Copywriting Chronicle
Editor: Chronicle of the Talks
Preface
What is the first impression that comes to mind when you think of Tibet? Is it the plateau area, the deserted grasslands, the cold weather for people who don't want to go out, and the dangerous altitude sickness? If I'm talking about Tibet, there is a "Lotus Secret Land" that is as warm as spring all year round, do you think it's possible?
Originally, I didn't believe it, after all, how can the plateau be like spring all year round. The higher the altitude, the lower the temperature, which is not something that elementary school teachers have taught, and when climbing the mountain, we also verified this statement, when at the top of the mountain, the temperature is definitely lower than when it is at the bottom of the mountain.
It wasn't until a friend told me about Motuo County that I realized that there is such an amazing place in China, with an altitude range of 200 meters to 7,787 meters, and the difference between the highest and lowest elevation in the same county is 7,587 meters, and the average altitude is only 1,200 meters. With grasslands, canyons, rainforests, snow-capped mountains and more, you can experience the scenery from summer to winter in one day. So what kind of place is Motuo?
Why build roads in Metuo
"There is only one Motuo in the world, but Motuo has the whole world!" is the unanimous evaluation of tourists about Motuo. For an infrastructure power like the mainland, it stands to reason that it should not take long to build a 100-kilometer highway. If the road conditions are good, it may be over in a few months, and if the road conditions are bad, it will usually be a few years. However, the highway here in Metuo was built on the mainland for 52 years.
Located in the south of Tibet, in the Grand Canyon of the Brahmaputra River, surrounded by towering snow-capped mountains, due to the extremely special geographical location, the climate change is too great, the road here in Metuo, when it was built, encountered many difficulties.
Since the 60s of the last century, the mainland decided to build a road here. Because the altitude gap is too large, Motuo is surrounded by deep mountains, and it is very difficult for the people of Motuo to go to the outside world.
The local "porters" carry supplies on their backs every year and go to the outside world to trade what the locals need. They formed a procession, carrying heavy things on horseback, light things on their backs, and on the cliffs, the porters risking their lives at any moment. If you are not careful, you will fall into the valley. Some of the routes that the horses could not cross, they had to rely on the backs of the men to carry the supplies little by little.
When the porter successfully goes to the outside world, he will exchange the materials he carries for daily necessities such as salt, medicine, food, and children's textbooks. Once the deal is complete, they have to go through the same path again. The way back is actually not easier than when you came, there is a saying that everyone should have heard, it is easy to go up the mountain and difficult to go down.
When they returned, they had to go from six or seven thousand meters above sea level to less than one thousand meters above sea level. When you go down the mountain, you have to pay attention to safety more than you go up. Therefore, it is imperative to build roads in Metuo, and since the 60s of the last century, the mainland has repeatedly tried to build a road to Metuo.
The last county seat in China
In 1961, the mainland government began to organize personnel to survey the route of the Medog area. In 1965, the Lhasa government tried to build a highway from Palong to the Brahmaputra River to Metuo, but the construction was usually too dangerous because the mountain road was too dangerous and the technology at that time could not do anything about it, so the Lhasa government had to stop the work.
In 1975, the mainland again decided to build a road to Metuo. At the time of this construction, more than 25 million yuan was invested, and it was planned to build more than 100 kilometers, during which it encountered numerous natural disasters and lost a lot of manpower and material resources, and finally gave up in 1981 after about 100 kilometers of rough construction.
In order to build this 100-kilometer mountain road, 34 people were sacrificed and nearly 100 people were seriously injured, and in the end, most of the road was destroyed, and only the road from Zhamu Bridge to Galong Temple could be used. Even so, the road was damaged several times in the decades that followed, and was built five times.
In 1990, the mainland planned to build a road to Metuo, although it encountered various difficulties in construction, but in 1994, we built a dirt road to Metuo, and just after transporting some materials to Metuo, the road collapsed, and several material vehicles were forced to stay in the local area.
In 2002, the mainland conducted a preliminary survey of the situation in the Medog area to survey where the terrain was suitable for building a highway; in 2007, the local government initiated a project to carry out a "study on key technologies for the construction of the highway from Zhamu to Medog in Tibet" to study how to open a tunnel in the Galongla Pass and how to overcome natural disasters caused by high altitude and complex geological features.
In 2008, the State Council approved the construction of the Medog Highway and decided to build 117 kilometers with an investment of 950 million yuan. In 2009, the road, which had not been built for more than 40 years, was restarted. In December 2010, the Galongla Tunnel, the most important part of the Medog Highway in Tibet, was successfully opened. On October 31, 2013, the 52-year-old road was finally opened to traffic.
In order to improve the use time, in 2017, the state invested nearly 1.2 billion yuan to reconstruct the 559 National Highway of Zhamo Highway. After the reconstruction, the opening time has been extended from the original eight or nine months to 11 months.
After the opening of traffic
In the village of Green in Medog County, you can see not only the Nanga Bhava Snow Mountain in the distance, but also the primeval forest and the nearby grassland. This peculiar sight can only be seen in Motuo, and many people drive to the area during the holidays to see the scenery.
The local villagers of Motuo have also converted their local houses into homestays. Every year during the tourist season, the local homestays in Motuo are full. After seeing the economic benefits, many people also began to imitate the establishment of homestays, farmhouses and other industries.
With the continuous improvement of local public service facilities in Medog County, the tourism industry has also been upgraded. The convenient transportation not only brought in tourists, but also allowed Motuo's agricultural products to go out of the mountains. Some companies came to the local area and promoted local specialties to the whole country, and the connection between Motuo and the whole country became closer and closer.
In the past, if people wanted supplies, they had to go over the mountains and mountains, and walk for more than ten days to go to the nearby county town to exchange for supplies. The high cost of transportation has kept prices high in Metuo.
After opening the road, it only takes about ten hours to drive to the nearby county seat. Prices in the local area of Motuo have come down, and the state has built new houses for them. The streets are also full of shops, some villagers have learned to shop online, and even medical treatment is much more convenient than before, and life in Motuo is becoming more and more convenient.
Epilogue:
China cannot do without Metuo, any more than the West cannot afford to lose Jerusalem. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, India has been encroaching on the territory of the mainland, and even crossed the border to provoke the mainland many times, until 1962, when the war of self-defense and counterattack against India stopped.
To this day, India still occupies 22,000 square kilometers of land in Medog County on the mainland, and in order to protect the territorial sovereignty of the mainland, the mainland has not given up the construction of this road. Now, ten years later, Motuo's current economic development is almost the same as that of ordinary counties on the mainland. The life of the locals in Motuo is becoming more and more promising.
Shingen:
The Paper News - "Ten Years of Passage to See Motuo"
The Central Committee of the Communist Youth League ———— "China's Last County Without Roads! Ten Years Have Passed, What Has Happened?"
Xinhua News Agency———— "That Mountain, That Road, That City - Revisiting the "National Ultimatum Highway" County "Metuo"
Dahe.com - "China's Last County Without Roads! Ten Years Passed, How Happened?"