Smooth, broad asphalt roads wind like black ribbons through the rugged landscape of towering earth forests. Passenger shuttles run regularly between townships and villages, express delivery services reach even the remotest border communities, and tourists flock to the frontier along newly built highways. In Zanda County, the surging traffic and gathering crowds paint a vibrant picture of a thriving and peaceful border region.

Nestled between the Himalayas and the Gangdise Mountains, Zanda County spans a vast territory with scattered settlements, crisscrossed by high mountains and deep ravines. Once upon a time, narrow roads, steep slopes, sharp bends, and winter snow blockades were the most vivid travel memories for local residents. Building safe and smooth roads was not just a hope — it was a deep-seated yearning.

The 14th Five-Year Plan period marks a critical phase in advancing China's goal of becoming a transportation powerhouse, and it has also been a golden five years of high-quality development for Zanda County's transport sector. Over the past five years, Zanda has seized major national opportunities - including programs to revitalize border areas and paired assistance initiatives - to drive major infrastructure projects, focus efforts on breaking through transportation bottlenecks in remote regions, and comprehensively shore up foundational facilities. What was once a secluded outpost now boasts an optimized road network, increasingly sophisticated systems for construction, maintenance, management and operation, and markedly improved urban-rural transport services - accelerating high-quality development at full speed.

Breaking through natural barriers to build a "fast track" for development

Across the land of Zanda, asphalt roads weave through earth-forest canyons, linking remote townships and villages. This well-connected modern highway network has completely overturned the seasonal transportation deadlocks of the past - when roads were impassable in winter, treacherous in summer, and travel was perpetually disrupted.

Dorje Phuntsok, who has worked in Zanda for over 20 years, has witnessed with his own eyes the road network transform, bit by bit. "In the past, only a handful of townships in the county had asphalt roads; most were gravel and dirt. The trip to Cosibsumgyi Township was the hardest - the road was full of potholes and ruts, and one way took over six hours. Every winter, when heavy snow sealed off the mountains, locals were virtually cut off from the outside world."

Today, with one asphalt road after another opened to traffic, travel times have been drastically reduced, and those arduous journeys are a thing of the past.

Dorje Phuntsok noted that the most dramatic change has been on the central passage. "Before, the route from the county seat to Diyag Township was all dirt roads, crossing three mountain passes, with the highest peak exceeding 5,600 meters and an elevation drop of over 2,000 meters. Road maintenance was extremely challenging, and every year we had to pour massive resources into clearing blockages. Now that the central passage has been completed and put into use, travel time from the county seat to Diyag and Sarang townships has been cut from six hours to about two hours."

The numbers tell the story best: during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Zanda invested over 8.88 billion yuan(RMB) in 27 transportation construction projects, adding 617 kilometers of roads and bringing the total highway length past 2,643 kilometers. All townships and administrative villages now have 100% paved access, completely rewriting the old narrative of difficult and dangerous travel in farming and pastoral areas.

"With better roads and fewer hazardous sections, and backed by routine road maintenance and winter snow-clearing mechanisms, we now have essentially year-round smooth traffic," Dorje Phuntsok said softly, gazing at the road stretching into the distance. "As a transport worker, seeing that our fellow villagers can travel safely without being at the mercy of the weather — that brings me real satisfaction."

Smooth travel,offersa warm "safety net" for the people

With the road network in place, the next challenge was to ensure that residents could not only "get from A to B" but also travel comfortably and securely. Zanda turned its attention to upgrading transport services.

Karma Tsering, deputy manager of Zanda County Passenger Transport Station, told reporters that in the past, due to poor road conditions and low passenger demand, rural bus services only ran on Mondays and Fridays. Now, the county has dynamically adjusted schedules based on actual needs: for remote townships like Diyag, Sarang and Cosibsumgyi, there are regular services on a staggered pattern - departures on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with return trips on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. For closer areas like Jangtse and Daba, buses run daily, with some nearby villages enjoying up to four trips a day - as convenient as city buses.

This expansion in passenger services is underpinned by both hardware upgrades and improved operational mechanisms. Rural bus services have grown from just 2 vehicles and 3 basic routes at their inception to 7 standardized passenger vehicles and 6 dedicated rural routes today. In 2025, the station signed a cooperation agreement with the county education bureau to launch special shuttle services for students during winter and summer vacations, precisely addressing the difficulty of travel between home and school for children in remote townships.

Early morning at Zanda Passenger Transport Station, driver Samnu crouched beside a wheel, carefully checking the brakes and tires. "Passenger safety is paramount - I have to do a full inspection before every trip." Having started work in 2025, he drives a new standard bus on rotations across all townships in the county. "Now the roads are good and the buses are good. People board with their bags and smiles - it makes my day."

To tackle the problem of slow parcel delivery in remote villages, the Zanda County Transport Bureau guided the passenger station to partner with the county postal service, using rural bus routes to carry express packages. Passenger shuttles double as "delivery vans," drastically cutting the time it takes for residents in townships to send and receive parcels - enabling "online shopping into the village and plateau produce to the city."

Kelzang Dorje, head of the business office at Zanda County Postal Branch, explained that thanks to the well-connected county-wide postal routes, the post office can now reliably and punctually deliver newspapers and periodicals, circulate government documents, send parcels to residents, and transport agricultural supplies to rural areas. The "last mile" of rural delivery services is not only connected - it's fast.

Improving livelihoods, painting a new picture of happinessenhances people's lives

In Sarang Township, Zanda County, the benefits of improved transport are particularly striking.

"In the past, the mountain passes were snowed in for up to six months every year, and local officials and residents survived on stockpiled dried vegetables. When the snow melted, township officials and drivers would work from both ends - clearing snow with loaders from the county side while others pushed through from the township side. We took shifts around the clock, eating and sleeping in the vehicles, surviving on instant noodles and melted snow - it took a full seven days and nights just to barely reopen the road," recalled Jampa Samten, Party Secretary of Sarang Township, vividly remembering those days of half-year isolation.

He recalled that when roads were cut off, construction materials could barely reach the township, and supplies had to be moved in small vehicles like "ants carrying crumbs." Residents relied on solar panels for electricity, and telecommunications were intermittent. "Now, with the central passage open, we have year-round access, and the trip to the county seat is much shorter."

Even more encouraging is the integration of the Ngari power grid into the national grid, providing stable electricity to every household. Refrigerators are now common in local homes, and butter, meat and other perishables no longer spoil.

Good roads bring prosperity to all trades. Sarang's apples, apricots, chili peppers, Tibetan medicinal herbs and handcrafted incense now travel along smooth roads to wider markets. Last year alone, local residents earned an extra 3,000 to 4,000 yuan (RMB) per capita through machinery leasing and specialty product sales.

A few hundred meters from the township government office, along the new asphalt road, lies Sarang Village. Nyima Dawa, the village committee director, stood at the roadside, watching the passing traffic and lost in thought.

Born in 1984, he still recalls his childhood journeys to school in the county seat: dozens of children crammed into a Jiefang-brand truck. When the truck couldn't make it up a slope, everyone had to get out and push; when they encountered landslides or flash floods, the trip home could take two or three days.

"It's completely different now!" Standing at the village entrance beside the brand-new asphalt road, Nyima Dawa beamed. "It takes just two hours to reach the county seat and three and a half hours to Gunsa Airport. This road is not just a road- it's a tangible expression of the state's care for border communities and border development."

Tsering Chodron's story of prosperity unfolded right along with the road. In 2018, she opened a family guesthouse in the village with five rooms. At first, because the road was poor, she earned only 10,000 to 20,000 yuan(RMB) a year despite working hard all year round. Now, with the smooth asphalt road leading right to her doorstep, self-driving tourists pour in. In 2025 alone, her guesthouse brought in over 70,000 yuan(RMB) in additional income.

As she tidied the beds, she said cheerfully, "Bbefore, I had to wait for guests to come. Now they come on their own. Wherever the road reaches, our good days follow."

Roads open, hearts lighten; buses arrive, lives brighten. As the highways stretch ever onward, hope takes root and grows, and happiness reaches one home after another. These asphalt roads have changed not just distance, but also the very way people live - and their confidence in the future.

Reporter: Geng Ruixian, Hu Rongguo, Zhou Hui, Zhang Qi, Zhao Wenhui, Ouzhu Ciren, Kang Zhuo

Translator: Yixi Cuomo, Zheng Yujie

First Review: Zhi Xinghua

Second Review: Li Chengye

Third Review: Hu Rongguo