Kangding is the gateway where Sichuan's lowlands end and the Tibetan plateau begins — a narrow town wedged in a gorge at about 2,560 meters, famous across China as the home of the "Kangding Love Song" and, before that, as a tea-and-horse trading post between the empires. Around it stand some of the west's greatest sights: alpine lakes at Muge Cuo, the poplar-and-farmhouse lightshow of Xinduqiao, the monasteries of Tagong, and the whole rampart of Mount Gongga, the "King of Sichuan Mountains" at 7,556 meters.
