3 - Of Monks and Yak-Men (Xining)

Xiahe to Xining, CHINA - 28 may 2002

Xiahe is near Qinghai Province. I decided to go to that province in order to get out of the insurance scam of Gansu Province. So, Jane would be heading to Lanzhou, capital of Gansu and I would go to Xining, capital of Qinghai. But first, I still had to buy a bus ticket out of Xiahe.

Jane went ahead to purchase the ticket. She was given no choice but to pay for the insurance.

I signalled her not to talk to me. I removed my bandanna on my head, ruffled up my hair and hoped I looked like a local Chinese. I brusquely requested for the ticket to a town in Qinghai.

Then, the lady at the window, looked at me suspiciously and asked the dreaded question, “Ni Shi Shen Me Guo Jia Ren? [Which country are you from?]”. I faltered and wavered and went, “Huh?” She repeated herself. I hate to lie. I am terrible at lying. So I replied, “Zhong Guo Ren [China]”, trying on my most Shanghai look.

Lo and behold, she bought it!! No rubbish about bus insurance. Phewww… thank goodness I was not asked to sing the national anthem.

For all my trouble, when I got onto the bus, it was already packed with locals who had clamoured on without tickets. Gosh, I simply never knew when to get on without tickets and buy later or when to waste time buying tickets. That alone should set me apart as a tourist!

I sat on a crate. At least I had a crate to sit on.


Xining, CHINA - 29 may 2002

Xining is a pleasant town set in the valley of ranges of brown mountains. At an altitude of 2200m, the weather was reasonably warm in the day and pleasantly cool in the evening. I liked it very much actually, although there was almost no sights in town.

With very few Tibetan men and monks here, I was left to lust after doe-eyed, teenage Muslim boys.

The town was decidedly more Muslim. There were many kebab stalls all over. A lot of people were wearing skull caps and for the ladies, either white hats and covered with see-through velvety cloth or no hat and covered with regular coloured scarves.

I had seen goat heads floating in pots of stew and had assumed they were placed there for-show so that people would know the stew was mutton stew. But later, I saw a guy gnawing the cheek of a goat's head. Hmmm… I would have to skip this dish, I am afraid.







Xining, CHINA - 30 may 2002

The other important Yellow Hat Sect Tibetan Monastery in China, besides Labrang, is near Xining and I made a trip out there today.

While Ta’ersi Monastery was swarmed with more tourists than monks, I found the temples very well-restored, interesting and special.

One thing that stood out was the yak-butter sculptures in Temple No. 7. The two yak-butter sculptures were huge, spanning the width of the temple and top-heavy. Cooled by Mitsubishi air-con, they were painted with a myraid of colours and had many Buddhism stories, icons carved out of them. The displays were breath-taking. If I heard the tour guide explaining to a nearby group properly, the sculptures were melted down every winter and redone. Who would have the heart to melt them down? But that is the basic teachings of Buddhism, I guess – Nothing is permanent.


Xining to Dunhuang, CHINA - 31 may 2002

I took my first sleeper bus today to Dunhuang. The ride would be 20+ hours long and we left at 10:30am. The sleeper bus had to be experienced to be believed. The bed was tiny, just long enough for me. I wondered how tall Western tourists survived in these sleeper buses.

It was really Close Encounters of the Chinese Kind. A fuddy-duddy middle-aged couple was next to my bed. The wife fumbled around, adjusting and readjusting the placement of their luggage and then, her shoes. She fussed about the ladder on her bed not being as smooth as the ladder on my bed. She complained the shoe-box was crooked, the one at her husband’s bed was better. As she set the pillow and blanket on her bed, her inconsiderate large butt jutted over to my bed and nearly knocked me over.

With shoe-boxes available, the Chinese all removed their shoes. I was glad my nose was stuck (the coming of a cold, I think) so I could not smell the smelly feet around me. Two ladies had the ‘just-out-of-the-hairdresser-look’. Their well-coiffed hair were done up like Ivana Trump. What in the world were they thinking? This was a 20+ hour bus ride on tough road conditions! I shall wait and see.

The bus climbed up mountain roads and my ears popped several times. We were surrounded once again by snowy mountains. Then, the bus headed downhill again and the changes in pressure caused my ears to go hay-wire. Soon, I was nearly deaf.

After dinner, the fuddy-duddy couple set about their after-dinner chores. They slowly and painstakingly removed their suits to reveal long-johns underneath. Then, I nearly choked as they further peeled off their long-johns to reveal pyjamas below. They had been wearing 3 layers all day? I was in 1 layer of clothes and could barely cope with the heat in the bus!

Then, I drifted in and out of coma for the rest of the night.

3 - Of Monks and Yak-Men (Xiahe)

Langmusi to Xiahe, CHINA - 24 may 2002

Moons ago, a Japanese tourist apparently died in a bus accident in the Gansu Province and the bus company was sued. As a result, all foreigners travelling in Gansu Province needed to purchase a travel insurance from bus companies.

Now, this is the part we could not understand. Purchasing this insurance did not mean that the tourist would be compensated in the event of an accident. It just meant that the bus company could NOT be sued in the event of an accident. Go figure… Or maybe I just grossly misunderstood this.

In some towns, if the tourists refused to buy the insurance, they would not be sold the bus-tickets. Sometimes, the insurance-less tourists were just charged a more expensive price for the bus-tickets.

Langmusi is on the border of Sichuan and Gansu Provinces so I had just entered this problematic province. And true enough, our bus-tickets from Langmusi to Xiahe were more than double the true price. What a rip-off!

Xiahe is a more modern town compared to Langmusi. The major claim to fame is Labrang Monastery which is one of the six great monasteries of the Yellow Hat Sect of Tibetan Buddhism and one of the two in China itself.

I noticed a few more differences in the Tibetan people here. They almost always wore only the left sleeve of the yak-coats. I had thought that they left the right sleeve hanging around the waist because they needed to reach for money to pay for bus-fares, were too hot to be wearing the right sleeve, sleeve was too long to carry their bags, etc… but, it seemed, it was the fashion to be wearing just the left sleeve.

The inner coats which used to be mostly sheep fur were now faux leopard, tiger, cheetah and zebra prints. Many shops lining the one road of Xiahe were selling these fanciful fur materials and other religious items for the pilgrims and monks. There were various shades and quality of maroon and fuchsia robes for the monks to choose from.

Many of the ladies were also wearing hats, only a few covered their hair with scarves. So, with the hats, the thick yak-coats around their waists, the small eyes, brown faces and ruddy cheeks, they look very much like their counterparts in Peru and Bolivia, who wear bowler hats and multi-layered skirts. The resemblance was uncanny!










Xiahe, CHINA - 25 may 2002

We found that the 15th of the Fourth Lunar Month would be tomorrow. So, Jane and I decided to visit the Labrang Monastery then when more pilgrims and monks would be there for the special day.

Today, we joined a tour to the grasslands around Xiahe. The surrounding area was rolling hills and green pastures with grazing sheep and yaks. It was very pretty. Walking up the hills at some points, we just wanted to break into our out-of-tune rendition of ‘The Hills are Alive… with the Sound of Music’.

Apparently, yesterday was a special festival for the Tibetans but because it had been snowing, they postponed the celebration to today.

We were lucky to encounter one such event in the grassland. There was a basketball match going on, huge tents were set up with food and drinks flowing. Curious children and friendly Tibetans welcomed us around. Main colour among the hat-wearing Tibetan women was hot pink, how about that?

Later, we went further up in the hills and I was rather mad to for our guide had not informed us that there was no food available anymore. We were starving. Near a village, our taxis were stuck in the wet mud (Zöige flashback). We wandered into the village and came upon another celebration. This time, the villagers actually invited us to partake of the food and drinks. Yes, they FED us tourists! OK, it was yak butter, some oat-stuff and tough buns, but it was food…

Through a young chap who could speak Mandarin, we asked if the villagers wanted some photos and we would send to them once developed. They were delighted and went about gathering their infants and children and placed them before our lenses.


Xiahe, CHINA - 26 may 2002

The Labrang Monastery was busy since early morning with pilgrims and monks streaming clock-wise around the monastery grounds and spinning the prayer-wheels.

Jane was not with me so I tried my best to assimilate myself among the pilgrims without arousing suspicion and made the rounds with them. I was elbowed out and out-paced by wrinkled grannies and skinny novice monks as they pushed and hurried past me along the prayer-wheels.

As I walked around the grounds, I was especially impressed with the devotion and passion of the prostrating pilgrims - they walked three steps, kneeled down and slid forward down to their faces to pray, got up and repeated the process all around the monastery perimeter.

Many had also changed money into one jiao (1/10 of one yuan) and set about giving one jiao each to the beggars lining along the route. Some beggars were indeed old and poor-looking. But others were well-scrubbed and wearing nice sweaters.

With all my planning to coincide my visit of the monastery with the 15th of the month, I still missed the chanting ceremony held there. What a shame. I heard that the monks wore elaborate robes and high yellow punk hats and the chantings were impressive.

That evening, I wandered around the Muslim Quarters of Xiahe which actually consisted of rows of mud-huts, housing families of all origins. I happened upon a few Tibetan boys of age 9 to 13 playing.

One of them quipped, “Wo Jai Xiang Ni. Ni You Xiang Wo Ma? [I have been thinking of you. Have you been thinking of me?]” What a charmer! I replied, “You, Wo Yi Zhi Dou Jai Xiang Ni. [Yes, I have always been thinking of you.]” That broke the ice and soon, they were clamouring around me, examining the lock on my bag, my camera, etc… They requested and got some photos and made me promise to send them the photos when done. They took me to the edge of the mud-huts and a few demonstrated some acrobatics on their bicycles. They requested that I visit them again tomorrow. I just might. It seemed I could only attract guys this age.





Xiahe, CHINA - 27 may 2002

Jane and I had wanted to rent bicycles to cycle out to the grasslands so that we could really sing ‘The Sound of Music’. We scrapped the idea when she woke up with a cold and a headache this morning.

I simply spent the day wandering around town slowly.

I bought some fruits and headed back to the Muslim Quarters by evening to meet my boyfriends. I wondered if I would be able to recognise them again. Well, I did not have to worry about that. One of them came running and smiling when he spotted me. I gave him the fruits and he went around yelling for his friends to come out. They went through more examinations of me and my bag and made more requests for photos. They were really friendly and mischievous children. I had a wonderful time with them.

3 - Of Monks and Yak-Men (Langmusi)

Zöige to Langmusi, CHINA - 21 may 2002

Zöige was so charming we woke up at 4:50am and hastened to the bus station to catch the first bus out. Langmusi was our next destination and when the ticket window opened, I pushed and shoved against unruly Tibetan monks to try and buy bus tickets.

To my surprise, the ticket-seller said that the bus for Langmusi was full. Oh no… I could not imagine spending another day in Zöige! In my desperation, I asked for Hezuo which was a town much further away. Now, this was the start of a series of bus-ticket scams. He claimed that I could purchase the tickets for Hezuo.

Hezuo was about 8 hours away and Langmusi was only 2½ hours away. It was the same route all the way to Langmusi Bridge. If the bus for Langmusi was full, it would also mean the bus for Hezuo was full. Yet, he said I could buy the tickets for Hezuo. He just wanted us to pay for more than where we wanted to travel, I knew it! I did not want to relinquish my place at the window and reluctantly obtained the tickets.

We were directed to yet another muddy, ratty bus. Jane popped her head in and in a shaky voice, pointed out, “Boy, this looks like the medieval times…” I took a peek and was similarly shocked.

The lights were dim. The entire bus was packed. Staring back at us were wild-unkempt-haired, dark-skinned unsmiling men in yak fur coats. In fact, this went beyond medieval times for me… they looked like cave-men!!

We did not know what to do. I was actually a little nervous. Thank goodness, the curly-haired bus conductor assured me he would get seats for us. Firstly, he ordered those cave-men at the back to pass the baggages out through the back window so that he could pack them at the top.

Once done, Curly climbed into the bus and spoke to two guys sitting near the exit. He asked if they could move to the back and let these two ‘Lao Wai’ (their slang for foreigners) sit here. He added, if anything bad happened to us at the back seat, (flash-back: On our way to Zöige, Jane bounced so high she hit the roof and then, slammed her chin on the seat in front of her when she landed! She could have bitten her tongue off!) ‘wo men pei bu qi’. In direct translation, the last line meant: We cannot afford to pay.

OK, taking into consideration readers’ cultural differences, I would spell out what he really meant. He meant that they could not afford to have anything bad happened to us tourists, guests to their country. Hmmm… for example, compare the difference between the below newspaper reports – ‘There was an earthquake last night and 300 people died’ vs ‘There was an earthquake last night and 300 people died, including 1 international tourist.’ People tend to be more ‘horrified’ when international tourists are involved in accidents. Hope you know what I mean.

Anyway, I was really touched he was so concerned for us. I was even more touched the two yak-men moved to the back wordlessly.

At 6am or so, the bus jiggled away. Half an hour later, the bus stopped. Apparently, the rain last night caused the one mud track out of Zöige to be even muddier and a heavy truck up ahead was stuck.

The grounds to the left and right of the mud track were rather flat. But they were of soft peat and those impatient vehicles which went off-road to get around the traffic jam were promptly stuck too.

Many passengers disembarked to check out the road conditions. Others left to pee and poo in the peat. A pair of the most colourful characters on our bus (one with a cow-boy hat and Mod-1970s sun-shades and the other older one, a Golok Tibetan with dread-locks and a mobile prayer-wheel) even took the opportunity to rescue a yak stuck in the mud in the distance. It had looked like a lump of coal to me, how they recognised it as a yak-in-trouble from our bus was beyond me.

Outgoing buses and trucks started to queue all the way back to Zöige.

Slowly, a flurry of activities began. The Zöige police got involved and chains and tractors were delivered for some tricky extraction.

We waited four hours before we sensed some success up ahead. When it was our turn to cross, Curly yelled at us to get off and run. Our bus made the dash across the worst bit and it went successfully! Hooray!! All smiles abound as we boarded the bus and made our second attempt to leave Zöige at 10:30am.

Another 30 minutes passed before we came to another stuck-vehicle situation! Oh no… How is this story going to end? After a long wait, a bus, similar to ours, made the attempt to cross off-road and was stuck after five metres in the peat. Later, another one made the brave attempt. It travelled all the way to beyond the last incoming vehicle but got stuck while trying to get back onto the mud track.

Mod-shades guy smilingly turned to me and muttered that this was good news. If that last bus could make the attempt (well, almost), so could ours.

We were once again asked to get off, walk across the peat and wait. To block ourselves from the biting, chilling wind, we sheltered ourselves next to a truck… for another 2½ hours.

The stuck truck was finally yanked out of the mud. In the distance, we could see our bus make its valiant move steadily. It bypassed the other trucks in front and then, went off-road dangerously. It travelled on the slanted peat and made it to the other side all in one speedy attempt. It did not get stuck like the other two buses before us. We cheered and yelped for joy!! I sprinted down the mud track to rejoin our bus.

The 6½-hour ordeal had secured strong bonds among us passengers and possibly, made firm friends among some of the Tibetan guys. We finally left Zöige at 1:30pm without any more incident.

At Langmusi Bridge, we got off and tried to hitch a ride for the remaining 4km into Langmusi town. A CHINA MOBILE van stopped for us. My charm worked on the guys and we packed our dusty backpacks into the cleanest van we had seen in a while.

Langmusi is a muddy little town on the border of Sichuan and Gansu Provinces. Almost like a one-pig town. There is no paved road at all. The main thoroughfare is this one muddy track. It had been snowing the past few days and now, with the snow melted, the track was wet and slippery. One’s boots could come off while walking through the sucking mud.

We stayed at a new hotel near the Sichuan Monastery (there is another Monastery across the town on the Gansu side). For such a tiny backwards town, we were surprised to find a brand-new TV set and electric blankets in our hotel room.

Finally, we trudged out to Leisha’s Café for our breakfast at 5pm. We had heard something about Leisha. She apparently made heavenly apple pies (which she starts chopping the apples upon your order) and yak burgers. It was really strange to find this sort of food here.

The locals here consisted of more of those Tibetan yak-men wearing huge sun-shades and carrying menacing gold daggers. Some of them, especially those riding motorbikes, looked like mean, mustachioed outlaws. But actually, they were really friendly. We were greeted by the children, women, these men and monks constantly with ‘Hellos’.

Once fortified with food, Jane and I started wandering around town and lusting after the hunky and handsome Tibetan monks.

“Oh look… that one is my height.” Jane pointed out.

“Hey, that cute one just flung his robe and it brushed against my shoulder…” I stared, enamoured. “Ooooo…” Jane teased.

There was a blackout at Langmusi that night. Our hotel owner Adaisya had assured us that he had a generator but that spluttered away and gave up on life too. With no electricity, the TV set and electric blanket were useless. Soon, it started to snow.



















Langmusi, CHINA - 22 may 2002

It had snowed throughout the night and continued to snow this morning. It was freezing cold in the room. I had never seen falling snow before. But now with inadequate clothes, it was probably not the best time.

We lingered in bed as long as possible, but finally, hunger compelled us to get dressed and head out to town. I had to do some shopping if I wanted to survive the cold here. Shopping in Langmusi? Hmmm… not quite Paris and Milan which I was used to but I guess it would do for now.

After food, we attempted to walk around but were simply too cold to head off anywhere seriously.

A very special moment for me was to actually and clearly see the six-sides of a snow flake that landed on the sleeve of my jacket.

We returned back to the hotel to defrost. Out of pity for us, Adaisya relocated us to another room that had a hot pipe (which carried the hot water to our shower) in it. This warmed up the room and cheered us up considerably. We felt human enough to take a nap.

That night, we had a late dinner at a Muslim Restaurant. We noticed here that a few restaurants had TV sets and VCD players. There would be a speaker outside to broadcast the programme being shown out on the streets. As we imagined not many people here to own TV sets or VCD players, this must be a marketing ploy to get people to come into the restaurant to watch the programmes and hence, buy some food or tea. It was warm and cosy in the restaurant and soon, we started lusting after the teenage Muslim boy serving our food too.

As we crawled our way gingerly in the dark across the mud track to our hotel, we passed by the monks selling tickets to the Sichuan Monastery. They had already made several attempts to sell us the tickets yesterday and today. But we were too hungry yesterday and too freezing cold today to entertain any thoughts of sight-seeing. The two monks invited us into their quarters to chat. There was a hot stove in their quarters that warmed us up pleasantly but we only lusted after one of the monks.

The monks launched their promotion campaign, explaining that the Sichuan Monastery is more special than the Gansu Monastery because in one of the funerary stupas, there lies the body of one of the past Buddhas who died in 1800+. After many years, the body had been exhumed by a monk and at that time, it was still undecomposed. The monk hid it in the mountains and it was again exhumed in 1980+ and finally, it was moved to the funerary stupa. It remained undecomposed, of course. The 11th reincarnation of this Buddha, whom they all worship now and who is called ‘Huo Fo’ (Living Buddha) now lives in India. Hmmm… this greatly intrigued me and we promised to visit the Monastery tomorrow.

No hot shower today! And I only discovered this after I was under it! Argh…


Langmusi, CHINA - 23 may 2002

The weather was warm and beautiful today. Incredible!! Jane was now glad she stayed another day in Langmusi.

We bought the tickets for the Sichuan Monastery and started walking to the caves. Halfway there, it rained tiny hailstones. But the sun remained up, so we were not too perturbed by this strange occurrence.

Jane and I crawled into a cave, hoping to spot the natural shape of an ox, as indicated in the brochure. It was a holy cave and many Tibetans had tied the white or yellow holy scarves around. In the darkness, however, we could not make out the shape of any ox and soon, crawled our way out.

I was wandering around outside when an old monk approached to me. Apparently, he was one of the care-takers around here and he asked me to join him in the cave again. He explained certain things to me but with his thick accent, I did not always understand his Mandarin. I was told to drink from a spring in the cave. It tasted sourish. He showed me formations that resembled a ‘snake’, ‘frog’, ‘elephant’, ‘monkey’, etc… A good thing he was here to point out all these formations which we had missed.

On the outside, he brought us to see more naturally-formed shapes of Buddhas sitting in rings of light. He took us on a circuit route up in the snow round the fenced-up home of the ‘Living Buddha’ (the one living in India, I am sorry but I never got his name) if he ever come to Langmusi. I learnt he came once in 1984 or so.

We reached the funerary stupa which contained the undecomposed body. There were a few locals waiting for the old monk at the gate. As he let them in, I stood at the doorway and to a Tibetan lady, I reached my hand forward. She curiously clasped my hand. I stroked her turqoise rings and smiled, silently admiring them. She returned my smile. It was such a sweet moment and I felt a hint of connection. I observed them perform their prayers and chants. I was very touched by their devotion.

The body was now put into a structure so only the face could be seen and the face had been dusted with gold powder. Still, it was a very humbling sight for me.

As we were leaving, the old monk called after us and beckoned us to return. He had taken out the Tibetan-Chinese Buddhism dictionary and turned to the last page. He told me to copy down a chant in Chinese and to chant it 108 (Tibetan’s magical number) times a day. The benefits are stupendous, he added. He was really quite a kind, sweet man. When we thanked him, he said, fate brought us together… otherwise, we would not have met outside the cave. Oh, it was so great to have met him!

That night, there was no hot shower again. I made a fuss and asked for Adaisya's help. He explained I should let the water run for 5 to 10 minutes and demonstrated for me to see. Later, he knocked on my door and asked me to write for him in English the instruction to get the hot water. Adaisya's hotel is new and his limited English is not too bad but not good enough to form this instruction. So, I wrote: “If the water is cold, let the water run for at least 5 minutes and the water will be hot by then.”

An hour later, as we were leaving for dinner, Adaisya was still trying to memorise this catchy slogan but he got it all mixed up. I gave him a tip: Copy it and stick it outside the bathroom’s door. His eyes lit up and twinkled with wisdom. Hey, always glad to help.