4 - Desperately Seeking Shade (Turpan)

Dunhuang to Turpan, CHINA - 05 june 2002

We decided to return to the scene of our crime and visit the sand dunes again, but now in the morning.

Kathy, a middle-aged American lady who was staying at Jane’s hotel had wanted to join us. We waited 15 minutes for her and she did not show. When Jane went to her room to try and listen at the door, she heard no noise and figured Kathy was still sleeping. So, we decided not to wake her and headed out there ourselves.

We decided to go round the gentler side of the dunes and tried to walk through farms further out and see if we could enter from there. We made terrible mistakes here and there and ended up perched on the mud-banks separating neighbouring crops and with prickly shrubs (obviously to keep neighbouring farmers off) in our faces.

We tried not to step on the farmers’ livelihood as far as possible and kept imagining the farmers setting their barking dogs at us. We finally emerged, dishevelled and very scratched. A grim-faced farmer stopped ploughing and stared at us, unamused. * dee dee doo whistle whistle *

Once again, the sand dune was a fantastic place to laze around for a while until you felt too burning hot to cope. We really loved it here.

We caught the mid-day bus to Liuyuan about 2 hours north of Dunhuang and bought the hard-sleeper tickets for the night train to Turpan.

Just before the train pulled in, a geezer looked at my bag of apricots and disapproved of them. He claimed they were not sweet at all. He then went on to sing praises about the sweet apricots from Xinjiang Province and the wonderful flavours of the grapes in Turpan (if they were in season now) and insisted that the best melons in the world were from Hami (west of Dunhuang). He was quite a character. He simply stood there, splattering his saliva at us and did a soliloquy on the fruits of Xinjiang. We wondered if he was a fruit-basket.

We settled ourselves in the train and Fruity was in the next berth. He fished out two lychees from his wash-bag of toothpaste and toothbrush and offered to us.

A roly-poly guy on the berth below me took an interest in Jane and decided to practise his English on her. He proudly said he learnt his English from the Petroleum University and was now working for PetroChina Company. He proceeded to bore Jane with how petroleum was formed, blah blah blah.

Not to be outdone, Fruity started to fish out all the expensive cups and tea-pots he obtained from his shopping experience in Dunhuang and kept interrupting us to show them off. We were really amused with the two of them, obviously fighting for our attention.



Turpan, CHINA - 06 june 2002

We arrived at Daheyan Train Station, near Turpan and were promptly set upon by Uyghurs tour guys who tricked us into taking their van to Turpan by saying that theirs was the public van.

I only realised it later when they tried to get me to get MORE tourists from a later train (because I could speak both Mandarin and English) onto their van so that we could all form a group and go for a tour around Turpan together tomorrow.

I tried to talk to the tourists but they were not interested and I did not press further. The Uyghur tour-guys were disappointed with me and became quite pushy with those tourists. The tourists left in a taxi, disgusted.

One of the Uyghur tour-guys, Sata, meanwhile, tried to charm his way through by telling us about his past trips with satisfied tourists and his one special ‘girl’ friend from America. He got us settled in Turpan Hotel and encouraged us to go to John’s Café later where they would talk to us.

Turpan Hotel was super-grand, with a chandelier hanging in the extravagant, intricately-decorated main lobby. We were staying in an air-conditioned dormitory. Air-conditioning was essential here in Turpan which, during summer, is the hottest town in China - up to 50°C or so as it is about 80m below sea level.

Turpan had been developed heavily so it is no longer the charming little town we read about in our guide-books anymore. This must be part of China’s ‘Develop the West. Everyone prospers’ enthusiasm. I spotted such propaganda slogans painted on walls from Xining onwards when I started heading west. We were about two to three years too late.

The touristy roads and the main highway are now paved and wide. There are even inexplicable Greek or Roman statues at the end of each vine-trellised avenue.

Jane and I were pounced upon by Sata and his cronies when we emerged from the hotel later. They tried to get us to pay Y100 each for a tour the next day. We had learnt from other travellers it was between Y40 to Y60 and we baulked at their price. It was swiftly reduced to Y50. Sata quickly explained Y100 had been a tour in a car, but Y50 was in a van. Whatever… We told them we were only heading out for a tour the day after tomorrow. We would talk again tomorrow.

We meandered around town and sat in a bazaar to people-watch. The faces we saw here were very varied. Turpan was getting interesting now. The features seemed to be mixtures of Eastern European, Central Asian, Russian and even Middle-Eastern, we thought.

These guys probably had names like Mohammed, Ali, Abdul, etc… but they looked so exotic, we started to classify them ourselves. We spotted many heavy-set stocky guys who looked a little Russian and promptly named them ‘Boris’. There were also some thinner guys with brown hair, huge eyes, round head and pretty fair skin. This kind we named ‘Ivan’. Another group had smallish slit eyes and pinkish skin (like a burnt white European). For no reason except to try and create a name, we called them ‘Sergei’.

We gave up after this. There were just too many varieties and we had not even started on those Arab-looking ones! So, we simply went, “This one? Yeah, think he is an Ivan…” “Hmmm… look at that one. Wow… That’s not yet classified.”

While the young Uyghur ladies here were gorgeous with large, round eyes and lovely long hair, their mothers and grandmothers were heavy-set with large boobs and hips. Guess in their later years, the fatty mutton intake begins to show.

The older ladies wore dresses and tied see-through scarves on their heads. There was only one word that came to both our minds when we saw them – babushkas. (‘grandmothers’ -- in Russian)









Turpan, CHINA - 07 june 2002

The sun was hidden behind the clouds today. So, the temperature was not as high as yesterday, perhaps around 35°C. In a way, this was a wonderful day to be walking around Turpan.

As it was a Friday, we went to some of the mosques to see if they were busy but they were moderately so. After wandering around town for more than half a day, we decided to reward ourselves with a swim in the indoor swimming pool in our hotel.

Well, today was not as hot as yesterday to deserve a swim but we had already psyched ourselves up to crack open our swim-wear and take a dip. One of the rules stated that only people in appropriate dress would be allowed into the swimming pool. Jane had a bikini with her. She wondered if that was appropriate. Out of modesty, Jane wrapped herself in a towel when we reached the swimming pool. The ticket lady quickly called out and asked me if the Western woman over there had anything on underneath the towel. Gosh, did she really think Jane would enter the pool naked?

Later, we had dinner next to the Public Square which, we figured, was another sad attempt by the Chinese to over-develop a place to the worst of taste. There were these garish bad-taste structures with displays of flashing coloured lights lining the whole square, Las Vegas style. What the hey? It looked terribly kitsch and out-of-place.

Then, a strange thing happened in the dry oasis of Turpan tonight. It rained. And the rain continued on for hours into the night.



Turpan, CHINA - 08 june 2002

Because of the rain last night, the weather today was very cool, by Turpan standards. It should be a good day to go sight-seeing.

We had a deal with Sata to go on a tour around Turpan for Y40. They took us on a spin around town, telling us they were looking for the other tourists in our group. Later, they returned to our hotel and Sata asked me to go in and wake the other three tourists who were probably still sleeping.

I felt this was ridiculous. First, they seemed to imply the tourists were staying in another hotel and now, they drove us back to our hotel and wanted me to walk in and look for the three tourists. How was I to know how they looked like? I expressed my displeasure and Sata meekly said, “No problem, no problem.” and he went in to check.

Later, he sauntered out and went over to his friends and they smoked and chatted a while. Finally, the smarmy Sata came over and said, “The three tourists left by taxi this morning. So, with the two of you left, the price must be higher.”

We did not trust him anymore. OK, the higher price was Y50, Y10 more. But, we could have gone with the tour bus from our hotel for Y40. We went with them because we had a similar deal.

We felt that they dilly-dallyed the entire morning on purpose. We did not like his attitude nor his stories. If he had appeared more sorry about the missing three tourists or he had sent out more sincere vibes instead of laughing with his cronies at the corner, we might have agreed. He seemed to time his announcement WAY AFTER our hotel tour bus left so that we would feel that we were left with no choice but to agree to the new price.

We stormed out of the van and left. We decided to hire a taxi for the two sights in particular - Fiery Mountain and Gao Chang Ruins - we were interested in. We were relieved the taxi driver was a Chinese lady. After being surrounded by yucky guys the whole morning, it was good to be with women again.

We spent a long time exploring the ruins of Gao Chang Ruins. While it was quite badly preserved, the grounds were huge and it was just wonderful to walk around, checking out the walls and half-standing structures.

We had also heard that Jiao He Ruins was good. Jane wanted to cycle out there that evening. I opted out and headed out on the mud streets behind my hotel to walk around and towards the Emin Minaret. The locals kept trying to shoo me back to the main road. To them, the mud streets were an embarrassment while the main road was advancement. No, I explained that I wanted to walk here. Gosh, I should have given Turpan a chance. Here must lie the old Turpan that gave many past travellers its charm. I loved the little mud streets and huts, the colourful mosques and the lovely children playing around. Nearing the minaret, the area turned into pretty grape-vine yards. It was really charming.

Jane did not make it to the Jiao He Ruins. She claimed she nearly died from the effort of cycling and returned after 50 minutes on the horrible bike.

4 - Desperately Seeking Shade (Dunhuang)

Dunhuang, CHINA - 01 june 2002

We arrived in Dunhuang early in the morning, our ears ringing with the dance music from our driver’s favourite tape which he played over and over and over again in the 20-hour journey. I noted with disdain [YO!!… YO!!…] that the two well-coiffed ladies still had their hair [ARE YOU READY TO PAAARTY??!?!…] well-coiffed, while my deranged look was marginally subdued [BABY, LET’S GO!!…] by wrapping a bandanna over my dishevelled hair.

I lumbered, blurry-eyed, to a hotel next to the bus station and I must have been really sick with cold then on agreeing to the hotel, because on hindsight (by afternoon, that is), I knew I had made a terrible choice.

The toilet was not too far from my room but should be far enough for me NOT to smell it. Yet, I could smell it even through my blocked nose. The shower was right by a window that opened to the street. There was a curtain of sort for modesty but it left a gap adequate for any sharp-eyed voyeurs to spy through. The mattress was so thin, the thinness had to be measured with laboratory calipers…

Yes, I was sick and miserable. I blew my nose and inconsiderately built a mountain of tissue paper on the next bed. Despite the illness, I still attempted to walk around town later in the afternoon to hunt for food.

Now, after the previous exotic towns with interesting mix of people and culture, Dunhuang looked almost too ordinary. In Langmusi, we saw yak-men in 1970s sun-shades and with such wild hair you want to run your comb right through it and go, “There!”. In Xiahe, we saw internet bars filled with Tibetan monks surfing and chatting on the internet and playing violent computer games like COUNTER-STRIKE. In Xining, I saw a large Muslim population wearing white skull caps and velvety scarves and er… many dry-cleaners (OK, Xining was perhaps not THAT interesting).

But here, in my first foray around town, I could not detect anything unique about it. The faces around seemed to be more Han Chinese again.

I arrived at the Night Market and walked down the area with food stalls. There were rows and rows and rows of food stalls with a table each in front of them. In one row, the stalls were selling spicy noodle soup, spicy noodle soup, spicy noodle soup, etc… In another, the stalls were selling knife-cut noodle, knife-cut noodle, knife-cut noodle, etc… This totally bewildered me. Why were all the stalls selling the same food lined up next to one another, with signs that hardly distinguished one from the other? It gave me no choices at all. What was to tempt me to sit in one stall and not the other? I just did not understand it.

The aunties and helpers tried their ways and means to holler out to me to entice me but I walked around, totally dazed. Finally, I grew tired and sat down at one stall and had apparently made my choice.

Downed an aspirin at around 8pm but I tossed and turned in bed until midnight, almost delirious by then, unable to get comfortable on the wafer-thin mattress.



Dunhuang, CHINA - 02 june 2002

The aspirin must have worked. I did not feel that bad to stay in bed the whole day. It seemed I would be able to go to the Mogao Caves today.

I recalled my time in Ta’er Si Monastery, near Xining. I had been accosted by tour-guides near the entrance asking if I wanted to employ them for my visit around the Monastery. I decided against it because I was a cheap-skate. But while I was making my rounds, I attempted to follow, oh alright, sneak behind certain groups and try to siphon some information from their guides.

However, to my horrors, I realised I could not understand what the guides were saying and they were speaking in Mandarin!! I flitted from guide to guide and I must say, 85% of the time, I was lost. I realised that perhaps the Mandarin they used was too difficult for me to comprehend, especially with all those complicated Tibetan Buddha names.

Now, back to Mogao Caves. On learning there was an English tour but with Y20 extra, I decided to stop being such a cheapie and pay the extra and have a proper English tour.

I waited around for more than 40 minutes for the English guide and no one near the gate seemed to confess that he or she was the English guide. I started to wonder if I should have just saved my money and gone with the Chinese tours which were leaving every other minute after forming groups of 20-25.

In the end, I realised this guy who had earlier told me he was NOT the English guide was actually THE English guide engaged by a group of American Chinese. He had been waiting for them to arrive before starting the tour. I trailed behind them unhappily at having been lied to.

All but one guy from this group of American Chinese spoke some Mandarin. They had engaged the English guide more for the benefit of this one guy. Our English guide, happy to learn almost everyone knew Mandarin, embarked on his explanation entirely in… Mandarin. What the…?

After his poetic rendition of the ‘Library Cave’, the wife of the English-only guy requested my guide to explain everything again in English and he agreed. “There were many documents in the caves… Long time ago, they put… they HIDE documents in the caves… So, many many documents are in the caves… Now, no.” I rolled my eye-balls. Rrrrrrright…

The admission ticket to the Mogao Caves was really expensive at Y80. I hope they put the money to really good use to restore the caves and preserve the amazing art-works. What I saw in these caves and grottoes were really astounding, although many squares of the wall-art and several Bodhisattvas’ heads had been taken and now, probably reside in the dungeons of some European museums.

The admission ticket to the nearby Mingsha Sand Dunes, on the other hand, was a different story. This was a natural sight, nothing as far as I could see to restore, and yet, the Chinese are charging an exorbitant Y50 to see the sand dunes. I had to try and get around this inconvenience if I visit the sand dunes later this evening.

However, I still did not feel well enough and decided to postpone the sand dunes trip to another day. The sun was evil from noon onwards and I hid in internet bars and my room. I walked around town only in the bearable evening and, haha, stumbled upon Jane. We had gone our separate ways a couple of days ago and now, we meet again.

We caught up on the missing days in our lives and decided to try and sneak into the sand dunes tomorrow evening together.





Dunhuang, CHINA - 03 june 2002

One of my Chinese room-mates in my dodgy hotel room had sung praises for a sight out in the western desert called Ya Dan Di Mao which basically had fantastically formed, wind-eroded structures. She had gone on and on and on about it and really encouraged me to go.

So, today, I went to the hotel organising the trip. While waiting for the bus, I observed with amusement the mass physical exercise lessons organised in front of the hotel for the staff. Yes, every staff, from cleaning lady to finance accountant, had to gather in the compounds and do their morning exercises to recorded beats ‘Er-Er-San-Si-Wu-Liu-Qi-Ba’ [2-2-3-4-5-6-7-8] in public view. Eewww, how embarrassing! I simply stood there and gaped in amazement.

There was no bus. I asked a few drivers nearby and found that the tour did not leave today (Monday). They only left on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Darn! The reception should have been better informed. I had turned up yesterday and made inquiries and they had told me the tour left everyday. Alright, so I woke up really early for nothing.

I headed to Jane’s hotel to see if I could write a note for her to tell her I was still in town. At the desk, I inquired if a lady from Ireland stayed here and the receptionist wordlessly went through the entire stack of registration forms and shoved me the Ireland one and told me, “408”. Some security.

Jane had a lovely, lovely room for only Y5 more than me, with her own bathroom, bouncy beds and wonderful decorations and even a fan! I was envious but I knew I was too lazy to move.

We lounged all day in the comfortable room, escaping from the harsh rays of the sun, curiously watching B-grade Mandarin-dubbed English classics like ‘Mayor of Casterbridge’.

By evening, we took a bus out to the sand dunes. Between us, we had obtained some information from the internet and a tips book in a Western Café on how to sneak around the admission gate and enter the sand dunes without paying.

“Jane, I had never committed any crimes until I met you!” Jane pondered over this and recalled her criminal days years ago when she and her drunk friends shoved £800 worth of books down their pants from a book-store. Bad bad girl!

I reminded her, if we were challenged by guards making their rounds, we had to pretend we ‘no speaka Mandarin’. We had to act like we were really interested in the farm-lands and trees around the sand dunes. Understand?????

We hiked out through the fields until the edge of the dunes. There was a barrier that attempted to draw a circle around the dunes but well, the sand shifted and had buried parts of the barrier.

“See you on the other side…” I muttered to her solemnly as I made my attempt to cross. We were half-way up the dunes when someone started yelling at us. What… what??!? Oh, OK… just two other foreign tourists who knew Jane and apparently, knew this sneaky way too.

We huffed and we puffed and made it all the way to the top of the dunes. What a feeling! There, we simply sat and stared. It had such a wonderful view from up here. Down between the sand-dune valley is a curious-looking crescent-shaped lake which apparently had been in existence for at least 2000 years. The dunes had come all the way to the edge of the farmlands. Strange to see sand and fertile lands side by side. Three more foreign tourists later sneaked in and joined us.

I wondered if the guards ever wonder why they only have Chinese tourists paying the Y50 admission. And I wondered if the guards ever wander their eyes upwards and spot little unaccounted dots high up on this dune.

As the sun set over the horizon at 9:30pm, I tried to watch out for the green flash which someone told me about and I had once observed over the Egyptian desert. Previously, just as the sun went down the horizon, I had seen a white light that went anti-clockwise on the spot. Now, we could not quite see that anti-clockwise light but the area around the horizon flashed and blinked white light for a while after the sun went down. What in the world were those flashes? I thought my eyes were playing tricks but everyone else saw them too. Nuclear testing in the desert??










Dunhuang, CHINA - 04 june 2002

I was surprised to learn that although I was the only one on the bus to visit the Ya Dan Di Mao site in the western desert, the bus still left. I guess the hotel which organised this trip had some employees out in the desert and this tour bus also provided transportation for them.

We passed by an ancient gate called the Jade Gate Pass. This was one of the Han dynasty beacon towers that marked the caravan route. The ruin is historically very important but not impressive to look at. But since the road to Ya Dan Di Mao passed by this gate, I had no choice but to pay admission for this site whether I wanted to see it or not. Yet another rip-off, I guess.

3 hours of very hot travel later, we arrived at Ya Dan Di Mao and I was surprised to learn I had to fork out yet another payment of Y80 to rent a jeep to go into the grounds for the visit. Argh!!!! What an expensive trip this was turning out to be!

Gosh, with me as the only tourist around, there was no one else to split the cost. It was 11:30am and more than 45°C out here. I guess it was not wise to stay around and wait for other individual tourists to drive up here.

As for the wind-eroded formations, maybe my Chinese room-mate was more easily impressed than I was, for I did not find them so worthwhile to make the arduous 3-hour ride here (and back later) and pay so much for admission plus the unjustifiable Y80 for the 1-hour trip around the grounds. The Chinese seemed less concerned about paying for admissions, it appeared.

Maybe I was too hot to enjoy it and would change my mind when I see the photos. One thing though, it was a good experience to be out in the desert and learn a lesson: You fry. Then, you die.

I met up with Jane at the Night Market that evening for dinner. By then, we had noticed what was the unique thing about Dunhuang and kept cracking jokes about it.

Dunhuang has many ‘beauty parlours’. These ‘beauty parlours’ are open until very late at night and are lit by neon pink or blue lights. The services they provide include ‘leg washing’ (sort of foot massage, I suppose), ‘dry-cleaning’ (I had no idea what this was), ‘bone-stepping’ (probably some sort of massage), etc… The ‘hair-dressers’ are always dressed in hot-pants and sexy skimpy tops. At midnight, there were still customers, er… having their hair washed.

Well, we really liked Dunhuang. While it was not very interesting itself, it had a great relaxing feel about it. The town sounded quieter somehow. By nightfall, deck chairs were set out in the Night Market and one could relax with a drink or two. It was a wonderful place to relax but do watch out for over-charging.

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.