In the last 10 days we have been travelling with a great-great travelmate. This Australian guy, Alex, accompanied us on our way to another Tibetan adventure from Songpan, where we met on the horse trek, to Yushu, approaching the Tibetan (TAR) border from the north this time.
Well, not only the travel mate was great, we had a great time in a Tibetan region without regretting the hardships that came with our trip to Yushu.
From Chengdu, we went by train, our first hard-sleeper train, to Xining to take a sleeper-bus to Yushu from there. Instead of taking the most obvious route through the western Sichuan province to the southern Qinghai province, we had to take a train going almost to Xian in Gansu province before reaching the capital of Qinghai, Xining. 22 hours on the train in China! Well it was far better than we expected and not very different from a "DB Nachtzug" in Germany. A compartment had 6 bunks, 3 on each side, a table between and hot water from thermos. We were prepare with heaps of food (especially cup-noodles and some beer) and killed the time by playing cards, chatting or reading. Remarkable was once again the change in culture when you come from a Chinese city and ride the rails through the countryside. People were crossing the river (a big river) with heavy loads on footstep-stones or since it was harvest time they cut the wheat by hand and threshed the corn. Again, a few kms from a city you feel hundreds of years away.
Xining was only meant to be a stopover to Yushu, but we enjoyed the food and the atmosphere of the nightmarket so much that we wished we could have stayed longer. Just for more tasty kebaps, pilaw rice, fried potato slices or candied fruits. Hmm, and the muslim bakeries had such great cookies and cakes. It was the first bigger Chinese town (we had avoided them so I do not know many) I like somehow. The mix of Han Chinese, Hui (Muslim Han) Chinese and some Tibetan people together with the good food compensated for the architectural crimes committed in all the sprawling Chinese cities.
Our sleeper-bus to Yushu was almost as adventurous as our time in Yushu. For the frequent reader, you know the story about smells of middle-aged Chinese and smoking in sleeper buses. Tibetans are not better and as a matter of a fact they are famous for not washing frequently. Rebecca got a berth at a window to get some fresh air as a relief from the encircling smokers. During the night, when we crossed some 4500+m passes on, the advantage of having a window turned into big disadvantage: In the morning, a thick cover of ice nearly glued Rebecca to the window. What Alex discovered was even worse. He woke up from cold air coming through the window of a Tibetan left to him. He could'nt figure out what he was doing under his blanket in a strange and uncomfortable position but it dawned him after he heard the rustle of a plastic bag underneath the blanket and saw it flying through the window shortly afterwards. He was still not sure if it was true what he just had seen but he really had seen a guy shitting into a plastic bag right next to him.
Telling toilet stories, the hotel we found in Yushu, called Monastery hotel, was a mess. The monks seemed to be very religious and spent their time rather with praying and meditating than cleaning rooms or sanitary facilities. The room was still bearable if you don't mind dirty floor, fresh blankets that still have greasy spots and flies. But the toilets had not seen cleaning since the Tang dynasty. Additionally, the toilets were not far from our room so we still had the smell in our room. There are better mornings than taking a deep breath after waking up and quickly forget about breathing deeply due to the bad smell. So we changed hotels and from now on, we loved Yushu.
We made our way up to the hill where the monastery of Yushu looked over the city. After getting a pretaste by grasing yaks and white stupas leading the way to the main square of the monastery complex, we had the great luck to meet an English speaking Tibetan who wanted to train his English on us and took us for a tour through the monastery. So we got the full taste of this 500 monks monastery, taking a glimpse into the full main
temple where the Lama resided over his "Om mane padme om" praying monks. We would not have dared to come near to the praying monks without the encouraging words of our nice guide. After a visit to the (warm) kitchen with massive pots of rice and vegetables and donating a little money for good luck, our guide led us to the novice school of the monastery. Fantastic! The two teachers let us take group pictures with the little monks, the youngest counting 10years, and spend nearly an hour with us talking about our countries and their policies but especially about philosophy and religion.
Here in the monastery, we were asked the most curious and - for us - weird questions. Even before visiting the novice school, Alex was asked if it is right that Australia is a nomad's country and how many yaks they have there?!!! Everybody seemed to be very interested how many buddhists are in our countries and when people start to learn about buddhism. We learned also, that the number of monks is limited in the monastery by the Chinese and the reason we could visit Yushu at all in these times, that it was always well-controlled by the Chinese army. In fact, monastery and army barracks were not far from each other and every day you could see soldiers parading the streets of Yushu. After this fantastic experience standing in front of a buddhists class next to the blackboard and discussing with the teachers, we climbed further up the hill behind the monastery.
Rebecca, plagued by her cold caused by the frosty bus windows, capitulated after half an hour and walked back to take a nap in the new hostel, while Alex and me climbed the from one hill top to the next always saying: "Er, the next top is right over there, let's go!" So we made it finally to the snow line.
By the way, we were so glad to have a Alex with us for dinner, because he was studying Chinese on the trip and spoke enough to order some food. Still, he had some difficulties understanding the Tibetan-influenced Chinese. It's a pity, that Tibetan is not taught at school and the new generation of Tibetans will only learn their language at monasteries or in extra classes.
The next day, we set off to go to the 20km-away Princess Wencheng Temple by the monastery bus, driven by monks and having a the Dalai Lama picture on the windscreen. The damp, chilly temple had an ancient atmosphere (some of the rock-carved buddhas date back to the 9th century). The road leading to the temple and the surrounding hills and mountains were covered in countless prayer flags. We followed the kora, a way encircling all Tibetan temples or monasteries, and were stunned by the forest of prayer flags. Three giggling Chinese girls crossed our ways and we had to throw prayer papers, take pictures with them and throw prayer papers in the blue sky again. We went by foot to the next Tibetan monastery situated on a cliff. After admiring the huge rockcarved buddha we climbed the kora again and continued to a nearby sky burial site.
Some Tibetans still practice the sky burial, where the corpse is cut into pieces and even the brain is extracted and presented to the vultures. Well, quite pragmatic in a country where most of the year the ground is frozen and vultures circle for food.
As it was late afternoon we set off to the main street in the valley to catch a ride back to Yushu. We hoped to hitch one of the cars and right the first 4WD we tried stopped. To get to the streets we had to cross a long plain before where we felt so small.
Next day, we said for another adventure in the Tibetan landscape and culture, this time exploring the East of Yushu. After trying to walk along the main road we gave up and flagged a bus down and arrived at a mani, a Tibetan prayer wall. A mani is a big pile of stones, usually with prayers written onto the stones, but this one is the biggest in Tibet and has some of the oldest prayer stones in it. The whole prayer whole measured approx. 100m times 50m so we didn't find these old ones which must have been somewhere in the middle of the piled rocks. It was wonderful to see the old grannies turning their prayer-wheel in one hand and counting the perls on their prayer-necklace in the other hand circling the prayer wall. After Rebecca had enough of the cow that loved to lick her hand we tried to move on the the next monastery.
After long bargaining with a minivan driver we walked on along the main road, leaving the minivan driver with his astronomical prices. Soon, the minivan caught up with us and after a few times of the same procedure we got into the minivan for a sensible price.
The monastery seemed deserted when we walked the dirt road along little white stupas to the main square in front of the main hall. When we heard the "Om mane pad me om" from the inside of the temple we knew why. The ceremony hall was filled with red-robed monks on their benches and Tibetan buddhists sitting along the wall. After a encouraging nod of a monk we joined the ceremony. When the deep singing of the monks stopped the people along the wall started their praying melodies. It seemed that walking so many koras improved our luck that much that we came just right in time for this here. We almost spend an hour in the temple, before we left and walked our way back to the prayer wall. It was 2h walk and we crossed a village where children joined our walk with many "Hello" and "Tashi delek" and a lot of curiosity about our cameras and the pictures of them.
At the prayer wall we finally got a regular bus back to Yushu and another great day in the Tibetan part of the Qinghai region ended for us. This place was so much Tibet as we could have imagined if we had gone through the Tibetan Autonomous Region.
Though the place had his natural beauty and the Tibetans are so welcoming people, we could discover the oppression by the Chinese and the hardships they have to endure. Before I start to write more about this, I think this entry has to come to an end but I am sure we all share the same symphaty for Tibet.
Tashi delek
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