Tibet Yulong Holiday Hotel Tsetang

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!).

first night on the trip to nepal.. samya monastery, yumbulagang monastery.. until i can be ****'d to type this section up (which maybe never - was total information overload) you can check out ayse & pet's blog / photos..

All roads lead back to Lanzhou. We stayed in the university guesthouse, which was pretty cool, as I finally got some semblance of internet access, and talked to some students. Student one was an American studying economic development north of Gansu, one, a Canadian interested in teaching English, and a Kazakhstani girl who despises Chinese, but is learning it to appease her father. An interesting mix. Then, for an hour or so I had a great Pidgin English ...

... not my type of green and leafy and not my type of town I guess. Today I decided on heading further south along what I've named 'The Great Southern Corn Ride'. For me it's a real treat and as beautiful a ride as it gets up here in southern Gansu. I get to follow a green artery for as far as I wish. As already stated in my last Corn Ride entry ...

... pass on experience. When you return home you get a small list of questions. How was your trip? Where did you go? Probably about five questions all up. This lasts for a week or two and then you are left to quickly re-adjust back into normality. While re-adjusting many hours are spent remembering your time away. Probably more hours are spent remembering than future planning. You see ...

... Tsetang" in Tibetan means "playground of the monkies", and legend has it that a female demon coerced a monkey (who was a monk) into marriage and they had offspring whose generations eventually turned into humans. 30 minutes into the trip I started feeling some of the obvious effects of oxygen-depleted air: lightheadedness, sluggishness and an elevated resting heart rate. Another 30 minutes later, we stopped roadside for a few ...

... will always be a part of the society I now live in that I will never be able to comprehend. There are many other strange acts that I will never comprehend, some I really don't want to write about but in brief, one of the worst: one guy squatting doing his business and his best mate leaning against the wall beside him. Both casually smoking, talking and making eye contact. How do you do that? Really, how do you do that?

... After eating at Tashi's and consulting with taxi drivers, van drivers, and restaurant owners, we decided to tour the Tsetang surroundings, with its rich history and surrounded by mountains taller than any found in the continental United States. Our first stop was the Yumbu Lagang, the oldest castle in Tibet, perched high on a cliff. Once it was the palace of the first king Nyatri Tsanpo. Now it serves as a small temple, rebuilt following the Cultural Revolution ...

... us, but it was unclear if they understood where we actually needed to go. The guide informed us that there was a newly constructed paved road that took you all the way to Lhamo La (the pass), which I must admit, took a little away from the allure of the trek. In the end, we decided that it was too risky for Nate and I, with the four days we had remaining in Tibet. We could probably get to the lake without incident, but returning to Lhasa was a complete ...