and now we play the waiting game

lanzhou is where dreams of great trips through china come to die. xiahe is where those dreams are reborn.

but first, an explanation of a small change in plans. we decided to cut out the fat of the xinjiang section of our trip, and so arrived in dunhuang about a week ahead of schedule. so that week has since been transferred down south to the land of very spicy food: sichuan. so all you out there tracking my trip on your wall-sized map of china please take note.

lanzhou might be the crappiest city in china. it's down in this valley along the yellow river, surrounded by these huge cliffs. but since the city has exploded in size much like everywhere else in china, it has stretched to about 20 miles long and only a mile wide. also, the drivers of the public buses seem to earn a commission or something, because all the conductors lean out the windows and try to convince people to ride the bus. it's also hot and polluted here.

but we managed to escape three days ago to xiahe, in gansu province, which is probably the best place in china (like anyone could ever know that). the small town is located in a river valley in the mountains that step up to the tibetan plateau (the tibetan plateau, and tibetan people, actually stretch far outside the boundaries of "tibet"). the monestary is the size of a small town, and is the second most important pilgramage point for tibetan buddhists outside of lhasa. the town is full of monks dressed in red robes talking on cell phones, eating out with friends, going to play basketball, etc. we took a tour of the monestary and got to see huge murals made out of yak butter, the monestary's medical school, and the grand hall, which was full of monks meditating (at least the older ones; the younger ones were more content to talk and point at the foreigners on the tour).

we also hiked up one of the mountains that rise up out of the river valley where we kept running into prayer flags tied up in trees and the remains of previous buddhist rites and ceremonies. after we got to the top, we had to run halfway down the mountain again because these five-minute thunderstorms kept rolling through. other highlights: seeing a bunch of monks having tibetan buddhist band practice down by the river, eating yak youghurt, rocking out to phil collins in the hotel restaurant last night, and meeting a monk who wanted to know how many pictures of the dalai lama we had (zero).

right now we're killing time waiting for our train to chengdu, where we might meet up with jeff of beijing and shanghai fame. we're not exactly sure what we're gonna do there, but seeing giant pandas is high on my priority list.