Soft sleeper - pretty comfortable!
I decided to look out the window to take in the orange-washed, polluted city that we were inevitably passing.
Before I could even open the curtains, I realized that was not the case. I could see a couple of big bright white lights. I wondered if we were passing an oil refinery.
I opened the curtains.
Surely not.
I put on my glasses.
They were stars.
I have never seen so many stars in my life. Big, bright, stretching all the way to the horizon. Thousands of them, just inside that little square of window. I stared for almost half an hour. It was the most amazing way to start the trip.
We arrived in Lanzhou in the morning and ate breakfast at a hotel (I refuse to say "an hotel" because the "h" is voiced) and then took a long but pretty bus ride to Linxia for lunch. It was the first of many Muslim restaurants, and it was delicious.
Linxia is a little town (okay, so it's a big city, but it's not as big as Xi'an or Lanzhou or Urumqi) on the Xia river (the same one that gives Xiahe its name) and it has the highest population of Muslims in China. It's famous for beef noodles, which we had on the way back to the Lanzhou train station a few days later. Pretty good stuff.
Pretty bus ride.
Goats!
Xiahe has a large Tibetan community, and is in fact known as "Little Tibet." It's somewhere around 9,000 feet above sea level, and it's the smallest city we saw. We all loved it and couldn't explain why. It was chilly and sometimes even I spoke better Chinese than the locals. It's also the smallest town I've seen for a long time.
Cows in the road stopped our bus. The first time. Not the last.
Our hotel room! I roomed with Shelby again. Nothing broke this time.
Fabric on the ceiling.
We were on the third floor, and breakfast involved going across that outdoor section of the fourth floor. Both are pictured.
Our room was cold, but there were extra blankets.
That first day, we visited Labran Monastery. It was beautiful.
One of many buildings.
It was beautiful and surrounded by mountains. Even at this elevation.
Yak butter sculptures! It's a tradition in this area.
Our second day - after a satisfying breakfast of yak's milk yogurt, bread, honey, jam, fried eggs, and instant coffee - we visited a temple that belonged to the Bon religion, which is commonly considered to be the indigenous religion of Tibet. It was a long and bumpy bus ride, and the first thing we did once we got there was hike up to the top of the hill behind the temple for a picnic.
These locals were nice enough to let me have a picture. The monastery was behind me when I took this picture.
At the top of the hill overlooking the monastery.
Our guide got us these little slips of paper. You release them and it's good luck.
Our picnic. Look at these wonderful, wonderful people.
After the picnic, we toured the monastery. They let us take pictures, which was an honor.
The goddess (which is used loosely - the gods are gender neutral) of wisdom.
Young monks! (They also gave us permission to take photos.)
In the afternoon, we met a living Buddha. It was a really cool (yeah - that's an understatement) experience. We were allowed to ask him questions, but he only spoke Tibetan, so the language barrier was nearly insurmountable.
Yak's milk tea, which is not to be confused with yak butter tea, is delicious.
A wonderful traditional Tibetan noodle dish.
Xiahe felt simple and old and different from both China and America. It really felt like seeing more of the world. It was chilly in a bright way and the people wore beautiful colors and we saw monks at restaurants and it was the perfect way to start our adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment