Aug 31

A 22 hour train journey and a 6 hour (completely mental) bus journey later, with a little stopover for a meal and a sleep in Langzhou, China's most polluted city... I have now arrived in Xiahe (which is much tougher to pronounce than it seems). Xiahe is host to the largest Tibetan monastery outside of Tibet and was shut down to the outside world for most of 2008, but is now a peaceful little place again (70,000 population). The highlights of the last few days is a toss-up between be-friending and then pretty much getting pee'd on by a little Chinese boy on the train (they wear these great little trousers with a crack up the bottom for quick and easy potty training, something that doesn't always come easily to little kids -- except for Astrid, who's obviously very intelligent and a quick learner) and just being served a chickens head for lunch...

It's been great seeing some of the country side over the past few days and also entering a slighly slower pace of travelling. The last day in Beijing, we spent 2 hrs getting to the Forbidden City (brisk walk, subway, public bus), a trip that's usually a 20 min walk... all thanks to the Mao celebrations). Then 2 hrs walking around the Forbidden City, to then rush back to hotel to squeeze the Temple of Heaven (massive wooden temple built without a single nail) and then to train station (the largest in China, absolutely huge - photos to come). I'm not sure I'm a big city tourist, much prefer this...

Tomorrow we visit the monastery and the tibetan grasslands and then another 4 hr busjourney further up the mountains to a place bordering the Sichuan and Gansu provinces (population a mere 3000 people and as many yaks).

(In case you're wondering, the photos are of me having hotpot, a Chinese "fondue", my favorite monk and a superglue salesman, the most popular guy in Xiahe).