Blogs from Xiahe, Gansu, China, Asia

An excellent breakfast and then collected some washing; a cultural difficulty became clear, as to why laundries will not handle “smalls”. Seemingly Moslems and Buddhists both have specific rules as to how such garments must be segregated and handled, so it is simplest to leave it to the individual in question. Leaving town, Kevin calculated that at least 3,000 mature trees have been recently transplanted to decorate the street, each one at 20ft high and 6 inches diameter, all hand-planted and supported individually by four spread-eagled stakes and a collar; even at (say) £250 a tree to cover propogation, growing on, uplifting, transport, planting, staking and irrigation, this is a huge investment in a remote and quite small population centre. The weather was magnificent, and we drove on whilst contemplating the truly gigantic scale of investment ... read more

Xiahe is just under 3000m above sea level and even in the middle of July it's cold at night or when the sun isn't shining. It was quite a shock getting off the bus from Lanzhou where it had been 30c when we left a bit over 3 hours earlier. Apart from the cold and wind the first thing that struck us was the similarity in looks and dress between the Tibetans living up here and the Andean peoples we'd come across in South America - it's startling to see how alike two groups of people separated by half a world can be. The Labrang Monastery is the must see place. It's one of the six major Tibetan monasteries of the Yellow Hat Sect. It has 1800 monks and nuns and spreads over quite a big ... read more

Day three in Xiahe journey saw us venture up to the Gangjiang grasslands - a spectacular area of fertile lands and pasture where the nomadic farmers bring their sheep And yaks down from the hills to graze. They erect their yurts and establish themselves in an area for a time to graze and them move on. We had to cross a high mountain range to get yo the grasslands and that was exciting - had a horrendously muddy track most of the way, heavy mist and "Stirling Moss" as our driver ! Must have been over 4000m as we realised that even Xiahe is at 3000m altitude. We both got a slight headache so maybe first sign of altitude sickness ? Visited Bajio village - the remains of a prehistoric 'city' 2000 yrs old - had ... read more

I enjoyed the atmosphere around the Labrang Monastery so much that I ended up spending 6 days in Xiahe. I stayed in a fun guest house held by Tibetan monks where I met some young Chinese tourists, a few foreigners (in China to teach or study), a Chinese teacher who works with orphans, Tibetan men who openly talked to me about the difficulties of being a Tibetan in 2013, and many monks who enjoyed talking about the Dalai Lama but also football and Tony Parker... It was nice to park my bike for a couple of days and go off for long walks in the mountains and through the narrow alleys of the monastery. But I also enjoyed getting back on it and riding to the grasslands of Sangke and Gangia. I think I did about ... read more

26 March 2012 Tuesday. As breakfast wasn’t served until 7 am we decided to take the 8:30 bus to Xiahe (the other departure times are 7:30 am, 2 and 3 pm; cost: 76.5 RMB). Even then due to the time it took to check out and deposit some bags with the hotel for our return, and then the taxi ride to the South Bus Station, we didn't get there until 8:30. We easily found the place that sold tickets and upon loading our luggage and climbing aboard they immediately departed…another close call as the next direct bus wasn’t until 2 pm. The bus was very nice, and for entertainment we were treated to the Chinese version of “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles;” but in this case there were a few additional forms of transportation…hay wagons, boats, etc. ... read more