Taste of Tibet

We arrived into Lanzhou with hopes of continuing west along the silk road all the way to Kashgar via Urumuqi. But we were stopped in our tracks when we found out trains heading west were booked solid for the next 8 days, not even hard seat was available. With no other option except to fly (surely if there is a backlog to get there then there is on to get back) we decided to leave the Silk Road for another trip and we headed south down to Xia-He instead.

01 Labrang Monastery

In Xia-He you can't help but notice the monastry that takes up more than two thirds of the town. Labrang Monastry is considered the most important monastry outside of Tibet and belongs to the Yellow Hat Sect. We wondered through the complex without bother until we accidently walked against the flow of the pilgrimage path and were told to turn the other way. So we did and followed the pilgrimage path around the monastry in an anticlockwise manner spinning prayer wheels when we had come across them. It was quite spiritual and we had decided to leave the pilgrimage path for another day as it would have taken over an hour to walk around the whole monastry (the people on pilgrimage have to walk around in sets of 3, so you could do it 3,6,9.... times). Monks roamed the streets(all Tibetans are born monks and they choose when they are 18 if they want to continue) and we woke up early one morning to watch them take out their trash to the garbage truck who was playing the Jingle Bells tune. Later that day we went on the official Labrang Monastry tour which was a tourist trap but however we did see and smell some interesting yak butter sculptures.

02 Walking the pilgrimage path

We decided to visit the Sangke grasslands nearby which have yak grazing meadows with rolling hills in the background and Tibetan yurts (camps/tents) dotted randomnly. It was quite scenic and we almost caught a yak to come back with us on our moto-trailer but Amber was to scared of it to follow through with the plan.

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05 Tibetan prayer wheels on the path

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07 Keeping the path clean for the pilgrims

08 Prayer time

09 Sangke grasslands

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11 I'm not sure who was more scared...

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14 Tibetan prayer flags

15 One of handful of monasteries nearby