21st July 2009
XIAHE
Xiahe is about a 3 hours bus ride from Linxia, along a decent road and past some amazing scenery. Due to some political & religious unrest (Chinese instigated) Xiahe has been closed to foreigners since Jan 2008. The name Xiahe literally means “Xia River” which refers to the Daxia River which runs alongside the town and the mountains.
I have been waiting with bated breath for the town to reopen while planning this trip and luckily it reopened last week. We are among the first few westerners who have visited here in the last 18 months!
Xiahe is a small Tibetan town, predominately one main road with a couple of back streets filtering off it at an elevation of 2,900m (9,500 ft). The architecture is traditionally Tibetan, containing Chinese and Indian influences. It reflects a deeply Buddhist approach.
The town is divided into two sections. Primarily Hui and Han Chinese at its eastern end, it then changes abruptly to Tibetan as you approach the monastery in the west. The most unusual feature of Tibetan architecture is that many of the houses and monasteries are built on elevated, sunny sites facing the south, and are often made out a mixture of rocks, wood, cement and earth.
The intention of coming here is to visit the Labrang Monastery, which is the largest and most important Tibetan monastery outside of Lhasa’s Potala Palace.
Although we are technically in Gansu, a Chinese province, this area was Tibetan, until China stole “stole it”. It is still fundamentally Tibetan; the Tibetans still live here and follow their own customs and traditions. They take great umbrage if you call them Chinese.
By visiting Xiahe we get the bonus of seeing how Tibetans live without having to venture too far west in to the Tibetan Autonomous Region, which is even more politically unstable than here at present.
At lunch, we met 4 snidey old English people in our guesthouse, who looked down on our ambitious travelling plans and our Chinese mispronunciations, they were far worse than any Chinese we have met. I think people assume we are retarded, just because we are blonde.
Other than the snidey English old people, there is just the odd Swede and German in the whole town. Looks like we won’t be making friends any time soon… The ‘make friends with anyone’ backpackers rule seems not to apply here and making friends is so far, difficult if not non existent.
We are going to Labrang Monastery in the morning to check out the temples and monks etc. I would have loved to have observed the chanting, but it begins at 5.30am, so I don’t think we will be attending that. We really should make the effort though, you are only going to seeing Tibetan monks chanting in their homeland a few times in your lifetime!
The tour of the monastery starts at 10.30am tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll be up in time! Although today is not a good indictaion – waking up at 2.30pm in Linxia!
We will stay here for 2 nights and then head south to Langmusi for the nomad horse-back trekking! The weather here is freezing, much colder than England, we have been in long trousers and hoodies the whole time. Socks pulled up to our knees and trekking sandals at the ready. We look HOT! Looking forward to some sun, though not sure where we will find it! The further south we go the hotter it will become, I assume, but China is certainly full of surprises – so who knows!
danilovescats - travels 