Day Trip To Tibet

Not far from Lanzhou, transport and travel hub of the north, is the small town of Xiahe, dominated by the large and imposing Labrang Monastery. Last time I went there the main drag (the only drag, really) was being dug up and the dust and general inability to get around was unbearable. This year the road, black and shiny, was in place, but so were 53 new building projects (20 floor buildings with ‘Tibetan characteristics’) so it was exactly as dusty as before.

What was not as before was that every single Tibetan of the Tibetan Plateau had congregated in the town – some kind of dance festival in the monastery apparently. The place was absolutely packed with National Geographic-looking people in their finest silks, with braids down to theirs waists and their belongings wrapped in intricately worn blankets.

Throw in hundreds of monks with their deeply tanned skin, black hair and maroon robes and the place was a beauty fest the likes of which has seldom been seen. Then it started raining torrentially.

Tibetan Buddhism – the least horrible of all religions! And the guys look so incredibly cool and beautiful.

But it all came apart. We sat down in a place full of Germans writing anxiously on their laptops, and naturally chose the first thing on the menu, yak meat, or yake, as they called it. Two other dishes came and were sharked down, but the yak meat never came. Never. Combined with getting soaked, with spending eight hours to get there instead of the promised four and having to get a taxi back to Lanzhou, only the fact that we still had our health could save us. I want yak meat!!! It’s excellent, and not at all like chicken. Not at all. Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about how you must never, ever think of going to Xiahe, if you’re ever around those parts. But the town is beautiful, oh yeah.