Excursions in Xiahe

I quite enjoyed Xiahe, despite the pilgrims in my room staying up until two in the morning talking and smoking, then woke up at dawn to pray at the top of their lungs. I ended up spending three days there, though one was unintentional since I missed my bus.

One of the days, I hiked with a really neat Israeli guy up in the hills. I'd finally recovered enough from my infection to do something physical. The hike was beautiful, though the weather was not. The hike was the outer kora of the monastery, but since in was late in the afternoon, all the pilgrims had finished.

At some point, we stopped to enjoy some Tahini on crackers--you have to love that Israelis always have an endless supply of tahini--and the outstanding views of the monastery and surrounding hills from the great the vantage point. We were joined by a sheppard who sat with us for a moment, admiring the view in stoic silence. Maybe I shouldn't assume that the silence was due to an inherent stoicism of a pastoral dweller; it may have been a language barrier issue. He then stood up and climbed the stupidly steep hill behind us in one second, not showing any signs of being tired or strained. He must have had calves of steel.

I finished the hike which some divine yak momos. Tsering left his post to show me the best place in town for them. I had momos at other places since, but none equaled these. Yak meat is incredibly delicious. It is like beef only juicier, more flavorful, with a hint of game taste that enhances instead of hurts the taste.

The next day, the bonus day from sleeping in too late to catch the 6AM bus, I headed to the Ganjia Grasslands, which though had some intoxicating scenery, was not quite the "grassland" the name seemed to suggest. Our first stop was the village of Bajiao, a 2000 year old farm town, surrounded by a clay wall, which we walked atop.

At some point, a farmer in town invited us over for tsampa. We politely accepted his invitation. He had a cosy, neat home, though old, heated by fire and had a living room with a bed probably shared by three people. They still had a large flat screen TV. They offered us some tasty, simple dish of potatoes and onions, of which we eat at about three bites; it was obviously the family's lunch. Next, the farmer's wife made us some tsampa and yak yogurt with some burned yak milk tea. After eating, we discussed offering them a small amount of money to pay for the food we ate. We compiled 10yuan, which is significantly more than the value of the food. The man declined what we offered, then told we owed him 10 yuan each, which was insultingly high; we could order three large dishes at a restaurant for such a price. Once again, a seemingly kind invitation was another attempt to take money from us "rich" foreigners. They had a nicer TV than even me. I was getting sick of people seeing me as a walking cash machine and I was quite shocked to see it at such a small remote town. We gave him 20 yuan, about ten times the cost of the food we ate and 100% more than we expected to pay for a seemingly friendly invitation for lunch.

We left a bit angry, but not too angry. In real terms, we didn't give him that much money. Our next stop was Trakkar Gomba, a small, charming monastery and Nekhang, a holy cave cut into the nearly vertical mountains behind the monastery. I was the only member our group to enter the cave. Apparently, a tourist fell to his death in 2006, giving it an infamous reputation despite the hundred people who visit daily without dying. It was nothing special, but still quite fun to descend deep into a slippery cave. A young Chinese girl kept falling, which held us up a bit (she was thankfully ok), but she was very nice and developed a little infatuation with me. When we were leaving, she gave me a big hug and told me she'd miss me. The Chinese can be oddly friendly.