Height of ambition

Early bitterness

The only road that connected the village with the world outside the mountain was not completed until 1978. Even with the road which was less than a meter wide, it was impossible to travel in winter and spring, when thick snow packed the mountain, or during the rainy season when the road was flooded. Once, 12 young men died on the road in an avalanche. Children were not allowed to walk on the road alone. When children had to go out, adults needed to tie them to their waists in case they fell off the cliffs into the surging Gangqu River hundreds of meters below.

When people fell seriously ill in the village, young men were called to carry the sick person on their shoulders, walking on the dangerous road for a week before arriving at the nearest hospital. Sadly, some didn't make it.

In 1974, before the road was completed, it was even harder for people to get out. Sonam Dondrup's father tied a rope around his own waist, the other end of which was tied to the kid, who did not stop crying on the way during the five days and nights before they reached the hospital, but it was too late. He lost most of the sight in his left eye.

However, the world he witnessed beyond the village inspired a dream in his heart. Everything in the city was new to him-the colorful lighting, the roaring, wheeled "monsters", the electric mills, people wearing pretty clothes, and butter tea shops. What amazed him the most was the roads, clean, smooth and comfortable to walk on without huge rocks lying in the way.

He still remembers the uneasiness he felt when people looked at his weather-worn face and soiled clothes, which reminded him of the remote backward village he came from, where people still lived without electricity or cars.

On the long way back home, the coarse road blistered and cut his feet. He suffered and dreamed that one day he would earn enough money and build a road for villagers to go out and see that new world.

At 13, against the family's will, he left home and started exploring the world with a bag of crude crystals he collected to sell and 35 yuan his father borrowed. He started as a vendor in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, although could not yet speak a word of Mandarin. Thanks to the reform and opening-up, which started in 1978, and also due to his hard work and vision, his businesses grew and by 1999, he was a multimillionaire in Shangri-La.