These are our choices for the best and worst moments of our 18 days in China. We spent some time in the following provinces: Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Hebei, Fujian, Guizhou, Guangxi, Guangdong, Beijing, Macau and Hong Kong (in China Part I, and in Pakistan and the Karakorum Highway, the follwoing provinces were featured: Shanghai, Zhejiang, Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan and Xinjiang). We've also put together a gallery of our favourite photos which you can visit here here.
Our FAVOURITE Cities/Villages
According to Yann:
1- Zhaoxing, Guizhou Province
2- Manigango, Sichuan Province
3- Hongkeng, Fujian Province
According to Emilie:
1- Xiahe, Gansu Province
2- Xi'an, Shaanxi Province
3- Zhaoxing, Guizhou Province
4- Beijing
Our FAVOURITE Tourist Attractions
According to Yann:
1- Labrang Monastery, Xiahe, Gansu Province
2- Tang An Village, Guizhou Province
3- Hakka Earth Houses, Fujian Province
According to Emilie:
1- Labrang Monastery, Xiahe, Gansu Province
2- The Printing Monastery, Dege, Sichuan Province
3- Peking Duck Restaurants, Beijing
4- The Outlying Temples, Chengde, Hebei Province
5- Hakka Earth Houses, Fujian Province
Most DISAPPOINTING Tourist Attractions
According to Emilie and Yann:
1- Dunhuang, sand dunes and Mogao Caves, both totally overpriced
1- Yangshuo, over-hyped
2- Night markets of Henan Province (Luoyang closed, Kaifeng not as big as imagined)
3- Hong Kong skyline in the haze
4- Macau old town, surrounded by high end boutiques
The Most IMPRESSIVE Local Architecture
According to Yann and Emilie:
1- Hakka tulous, Yongding County, Fujian Province
2- Tibetan monasteries, Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan Provinces
3- Qiang watchtowers, Danba, Sichuan Province
According to Emilie:
1- Tibetan monasteries, Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan Provinces
2- Qiang watchtowers, Danba, Sichuan Province
3- Hakka tulous, Yongding County, Fujian Province
4- Temple of Heaven, Beijing
Most DELICIOUS Foods
According to Yann:
1- Peking Duck, from Dadong Roast Duck Restaurant, Beijing
2- Chicken dumplings in peanut butter sauce, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province
3- Roasted leg of lamb with cumin, Xi'an Muslim Quarter, Shaanxi Province
4- Indian food, Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong (better than Indian food in India?!?!?)
According to Emilie:
1- Peking Duck, from Dadong Roast Duck Restaurant, Beijing
2- Squid Kebabs and other delicacies at the night market, Xining, Qinghai Province
3- Roasted leg of lamb with cumin, Xi'an Muslim Quarter, Shaanxi Province
4- Chicken dumplings in peanut butter sauce, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province
5- Pork dumplings, Dazhalan Jie Street, Beijing
6- Food from our cooking class, Yangshuo, Guangxi Province
7- Indian food, Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong
WORST Food
According to Yann:
1- Dumplings stuffed with chives and noodles
According to Emilie:
1- Dumplings stuffed with chives and noodles
2- Nescafe instant coffee (I still drank it every day though)
3- "Beijing style" cuisine in Macau
Most SPECTACULAR Scenery
According to Emilie and Yann:
1- Road from Manigango to Dege (over the 5050m Tro La Pass), Sichuan Province
2- Giant sand dunes, Dunhuang, Gansu Province
3- Mountains dotted with Qiang watchtowers, Danba, Sichuan Province
4- Road from Yushu to Manigango (Qinghai to Sichuan Province)
Places we wish we had MORE TIME for
According to Emilie and Yann:
1- Tibetan Monasteries of Northwest Sichuan Province
2- Dong and Miao Villages of Eastern Guizhou Province
3- Kaifeng, Henan Province. Seemed atmospheric and interesting.
4- Xiamen, Fujian Province, (for the amazing seafood restaurants)
5- Changji, Xinjiang Province (to lounge with our friend Jochen)
Best ACCOMODATION
According to Emilie and Yann:
1- Labrang Red Rock Youth Hostel, Xiahe. Run by enthousiastic monks.
2- Kaiyue Youth Hostel, Qingdao. God were we happy to get there.
3- Qianmen Youth Hostel, Beijing. Brand new, cheap(ish), friendly and central.
4- Double Seven Guesthouse, 7th floor, Chunking Mansions, Hong Kong. So damn good.
5- Mountain Villa at off-season prices, Chengde, Hebei Province.
Worst ACCOMODATION
According to Emilie and Yann:
1- Monastery Guesthouse, Yushu, Qinghai. Who new monks could be so grumpy and filthy?
2- San Va Hospedaria, Macau. This one almost made it to the best accomodation list. Atmospheric, clean, cheap, but too full of weirdos.
For those interested in our expenses, we have updated our homepage with our financial information for this phase of China, it is available here
Showing posts with label Tibet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tibet. Show all posts
Over The Tro-La Pass, Twice
We got up before sunrise to find a minibus to our next destination, a monastery town across the provincial border, into Northwestern Sichuan. At some point in the early morning, we realised that we had seriously miscalculated travel times. Most of the towns on our route were linked by at most one public bus a day, some were only linked by private transport (if there were enough customers to make the trip). We made the last minute decision to race to the bus station, where we had inquired about tickets the day before. We knew there was a bus heading to Manigango, a small Tibetan village where we planned to stop for the night. When we arrived at the bus station, we found it completely deserted, the ticket counter closed up and not a single passenger in sight. We were nervous, sitting around on an empty sidewalk, while the other options out of town, the minibuses, were filling up and leaving from the other end of town.
After about 15 minutes a taxi pulled up and we were joined by another passenger. We were able to confirm that there was in fact a bus scheduled for that day. Our delight at seeing another passenger quickly faded as more and more of them started arriving and lining up on the sidewalk alongside us. Eventually the bus and driver pulled up and it became clear that there were far more passengers than seats on the bus. Being the first people to have arrived, we felt that if there were any seats available, they should be ours, but that wasn't going to happen without work. If only we had known how to say "we got here first" in Chinese or Tibetan, instead I roamed around pointing at myself then raising my index finger, as in "I'm number one". My fiercest competition was a gigantic monk who had no problems elbowing me out as we chased the already besieged driver around. I finally got the driver's attention by shoving 200 yuan into his hands, he then pointed at two seats in the very back of the bus and I nodded in agreement.
Ticket purchase madness continued for a while, with about twenty people fighting for the five remaining seats in the bus. To get two of those five seats, I had agreed to paying the fare all the way to the last stop, even though we weren't going there. The bus eventually pulled away, I was squeezed beside the giant monk, who had also managed to secure himself a seat (although he was not one of the first to arrive at the station). We had assumed our 200 yuan was gone, with the extra money in the driver's pocket, but as we pulled off, the attendant delivered our two tickets and our change.
We travelled through barren, high-altitude, seemingly uninhabitable landscape for most of the day. We passed a large colourful monastery in Sershu, where hundreds of nomads and pilgrims had gathered for a festival. Over the course of the day we crossed four mountain passes. Every time we did, the monk next to me would begin to mumble his prayers, most of the Tibetan passengers would belt out "Yeeeeeee (slow, high pitched) so so so so so (fast, low-pitched)" while throwing prayer papers out the bus windows. Yann and I contributed the pack of prayer papers handed to us by the giant monk. Our bus seemed to be a particularly rowdy one, which helped the eight hours in the back of the bus go by.
We arrived in Manigango at dusk, found a room in a small hotel and dinner in the town's largest (if only) restaurant. Like Yushu, Manigango remains almost entirely Tibetan. Dusty and run-down but atmospheric and friendly. We only spent the night there, using it as a transport hub for our trip over the nearby Tro La Mountains. We would be taking one of the less traveled highways into Tibet (but stopping short of it), the Northern Sichuan-Tibet Highway, crossing the mountains at the Tro La Pass, 5050m.
We woke up early to organise transportation, and sat for a long time as the only two passengers in a minivan until Sean and Fanny, a Chinese couple signed on. Sean and Fanny negotiated a discounted price for the extra empty seats, and we left right away. This turned out to be a sound investment, as Sean is a professional photographer, Fanny a keen amateur, and they requested frequent photo stops. Our poor driver ended up with a five our drive instead of the usual three. The scenery was truly spectacular; the snow-capped Tro La Mountains, Yihun Lhatso, a turquoise alpine holy lake, hundreds of yaks dotting the scenery and the occasional small wooden Tibetan home.
The most impressive sight however, had to be the all female group of pilgrims, lugging giant packs, making their way to Lhasa, on foot. We had taken a photo break when they caught up to us on the highway. The old women and the young nuns dropped their packs and rested on the side of the road. Two of the pilgrims made their way to a home, whose owner spotted them and came out to fill their alms bags with rice. The women would be making the journey fueled mostly by rice and bread. Some of them were clearly well over 60 years old, hunched over, under the weight of their supplies. We couldn't help but admire them, especially as we chugged up the multiple switchbacks leading to the Tro La Pass in our hired minivan. 
At the top of the pass we stopped for photos while our driver threw the customary pack of prayer papers into the wind. Descending from the pass, we entered an alpine valley, the road sandwiched between cliff walls and a clear blue river. We saw more trees than we had seen in weeks.
We arrived in Dege in the afternoon, where we checked into a dorm room with Sean and Fanny and were treated to a Sichuan lunch (Fanny is Sichuanese). We had made the trip to Dege, even though it was somewhat of a dead end (as we didn't have permits to enter Tibet) to see what is marketed to tourists as "The Heart of Tibetan Culture", the Bakong Scripture Lamasery. It is a 300 year-old lamasery, responsible for the production of over 2500 prints of Buddhist scripture a day. The three floors of the lamasery are lined with shelved of hand carved wooden printing blocks (there are almost 300,000 of them). Using only natural sunlight (to reduce the risk of fire), dozens of workers bind scriptures, mix glue and paints, hang prints to dry and stack the hundreds of prints for delivery. The printers themselves work in pairs, one using a roller to apply red paint to the printing block the other flattening a blank sheet of paper onto the fresh paint. They work incredibly quickly, hardly taking breaks as they lay the scriptures on their legs so that they can flip them and print the other side. In a small room we found a group of old men looking over the newly printed scriptures, discarding any poorly printed ones. Outside the lamasery, pilgrims circumambulate it for hours on end.
Behind the scripture lamasery, there is an even older monastery. Although slightly less important, it is beautiful and has a large number of resident monks. When we visited, the prayer hall was packed to the brim with monks, in prayer session. We decided to camp out on the balcony overlooking the courtyard (and the only exit from the prayer hall), to get photos of the monks crowding into the courtyard after prayers (we got the idea from the handful of photographers already waiting on the balcony). We gave up waiting fairly early, but returned later only to find the photographers still waiting, and the monks still praying. The stand-off didn't last much longer, with the photographers packing it in first, then Yann and I. When we left, the monks had been praying for over three hours and there was no end in sight. Dege is of understandable interest to tourists, but owing to its isolation, receives less of them than it probably should. When we were there, pilgrims far outnumbered foreign tourists. 
For dinner, we passed on the Tibetan food again, and had Sichuan cuisine with Sean and Fanny as well as a fifth traveller from Beijing. Sean shared photo tips with Yann for most of the evening and promised to take him to a used camera market when we visited them in Guangzhou later on in our trip. The next morning Yann and I were headed back over the mountains to Manigango and further, while Sean and Fanny were continuing into Tibet, unhindered by permit requirements. We bought our pack of Tibetan prayer papers (from the Han Chinese shopkeeper) and were ready for one more trip over the Tro La Pass. 
After about 15 minutes a taxi pulled up and we were joined by another passenger. We were able to confirm that there was in fact a bus scheduled for that day. Our delight at seeing another passenger quickly faded as more and more of them started arriving and lining up on the sidewalk alongside us. Eventually the bus and driver pulled up and it became clear that there were far more passengers than seats on the bus. Being the first people to have arrived, we felt that if there were any seats available, they should be ours, but that wasn't going to happen without work. If only we had known how to say "we got here first" in Chinese or Tibetan, instead I roamed around pointing at myself then raising my index finger, as in "I'm number one". My fiercest competition was a gigantic monk who had no problems elbowing me out as we chased the already besieged driver around. I finally got the driver's attention by shoving 200 yuan into his hands, he then pointed at two seats in the very back of the bus and I nodded in agreement.
Ticket purchase madness continued for a while, with about twenty people fighting for the five remaining seats in the bus. To get two of those five seats, I had agreed to paying the fare all the way to the last stop, even though we weren't going there. The bus eventually pulled away, I was squeezed beside the giant monk, who had also managed to secure himself a seat (although he was not one of the first to arrive at the station). We had assumed our 200 yuan was gone, with the extra money in the driver's pocket, but as we pulled off, the attendant delivered our two tickets and our change.
We travelled through barren, high-altitude, seemingly uninhabitable landscape for most of the day. We passed a large colourful monastery in Sershu, where hundreds of nomads and pilgrims had gathered for a festival. Over the course of the day we crossed four mountain passes. Every time we did, the monk next to me would begin to mumble his prayers, most of the Tibetan passengers would belt out "Yeeeeeee (slow, high pitched) so so so so so (fast, low-pitched)" while throwing prayer papers out the bus windows. Yann and I contributed the pack of prayer papers handed to us by the giant monk. Our bus seemed to be a particularly rowdy one, which helped the eight hours in the back of the bus go by.
We arrived in Manigango at dusk, found a room in a small hotel and dinner in the town's largest (if only) restaurant. Like Yushu, Manigango remains almost entirely Tibetan. Dusty and run-down but atmospheric and friendly. We only spent the night there, using it as a transport hub for our trip over the nearby Tro La Mountains. We would be taking one of the less traveled highways into Tibet (but stopping short of it), the Northern Sichuan-Tibet Highway, crossing the mountains at the Tro La Pass, 5050m.We woke up early to organise transportation, and sat for a long time as the only two passengers in a minivan until Sean and Fanny, a Chinese couple signed on. Sean and Fanny negotiated a discounted price for the extra empty seats, and we left right away. This turned out to be a sound investment, as Sean is a professional photographer, Fanny a keen amateur, and they requested frequent photo stops. Our poor driver ended up with a five our drive instead of the usual three. The scenery was truly spectacular; the snow-capped Tro La Mountains, Yihun Lhatso, a turquoise alpine holy lake, hundreds of yaks dotting the scenery and the occasional small wooden Tibetan home.
The most impressive sight however, had to be the all female group of pilgrims, lugging giant packs, making their way to Lhasa, on foot. We had taken a photo break when they caught up to us on the highway. The old women and the young nuns dropped their packs and rested on the side of the road. Two of the pilgrims made their way to a home, whose owner spotted them and came out to fill their alms bags with rice. The women would be making the journey fueled mostly by rice and bread. Some of them were clearly well over 60 years old, hunched over, under the weight of their supplies. We couldn't help but admire them, especially as we chugged up the multiple switchbacks leading to the Tro La Pass in our hired minivan. At the top of the pass we stopped for photos while our driver threw the customary pack of prayer papers into the wind. Descending from the pass, we entered an alpine valley, the road sandwiched between cliff walls and a clear blue river. We saw more trees than we had seen in weeks. We arrived in Dege in the afternoon, where we checked into a dorm room with Sean and Fanny and were treated to a Sichuan lunch (Fanny is Sichuanese). We had made the trip to Dege, even though it was somewhat of a dead end (as we didn't have permits to enter Tibet) to see what is marketed to tourists as "The Heart of Tibetan Culture", the Bakong Scripture Lamasery. It is a 300 year-old lamasery, responsible for the production of over 2500 prints of Buddhist scripture a day. The three floors of the lamasery are lined with shelved of hand carved wooden printing blocks (there are almost 300,000 of them). Using only natural sunlight (to reduce the risk of fire), dozens of workers bind scriptures, mix glue and paints, hang prints to dry and stack the hundreds of prints for delivery. The printers themselves work in pairs, one using a roller to apply red paint to the printing block the other flattening a blank sheet of paper onto the fresh paint. They work incredibly quickly, hardly taking breaks as they lay the scriptures on their legs so that they can flip them and print the other side. In a small room we found a group of old men looking over the newly printed scriptures, discarding any poorly printed ones. Outside the lamasery, pilgrims circumambulate it for hours on end. Behind the scripture lamasery, there is an even older monastery. Although slightly less important, it is beautiful and has a large number of resident monks. When we visited, the prayer hall was packed to the brim with monks, in prayer session. We decided to camp out on the balcony overlooking the courtyard (and the only exit from the prayer hall), to get photos of the monks crowding into the courtyard after prayers (we got the idea from the handful of photographers already waiting on the balcony). We gave up waiting fairly early, but returned later only to find the photographers still waiting, and the monks still praying. The stand-off didn't last much longer, with the photographers packing it in first, then Yann and I. When we left, the monks had been praying for over three hours and there was no end in sight. Dege is of understandable interest to tourists, but owing to its isolation, receives less of them than it probably should. When we were there, pilgrims far outnumbered foreign tourists. For dinner, we passed on the Tibetan food again, and had Sichuan cuisine with Sean and Fanny as well as a fifth traveller from Beijing. Sean shared photo tips with Yann for most of the evening and promised to take him to a used camera market when we visited them in Guangzhou later on in our trip. The next morning Yann and I were headed back over the mountains to Manigango and further, while Sean and Fanny were continuing into Tibet, unhindered by permit requirements. We bought our pack of Tibetan prayer papers (from the Han Chinese shopkeeper) and were ready for one more trip over the Tro La Pass.
Squid Kebabs and a Sleeper Bus Across Qinghai
We decided to spend one day in Xining, the capital of Qinghai province. Although one of the main Buddhist Yellow Sect monasteries is nearby, I had an alterior motive for convincing Yann to spend the night in the city: the night market. With a 20 hour sleeper bus ride slated for the next day, we eagerly sought out the market for some fine dining. It took us a while to find it, tucked away along a side street. The street was blocked off, set up with food stalls and dining tables. It was packed with people and most importantly, lots of food. Xining has a large Hui Muslim population, contributing most of the dishes, including mutton, fish, noodles, soups, dumplings, fruit kebabs and the most delicious squid kebabs barbecued and covered in sesame sauce. The night market succeeded in getting Yann to stop insisting that we should have taken the earlier bus. 
The next day, before catching our bus, we decided to visit Ta'er Temple. The temple was built at the birthplace of the founder of the Yellow Hat Sect of Tibetan Buddhism. It has now become no more than a bizarre tourist sight for the Han Chinese being guided around the complex by other Han Chinese dressed up as Tibetans. We even saw a Chinese soldier giving a tour. We visited in the middle of the mid-Autumn holiday week, so the place was completely overrun. Although some of the buildings were attractive, as a whole the place was extremely disappointing (we had been warned by our guidebook). 
We boarded our sleeper bus in the afternoon and were happy to find our two bunks were bottom ones, near the middle of the bus, each with a window (the ticket seller had looked after us). We had become slightly paranoid about being too close to the front of the bus, afraid of flying through the windshield in the case of an accident (stories had been circulating about a traveller who had recently died that way). I made Yann wear his seatbelt for the whole ride, which strapped up near the chest instead of the waist and made it pretty much impossible to get any sleep. Neither of us were entirely convinced that the seatbelts actually increased our safety, but we wore them anyways. Sleeper buses in China are a pretty nice way to travel long distances when trains aren't available. The buses have three rows of bunk beds except the back section where they suspend planks between the bunks so that five people end up side by side in a giant bed (we have thankfully never ended up in the back). There are two narrow alleys separating the rows of bunks. The beds are on the short side, so that you have to sleep in a semi-seated position, but you get blankets and a pillow. 
We arrived in Jyekundo (better known by its Chinese name Yushu) after only 17 hours on the road, three hours earlier than we had thought. We settled in the hotel run by the local monastery. The rooms and bathrooms were absolutely filthy and the monks were grumpy and pretty much incompetent. We paid 3$ each for our beds, but we felt that we were grossly overpaying.
Being fairly isolated, Yushu doesn't get too many tourists, at least that's what we concluded by the stares and attention that attracted (much more than the usual). People were happy, even eager to be photographed. Yushu is almost entirely Tibetan, even the Tibetan souvenir shops seem to be owned by Tibetans. The streets were busy and colourful, filled with villagers and herders, shopping and socialising. Stores were filled with various prayer items and Tibetan clothing and music. The meat market, selling mainly yak meat and other yak parts, lines the banks of the river that runs through town. We watched the butchers, hacking away at the carcasses with huge axes, the smell of dried yak parts filling the air. The Tibetan diet consists mainly of Yak meat and dairy, we ate the usual momos (yak meat dumplings) at a small restaurant by our hotel.
Despite the town's small size, it has three bus stations, and it took us most of the morning to figure out that we couldn't buy a ticket to our next destination. We were however given the street corner where we should stand to grab a seat in a minibus. After we failed to organize onward travel, we visited a small village a few kilometers out of town, home to one of the world's largest mani (prayer stone) wall. A constant stream of pilgrims circles the giant pile of stones over and over. Other pilgrims, and tourists add their own stones to the wall in the most prominent position they can find. Again, our presence attracted attention, but not enough to keep people from their circling and prayer-wheel spinning. 
After lunch we hiked up into the hills surrounding the town and got beautiful views of the Jyekundo Monastery. We spent the afternoon weaving through narrow village lanes and hiking past the prayer flags and white chortens before being greeted by a few novice monks perched in a nearby tree. Even though we only spent a day in the town, there was no question that it had been worth the trouble getting there.
The next day, before catching our bus, we decided to visit Ta'er Temple. The temple was built at the birthplace of the founder of the Yellow Hat Sect of Tibetan Buddhism. It has now become no more than a bizarre tourist sight for the Han Chinese being guided around the complex by other Han Chinese dressed up as Tibetans. We even saw a Chinese soldier giving a tour. We visited in the middle of the mid-Autumn holiday week, so the place was completely overrun. Although some of the buildings were attractive, as a whole the place was extremely disappointing (we had been warned by our guidebook). We boarded our sleeper bus in the afternoon and were happy to find our two bunks were bottom ones, near the middle of the bus, each with a window (the ticket seller had looked after us). We had become slightly paranoid about being too close to the front of the bus, afraid of flying through the windshield in the case of an accident (stories had been circulating about a traveller who had recently died that way). I made Yann wear his seatbelt for the whole ride, which strapped up near the chest instead of the waist and made it pretty much impossible to get any sleep. Neither of us were entirely convinced that the seatbelts actually increased our safety, but we wore them anyways. Sleeper buses in China are a pretty nice way to travel long distances when trains aren't available. The buses have three rows of bunk beds except the back section where they suspend planks between the bunks so that five people end up side by side in a giant bed (we have thankfully never ended up in the back). There are two narrow alleys separating the rows of bunks. The beds are on the short side, so that you have to sleep in a semi-seated position, but you get blankets and a pillow. We arrived in Jyekundo (better known by its Chinese name Yushu) after only 17 hours on the road, three hours earlier than we had thought. We settled in the hotel run by the local monastery. The rooms and bathrooms were absolutely filthy and the monks were grumpy and pretty much incompetent. We paid 3$ each for our beds, but we felt that we were grossly overpaying. Being fairly isolated, Yushu doesn't get too many tourists, at least that's what we concluded by the stares and attention that attracted (much more than the usual). People were happy, even eager to be photographed. Yushu is almost entirely Tibetan, even the Tibetan souvenir shops seem to be owned by Tibetans. The streets were busy and colourful, filled with villagers and herders, shopping and socialising. Stores were filled with various prayer items and Tibetan clothing and music. The meat market, selling mainly yak meat and other yak parts, lines the banks of the river that runs through town. We watched the butchers, hacking away at the carcasses with huge axes, the smell of dried yak parts filling the air. The Tibetan diet consists mainly of Yak meat and dairy, we ate the usual momos (yak meat dumplings) at a small restaurant by our hotel.
Despite the town's small size, it has three bus stations, and it took us most of the morning to figure out that we couldn't buy a ticket to our next destination. We were however given the street corner where we should stand to grab a seat in a minibus. After we failed to organize onward travel, we visited a small village a few kilometers out of town, home to one of the world's largest mani (prayer stone) wall. A constant stream of pilgrims circles the giant pile of stones over and over. Other pilgrims, and tourists add their own stones to the wall in the most prominent position they can find. Again, our presence attracted attention, but not enough to keep people from their circling and prayer-wheel spinning. After lunch we hiked up into the hills surrounding the town and got beautiful views of the Jyekundo Monastery. We spent the afternoon weaving through narrow village lanes and hiking past the prayer flags and white chortens before being greeted by a few novice monks perched in a nearby tree. Even though we only spent a day in the town, there was no question that it had been worth the trouble getting there.
Four Tongren Monasteries
We took a local bus from Labrang to Tongren, another Tibetan monastery town. The bus was packed to the brim with mostly Tibetans, filling the aisles and all possible seats. We have noticed they have a strange habit of boarding the bus, taking up all the best seats, then proceeding to be kicked out by ticket holders. It's somewhat annoying, but we suspect that passengers pay less if they pay the drivers directly, who get to pocket the money themselves (a win-win situation for the mostly poor Tibetans). We didn't mind the crammed bus ride, even the strong smell of yak butter emanating from most passengers. We passed on the fresh yak yogurt at the pit stop and witnessed our first snowfall of the year as we crossed over the mountain pass separating Gansu and Qinghai provinces.
A traveler we had met earlier had warned us that Tongren was an ugly Chinese city, but this didn't dissuade us from visiting. He was right, Tongren is an ugly Chinese city. But with a little searching, we were able to find what people came to the area to visit. Six kilometers from town are the Upper and Lower Wutun Monasteries, famous for their thangka art schools. We have come to the obvious conclusion that the less visitors to a monastery, the warmer the welcome you receive. At the upper monastery, we were greeted by a young painting master. He phoned the various temple caretakers and managed to get us into one of them, he was exceedingly apologetic that he couldn't track down the key to the main temple hall. We then had hot yak's milk, Tibetan flat bread, biscuits and fresh fruits in his monk's quarters. We were surprised by his luxury apartment, complete with television, DVD player and stereo system. He proudly showed us his ticket stubs from various monasteries around China. The upper monastery is famous for its thangka paintings and art is commissioned for monasteries all over China and Tibet, probably creating a more than decent income for the resident monks.
The lower monastery is larger than the upper one, but their painting school is apparently less highly reputed. But the money still seemed to be flowing in, with huge new temple buildings and stupas being constructed when we visited. Both monasteries are painted in bright colours most with yellow and red outer walls (in contrast to the sombre coloured Labrang buildings in Xiahe). 
From the Wutun monasteries, we crossed the river and headed to the third monastery of the day. The small (40 monks) Gomar Gompa is built around what seemed like an abandoned medieval walled village. The only people we stumbled upon were two young girls praying outside a crumbling temple. A monk waved at us from his quarters and we thought we could make out the faint sounds of prayers from one of the temple buildings. 
The next morning, before leaving the city we payed a visit to the main Tongren monastery, the Rongwo Gonchen Gompa. The huge maze of monastery buildings covers a large section of Tongren and we followed the streams of pilgrims and monks doing their morning kora. 
The kora climbs up the side of the mountain, around the monastery, and is more difficult than some that we had seen. That didn't stop the mothers with babies strapped to their backs and the hunchbacked old folks (simultaneously spinning their hand held prayer wheels) from completing their daily spiritual duty. Everyday Tibetan life continues despite the Chinese city encroaching on it. 
A traveler we had met earlier had warned us that Tongren was an ugly Chinese city, but this didn't dissuade us from visiting. He was right, Tongren is an ugly Chinese city. But with a little searching, we were able to find what people came to the area to visit. Six kilometers from town are the Upper and Lower Wutun Monasteries, famous for their thangka art schools. We have come to the obvious conclusion that the less visitors to a monastery, the warmer the welcome you receive. At the upper monastery, we were greeted by a young painting master. He phoned the various temple caretakers and managed to get us into one of them, he was exceedingly apologetic that he couldn't track down the key to the main temple hall. We then had hot yak's milk, Tibetan flat bread, biscuits and fresh fruits in his monk's quarters. We were surprised by his luxury apartment, complete with television, DVD player and stereo system. He proudly showed us his ticket stubs from various monasteries around China. The upper monastery is famous for its thangka paintings and art is commissioned for monasteries all over China and Tibet, probably creating a more than decent income for the resident monks.
The lower monastery is larger than the upper one, but their painting school is apparently less highly reputed. But the money still seemed to be flowing in, with huge new temple buildings and stupas being constructed when we visited. Both monasteries are painted in bright colours most with yellow and red outer walls (in contrast to the sombre coloured Labrang buildings in Xiahe). From the Wutun monasteries, we crossed the river and headed to the third monastery of the day. The small (40 monks) Gomar Gompa is built around what seemed like an abandoned medieval walled village. The only people we stumbled upon were two young girls praying outside a crumbling temple. A monk waved at us from his quarters and we thought we could make out the faint sounds of prayers from one of the temple buildings. The next morning, before leaving the city we payed a visit to the main Tongren monastery, the Rongwo Gonchen Gompa. The huge maze of monastery buildings covers a large section of Tongren and we followed the streams of pilgrims and monks doing their morning kora. The kora climbs up the side of the mountain, around the monastery, and is more difficult than some that we had seen. That didn't stop the mothers with babies strapped to their backs and the hunchbacked old folks (simultaneously spinning their hand held prayer wheels) from completing their daily spiritual duty. Everyday Tibetan life continues despite the Chinese city encroaching on it.
Three Days at the Labrang Monastery
We got off the Dunhuang-Langzhou night train and got on a bus to the town of Xiahe to visit the Labrang Monastery. The monastery is home to almost 1200 monks (the most of any monastery outside Tibet Autonomous Region, but far less than pre-1959). It is a Geluk School (Yellow Hat), Tibetan Buddhist monastery and is the seat of an important line of reincarnated lamas, the Jamyang-zhaypa Rinpoches. According to the resident monk/tourguide he is the third most powerful Geluk lama after the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama and is currently a six year old boy. 
From the bus station in Xiahe, we first walked past the white bathroom-tiled buildings, neon signs, Chinese-owned Tibet souvenir shops, and other Chinese trademarks before meeting the clear demarcation between China and Tibet. Arriving late in the afternoon, we met the crowds of Tibetan pilgrims, nomads and locals doing their evening circuit around the monastery, shuffling clockwise around the stupas, spinning their prayer wheels while arranging their ornate jewelry and extra-long sleeved jackets. For pilgrims, this is the time to bring out their most colourful and precious clothing. The women in particular are covered in heavy-looking turquoise and coral jewelry including huge headpieces. Men are wilder looking, with long scraggily hair, cowboy hats and huge overcoats with sleeves close to dragging on the ground. We haven't figured out exactly why the sleeves are so long, but they are definitely incorporated in Tibetan dance. There are two main styles: one is to tie both sleeves around the waist forming a giant bunch, the other is to keep one arm in a sleeve and one arm out with the empty sleeve hanging loosely at the side. 
We ended up sleeping in a wing of the newly opened Thangka Painting Training and Cultural Centre. A well-known painting master (and local monk) raised money and opened the beautiful Tibetan style centre to train young aspiring Thangka painters. One wing of the centre has been converted into a youth hostel, with monks coming in and out, surfing the internet, watching prayer DVDs and snacking on butter tea and various yak-derived food items. We were the only non-Chinese speaking residents and we quickly made friends with an older monk, trying to perfect his self-taught English. He gave us a tour of the impressive centre (still in construction) and accompanied us into town a few times. 
Even though the town is crawling with tourists, it doesn't alter the atmosphere too much because there are so greatly outnumbered by monks and pilgrims. The only time we felt a little overwhelmed was when we took the guided tour of the monastery along with about 100 other tourists. We didn't quite manage to all fit into the temples, our guide was utterly exasperated as he tried to keep us all together. The Labrang monks can't exactly be qualified as friendly, they can't really be blamed for being tired of tourists shuffling through their prayer sessions and taking excessive amounts of photos (guilty). We were mainly ignored, but were sometimes greeted by eager English speaking monks, one even pointed out his supposed scars at the hands of the local police and mentioned Canada and Germany's meetings with the Dalai Lama.
You couldn't look down an alley of the monastic city without spotting the crimson robes of a Labrang monk. Various daily monk-activities include praying (or course), in two two-hour sessions, Tibetan longhorn practice, cymbal practice, debating circles and Cham dance practice. We witnessed most of the activities at some point during our visit. 
Past the monastery is a Tibetan village which houses a nunnery and a smaller monastery. We visited the nunnery, whose resident nuns, in great contrast to the Labrang monks, were friendly and energetic, laughing and requesting photos (we concluded that they don't get too many visitors). Leaving the nunnery we passed the mysterious Tibetan Red Sect Monastery, which we couldn't figure out how to enter. We did however spot a few of the monks, who, in contrast to the Yellow Sect monks, wear their hair in a long braid wrapped around their head and drape themselves in a red and white flag-like robe. 
Through the hills surrounding the monastery we followed the kora (prayer circuit) and got get great views of the monastery streets and temples. Spiritual beings that we are, we walked the kora two afternoons in a row. Despite a tight schedule, we dragged out our time in Labrang by an extra day. For the first time in a while we weren't eager to get going; great accommodation, a colourful atmosphere and beautiful surrounding scenery kept us from moving on. 
From the bus station in Xiahe, we first walked past the white bathroom-tiled buildings, neon signs, Chinese-owned Tibet souvenir shops, and other Chinese trademarks before meeting the clear demarcation between China and Tibet. Arriving late in the afternoon, we met the crowds of Tibetan pilgrims, nomads and locals doing their evening circuit around the monastery, shuffling clockwise around the stupas, spinning their prayer wheels while arranging their ornate jewelry and extra-long sleeved jackets. For pilgrims, this is the time to bring out their most colourful and precious clothing. The women in particular are covered in heavy-looking turquoise and coral jewelry including huge headpieces. Men are wilder looking, with long scraggily hair, cowboy hats and huge overcoats with sleeves close to dragging on the ground. We haven't figured out exactly why the sleeves are so long, but they are definitely incorporated in Tibetan dance. There are two main styles: one is to tie both sleeves around the waist forming a giant bunch, the other is to keep one arm in a sleeve and one arm out with the empty sleeve hanging loosely at the side. We ended up sleeping in a wing of the newly opened Thangka Painting Training and Cultural Centre. A well-known painting master (and local monk) raised money and opened the beautiful Tibetan style centre to train young aspiring Thangka painters. One wing of the centre has been converted into a youth hostel, with monks coming in and out, surfing the internet, watching prayer DVDs and snacking on butter tea and various yak-derived food items. We were the only non-Chinese speaking residents and we quickly made friends with an older monk, trying to perfect his self-taught English. He gave us a tour of the impressive centre (still in construction) and accompanied us into town a few times. Even though the town is crawling with tourists, it doesn't alter the atmosphere too much because there are so greatly outnumbered by monks and pilgrims. The only time we felt a little overwhelmed was when we took the guided tour of the monastery along with about 100 other tourists. We didn't quite manage to all fit into the temples, our guide was utterly exasperated as he tried to keep us all together. The Labrang monks can't exactly be qualified as friendly, they can't really be blamed for being tired of tourists shuffling through their prayer sessions and taking excessive amounts of photos (guilty). We were mainly ignored, but were sometimes greeted by eager English speaking monks, one even pointed out his supposed scars at the hands of the local police and mentioned Canada and Germany's meetings with the Dalai Lama. You couldn't look down an alley of the monastic city without spotting the crimson robes of a Labrang monk. Various daily monk-activities include praying (or course), in two two-hour sessions, Tibetan longhorn practice, cymbal practice, debating circles and Cham dance practice. We witnessed most of the activities at some point during our visit. Past the monastery is a Tibetan village which houses a nunnery and a smaller monastery. We visited the nunnery, whose resident nuns, in great contrast to the Labrang monks, were friendly and energetic, laughing and requesting photos (we concluded that they don't get too many visitors). Leaving the nunnery we passed the mysterious Tibetan Red Sect Monastery, which we couldn't figure out how to enter. We did however spot a few of the monks, who, in contrast to the Yellow Sect monks, wear their hair in a long braid wrapped around their head and drape themselves in a red and white flag-like robe. Through the hills surrounding the monastery we followed the kora (prayer circuit) and got get great views of the monastery streets and temples. Spiritual beings that we are, we walked the kora two afternoons in a row. Despite a tight schedule, we dragged out our time in Labrang by an extra day. For the first time in a while we weren't eager to get going; great accommodation, a colourful atmosphere and beautiful surrounding scenery kept us from moving on.
Where Have We Been?
We've done alot of bus-hopping lately. After Litang, we left the Sichuan-Tibet highway and headed south to Yunnan province. This province houses most of China's minority groups and shares a border with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. It's a prime tourist destination for backpackers and more and more Chinese. Before we got to Yunnan we had to get over the mountains of Sichuan.
Daocheng :
We decided boldly to leave the "Lonely Planet route" and choose a destination that was not mentioned there. We picked a small city called Daocheng. The empty, dirty streets and the freezing weather made us realise quickly why it wasn't mentioned in the guide. We stayed two nights to take advantage of our private bathroom with hot shower. The town was completely empty, because tourist season is really over due to the cold weather. We roamed the empty streets and spent the day with a local boy in an internet cafe. Oh yeah, the power frequently went off.
Shangri-La:
From Daocheng we caught a 12 hour bus to Shangri-La, we left early in the morning with no trace of sunlight, after, of course, the bus had been jacked with all the passengers aboard so that the brakes could be inspected 3 minutes before departure. The road to Shangri-La was terrible and we narrowly missed speeding oncoming trucks on a few occasions. Our bus driver was the quiet type and didn't honk his horn at a single blind corner, and there were many many blind corners. We arrived safely, and vowed never to take a bus through the mountains again. (Note: The mandatory insurance on this busride was about 10 times more expensive than other ones we'd taken, hahaha, didn't notice that until after arrival)
Shangri-La was not quite as ugly as Daocheng, but a close runner-up. Around a small Tibetan old town, has sprung a neon-lighted, kareoke singing, tacky souvenir selling paradise. The old town still had some life to it, and we saw the most tourists we had seen in weeks. The surrounding scenery definetely didn't live up to our expectations and the town is clearly a marketing ploy that has succeeded surprisingly well.
Tiger Leaping Gorge:
Another trek? Yann convinced me that we had to stop, since it was rated as a top site in Yunnan province. We arrived in the late afternoon and stayed at a guest house at the beginning of the trail through the gorge. The guesthouse came highly recommended, but we recieved a less than warm reception from the owner. When we left the next morning, she wouldn't tell us what time the bus left on our return, so that we would have to stay another night at her guesthouse. The trek was no harder than Emei Shan, our longest day was only 6 hours of hiking. We ate and slept in villages along the way, the food was nice and the beds were cheap. On the second day of trekking Yann started to experience some vertigo and kept calling me crazy if I approached the edge of the path within about 4 feet. He mainly clung to the side of the rocks and told me to "keep my eyes on the path".
On the last night in the gorge, I told Yann I was determined to make it back to the start to catch our bus, so that we didn't have to stay another night at the first guest house. We found out that the last bus left at 11:30 and we had a 25km hike along the highway through the gorge. We got up at 5:00 a.m. and walked the highway in the dark for over 2 hours (it took a long time for the sun to peak over the gorge). We crossed 3 trucks in 3 hours and we still had about 9km of walking left according to our map. We hailed a truck heading towards town and he brought us the rest of the way for 10Y. We made it to the guest house before 9 a.m. hahahahahaha!
Getting to Lijiang:
There is no bus station at Tiger Leaping Gorge, so you have to either wave down a bus that is going through to Lijiang or negotiate with a private mini-van driver. We opted to negotiate for a cheap price with a mini-van and were happy to find someone who would drive us the 3 hours to Lijiang for only 15Y each. We started with 5 people in the 8 person van, people waved us down from the side of the road until there were 9 people in the 8 person van, including one girl sitting on another girl's lap in the passenger's seat. Yann and I also had our back packs piled on top of us. When we finally got to Lijiang, Yann handed the driver's assistant 50Y which she promptly pocketed without giving us any change. Yann held his hand out and she grumbled giving him 10Y back. Of course, we were still missing 10Y from our negotiated price. What ensued was about a 15 minute show-down between me and the driver's assistant (possibly driver's wife) with Yann and the driver looking on. The driver didn't join the melee because he himself had repeated the 30Y price to us and new that we we're being ripped off. I stood with my food in the car using as much Chinese as I could, as well as some English and many hand signals. We ended up taking their license plate down and telling them we would call the police (which of course we wouldn't). If they had originally quoted us 40Y we would have paid, its difficult to accept it after you've negotiated a price and had them repeat it to you multiple times before departure. Next time we will have them write down the price and we will have the correct change, the balance of power lies with the person holding the cash...
Lijiang:
Lijiang has a beautiful old town, that is (was) inhabited by the Naxis, another minority group in China. The town has narrow streets, crisscrossed with canals and bridges. Unfortunately it is absolutely overrun with tourists! Only 3 years ago (when our Lonely Planet was written), it was still described as a quiet refuge with a few Chinese souvenir stalls opening up but mostly Naxi shops lining the streets. The only Naxi salespeople we saw were walking around selling their products from baskets. Every single store front has been bought up and sells everything from Russian dolls to Yak horns.
On the first afternoon we wandered up to an old temple, with a great view of the old town. We were greeted by two friendly Taoist monks who led us into the temple and handed us incense to burn. We turned it down a few times, knowing that we would be charged for it, but they repeated eagerly, "free, free, this temple knows no money!" What a nice change! After our prayer with the incense, the English speaking monk sat us down, asked us our birth years and told me I was a teacher or a doctor, and told Yann he worked with computers. We played along and he continued "oh yes, Master knows, he can see it in your face, yes, yes Master sees". Master gave Yann a yellow prayer cloth and gave me the "hands of God" which "I must never never give to anyone" (a small jade pendant in the shape of hands) repeating; "this temples knows no money, oh yes, no money". He chanted for us a bit, and our families then we got up to leave, so he had us sign the guest book. We wrote our names, our home country and the things we would like him to pray for. The last column was the "donation" column, which curiously had very large sums of money written in. He told us it was "customary" to give 100Y so that our prayers would be answered, but 200Y was better. We told him our donation was between us and God. But he insisted "you must write in book, you must write in book!" By the way, the whole time this argument was going on, Yann, in protest, was adding more and more things to be prayed for. Eventually I took the pen and listed a donation of 5Y each. The priest went on with this act "Oh no no no no , nobody ever gives so little!". So we scratched out the 5Y, I handed him my hands of God, Yann handed him his cloth and we walked away perfectly content to not have spent 10Y.
It was impossible to find a cheap meal within the old city and Yann and I ended up wandering around for hours trying to find a market where we could buy food to make our own sandwiches at the hostel. We bought ourselves a 9Y bottle of wine at the supermarket to go with our sandwiches. The sandwiches were a grand success, the wine.... not so much. Yann is convinced that it was no alcohol in it, and judging by the speed at which we drunk it, I would tend to agree.
We eagerly boarded a bus to the very relaxed Dali, where we are now, along with all the drug-pushing old ladies; "hallo, hallo, you want to smoka the ganga?".
Daocheng :
We decided boldly to leave the "Lonely Planet route" and choose a destination that was not mentioned there. We picked a small city called Daocheng. The empty, dirty streets and the freezing weather made us realise quickly why it wasn't mentioned in the guide. We stayed two nights to take advantage of our private bathroom with hot shower. The town was completely empty, because tourist season is really over due to the cold weather. We roamed the empty streets and spent the day with a local boy in an internet cafe. Oh yeah, the power frequently went off.
Shangri-La:
From Daocheng we caught a 12 hour bus to Shangri-La, we left early in the morning with no trace of sunlight, after, of course, the bus had been jacked with all the passengers aboard so that the brakes could be inspected 3 minutes before departure. The road to Shangri-La was terrible and we narrowly missed speeding oncoming trucks on a few occasions. Our bus driver was the quiet type and didn't honk his horn at a single blind corner, and there were many many blind corners. We arrived safely, and vowed never to take a bus through the mountains again. (Note: The mandatory insurance on this busride was about 10 times more expensive than other ones we'd taken, hahaha, didn't notice that until after arrival)
Shangri-La was not quite as ugly as Daocheng, but a close runner-up. Around a small Tibetan old town, has sprung a neon-lighted, kareoke singing, tacky souvenir selling paradise. The old town still had some life to it, and we saw the most tourists we had seen in weeks. The surrounding scenery definetely didn't live up to our expectations and the town is clearly a marketing ploy that has succeeded surprisingly well.
Tiger Leaping Gorge:
Another trek? Yann convinced me that we had to stop, since it was rated as a top site in Yunnan province. We arrived in the late afternoon and stayed at a guest house at the beginning of the trail through the gorge. The guesthouse came highly recommended, but we recieved a less than warm reception from the owner. When we left the next morning, she wouldn't tell us what time the bus left on our return, so that we would have to stay another night at her guesthouse. The trek was no harder than Emei Shan, our longest day was only 6 hours of hiking. We ate and slept in villages along the way, the food was nice and the beds were cheap. On the second day of trekking Yann started to experience some vertigo and kept calling me crazy if I approached the edge of the path within about 4 feet. He mainly clung to the side of the rocks and told me to "keep my eyes on the path".
On the last night in the gorge, I told Yann I was determined to make it back to the start to catch our bus, so that we didn't have to stay another night at the first guest house. We found out that the last bus left at 11:30 and we had a 25km hike along the highway through the gorge. We got up at 5:00 a.m. and walked the highway in the dark for over 2 hours (it took a long time for the sun to peak over the gorge). We crossed 3 trucks in 3 hours and we still had about 9km of walking left according to our map. We hailed a truck heading towards town and he brought us the rest of the way for 10Y. We made it to the guest house before 9 a.m. hahahahahaha!
Getting to Lijiang:
There is no bus station at Tiger Leaping Gorge, so you have to either wave down a bus that is going through to Lijiang or negotiate with a private mini-van driver. We opted to negotiate for a cheap price with a mini-van and were happy to find someone who would drive us the 3 hours to Lijiang for only 15Y each. We started with 5 people in the 8 person van, people waved us down from the side of the road until there were 9 people in the 8 person van, including one girl sitting on another girl's lap in the passenger's seat. Yann and I also had our back packs piled on top of us. When we finally got to Lijiang, Yann handed the driver's assistant 50Y which she promptly pocketed without giving us any change. Yann held his hand out and she grumbled giving him 10Y back. Of course, we were still missing 10Y from our negotiated price. What ensued was about a 15 minute show-down between me and the driver's assistant (possibly driver's wife) with Yann and the driver looking on. The driver didn't join the melee because he himself had repeated the 30Y price to us and new that we we're being ripped off. I stood with my food in the car using as much Chinese as I could, as well as some English and many hand signals. We ended up taking their license plate down and telling them we would call the police (which of course we wouldn't). If they had originally quoted us 40Y we would have paid, its difficult to accept it after you've negotiated a price and had them repeat it to you multiple times before departure. Next time we will have them write down the price and we will have the correct change, the balance of power lies with the person holding the cash...
Lijiang:
Lijiang has a beautiful old town, that is (was) inhabited by the Naxis, another minority group in China. The town has narrow streets, crisscrossed with canals and bridges. Unfortunately it is absolutely overrun with tourists! Only 3 years ago (when our Lonely Planet was written), it was still described as a quiet refuge with a few Chinese souvenir stalls opening up but mostly Naxi shops lining the streets. The only Naxi salespeople we saw were walking around selling their products from baskets. Every single store front has been bought up and sells everything from Russian dolls to Yak horns.
On the first afternoon we wandered up to an old temple, with a great view of the old town. We were greeted by two friendly Taoist monks who led us into the temple and handed us incense to burn. We turned it down a few times, knowing that we would be charged for it, but they repeated eagerly, "free, free, this temple knows no money!" What a nice change! After our prayer with the incense, the English speaking monk sat us down, asked us our birth years and told me I was a teacher or a doctor, and told Yann he worked with computers. We played along and he continued "oh yes, Master knows, he can see it in your face, yes, yes Master sees". Master gave Yann a yellow prayer cloth and gave me the "hands of God" which "I must never never give to anyone" (a small jade pendant in the shape of hands) repeating; "this temples knows no money, oh yes, no money". He chanted for us a bit, and our families then we got up to leave, so he had us sign the guest book. We wrote our names, our home country and the things we would like him to pray for. The last column was the "donation" column, which curiously had very large sums of money written in. He told us it was "customary" to give 100Y so that our prayers would be answered, but 200Y was better. We told him our donation was between us and God. But he insisted "you must write in book, you must write in book!" By the way, the whole time this argument was going on, Yann, in protest, was adding more and more things to be prayed for. Eventually I took the pen and listed a donation of 5Y each. The priest went on with this act "Oh no no no no , nobody ever gives so little!". So we scratched out the 5Y, I handed him my hands of God, Yann handed him his cloth and we walked away perfectly content to not have spent 10Y.
It was impossible to find a cheap meal within the old city and Yann and I ended up wandering around for hours trying to find a market where we could buy food to make our own sandwiches at the hostel. We bought ourselves a 9Y bottle of wine at the supermarket to go with our sandwiches. The sandwiches were a grand success, the wine.... not so much. Yann is convinced that it was no alcohol in it, and judging by the speed at which we drunk it, I would tend to agree.
We eagerly boarded a bus to the very relaxed Dali, where we are now, along with all the drug-pushing old ladies; "hallo, hallo, you want to smoka the ganga?".
Litang Revisited
Litang was a very interesting town, to give more insight in why it was so interesting, we will give a few observations that we made about Litang and its people. The first, when we talked to a few locals in the conversation seemed to turn to what nations was friendly to them. As opposed to the rest of China (where when they talk about Americans, they hit their fists together), in Litang they say that they are friends with Americans, Nepalis and Indian (noting that about 100 000 tibetans fled to India when China 'liberated' Tibet from feudalism, indeed many locals seem to have been born in India and came back to China). The friendship with the Americans we guess comes from the fact that the CIA supported the Khampa rebellion against the Chinese (for two years). The Khampa rebellion came to an end when the Chinese shelled Litang and killed 200 monks. This might explain why the town seems rebellious against China. We hope this information is accurate since it is difficult to have information about the subject in China on the internet. Therefore if you are interested you can cut and paste information in the comment section of this entry. Also, check out tibet.org, we couldn't access it from here but it
seems to have some insight into Kham province.
And now your questions and our answers (our guesses, not facts) :
How do these people make a living? Nomads and monks?
Nomads heard yaks and probably sell excess furs and meat in local town markets. We definetely saw what we thought were nomads roaming around town, they are definetely distinct from the townies. Monks are not state funded (they are in Thailand), they get money mainly from donations as far as we can tell.
They seem to have no facial hair. What do they think of Yann's beard? The children especially?
Hair = manliness
Is there TV in the tents? What's on? reruns of Baywatch and Dallas?
No TV but one lightbulb and radio powered by small solar panels.
What do the monks think of Baywatch?
No TV for nomads, but TV for monks. We've never seen an American TV show here, I wonder what 400 teenage boys would think about Baywatch? Hmmmmm .....
Or George W. Bush? Do they know he exists?
Haven't heard him mentioned, doubt the nomads know about him, probably don't care either.
Litang: Monks, Cowboys and Yaks
We are now four days away from Litang, a town that sits at 4100m seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The minute the bus pulls in to town you can tell that you are not really in China anymore. We arrived exhausted and were blown away by the yak skin jackets, silver and
turquoise earrings, cowboy hats, sun-tanned skin and the "nihao" replaced by "tashi delek". Khampa Tibetans roam the town, they were a red scarf in their hair with yak bones decorating the scarf. They are known as Tibetan cowboys, and they staged a rebellion in 1959 andconsequently Litang was heavily bombed by the Chinese. Photos of the Dalai Lama are proudly displayed in many homes and buildings, including our hotel.
After having dinner, Yann and I noticed we had an admirer as we walked along the main street. After a few minutes the sixteen year old boy introduced himself as Bryeena (found out later it was Bruno) and told us he would show us to the internet bar. But first, did we want to go visit his school and meet "Teacher" his English teacher? Not having the heart to say no, we walked with him to the edge of town to his school where we were greeted by lots of excited kids, but we couldn't find "teacher". After helping Bruno set up an internet account at the cafe we were invited back to his place where we were greeted warmly by his mother, grandmother and greatgrandmother in their one-room home. We were fed boiled potatoes which we dipped in a bowl of salt, Tibetan flat bread and of course lots of butter tea. We happily excepted the
generous gifts and before we left we parted with our Mandarin-English phrasebook which we left for Bruno to help with his English. We also promised to meet him again at his school the next day to attend his English class. Heading back to the hotel we ran into a local guide and a tourist who told us about a nomad festival that we could visit, we agreed to meet the guide the next morning.
Bright and early the next day, 11 people crammed into a 7-person van and headed to what we were told was a nomad festival. We drove for about an hour down a deserted highway and then appeared hundred of tents camped along the highway. We parked the van and our guide
brought us first to visit the lama so that we could "ask him questions". We all entered the colourful tent and were greeted by a fairly young, fairly fat, monk wearing big sunglasses and a huge smile. We could ask him question through our guide, who didn't speak much English. The lama is the head monk of the Litang Monastery and had moved for 2 weeks, along with his 800 monks to the campsite along the highway, so that nomads can come once a year to pray with them. He asked us where we were from and was particularly interested in a German girl's cold sore. After a few minutes of awkward conversation, including me telling him that I liked beer, it was time for us to leave. The guide had the German girl kneel on the ground and the lama
proceeded to breathe on her face. We all thought he was curing her cold sore, but it turns out we would all recieve he same blessing before leaving the tent and visiting the camp.
The next few hours were a fury of photo taking, with monks and nomads following us everywhere, holding our hands and running away with our cameras to take photos of their friends. Every once in a while the monks would be called to prayer and 800 boys in crimson robes would bolt from every direction to the monastery tent and chant. In the early afternoon, we headed to a big black tent to find crowds of nomads throwing wood frantically onto a huge fire on which sats dozens of pots of melting yak butter. We all smiled eagerly and snapped away
at the men blowing on the fire and chanting, until all of a sudden they came running towards us with the pots of scalding butter in hand. As the crowd shouted for me to get out of the way, I just stood there, until someone from the crowd pulled me out of the line of butter. It turns out, this is a daily butter melting ceremony where they prepare over 1000kg of melted butter which is then drunk by the monks and nomads. As the butter is carried out of the tent, another set of young monks come running and carry smaller containers back to the prayer tent for the elder monks to drink. The back and forth running went on for most of the time we were there.
Yann and I ended the visit at the lama's tent where we offered a donation to the monastery (we had been told to do so), and in exchange were offered hunks of yak butter to eat, or even better a bowl of melted yak butter to drink. We left the campsite in awe of what we had just been through.
The day was not over yet though, we still had a meeting with Bruno at his school. We arrived at the gate, and were greeted by "teacher", a 21 year-old Tibetan with long black hair and Western clothing. He brought us to the small rundown classroom where 20 eager students poured in. The class he teaches is actually an after school class, that he teaches to the poor kids from town, including some nomad children, those who can't afford to pay for an English teacher. The kids are absolutely wonderful, so dedicated, they come to this class at 4:30 after having been at school since 7 a.m. and furiously take notes and shout out English sentences. What we didn't know about our invitation to the class, is that we had actually been enrolled as guest teachers. We nervously gave a lesson, I tought them fruits and Yann taught them sports. Then we taught them the word 'favorite'. At the end of class "teacher" asked each student at a time, what their
favorite fruit, or sport was, Bruno (the oldest boy in the class) would shout out "my favorite sport is basketball", whether or not the question was about fruits or sports, and whether or not he had been addressed. After class, we treated "teacher" to dinner and heard about his dreams to become a movie star so that he could bring the money back to Litang to all the poor students. We promised to send him some English videos, so that his students could watch them. Bruno followed us back to our hotel room where we eventually had to kick him out so
that we could go to bed.
We left Litang reluctantly the next morning, to head south to Shangri-la, although I felt that we were already there.
Sichuan-Tibet Highway
We decided to tackle Sichuan-Tibet highway as a longer route to Yunnan province. We had been warned about potential road closures due to the approaching winter and the altitude reaching 5000m, but we felt that we should be fine in early November, and we didn't mind having to backtrack. The first leg of the journey was an 8 hour bus ride to Kanding, a town with a population of about 80,000 where we spent two days. We started to see the Tibetan influences here, as many people no longer speak Chinese and dress in traditional Tibetan clothing.
We met another British couple on the way here and we are now together in a nice dorm room. Yann and I were keen to try our first cup of butter tea, which you saw me trying in the photo. It is somewhat awful, tastes like a cup of melted butter with about a pinch of tea and a spoonful of sour milk. We invited every foreigner in our hotel to come share our tea with us, but we still didn't manage to empty the pot.
The atmosphere in Kanding was very relaxed so we stayed a couple of days even though there weren't too many sites to visit. Seeing the young monks at the monastery was a nice experience, we saw that most of them are little kids or teenagers that just want to goof-off like the other kids. It seems like a difficult life and most of them are placed there by their parents when they are very young.
The next part of our journey brought us to Litang, an absolutely wonderful place, you will hear more about it once we get a chance to absorb everything that we have experienced in the past three days...
We met another British couple on the way here and we are now together in a nice dorm room. Yann and I were keen to try our first cup of butter tea, which you saw me trying in the photo. It is somewhat awful, tastes like a cup of melted butter with about a pinch of tea and a spoonful of sour milk. We invited every foreigner in our hotel to come share our tea with us, but we still didn't manage to empty the pot.
The atmosphere in Kanding was very relaxed so we stayed a couple of days even though there weren't too many sites to visit. Seeing the young monks at the monastery was a nice experience, we saw that most of them are little kids or teenagers that just want to goof-off like the other kids. It seems like a difficult life and most of them are placed there by their parents when they are very young.
The next part of our journey brought us to Litang, an absolutely wonderful place, you will hear more about it once we get a chance to absorb everything that we have experienced in the past three days...
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