Shannan Hotel Tsetang

We
woke up early this morning at 5:45am. The moon was so bright – it
felt like we were on another planet. It was a bitterly cold night
last night, but sharing the smallest twin bed I've ever seen – and
wearing our hats and gloves to bed we were able to stay warm until it
was time to get up. Breakfast was by candlelight – .perhaps the
battery wasn't charged up? But the coffee and momos – (small
dumplings filled with meat and veggies ...

We travelled back from Xiahe in the morning to catch an overnight train from Lanzhou to Dunhuang. We had a long afternoon to explore before our train so we had time to check out the White Cloud Temple and some water wheels across from the temple. White Cloud Temple is a Taoist Temple and meant to have some serious fortune tellers.

We traveled to Huining county, in Gansu province and continued our interviews with local villagers. It was a great location to collect data, as it was highly arid, as compared to the villages we'd been in the previous weeks. There are numerous farmers who rely solely on rainwater collection for their water (for both domestic and agricultural uses!).

... with a local girl who had been studying English for six years. With the number of years that Chinese students study English and the level of their conversations, I interpret that it must be very difficult to learn such a fundamentally different language. At any rate, it far exceeds my skill, so I have no cause to complain- I should be the one learning Mandarin. Perhaps I will know a bit before I leave. I like it here, it is a surprisingly ...

Hey Hey and a Big G'Day to you all Huang Chwun or The Yellow River, the life line of southern Gansu Province. Takes many hours to get there but once you reach it it's a beautiful place to be. My Teacher Friends and I spent the afternoon on the banks of the Yellow River a few weeks after my arrival at the 'Green and Leafy' town of Si Long. Well ...

... s hard to comprehend. I know how hard it is to put into words. Each morning you rise to an entire day filled with places and things you've never done before. You meet people who are experiencing the same things and feeling the same feelings. You both feel the same excitement sharing conversation over beer and food. You are both full of thousands of questions and so eager to learn ...

... air is so thin that there is hardly any dust. This allows one to see clearly for miles and miles into the distance. Of course, one of the challenges I had to face was the rarified air that does all sorts of things to your body. We drove from the airport to Tsetang, which is the second largest city in Tibet, with Lhasa being the largest. We drove 90 km along the Yarlung river. Tsetang is considered the cradle of Tibetan ...

... actually thought he was terrible! But then again, I couldn't have done a better job, so good on him! Another thing that made me want to laugh and vomit at the same time was: There was this beautiful girl sitting with her man in front of me. When she and her boyfriend finished eating their noodles they stood up. She finished her drink and casually flung it into the garden without a thought. Then after kissing her man ...

... places and events in Tibetan history. It was here where the six ancient clans of Tibet were conceived by a compassionate monkey and a demonic ogress, the geomantic symbol of Tibet. It was here where the first king, the first village, the first fields, and the first palace of Tibet existed, as Tibetans left their caves to live in open ground. It was here where the oldest monastery in Tibet was constructed. Kevin, Nate, and I arrived in Tsetang without concrete ...

... and this was no exception. There were frequent buses to Tsetang, about 3 hours away, but after that, we weren't sure how we would get to our ultimate destination. On our arrival in Tsetang, we asked taxi drivers, truck drivers, and at the bus station. We also asked a very accommodating Tibetan who was guiding three Swiss tourists. The answers were confusing. There were no buses that could take us all the way to our destination. There were drivers who could ...