daily flights from Chengdu to Kangding, but in the winter months, these are subject to cancellation whenever it snows. Staying there For the experience of staying in a traditional Tibetan home, Zhilam Hostel (zhilamhostel.com) offers a peaceful stay on the hillside overlooking Kangding. For more great views of the city and surrounding mountains and a welcoming atmosphere, there is the Kangding Guozhuang Nan Wu Hao Boutique Inn (75 Bai Tu Kan, Lucheng Zhen, Kangding).