We set out from Lanzhou on 24th August and soon began to notice more Mosques on the horizon:
The first seems to be a uniquely Chinese fusion.
We made an unscheduled stop off at a smallish predominantly Muslim town for lunch:
They were not expecting us.
Here we found an extensive market, carpets, furs and vases, among other things.
I spotted my first monk - I always am gratified to see these guys because of my fondness for the Buddhist religion. I knew that later in the day we would be at the Monastery itself but I was still glad to see this small sign of a shift in cultures with the geography. This town, like Xi'an, has seen influences from Buddhism, Taoism and Islam. We were warned not to ask for pork or alcohol. I guess only the few Taoists and even fewer foreigners go for those.
As we climbed the Tibetan plateau the terrain became more mountainous, yet we were following a new freeway nearly all the way:
The province we were now in borders on Tibet. It was once part of the Tibetan Empire (yes, they had an Empire). As a result the population is primarily ethnically Tibetan, though it is not part of Tibet proper. It was annexed around the beginning of the 20th century. As with all provinces of China we're visiting, it's being opened up with a vast highway building programme. The Party doesn't want any of its provinces to remain isolated and miss out on the nationwide industrialisation.
As we climbed the Tibetan plateau the skies darkened and it began to chuck it down. As we entered Xiahe we put away our cameras and listened to the thunder.
Our spirits weren't dampened, we were just glad to have arrived:
Besides, it didn't take long for us to get our backpacks into the hotel where we discovered that wifi was available. There was soon a line of my truckmates sitting in the corridor where the signalwas strongest checking email, calling, skyping and posting on facebook. I arranged for my phone and hat to be sent to Kashgar and posted a picture of the hotel courtyard on facebook. Seven of nine of my unread emails were junk. Internet connectivity is not so necessary, it just feels like it is because we're used to it.
The skies soon cleared. At 6pm we went for a walk round Labrang monastery. I had heard that pilgrims from all over Tibet came to this monastery to pray and to walk around the site clockwise turning the prayer wheels likewise clockwise. The theory is that the sutra or prayer contained within each wheel is sent to heaven once with each complete turn of the wheel. You do not turn the prayer wheels anticlockwise. That undoes prayers and is frowned upon.
I wanted to turn them because there were many monks, nuns and pilgrims doing the same. It was a welcome opportunity to follow the same practice as them without actually touching my head to the floor in prayer to a God I didn't believe in, namely Lord Buddha. The act of performing this silent, mediative yet active walk was calming and settling.
Halfway through the walk I and the group ascended a very small peak overlooking the monastery to take pictures. It was sunset and it was beautiful. A small dog joined us.
See if you can spot Kelvin photo-bombing my beautiful landscape shot.
We descended the slope. The rest of the group returned to the hotel but I wanted to finish the prescribed prayer wheel circuit of the monastery. I had friendly non-verbal chats with pilgrims and monks along the way and passed by meditation cells.
I had been wondering where one can find peace and quiet. "In one of those boxes" is a possible reply.
It took me about an hour to complete my circuit. I was ten minutes late for the group dinner at Nomad Restaurant (though I was entirely at my liberty to skip it). It appeared that all the foreigners in town had gathered there that evening due to its english menu but there were also monks there and they had yak everything (tea, yoghurt, dumplings, stew, on stones) so that made it okay.
There's a more and more common type of tourist who attempt to avoid other tourists and even avoid identifying themselves as a tourist. It's the "I'm-not-a-tourist-I'm-a-traveller" crowd. I am one of them. I don't think I've met a traveller.
That night I was sharing a room with Kelvin. We sleep together on rotation, I think so that we can all get to know each other better. Kelvin, as well as others in the group, wanted to get up at 6am to take photos on the monastery at sunrise. We were not successful:
The small dog joined us again.
In the event I took the opportunity to complete another prayer wheel circuit.
After the hotel breakfast (a meagre amount of yak yoghurt, bread, honey, a small omelette and green tea) we joined the other group for the guided tour of Labrang monastery. We were warned not to take pictures of monks without asking permission first and forbidden from taking pictures inside the temples.
Fortunately the early morning mist had cleared and it was another beautiful day.
Our guide, a twenty four year old monk who joined the monastery when he was three, was in good spirits and had a lively sense of humour. The other monks looked at us with great curiosity, even while they were eating their breakfast in the temple or drumming. Some took photos of us. This was good news for me because I think on general principle of fairness it's permitted for me to photograph someone who is photographing me.
I have to admit I didn't request permission from everyone.
We were taken to a temple where all the religious art was made of yak butter. This site was fair game for photos. I figure there's a limit to how sacred a God made out of butter can be.
At 11am, the monks, including our guide, went in for their morning prayer.
Our Chinese trip guide, Myles, suggested that we wait for them to come back out so that we could take pictures of them emerging. Some did; they said it wasn't worth it.
I was keen to explore the town. Most wanted to hike, only myself and Nina wanted to cycle. But first I wanted / needed to shop. I wished to acquire a hat (mine was still in Beijing) and a large scroll of religious art (a tanka). Acquiring a hat was very easy. Unlike other cities, there were plenty of hat shops. On selecting a suitable hat I non-verbally asked the price by pointing to the shopkeeper's calculator. He entered 25 yuan (£2.50), a very reasonable price. I moved to take the calculator to make the traditional counteroffer but he wouldn't let me take it. I paid the 25 yuan. I like Tibetan bartering.
Mike from San Francisco, who has been to Lhasa, had suggested I visit the Tanka painting studios opposite the west bank of prayer wheels. I visited these small shacks. Most of the doors were closed and they were all busy meticulously painting these scrolls. It looked each involved many weeks of work. I entered one or two. Nobody tried to sell me anything, I didn't want to insult anyone by trying to buy art that was perhaps intended exclusively for the monastery and I couldn't speak to them so I left.
I was done shopping (for now - I'm still looking to buy yet another airline headphone adaptor after I yet again forgot to bring one with me) so I went to meet up with Nina to cycle. We then found that there were no rental bicycles left. Nina asked me what I'd like to do instead. I somewhat slyly suggested shopping.
I returned to the studios with Nina. She was incredibly obliging and established the price of each scroll of interest and bartered with them. The initial price was 1300 yuan (£130), and like the hat seller he was not amenable to bartering. We eventually established a price of £120.
Nina suggested I think about it and also think about how I would get it home in my backpack. I relented. I find that in cases like these a second opinion is invaluable, otherwise I can become a little focused on finding and getting what I want (whether it is the desire of the day or the year). Thinking about it, it's ironic that the object of my desire was a piece of Buddhist art.
We returned to the town to find that bicycles had returned to the bike rental shop. We set off for the grasslands.
The only direction we had for the direction of the grasslands was "the road past the monastery". We passed the monastery and continued cycling. At first I was unnerved because the road, though wide, was busy, and there was no obvious destination in sight.
However as we passed out of the town and through a village the traffic quietened until we almost had the road to ourselves. There were mountains towering on either side, a hot blue sky, a wide open road and little else. I had by now forgotten all about thinking about purchasing original art.
I was still uncertain of our location and destination when the mountains began to fall away from both sides and we entered into an expanse of rolling grasslands. We were far, far from any Chinese highway now. The road ahead ran for hundreds of miles and would only wind deeper into the Tibetan plateau.
We eventually reached a Tibetan village whose name I forget. We locked our bikes up and found ourselves the object of much Interest from the local children. They admired my bike and one asked me how much it cost. I didn't know what to say.
We walked up and down the one street of the village and then sat to eat noodles. The noodle maker took us into her kitchen to show us what she had. We had fried noodles with vegetables and Tibetan tea which is black and tastes earthy.
We headed back, aiming to return by sundown. I don't know if we made it because the sun disappeared behind a mountain. It took us fifty minutes without stopping. On the way we stopped to buy some grasslands honey from one of the roadside beekeepers. I was curious about what grasslands honey would taste like and planned to add it to the truck stockpile of communal food. I later found out that Claire bought a big vat of honey for the truck from a roadside honey seller in Kyrgyzstan, so I've kept it for myself and have taken to taking odd sips of it.
On our return Nina and I said goodbye. Our routes would diverge from now on.
Stephen
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