Langmusi, our home from home in Tibet

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Left Labrang for a 5 hour bus ride to the small village of Langmusi which is nestled between two hillsides.  The village is home to two monastries (yellow hat).  Langmusi is a typical Tibetan village which really only consists of one street running through the centre of the village.  The main mode of transport here are motorbikes frequently ridden by nomads in full Tibetan dress (tubers) and scarfs wrapped around their faces so you can only see their eyes (if they are not wearing some of the biggest sunglasses we have ever seen!)  The narrow main street is also home to various livestock including a family of pigs including some of the cutest, tiniest piglets we have seen (fair game to the local kids to chase them).

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When we arrived at the Langmusi Hotel which was owned by the family of our tour guide Kelsang we were greeted with smiling faces.  Once we unloaded our very heavy packs, the tiny local women put three at a time on their backs and carried them up three flights of stairs - very impressive as neither Lee nor I could even manage to carry ourselves up the stairs without loosing our breath (we blamed the altitude - we were around 3,800m above sea level).

We visited a small restaurant for dinner - Lhesa's which we would highly recommend - she is also featured in the Lonely Planet.  She is famed for her 'Yak Attack Burgers'  We tried her famous Yak Burritos which were absolutely delicious and the total bill was only Y29 for both Lee and I which was good value.  Also worth a mention is the lovely Muslim Tea (8 Treasurers) which was really refreshing after a day travelling.

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After a lovely nights sleep, we were up bright and early for a mornings hike.  We picked up one of Lhesa's chocolate cakes (a very very big Chocolate cookie) and plenty of water and set off first to visit one of the two monastries which sit of either side of this village.  After the monastary visit we headed out into the Tibetan countryside and encountered some herds of yak, sheep and horses.  After a couple of hours we stopped for lunch at a beautiful spot in a valley.  Within 30 mins a herd of sheep were heading our way promply followed by a nomadic girl who was looking after them.  She came and sat with us and shared our lunch and water.  After some time she left with some of our group and returned 30 mins later with two children in tow (one was hers and one was a friends).  It was lovely just to sit with her and the children (the little boy was very quiet but soon came out of his shell after a few games of frisbee with the guys).  Brett's frisbee seems to have that affect on all children!

Jan surrounded by some of the kids desperate for a photo
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Arrived back in the village around 4pm and Lee had his first haircut of the trip.  A rather fetching 'nu,ber 6' which looked suspiciously like a number 1!

Had a bit of a disaster on our last day in Langmusi.  We decided to take our XD card to a CD burning place to have our photos saved.  In error they kind of deleted around 500 photos which were lost forever.  After the initial shock and a few tears, decided that after seeing the smiles on some of the kids faces here, its no big disaster and Lee and I are both OK so life goes on.  Hopefully we can get copies of some of the photos of the Great Wall etc from our new friends in the tour group.