back from not visiting Xiahe
I’m in Lanzhou again for a few hours (onward train this evening), back from three days of failing to visit Xiahe. Xiahe is the Tibetan monastery town I mentioned, home of thousands of monks, colorful, swirling pilgrimage destination for Tibetans far and wide, that I recently did not go to. I planned most of my itinerary in China around making it there, although, as I might have mentioned, I did not. There is a long and rather heroic story to how I came to almost not not go there (involving me figuring out how to express “yes, I realize you are a bookshop, but do you have a photocopier?” in charades), but the short version is: no foreigners allowed in Xiahe. Although no one will tell you this until you actually try to buy the bus ticket. So I found myself in Linxia for two days. See next post.
