China Tour 2013

After visiting the monastery yesterday we decided to visit the nearby grassland in Sangke. A short taxi ride for 30 RMB took us the 17 km to the place. As written in the Lonely Planet guidebook its a very touristy place, reminding me on the yurts for tourists in Hailaer and Yakeshi in Inner Mongolia. Luckily yet the tourist season has not started, so it seemed we were the only guys there and the "tourist circus" with horse riding, yurt dinner, etc. was not opened yet.
After looking around we found a short trail which was leading us through the fields and grasslands and we started to walk back to Xiahe, passing sheep and yak herds and the nomads guarding them, just wonderful.







Somewhen the trail ended (option was to take this bridge)



and we continued our walk through some vegetable fields, before we decided to follow the last kilometers the main road. In total, walking today was 20 km, tiring, but absolutely worth to see and experience the grasslands in this way.
Tomorrow we will head more to the south to Langmusi, which is already quite close to Sichuan Province. Seems some rain is waiting for us there, better to turn some more of the prayer wheels and pray for sunshine to continue hiking.