ChinaTeacher

XIAHE

One of my key reasons for visiting Western China was to see Labrang Monastery in Xiahe (Gansu Province).  People say that being here is the closest you can get to feeling like you’re in Tibet, without actually being there!  Labrang Monastery is one of the six major Tibetan monasteries of the Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The others are Ganden, Sera and Drepung and Tashilhunpo monsteries in Tibet, and Ta’er (Kumbum) Monastery in Qinhai Province.

Outside of Lhasa, Xiahe is considered the leading Tibetan monastery town; many Tibetans come here on pilgrimage.  The town itself looks like a dusty Wild West frontier town, with nomads wandering the streets in their woolen robes (even in July) and one can easily glimpse their daggers underneath.  The town gets so dusty from the winds and sand that each afternoon I would see women sweeping sand from the streets – seems like a losing battle to me. 

Anyway, not too far outside of town is Ganjia Grasslands where one can book horse treks, or simply cycle out there and hope you meet some kind Tibetan nomads who invite you to lunch – Kathleen did!

At Labrang, a 3km Pilgrims’ Way, featuring long rows of prayer wheels (1174 I’m told) and Buddhist shrines, circles the monastery. Walking side-by-side with pilgrims and monks, you truly feel as though you’ve entered a different world.  Many pilgrims walk this route every day; it’s an excellent form of exercise, especially for those who do it as a fast pace.  I often found myself having to step aside, to avoid being run over, as others (many much older than me!) whiz by, giving the prayer wheels a forceful push with their right hand.  My right hand was pretty darn tired from turning so many prayer wheels – I don’t know how they can do it every single day! 

It’s quite interesting to watch how the pilgrims navigate their way along the prayer wheels.  Some spin every prayer-wheel once (like I did), but some skip a few, some spin the larger prayer wheels 3 times, some even longer.  I couldn’t figure out whether there is a ‘correct’ way to go about this.  Along the walls of the monastery, occasionally I would see pilgrims touch certain areas of the wall, rest their forehead on them, or even kiss them.  I felt like I was intruding on a very private and emotional moment whenever they did this.

After walking the prayer-wheel circuit around the monastery, people can walk freely inside the monastery walls, but unfortunately the doors to all the prayer halls and buildings remain closed.  Thankfully, there are guided tours into the monastery buildings conducted by the monks themselves.  They are very worthwhile and give you much insight into the monastery setup and history.

We stayed directly across the street at Tara Guesthouse for just 60 RMB (Double Room Shared Bath).  No showers – had to go across the street to the ‘public showers’ – interesting experience to be sure!  Tara has some cute Tibetan-style rooms and was doing some major renovations while we were there.  Next year you can expect more rooms with bathroom/shower facilities and higher prices, for sure!  We found the staff there to be very friendly and a few speak English, plus you can’t beat the location!  Nomad Restaurant is across the street and most of its customers are Tibetan nomads and monks – great for people-watching, both in the restaurant and down on the street.  For western food, we actually found breakfast to be pretty good at Everest Restaurant.  For lunch or dinner we often enjoyed eating at Snowy Mountain Café, run by a young fellow from the U.S.  The food was okay; we went more for the friendly conversation and to peruse English books and magazines onsite!

We were so lucky to have the chance to visit Xiahe.  The town and its monastery have been closed to travelers for the past year or so.  Permission was granted to foreigners just 2 weeks before we arrived!  Unfortunately, if you’re travelling south from Lanzhou, the bus station still won’t allow you to travel to Xiahe.  The good news is that you can purchase a bus ticket to Linxia and after that it’s easy to travel onward to Xiahe.  Travelling north, like we did, presented no problems, other than the usual ID check on the highway – I should be getting used to that by now, I guess.

IN CLOSING

My trip to Xinjiang and Western Sichuan was full of surprises, hardships and pitfalls.  But through it all, we learned a lot about ourselves and met some pretty amazing people.  My advice to all of you is to go and see Western China before they bulldoze it over into modern, over-populated concrete and glass cities.  It’s truly an amazing place!

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