From Yushu to Ganzi via Sershu

Hello guys!

Thanks for all the commentaries, its nice that you keep us company on the road....keep them coming :)

We managed to get a bus out of Yushu, it wasnt that hard after all hehehe but before that we did a bit of exploring around Yushu.
It is truly beautiful here, we are constantly surrounded by mountains and Tibetans...we dont stop saying "Tashi Delek" to everyone -- our guidebook said that's "hello" in Tibetan but it actually means "good luck" literally and that's what they say when they pass someone :)
In Yushu we visited the Wencheng Princess Temple, which is 20km from the city and its where Princess Wencheng paused on her way to marry King Songsten Gampo of Tibet. The monks there were very nice and kept telling us to look aroud.
Around it lived nomads with their yaks so on the way back (we decided to walk back for a bit since there wasnt much else to do and the landscape was beautiful) we ran into some young monks playing football - who were more than happy to pose for our pictures - and we also saw a couple of nomad families having lunch next to their tents and yaks :)
After we had walked for and hour and a half some monks on a 4x4 stopped to give us a ride back to town :)

Eating was a challenge there since the menus were all in characters and no pictures and my chinese reading it too limited - i can distinguish rice and types of meat but other than that its too much hehe - so while in Yushu we stocked up on dry noodles...just add water hehehe

After "lunch" we went to visit the Sengze Gyanak Mani which is one of the largest mani walls in Tibet, founded in 1715 and it consists of around 20 billion mantras (prayers) that are carved into stone!! People walk around this gigantic wall for hours chanting and praying. Quite impressive to see!!

In the town of Yushu there is also a giant statue of King Gesar of Ling, a revered Tibetan warrior-god whose deeds are remembered in the longest epic poem in the world . The day before we had also visited the Jyekundo (another name for Yushu) Dondrubling Monastery...we didnt see many monks there but it was nice to just look around :)

Yesterday we had a full day of travelling! We got the bus to Sershu at 8:30 (after being at the pick up spot at 7 just to make sure we had a place!!!). As always we talked with our fellow travellers...there was a Mongolian woman married to a Tibetan that spoke very good english and told us that she was a Chinese Literature teacher back in Xining. There was also a policeman on board carrying his little pistol. He was travelling with his family and woulndt stop offering us sunflower seeds. There was also a monk sitting behing us who told that he had been in Lhasa and was once stopped because he did not have a passport and was made to spend a year in prison because of this! This had been in 2004 and now he was on his way to Sershu to get a passport so he could go to India to study. So, along with the stunning scenary it was a very interesting journey (not to mention that our seat wasnt attached and so we kept moving back and forth with the bus eheheh)

We arrived in Sershu 4 hours later and immediately found a minivan to take us to Ganzi - we are running out of days so we are trying to make this part of the journey shorter so that we can enjoy the south of China as well. We ate first and then had a beautiful but agonizing 61/2 hour ride. I forgot to mention that on the way from Xining to Yushu we also passed a bit of the desert with sand dunes and everything. Now, on the way to Ganzi we passed beautiful valleys and snow capped mountains. We saw little animals scurring about (we think it was either baby squirrels like Chip and Dale ffrom Disney or baby bunnies), we also saw a beaver! Many horses and yaks as well. The scenary was littered with nomads shepperding their yaks. We were able to stop a couple of times to take pictures -- our driver was nice enough :) However, by the time we had done 4 hours by back was killing me and by the time we arrived in Ganzi I could hardly walk hehe!!

Ganzi is a huge Tibetan/Han city (but somehow our guide doesnt give us a map so we have to go around asking wehre everything is) . We are always being careul to say "Ni hao" to the Han and "Tashi Delek" to the Tibetan!! We leave again tomorrow morning for Kanding - the last stop on the way to Chengsu where we will prbably catch a plane to get to Guangzhou - so today was mostly spent visiting the city. We spent 4 hours inside the Ganzi Temple. We arrived there around noon and were able to see the monks eating (there are around 500 monks there!!) and then we were invited by the cooks to eat as well hehehe! We had rice with vegetables and of course cilli (they cant live without the stuff -- on our way up to the temple we saw a woman giving out bowls of what looked like white gelatin with chilli on it, I asked to try and it was actaully quite nice but again spicy!!!) Anyways, we "talked" with the monks for a while and they gave us Tibetanb tea to drink - I wouldnt really recommend it a second time, it is made out of butter!! After lunch and exchange addresses so we cant send the photos we took we kept walking around the temple and everytime another monk spotted us they would invite us to sit and have tea or water or candy :) Thats how we managed to spend 4 hours there hehehe At the end we saw them doing some kind of sport they call "pianji" but unfortunately our phrasebook does not have it... it consisted of them saying something towards someone else and then slapping their hands really hard! Quite amusing to watch :)

Here we are really in nature, we keep bumping into cows and yaks -- yaks are afraid of us but most cows let us come near and touch them - dont worry we carry and antibacterial gel with us all the time hehehe

We will add some pictures today so no stress :)
Until next time, Kale Shoo!! (Goodbye in Tibetan hehehe)

Love, Jo and Fil