In Xining

Latitude 36°36'59.58"N, Longitude 101°47'30.97"E

We’re in Xining. The hotel is less than impressive. I tried to write it up on TripAdvisor and it wasn’t listed. I find that odd because it seems to be a long-established hotel. I won’t name it here because I don’t think that would be very nice.

We went to a mosque today. There weren’t many people there and those that were there (except for us) were all men. We were a curiosity I believe.

Latitude 36°29'23.17"N, Longitude 101°34'5.90"E

We went to the Ta’er Monastery (also called Kumbum). This is a Buddhist monastery. A Tibetan Buddhist monastery. We have just spent DAYS in Tibet visiting Buddhist monasteries. As I’ve said, I don’t mind the volume of monasteries we’ve seen, but this one had a tourist quality to it. There were people there praying and doing something like 100,000 bows, even some children, but there was a different feeling to this monastery. Also, there was a gauntlet of vendors leading the way to the entrance of the Ta’er, many of whom were selling pelts of dogs, wolves, and cats. We could not take pictures in Ta’er but there was some surreptitious shooting and filming going on. One of the first sites we saw was a traditional and familiar courtyard, but along the balcony area were stuffed yak, deer, antelope, and bear. It was creepy and not like anything we’ve ever seen in Tibet.



A short little lunch-time video.

Leaving Tibet on an Overnight Train

We got on the train bound for Xining in the Qinghai Province at 11:20am, July 9. We will get into Xining, which is out of Tibet, by 11 or 12 noon tomorrow. A 24 hour train ride. The Lhasa train station is beautiful.

It was sad to say so long to our Young Tour Guide. He was terrific, so knowledgeable and nice. He seemed to know everything and could answer any question. And he didn’t seem like he was making it up!

The train ride is fun and comfortable. We are in a soft sleeper (four people) and we are all just kind of wandering in and out of people’s cabins, visiting. The scenery is great. We’ve seen wild donkeys, loads of yaks, and what we thought were antelopes but turned out to be gazelles. The geology is beautiful. We are going slow enough that the pictures are coming out pretty good, I think.

One group of four had some collective spatial challenges as they tried to squeeze all of their luggage into the small spaces available in the soft sleeper. Here’s Anthropology Professor making it work for them and all of the interest this scene created.



The highest elevation on the train trip (not standing on the ground) was when we were on the train. We were at 5,240 m high (17,190 feet). There was a platform outside that stated this information as we whizzed by, I think it will someday be a tourist stop on the rail. An informative LCD display kept us up to date with all sort of useful information like how cold it was outside and velocity. Our ears popped in the middle of the night, and our water bottles caved in, as we descended into a moderate altitude.

The train was really fun. Here are some photos from the train.