Gansu & Sichuan, China

A Taste of Tibet

On our way heading south we cycle around the Tibetan plateau for the most part. In the provinces of Gansu and Sichuan a large part of the inhabitants are Tibetan. Soon after crossing the Yellow River we enter a world largely Tibetan. In ever greener surroundings little villages lie on our way decorated with prayer flags, stupas and monestaries. On the first pass we follow the locals in their habit of throwing paper money in the air for good fortune. This act we will not regret.

High in the mystic Ganjie Grass landslands we ride. In a little village we charter two Tibetan motor bikers to take us to a remote monestary. Behind the monestary lies a buddhist cave in which we descend together with some pelgrims. Everywhere white flags and holy stones. We do as the pelgrims and touch stones, circle others and drink holy water. Down in the cave one of the pelgrims sings some Tibetan prayer as loud as he can and we shiver.

We come closer to the most important buddhist city in the Tibetan world after Lhase: Xiahe. In the last weeks we had already heard that it might be closed for foreigners but we assume it is just rumours (and play stupid). Cold after the downhill into town we arrive late in the afternoon at the checkpoint. It's closed indeed, but the english speaking official (who has lived in Holland for 3 months) feels sorry for us. After a lot of phone calls we are put in a gouvernement hotel. "and' the official says, 'maybe you feel sick tomorrow, you can spend one more night'. The following day we feel sick and we visit the famous Labrang monastry. We walk our round of prayer wheels and watch the astrology class of the monks. The monks are very surprised to see us. We really are the only foreigners who visited Xiahe in 6 months. As yet we had not realised how lucky we really are.

Further south we see a lot more (armed) checkpoints. At the 3th point they will not let us trough after a lot of talking, we have to go back north. Maarten: "maybe this would be the right time to start crying Janneke". Full of tears I leave the checkpoint and indeed: within 5 minutes a police car comes to tell us that we can spend the night at their post. Surprisingly they let us travel south, but only by bus. In the next town we are picked up at the bus stop by the police and put in a truck. At the end of the prefecture they let us out, right on a high and deserted pass. It's already getting late and still 60 km to a town. We are kind of flabbergasted by al the events taking place in the last 24 hours, whats going on?! The reasons they gave us: bad road, bad weather, landslides even the earthquake do not make sense at all. We suspect it's all about problems with the Tibetan people living in this area. Luckly we can put our tent between 350 yaks on the grass. In the tent of the Tibetan family we're having some yak butter tea like in Tadjikistan.

In the town everybody is really surprised again to see us . How did you get here? That area has been closed since march! You must be very special. Suddenly we feel very proud and we do realise how lucky we are (again!).

To avoid the earthquake area we have to make a big detour, completely off the beaten track. For days we cycle through big forests with only rare villages. For the two strangers they open the doors to an old temple to show us the beautiful paintings inside. Afterwards we make a round of prayer wheels behind the monks, for a bit more luck.

In the next valley where there are houses like castles, we try to find a place to sleep. How sad to find out all the inhabitants do not dare to live in their houses anymore after the quake. There are tents behind the small village where they live. We feel sorry to bother them but they will not let us go. We can put our tent next to theirs and they almost fight about in who's place we can have dinner. They bring us an extra matress and warm blanket to put in our tent. Eventhough it rains the morning we leave, all the peolple wave goodbeye until we're completely out of site. How did we get this lucky?