Oh beautiful day!

I wake up to a clear blue sky and yet another beautiful day. I am 3600 meters above sea level, the sun is strong and makes the days in the mountains livable compared to the freezing nights.

There is supposed to be a nunnery in a village not far from where I am and rumours has it that it is an amazing place. My curisosity is triggered and after a few minutes on the village square I find myself in a car with five tibetans heading to the nunnery in Ani Gompa.

The front seat I share with a tibetan guy, and in the back there is a munk and two old woman. They are heading there to pray and have decided to take me with them. We cruise along the dusty and bumpy road, tibetan music is flowing from the stereo and everyone is singing along.

Arriving in the village we are dropped of at the monastery. I walk around the temple with them, turning the praying wheels looking at everyone and listening to people chanting "om - mani - padme". It all seem magical in a strange way.

people praying

I leave the people I came with as they head up to the hills to hang up their praying flags. As I walk down through the village I say to myself that this is as beautiful as it gets. I can't really explain it, not even to myself, but I instantly fall in love with the place. In between the houses there are small paths leading through the village. People are getting on with their daily lives, walking with their animals, a woman is trying to crakc hole in the ice on the river to wash her clothes. Outside the houses people are sitting and drinking tea, women brush their long hair and braiding it while they look with big eyes at the strange withe girl that walks around taking pictures of everything.



A lady smiles at me and tells me to follow. She leads me to her home, a small one room building of stone and mud, she takes me inside and makes me sit down. The fire is burning and the tea pot is already warm. Tea and cookies are served and after a few minutes her husband joines us. We share no common language, but we manage to have some sort of conversation. She refills my tea cup time after time, there is a constant warm smile on her face that makes me feel so welcome.

After about 45 minutes I have to leave them and find my car back to Tagong. The woman goes to the back of the room and picks up a yellow, home made bracelet that she gives to me and insists that I take. I try to find words to show them how grateful I am, I can't find any, but I think they know. They stand by their door and waves me goodbye as I head down to where the car is waiting.

I walk with a smile on my face and I am truly happy. I would do everything again, good and bad, just to get here. It is moments like this that makes it all worth it!

Tibet

I never made it to Tibet, or, at least not the region that the Chinese governement defines as Tibet. But let's make one thing clear; you don't have to go to Lahsa to experience Tibetan culture!

As early as in Russia I met travellers that recommended me to go to the tibetan areas in Western Sichuan. And since it is really expencive and a lot of hassle to a travel permit and tour guide and every thing you need to be alowed to travel to Lahsa, I decided to head up into the mountains in Sichuan and explore some of the many tibetan villages that can be found in this area. And it was definetely not a bad decition.

I left Chengdu early one morning headinbg for KangDing where I had my first encounter with TIbetan culture. Even thoug it was only a seven hour bus ride, the differences were obvious. Beautiful women with long black hair in thick braids down to their waists, big and bright jewlery in every color and traditional tibetan clothes. The men, on the other hand, are the cowboys of the east. Most of them have long hair hanging loose under their cowboy hats, big leather jackets with a purple or yellow scarf around their waste as a belt. And of course, the motor bike. Western Sichuan is definelty China's Wild!

After a few days in KangDing (making christmas cookies and putting up christmas decoration with the family that ran the hostel I was staying at) I joined some other travellers and we went higher up in the mountains to a village called Tagong. Here the modern buildings are replaced by stone houses with colorful decorations around the windows and the doors. There are no Chinese to see any more, and the well used " Ni Hao" is replaced by the Tibetan "Tashi dale". This is truly TIbet.

The surrounding nature with hills, never ending grass land and snow capped mountains in the horizon is stunning. The hills are covered in praying flagsand tibetan writing.It's beautiful, there is nothing more to say about it! We spent a whole day just walking around, wandering the streets and looking. The people, the nature, the village, everything was just so different from anything else I've seen in China. It was just like entering another country.

I love what I have seen so far, and this is only the beginning of my TIbetan experience.

Observations at the train station

Sitting in the waiting room at the train station I feel totally alienated, like I'm from another planet. It is smacked with people, peasants with big bags, students heading home for the week end, families are having pic-nics every here and there. The smell of instant noodles, tea and sweat is everywhere.

I write to make the time pass, and people are constantly looking over my sholder to see what I am doing. I wish I could just be a fly on the wall observing people instead of beeing observed by everyone.

It's not a very colorful place. Most people are wearing black, grey or green. Only two people stand out. A lady in red hurries by with her husband behind her dragging their bags along. Her hair is put op on top of her head and she is covered in too much glitter. She is a true character! And then there is the little girl all dressed in pink. She stops, looks at me and gives me an honest smile without any curiosity. She was the only one. Most people just stear at me like I'm a freak show. ANd sometimes I fell that that's exactely what I am.

Then comes the train, and I am of to a new destination.

Oh Crappy day!

I woke up early, quite exited about the day that lied ahead of me. I was in Datong, and was planning to go see the hanging monasteries outside of town. After checking out of my hotel (that was way too expensive for my budget) I headed out in search for the bus station.

Datong is a grey city. It has tall apartment buildings and industry, there is nothing really charming to it. On top of that is was about minus 13 degrees and loads of snow everywhere, but this didn't really bother me that early in the day, I was still optimistic and looking forward to the Hanging Monasteries. Everywhere I went, on every side walk, road or open space, people were shovelling snow, hacking on the ice to make it easier to get around the town. Even the military was joining in. Two men in the front were carrying the Chinese flag, while the rest followed behind with shovels, spades and brooms over h\their shoulders. A great way to use the military if you ask me!

After some time I found the bus station, and with my guide book in hand I go looking for the ticket office. I found a lady that appeared to be selling tickets, and pointed to the name of the place I wanted to go. "No, finished" she said and shook her head. A crowd had been gathering around me as I was trying to explain that I really wanted to go there. Everyone around me were of course taxi drivers, and they all offered to take me there, but for ridiculously high prices. I politely said no, and told them that I wanted to take the bus, but according to them, the road was broken and the bus had stopped going. Only taxis could take people around. But the price was too much for me, I couldn't do it.

The only reason I came to Datong was to see the Hanging Monasteries, and now that seemed impossible. And about here, the day starts getting crappy. I decided to go to the train station to try and get a ticket out of Datong as soon as possible, but of course, the night train was full so I had to wait another day. Great!

I couldn't afford to stay at the same hotel one more night, so I looked up the budget accommodation in my guide book and went out looking for them. One of the two hotels mentioned was closed down, the other one was impossible to find. The taxi driver dropped me of at a street he claimed was the right address, but of course it wasn't. So I was left searching the streets for this hotel. People kept sending me in different directions, pointing to this big fancy hotel or just shaking there heads saying no-no. I just couldn't find the place.

After about an hour walking around looking for the place with my big back pack, I gave up! I took a taxi and went back to the first hotel. It was about 3 pm and the day was already a total failure. Going back out in the cold was out of the question so I curled up in my bed with a book. Eventually I fell asleep, and when I woke up a few hours later it was dark. I realised I hadn't eaten anything all day, so I went out and got some instant noodles and a bottle of red wine I was planning on enjoying in the hot tub in the hotel room. Did I feel sorry for my self? Oh yes!

It all sounded like a good plan until I realised that the water boiler in my room didn't work, the bath tub was filthy and the bottle of wine had 4% alcohol and tasted like bad, sweet grape juice. I couldn't even finish one glass of it. So I went to bed hungry and angry cursing Datong!

Bye bye Beijing

It's time to head south. Time to escape the cold. I've been wanting warmer weather since I left Norway more than two months ago. But Siberia was cold, Mongolia even colder, and now it's snowing in Beijing. Apparently I am not doing a great job in escaping the cold.

But I've loved every second of my trip so far, even though it's been pretty cold. And Beijing, wow, I don't even know where to start. What a mesmerizing city!

There are loads of things to see and do here, things that are sort of mandatory when you are in Beijing. But to be honest, I haven't done much of that during the three weeks I've been hanging around the city. I never really felt like it. Too many Chinese tourist groups with flags and matching hats for me to feel comfortable entering the Forbidden City. Too many people, too crowded, a bit claustrophobic.

What I have done a lot of is wandering around in random hutongs, small cobble stoned streets and stone houses with small and beautiful carvings on the roof. Looking at life, taking in the colors, the smell og street food, the people bustling about with their lives, old men sitting on the stairs playing Chinese chess and people hurrying by on their bicycles and looking at me as a stranger that had gotten lost in their neighborhood. And sometimes that was the case, but I couldn't care less. I enjoyed it!

The parks in Beijing are also amazing. So well organized, with loads of weeping willows, flowers, bamboo and rivers peacefully floating through the maze of green. It's a wonderful hide out to get away from the noise of the city. The parks are alive in Beijing. In any park you will find groups of people practicing tai tchi, or doing ball room dances or aerobics. People are singing, not for money, but just for the fun of it. Others might be practicing an instrument or preforming a play for anyone to watch and enjoy.

All in all, Beijing is a wonderful place to spend a few weeks. Even after 3 weeks here I'm not tired of it. I know that the city is a place I will always remember with joy and it's a place that my heart will always want to come back to.

A hike into history

The Great Wall of China. The mother of all walls. And yes, it is as amazing as people claim it to be!

I left Beijing early one morning and headed north towards the Wall, to a part of the wall that is very little restored, but that has some of the most amazing views you get on The Great Wall. After a few hours of driving I arrived at Jinshanling. It was cold outside, but the sky was as clear as it can get, and I was lucky to escape the never ending fog and pollution one finds in Beijing. Getting up on the wall was a 2 km hike straight up. The Wall is built on mountain tops and stretched from peak to peak as far as I could see in both directions. On the top a stunning view met me, but it would only get better and better the further I went.

My destination was 10 km away, and it is not easy to hike The Great Wall. It is constantly up and down from peak to peak so steep that you sometimes need to use both hands and feet to get up the remains if the stairs that once used to be there. But oh, it's worth it!

As I reached the highest point of the hike, my legs were like jelly and layer after layer of clothes had come of becaus all of a sudden I wasn't that cold anymore. I stopped for a few minutes to catch my breath and to take in the beauty of what surrounded me, still finding it hard to believe that I was actually walking on a wall constructed more than 2000 years ago I ask myself how they got all the stones on top of the mountains to construct the wall.

Unfortunately I can't stand like that, admiring the wall, forever so I start the descent towards Simatai and the zippline that is going to take me down the wall, across the lake and back to the buss that awaits to bring me back to Beijing.

Imagine

Imagine waking up to a sunny day in Mongolia. You have a day of horse riding ahead of you on the shoe of a lake in the northern parts of the country. Even though it is a clear day and you can't see a cloud anywhere on the sky, you put on all you have of warm clothes and makes sure that your jacket is properly zipped up so that the freezing wind won't sneak in under you scarf.

You help your guides load the pack horses before you climb up on your own horse and the group sets out into the nature. It doesn't go fast, you have all the time in the world to enjoy the nature around you, the colors and the quietness. The wind blowing in the threes, the birds that sings and flies away as you pass by. It is a wonderful change to the Russian minivan you have just spent three days in.

After a few hours you stop for lunch. You all enter into a ger where you are served home made bread with cream and sugar and a salty milk tea with butter. According to Mongolian hospitality, travelers can enter any ger on the country side and they will be served whatever the family has to offer. It is great!

As the day comes to an end you arrive at the ger where you will spend the night. It's already pretty cold and you hurry inside the warm ger, help yourself to s cup of tea and relaxes a little bit before dinner. You have to keep the fire alive at all times, if not all the heat will go out through the big hole in the roof that they have to get light in the ger at day time.

Going to bed you put on your thermo underwear, scarf, glows and a beanie before you climb into your sleeping bag and pull the blanket over you ready for a good night sleep. In the middle of the night you wake up and can't really feel your toes anymore. It's dark, the fire has gone out, you really want to get up and start it again, but you can't get your self to get out into the cold ger so you try to fall asleep again. And eventually you do.

Morning comes and the ger gets brighter and brighter as the sun rises and slowly you wake up in minus 2 degrees Celsius to yet another day on the horse back in he Mongolian country side.