Most of Sichuan province in China is an industrial maze of hazy cities and smog belching factories. A fine dust covers the province and in some places in the big cities things turn an unpleasant grey as pollution covers everything under the sky. But Sichuan is a huge place, with such a varied landscape. Take a bus for a half a day to west and you come into an area where everything is different. The altitude goes well over 3000 meters in many areas, the people’s skin is reddened by an intense sunlight that you don’t see in the cities, and even the spoken language is so different that native Sichuan people can’t understand it. So even though you are still in the same province its like you just stepped into another world. Signs are written in Tibetan, Chinese, and English, although the latter is near useless since most people in these areas cannot speak it to passing tourists.

So out here where everything is different I saw my very first Chinese sunrise, rather then the sudden flash of yellow haze that we see in the cities it was a quick burst of red over the mountains.

Canon 20D, Canon 17-40mm f/4 L Lens, 1/200 sec, f/8, ISO 400