So after a night trip on the train we arrived to Xining, Qinghai province capital. Qinghai is located on the north east of the Tibet (Tibetan Autonomous Region), and has more Tibetan population than the Tibet. Besides Tibetan people, there are also a lot of Hui and Salar people (Muslim Chinese), Mongols, and of course Han (what we would call just “Chinese” and they constitute the majority in China). We traveled the east and the south of the province which is on the Tibetan plateau, filled with grassy plateaus and elevations from 2500 to 5000m high!
Xining
Xining is on the edge of the plateau and it's an unremarkable city, not too pretty, not too ugly, but has the only normal hostel in the province. Our plan was to travel south until we got to the province of Sichuan and take a route called the Tibet Highway that passes through Tibetan towns (in Sichuan) and leads to Chengdu (capital of the province). However, from the time we arrived to Xining, we kept hearing contradictory information regarding an area that was closed to foreigners because of demonstrations against the goverment. So we made our minds regarding an itinerary that leads to Yushu, the border with Sichuan, but could be circular if we find out that Sichuan border is closed. So in the worst case we would go back to Xining and take a train to Chengdu.
Xining à Tongren à some towns à Machen à Xueshan à Amnye Machen mountain à Xiedawu à Yushu àNangchen à Yushu à Sershu (Sichuan)
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| Qinghai Itinerary |
A couple of Israelis, Maya and Tomer, had more a less the same idea and joined our itinerary and then we met a French guy and Chinese speaker, Amori, who was interested in joining us for the Qinghai part.
Tongren (Repkong)
Our first destination was Tongren (called Repkong in Tibetan), a Tibetan area famous for its Thangka paintings. It was a 5 hour bus drive from the capital, and we actually stayed the first night in a small village called Wuton, a few kilometers from the city. Already in Xining, we had contacted a Tibetan monk who painted Thangkas and, in Wuton, we stayed at his brother house. Actually I think we stayed in the son's room. That day we met the monk who showed us his studio and some of the paintings, and then we saw the lower monastery of the village.
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| The monk explaining about the thangkas |
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| A thangka |
On the next morning after seeing the upper monastery, we felt there was nothing else to do there and we moved to the city. It was a pretty ugly and big city with a nice big monastery (that I didn't see because I had a cold).
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Originally, we decided to pass through a series of towns until we get to Machen, a big town next to a mountain sacred to Tibetans, Amnye Machen. But then, we got the chance to take a minibus straight to Machen, and we decided to skip the smaller towns.
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| A stop on the way to Machen |
Machen (or Maqin or Dawu or Tawo)
So after a rough 7 hours drive we arrived at Machen also called Maqin, and Dawu or Tawo in Tibetan depending on who you asked. Here the confusion of multiple names starts, one in Mandarin (the official dialect of Chinese), the others in different romanizations of different dialects of Chinese or of Tibetan.
We were pretty high already, 3760 meters, with a harsh mountain climate: either cold or a strong sun. The town was plainly ugly, one long main street with buildings of concrete without nothing picturesque about them, but the landscape surroundings the town was beautiful, mountains all around and tons of prayer flags on them forming spider-web shapes.
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| Outside Machen |
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| Machen taken by Amori |
We arrived to a hotel recommended by our hostel in Xining and it was quite expensive by China's standards. No one spoke English (of course), and Amori tried to bargain without success. Then he tried to persuade the lady in charge to let us stay three in a twin bed room but she didn’t agree.
So we left Maya in the hotel to look after our bags and we started to look for other hotels around. The other hotels were either more expensive or were awful or both. So we went back to the first hotel, and we found policeman there waiting for us. It seemed that the woman tipped the police about us and since her place was the only one with a permit to accept foreigners, we were obliged to stay there!
We tried to gather information about the Amnye Machen mountain that we wanted to cross with horses and reach the main route that leads to Yushu on the south. But there was no travel agency there, the lady of the hotel didn't know anything (of course), and even though we heard and read that it was possible to ride horses through mountain, nobody knew anything. We start calling travel agencies of the capital Xining, but this didn't help us much either, they only told us that we either go back to Xining and travel with them or we can try our luck in Xueshan at the edge of the mountain. We should be able to find horses and a guide there, they said, (according to them their company just goes there and ask around).
So we hired a mini van for the next morning and we bumped our 5 hours way to Xueshan
Xueshan, on the edge of Amnye Machen
So we got to Xueshan, a shitty and dusty Tibetan town with maybe 20 houses. And we started to ask around for a guide with horses -meyou (there isn't in Chinese), for a guide -meyou, for horses -meyou, for someone who may know someone with horses -meyou, for some place where we might find a guy who may know something about horses -meyou. Eventually we got to someone who told us that in the town 3 km away that’s right at the beginning of the mountain, there might be horses. So we asked for a ride to the town, but the guy said that he didn’t have time, even when we offered to pay. There were a couple of jeeps and some guys there, and no one seemed to be doing anything at all, just hanging around, doing circles with the motorbikes. But they really didn't want to help us.
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| Xueshan taken by Maya/Tomer |
One of the guys with a jeep who was obviously doing nothing, after insisting for a while, said OK, but later. We waited for a while but it was getting late, and then we just got near with all the bags, and asked for a price. He asked 30 yuan for a 2 minutes ride so we tried to bargain, which was impossible. But when we agreed for his price, he suddenly raised it to 50 yuan!
So we just took our stuff and started walking! On the way we saw one of the Tibetan guys who didn't agree to take us, going and coming back twice to the town! Luckily, a Chinese with a tuk-tuk (three-wheel truck) picked us up on the way and drove us to the village.
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| Walking! |
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| Picked up by a tuk-tuk |
This village was even smaller than the other with maybe five houses and we suddenly saw two horses! So Amori asked him about getting other three horses. Meyou
According to what he said no one had more horses, we couldn’t believe it and we kept asking everyone in town including a nomad family living around (supposedly the guides with horses are usually nomads).
So we called again to one of the agencies from Xining telling them that we can’t find horses or a guide, and we begged them for a phone number. The woman from the agency evaded the question by saying that they always start from the other side of the mountain, Xiedawu, where there is also a guesthouse. The road that passes through the mountains can only be traveled by vehicles with four-wheel drive if you don’t ride horses or walk 4 days. Being kind of late and feeling stuck, we decided to find a jeep to go to the other side, sleep there and maybe do a short horse riding from the other side.
One Tibetan seeing us trapped asked an exorbitant price for taking us, and didn’t agree to bargain. In the meanwhile, Iohi and Maya got inside a house that had a jeep parked outside, and somehow convinced the woman of the house to wake up his husband from his nap and ask him take us to the other side…
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