4 May 2014 –
After breakfast and a little bit of souvenir shopping and one last look at the beautiful prayer wheels it's time to head back to the Lanzhou airport and fly back home!
Okay..in regards to souvenirs – we have to remember we've got space constraints! We're only doing carry-on (no checked luggage). Honestly, that's not a bad thing!
Observing people with the prayer wheels..
We walked around the area. Sadly, there just wasn't time to walk the full loop around the entire monastery – I would have loved to have done that but we walked a tiny bit while waiting for the souvenir shops to open.
Full body prayer- with special pads on hands and knees.
Watching a couple of young monks walk by. Funny, didn't see many monks kneeling down and praying.
We saw a few trucks filled with cedar branches. Oh boy! Did they smell FANTASTIC…and woody…and like home.
The girls carefully selecting their turquoise pendants (I bought the small round boxes that are covered in what they called red stone and turquoise. I think the red stone is supposed to be coral but I'm not sure).
Here's the souvenir shop we bought our scarves and a couple of purses (which supposedly were made in Nepal):
A momma carrying a baby:
Now we have to do the road trip in reverse….about a four hour drive to the Lanzhou airport. Sadly, one of Julia's sons got very sick on that ride. Poor guy! We had to stop several times to let him empty his stomach. :-( I tried helping him by giving him Pepto Bismal tablets. I'm not sure if it helped but he was able to finally get some rest. Again, it was very interesting see the landscape change from tall mountains to desert-like barren landscapes that were closer to Lanzhou.
Loaded and ready to go! Both girls actually said to me, "thank you for taking us on this trip." How about that? Annika said that while she was very cold for most of the time she really enjoyed this trip and was very thankful and grateful we took this opportunity to explore a part of China.
Thank you to Julia for organizing this most awesome adventure! It was a huge treat to us to have everything arranged for us and we had lots of fun!!!!! Plus, with Mark being gone it helped us pass some of the days going on our own adventure (while he was having his own fun adventures in South America).