Learning Tibetan

Xiahe...

a long way from Jiayuguan: 10 hours of snoring men and screaming children, some meaty vegetarian dumplings in Lanzhou and a 6 hour busride to 3000m above sea level - the Tibetan Plateau, and we're in Xiahe.

It feels like a different country. The bus station is in the East of the town, and one long road of shops and houses stretches west until it arrives at Labulang Lamasery, the largest Tibetan Monastery outside Lhasa. The streets are even more chaotic than usual, three wheeled bike/trucks that sound more like tractors zoom up and down, the ubiquitous green taxis beep their way through the pedestrians, donkey carts tethered to electricity poles, and people walking everywhere.

We and the two other Australians we met on the bus took a 3-wheeler straight to the hostel recommended by our friend David, the Labrang International Youth Hostel... it was an amazing sight, brand new building painted in the local colours of camel, burgundy, black and white, with new flags fluttering in the cold breeze. Inside smells like fresh pine, a welcoming place...

So we set off straight away to explore the town. Saving the Monastery for the next day, we wandered up the main street to peer at the first souvenirs I've actually felt interested in since coming to China. Beautiful brightly woven fabrics, Pashmina/Silk scarves (such as you see anywhere in China i suspect), prayer beads, turquoise, even coral beads, intricate daggers and sheaths, silver teapots, singing bowls and bells...
Many of the souvenir shops are run by Han Chinese, which was kind of weird since they're selling Tibetan souvenirs but easier for me to communicate with.

In the streets most of the people are Tibetan, the men with long hair, weathered brown faces, and huge fur-lined coats - with one long long arm usually worn off the shoulder and looped around the body. The women with long straight braids often to the waist, bright striped scarves and decorations on their coats, fur-lined skirts and similar long-armed jackets, tied in the same way often with a small child perched in the back. They wear heavy beads and long heavy earrings. The monks and nuns here wear combinations of burgundy, fuschia pink and a golden yellow colour (for tassels and hats of the men).
The monks seem very free, and there is are several monks sitting next to me in this internet cafe playing games and yelling raucously! The young monk-apprentices play marbles and run in the streets, the burgundy and pink are everywhere. There are around 800 "qualified" monks and 200 young novices, and I think a few hundred nuns too. The streets are so colourful!

I am trying all the food. There is salty yak-butter tea (very rich), hot yak milk (mmmmm), yak meat soup (like beef), vegetable momo - like chinese steamed dumplings only more stodgy. THe theory is that you need to eat heaps of stodge here just to stay warm. It's only mid-October and it's freezing! It snowed yesterday, and probably will again today.

The valley which Xiahe is nestled into is surrounded by grassy hillsides, grazing goats, sheep and yaks, fields, pine forest and snow. The old houses in the Tibetan part of town are earthen, with wooden gates and high earthen walls, mud roofs which dogs or small children play on. The streets are narrow and motorbikes splash the mud around as they zoom up and down. People walking everywhere, bent at impossible angles carrying sacks of who-knows-what, and small children with even smaller ones strapped to their backs. Nuns in pink taking their dogs for walks. Old men with walking sticks talking in the sun.

Slept well, in the absence of snoring men or screaming children, with the comfort of an electric blanket to warm up the bed...

Breakfast was hot yak milk and Tibetan bread, mmm. The Tibetan family we sat next to in the cafe first admired tegan's face then got fascinated by my hands - I couldn't work out if it was their length or whiteness that was so interesting, but we measured them over and over again. Tibetan Mama had long silvery black braids and a felt hat, a wrinkly smile with golden teeth... they let me take their photo.

We joined a hoard of Dutch and Australians (2 tour groups) on a visit to the Lamasery. We visited several temples as well as the school of Medicine. The temples are beautiful, full of embroidery and paintings and dimly lit. Yak-butter lamps everywhere, making the rooms smell strongly! Women with teapots of melted butter go from lamp to lamp making offerings and keeping the lamps burning - they cover their mouths to prevent themselves from inhaling the smell of the butter - offerings to the Buddha must be made clearly, and to inhale the smell would detract from the offerings. We also visited one temple full of yak-butter sculptures - fascinatingly intricate Buddhist designs, made every year for the New Year. The old sculptures are eventually melted down and given to villagers as a powerful medicine for healing bad wounds on people or animals.

The Monk that led the tour spoke pretty good English, though with such a big group it was sometimes difficult to hear what was going on. We also visited the prayer room, which had about 100 monks seated praying at the time, the deep throaty sutras resonating through the darkness.

After the tour was over, Gunk and I headed out of town, accompanied by our new French roommate Isobel. We were looking for the Nunnery, located somewhere in the Tibetan end of town. We walked right through the town, and out into the fields, past a gaudy looking hotel with no people around, into the sunshine. The snow is brilliant white on the high peaks, the autumn trees gold against the grassy hillsides - pretty beautiful. Two women laughing and washing clothes in the icy-looking river.

So eventually we headed back into town to practice our Tibetan "Cho day mo" or how are you. We were invited in by one lady as we walked up and down the road looking for the nuns, and met her family, who as usual were fascinated by Gunk's pierced face.

Eventually we found the Nuns and were invited inside to look around the temple, which was just as beautiful as any other we'd seen today. Bright pink fabric on the washing line, and met some extremely cheerful nuns on the way down who all stopped to talk about Tegan's face...

We had a great time in the internet cafe, sharing computers with monks watching cartoons or the soccer or chatting or playing computer games. Strange. Then ran into our shadow traveller Ben From Beijing (professionalmanofleisure.blogspot.com) and had a weird yak burger that was more like a cold beef roll.

Next day we headed out early to do the Pilgrimage around the Monastery. over 1170 prayer wheels line the 3km walls surrounding the monastery. It was amazing. Tiny hunched Tibetan women spin those wheels like they're balloons, while I was feeling it after only about 100.

We also checked out the Thangka workshop conveniently located at our hostel. A warm stuffy narrow room full of monks and novices painting incredibly intricate religious pictures. In the dining room of the hostel a huge Thangka is set up, and we watched as they ground and mixed the paints and started the painstaking process of painting.

After lunch we took a public bus out to try and find Tarzang Lake, a small lake high in the mountains which is sacred to Tibetans. We were stuck in traffic for a while as a bulldozer cleared a fairly large rockfall, and were eventually let out at the side of a steep mountainside, and the bus driver pointed up the hill. Well - climbing mountains is pretty tough work for someone who's spent most of their life pretty much at sea level. We hitched a ride with some obliging Chinese tourists, thank goodness.

At the top there was snow in the shade and an icy wind blowing. It was really beautiful up there. Tangled prayer flags going crazy in the wind, knots of wool tied to the bushes around the lake, green grass pine trees cold clear water. The Chinese tourists weren't going to stick around for long though, so even after we organised a free ride back to Xiahe we decided to walk back down the mountain and enjoy the amazing scenery.

It was a long way down.

On the way we got continuous grand valley views, met some local Tibetan kids who chased after us yelling "hello!" "goodbye!" and laughing hysterically for quite a while. Eventually we reached the bottom, and started waiting for the bus.

One bus went by. And another. After the third full bus drove by we were getting kind of cold, and sunset was only about an hour away, so we decided to start walking. Luckily a taxi with 2 seats pulled up and the three of us squeezed in for a squishy ride back to Xiahe.

---

---