The bus trip to Maqu was amazing, we went through some amazing mountains and climbed a long way. The countryside was quickly becoming grasslands as we were well above the treeline. Upon arrival a lot of people were staring at me and quickly after looking around I realised that I was the only white person in town. We grabbed a bite to eat some really hot noodles, you could tell we were getting closer to Sichuan. Then found a hotel and had a look around town.

 
You could really feel the altitude, just walking around we were becoming breathless. then there was a dramatic storm descending upon us, and with rain we jogged to some shelter. That night we played a little pool which seemed to be a Maqu past time as every second shop had a pool table in it.

Photos of Maqu can be seen here  

It proved hard to get a bus ticket to Xiahe from Lanzhou because it was the first day of the week long national holiday for ‘National Day’. So we decided to get a bus to Hezuo and get off at the turn off for Xiahe. The bus was easy enough, but I will never really get used to people smoking in the bus. One the the real contrasts between this part of China and the parts that I had previously seen was the amount on Muslims, I had never previously associated China with Muslims. There are over 20 million in North Western China which makes sense if you look at all the neighbouring countries.

When we came to the turn off we jumped off the bus in the middle of nowhere, it was a little crazy and cold and then we had to wait for a bus from the other direction that was going to Xiahe. With four other people we eventually decided to call a taxi which would cost about 10 Yuan each so that was good value. We had to meet them further down the road so we helped a nun carry her bags, the one that I was carrying felt like it was full of rocks or something, way to heavy.

When we arrived in Xiahe the nun asked us over for lunch the next day at her house, then it was off to find a hotel. Xiahe is pretty much one street down the middle of a valley with the very famous Labrang Monastery at one end. After we eventually found a hotel we decided to go for a walk around the shops, everything was soooo cheap that it is hard not to spend money. Weh bought a Gortex jacket for $30AUD, I picked up some beanies a scarf and gloves to help with the chill. 

The next day we went to the nuns house for some lunch, it was a very Tibetan house, sitting on the bed to eat with lots of tea and way to much food. We ate a lot and had a look around. It was funny this house was quite out of the way and not much around but she had a satellite dish hooked up to her TV, just something you don’t expect every day. That afternoon we had a look around the outside of the monastery. One interesting thing was all around the monastery they had Prayer Wheels where people walk around and spin them, there are over 1700 of them and it takes about 90 minutes to do the circuit. After giving a few of them a spin we decided to wander through the monastery. All the main temples were closed but we found a whole lot of monks (children) playing around with a soccer ball and joined them. We spent about two hours there having fun, talking and showing them our cameras. That afternoon we climbed the mountain behind the monastery for a great view of the city, it was a really good walk that took us past some old ruins and some pray flags.

The next day we were going to try and get to Langmusi but decided a quick tour of the temples would be worth missing the bus. They had an English speaking monk to show us around and explain what everything meant. This was quite interesting and well worth doing if you are going to be looking at the temples. Then time came to get on a bus, and we decided to get a bus to Maqu which was most of the way to Langmusi.

Photos of Xiahe can be seen here