Tibetan monks in Tongren

This afternoon we boarded a train to Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province, which is on the border with Tibet. Outside of Tibet itself, Qinhai has the greatest density of Tibetan people in the world, and since Witt and I couldn't go to the real thing, we wanted to be able to experience a taste of tibetan culture in Qinhai. The train ride was uncomfortable, but uneventful, with some pretty scenery (but not really that much to be honest). Arriving in Xining, I was a little nervous. I had been planning on taking us to Xiahe, another city near Lanzhou, which is famous for it's tibetan culture, but since the riots last year in Lhasa, Xiahe has been closed to foreign visitors. I wasn't 100% sure about this until yesterday when I asked at the bus station in Lanzhou, so I had to change our plans fast.

So we traveled to Xining on a whim, not really knowing what we were going to do once we got there. I asked the receptionist in Lanzhou about where I could find good tibetan culture, and she told me to head to Huangnanzhou, a place 30-40km outside of Xining (at least that's what I heard...).

So when we arrived in Xining, we immediately bought our return tickets to Lanzhou for two days from now, and headed to the bus station to enquire about buying tickets to Huangnanzhou. By this time it was about 4:00 in the afternoon, and thankfully there was one more bus leaving at 5:00, so I bought it, and then asked how many kilometers away it was, and she told me 180! Also, when she handed me the ticket, it wasn't to huangnanzhou at all, instead I had just bought two tickets to Tongren.

So by this time, I was quite nervous that I was taking Witt on this crazy trip out to a town in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do... However I asked the bus driver when we got on the bus, and he assured me that they were actually the same place, or at least close (again, this is where it would be nice to understand everything perfectly in Chinese). So I decided to not worry and just go for the flow.

As we left the city, the scenery quicky became more rugged, more sparce, and very beautiful! It was three hours of jagged mountains, a beautiful lake, and bumpy roads through small villages. One of the most interesting things was that as we got closer and closer to our destination, you could see the architecture, and mostly the people change from the Hui muslim minority to the Tibetan monks (the homes, and the clothes of the people changed).

We arrived in Tongren right as the sun was setting at around 8:00pm. We didn't have much time to explore, as most of the shops had already closed, and we just wanted to find a hotel. But I can confidently say, we are in the sticks! There are very few people here. The city is basically made up of two roads, and it is on a river bank between two mountains. I'll be able to talk about it more tomorrow after I've spent the day there. There are two supposedly well-known monastaries that we will visit before heading back to Xining tomorrow night.

This is the part of traveling that I like the most... going to places that are not in any guidebooks, and not knowing where you're actually going until you arrive! They always say it's about the journey, not the destination.

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Part of trip: Trip with Witt to Western China

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