Xia He (夏河）is located in Gansu Province (甘肃省）, a small town with majority of people are Tibetan Chinese. Labrang Monastery (拉卜楞寺）is the main attraction of Xia He. It is located at around 2700m above sea level. The weater is pretty cold and in October/November it could drop to around 0 degree at night. Xia He is often called as Little Tibet (小西藏）.
23 Oct
We reached Lanzhou (兰州）around 6am in the morning and had to directly take bus to Xia He (夏河）. The bus leaves at 7.30, 8.30 and 9.30 from Lanzhou South Station (兰州南站）for RMB45/person. The taxi from Lanzhou train station to Lanzhou South Station cost us RMB20.
The bus ride is not pleasant at all, the driver was quite reckless, however the view along the road is nice. We reached Xia He around lunch time. Although Xia He Town is not big, it is better to stay near Labrang Monastery (拉卜楞寺）. There are quite some guesthouses and hotels nearby the monastery and since October is low season, most of them have available rooms. The price is cheap, but heater is not available, hot water is only available at certain time in the morning and at night. Thermal blankets are good enough for the sleep though. After asking around to some hotels, we decided to stay at Overseas Tibetan Hotel (华侨饭店） for RMB100/night for 2 people.
There is only one main street in Xia He Town which ends in Labrang Monastery (拉卜楞寺）. The monastery itself accounts for around half of the town. There is free English tour at 3.15pm everyday. A Tibetan monk explained us about Tibetan Buddhism, the monastery and the people there. The weather is much colder in Xia He.
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| Labrang Monastery (拉卜楞寺） |
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| The Prayer Wheel |
24 Oct
After discussion, we decided to rent a car to our next destination, Langmusi (郎木寺）, instead of taking the 7.40am bus from Xia He. The car cost us RMB350 from Xia He (夏河）to Ga Hai Lake (尕海湖) then Langmusi (郎木寺）. The driver is nice, he's a Tibetan Chinese called Sangjike (桑吉科). His phone number is +8613893956224. He could speak very good Mandarin, but not English. Along the way, he told us a lot about Tibetan culture.
Tibetan people don't have surname, their name is taken from their Holy Book directly. They don't eat chicken and fish as well. The reason is that if we kill one cow, 10 people can eat full from the cow while if we kill one chicken, maybe only one person can eat full from the chicken. Hence, less sin to eat big animals like yak (牦牛）, lamb or pig. Tibetan people live in tent on the grassland in summer, around Oct/Nov, they will move to their permanent house for winter. We did saw some Tibetans move back to their winter house on the road.
The view along the journey is amazing, the yellowish grassland, river, tree and mountain. We passed Sangke grassland (桑科草原）. It was snowing on the road also.
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| Yaks and Lambs |
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| Grassland, mountain and river |
Ga Hai Lake (尕海湖）is beautiful, with a slight sunlight behind the cloud. We didn't go in to the lake's complex as it's low season, there will be nothing much to see. We only took photos from the side but that's good enough.
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