Xiahe here we come!

2 May 2014 –

After loading on the bus – and now it's becoming a running joke to make that I'm on the bus as well (sigh…at least it's better than getting left behind!) we wound our way through the fairly large city of Lanzhou and then out to the countryside.  We're making our way to a town called Xiahe and it's about a four hour drive.  

It's interesting to see how the landscape changes.  At first we saw lots of Muslim temples (okay, I know they're not called temples for the life of me I can't remember what they're called!  And it's bleeping frustrating that Google won't work for me when I'm on the VPN.  BLEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!!  There are days when I just HATE Chinese Internet!) dotting the landscape.  MOSQUE!!! Finally!!!!!  That's the word I'm looking for! (sigh….)

Neat rows of newly planted fields lined with row upon row of plastic:

How about a stop at The Coffin Shop????  Or do you need to pick up supplies at the Funeral Shop?  Or eat at the Popular Restaurant.  Goodness me…the names of these shops nearly killed me with laughter!  (passing by a city which supposedly is the half-way marker).  Another two hours until we get to Xiahe!

 

Random photos of the countryside….you can see we're traveling into a hillier place. 

 

 

With some agriculture…it neat rows (some covered with plastic).

That is a LOT of hay for a one-horse cart to pull!!!

Arriving in Xiahe:

That's our hotel! Overseas Tibetan Hotel

Girls, are we excited to finally arrive??? (not sure by the look on their faces!)

Check out the ornately painted reception area inside the hotel.  I just LOVE all the colors!

Beautiful painting of the grasslands in the reception area (just inside the front entry of the hotel):

And our nice, clean room (with two small beds):

Oh my…I do love this narrow table in the hotel lobby:

Lutz talking with LuoSang (the owner? director? manager? of the hotel).  LuoSang was very sweet and very helpful:

We're heading out …in search of LUNCH!  Check out these lovely ladies that crossed our path:

 

And this monk.  In Chinese these monks are called lamas.  (llama, llama…red pajama!  LOL.  Hope I'm not the only one that thinks that when seeing them)

We found a restaurant a few doors down from the hotel.  It's small and quaint.  Really quaint.  Silvia, Lutz and their kids joined us for lunch!

I ordered one cup of local tea and one Muslim tea.  Silvia thought this cup of smokey flavor stick water was the local tea (it tasted like nasty old tobacco; looks like a bunch of twigs in a cup with hot water!):

And this green cup of tea with a HUGE chunk of sugar was the muslim tea:

Can you guess which tea we preferred??? (the Muslim one!)

Here is our lunch!  Noodle-y difficult to eat noodle dishes!

Heading back to the hotel.  We're taking a few minute breather before we meet up and head over to the Labrang Monastery (which, as it happens, is only a few steps away from this hotel!).  Check out this gorgeous bleeding heart plant growing near at the hotel (I haven't seen one of these since the States!):

Losang (the hotel manager) gave us directions on where and when to go visit the Labrang Monastery (and here are more photos of it). Losang told us that the monastery offers tours in English – but only twice per day.  If we hurry we can go on one of those tours.

Oh my…

I've never seen anything like this before:

Where to start?  Colorful prayer wheels (I think that's what they call them) in the background and look at what this person is doing:

He took a few steps and then got down fully faced down on the ground, got back up and repeated the process. That, my friends, is dedication!

I can't get over how different these people look from the Han Chinese I'm so used to seeing in Tianjin.  They're different – and it also seems that they don't like being photographed.  I'm feeling like I'm intruding on their turf, their culture… so I didn't end up getting the photos I really wanted.  (after all I've only got the iPhone to use as a camera).  

Beautiful wooden door along our path:
We've just bought tickets for the tour.  There are several groups of people here also waiting to to on the tour.

Check out the beautiful wood carvings above the door way:

This monastery seems to comprised of lots of buildings.  We've got one monk giving us the tour and we're following him…I'm not sure where we're heading:

We're about to go through this amazingly colorful door.  The monk said that we aren't allowed to take photos while inside the buildings.  And I was a good girl and didn't (take any photos inside).

What I've learned so far on this tour: there are around 3,000 monks in this monastery.  It's the biggest one outside of Tibet.  This monastery is actually a monastic university. Inside the rooms we see rows and rows of square cushions – I think they're meant for praying.  There are also lots of offerings at what I think might be an altar (?).  The offerings can be money, fruit…or yak butter. Yep. Yak butter!

And here's something else we saw a lot of: people walking clock-wise around certain buildings.  

 Lots of monks….walking around. You know what else?  Lots of these monks have iPhones!!!!  What the heck???????

Aren't monks supposed to live a simple life?  You know…without….things.  iPhones are things.  Hmmm….

We're allowed to take photos inside this one room:

Do you see all those sculptures?  Can you guess what they're made of????

Yak butter!  

No wonder it's super stinky and cool in here…all these flowers, everything, is made of yak butter.

Yeah…Ava thinks it's pretty darn stinky in here:

Come on kids!  One more photo!  Come on, please?????

"No Spittle" ???????  Whaaaat?????

Gorgeous colors EVERYWHERE!

And that was the tour!  A big group photo with the monk that showed us around (and spoke English):

LOL!  I think the girls are finished with the photo taking for today:

 

Ava found this heart-shaped rock at the monastery.  Do you think it means something?

More colors:

A group of monks walking around in front of one of the buildings:

Check out the very ROUND glasses this man is wearing:

A cart selling cedar branches (apparently for burning but we never saw anyone light them) and plastic bags of dried…corn?  Honestly, couldn't tell.  I think someone said it was for food but it doesn't look very edible:

Check out this lady's braids (they're tied together at the bottom of the braid). We saw many women wearing their hair like this:

This sweet woman was adorable!  Her smile was beautiful!

A better view of the prayer wheels- you walk by and turn each one.  I didn't try turning them as I was afraid that would be considered rude although I don't think anyone would have been offended if I had.  Maybe next time?

Check out this room-size prayer wheel:

Interesting goat…its horns have grown together at the top:

Losang told us that around 4pm the locals would walk around the entire monastery in a clock-wise fashion.  We'd like to join this walk …but at the moment we're having trouble figuring out where to go.  It doesn't seem obvious.  Hmm…we (Lutz and Silvia, the kids and me) have asked a police officer for help …but it doesn't appear he knows where to go either.  So…instead of going on the hour-long walk we're just going to sit by the road and do some people-watching.  This is more interesting!  We've seen lots of monks driving around in expensive looking cars and monks carrying iPhones.  

These are women monks (difficult to tell as they virtually look identical to their male counterparts…their higher pitched voices give them away) and they're praying (lying down flat on the boards and getting up again…repeat…repeat…many, many times):

Outside the monastery the streets were lined with sellers …selling nearly seemingly random items….like this rope:

Our hotel is on the street corner – very close to the monastery.  Do you see the row of men just sitting there?

Check out these bright colored things.  I tried asking what they were but I got no response.  When I tried to buy one…I was refused.  Darn it!:

We're ready for dinner….and we REALLY want to try Tibetan food.  We saw a HUGE SIGN on the second story of a building that says "Tibetan Food".  Let's try going there:

Apparently, we're a big enough group that we get our room in the restaurant!  Silvia and I ordered LOTS of dishes.  Surprisingly, there weren't that many things listed as strictly Tibetan.  Lutz tried pointing to the giant sign on the windows of the restaurant trying to show them that's what we wanted.  LOL!  Not sure if that really worked.  We did end up ordering a few things that we think are Tibetan …yak yogurt with sugar, samba (sp? an interesting bread???) and dumplings with yak meat.

Here's the yak yogurt with sugar.  Yummy!!!!  I could eat only this for dinner!

Samba (szamba??? sp???) ….kind of tastes like unbaked Christmas cookie dough (not bad…kind of amusing) with a mug of hot milk tea:

I think Silvia and I might have ordered too much food (what do you think?):

It has been a VERY full day!  The girls crashed out in one of the twin beds in the room.  It's a little cool in here and we are huddled up in our blankets to try and warm up:

Good Night!!!  Tomorrow we're heading to someplace called Black Hat Monastery….now doesn't that conjure up interesting images?????