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Mittwoch, 15. Mai 2013
Langmusi 郎木寺
highpeak, 17:45h
We left Xiahe very early in the morning to take the only direct bus to Langmusi. After a crazy 4.5 hours bus ride (seems the driver was a future reincarnation of Michael Schumacher and overtook with his 40seater everything from trucks without seeing whats coming in front to Audi A6L, name it...) we arrived in a rainy small town and got shocked about the condition of the main road here:
We managed to keep more or less dry (but not clean) and checked into the best hotel (consider it 2 stars) and started walking around. Langmusi is half on Gansu Province side and half on Sichuan Province (actually Sichuan side roads look better, seems they have more money) and has two monasteries on both ends of the town.
The vibe here is quite nice, sleepy town with Tibetan monks and pilgrims, Han Chinese and Hui (muslim or Uighur), laying on 3300 m altitude, embedded between high mountains, almost an alpine feeling.
The weather good was gracious with us and in the afternoon the clouds opened for some blue sky and sunshine, so we went for a walk to the monastery
and from there further to a small town outside, through nice landscape. Could even spot groundhogs (Murmeltiere) from a near distance and see locals on their round around the monastery.
We stopped for a photo shooting with members of the local FC Langmusi
and got the necessary blessings from a nice monk on the street.
By the way, seems the manager of our hotel is also a monk, very gentle and it seemed he was the only one there who could speak decent Chinese (at least for my understanding). Only problem here was that it seemed he had different understanding about hot water in the shower than us weak Western guys, but on the second day after friendly discussion with him, also this problem was solved.
On the 2nd day we awoke with heavy rain outside, but anyhow, after a nice breakfast in a local restaurant run by a muslim family (fantastic apple pie!), we started a hiking trip into Namo gorge.
Directly before entering the trail we encountered a big gathering of the monks, sitting on the grass, singing and playing all kind of instruments, while a big fire with a lot of smoke was burning beside them.
Quite impressive, even if we did not get the meaning or purpose of this event. We continued walking up, crossing the small river running down the gorge several time before we arrived on a bigger grass area and followed the way up. Fantastic land scape again and we got lucky as on the way back the rain stopped and again blue sky with little sunshine opened up.
We closed the day with our mandatory green tea session and culinary highlight of the day: Yak steak!
Tomorrow morning again a long bus drive, heading more south to Songpan.
We managed to keep more or less dry (but not clean) and checked into the best hotel (consider it 2 stars) and started walking around. Langmusi is half on Gansu Province side and half on Sichuan Province (actually Sichuan side roads look better, seems they have more money) and has two monasteries on both ends of the town.
The vibe here is quite nice, sleepy town with Tibetan monks and pilgrims, Han Chinese and Hui (muslim or Uighur), laying on 3300 m altitude, embedded between high mountains, almost an alpine feeling.
The weather good was gracious with us and in the afternoon the clouds opened for some blue sky and sunshine, so we went for a walk to the monastery
and from there further to a small town outside, through nice landscape. Could even spot groundhogs (Murmeltiere) from a near distance and see locals on their round around the monastery.
We stopped for a photo shooting with members of the local FC Langmusi
and got the necessary blessings from a nice monk on the street.
By the way, seems the manager of our hotel is also a monk, very gentle and it seemed he was the only one there who could speak decent Chinese (at least for my understanding). Only problem here was that it seemed he had different understanding about hot water in the shower than us weak Western guys, but on the second day after friendly discussion with him, also this problem was solved.
On the 2nd day we awoke with heavy rain outside, but anyhow, after a nice breakfast in a local restaurant run by a muslim family (fantastic apple pie!), we started a hiking trip into Namo gorge.
Directly before entering the trail we encountered a big gathering of the monks, sitting on the grass, singing and playing all kind of instruments, while a big fire with a lot of smoke was burning beside them.
Quite impressive, even if we did not get the meaning or purpose of this event. We continued walking up, crossing the small river running down the gorge several time before we arrived on a bigger grass area and followed the way up. Fantastic land scape again and we got lucky as on the way back the rain stopped and again blue sky with little sunshine opened up.
We closed the day with our mandatory green tea session and culinary highlight of the day: Yak steak!
Tomorrow morning again a long bus drive, heading more south to Songpan.
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