Our Introduction to Tibet

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We arrived into Langhou via an overnight train from Xi'an (8 hours) bright and refreshed.  After a quick breakfast in a local hotel we took a 5 hour bus ride to Labrang.  Stopped for lunch of spicy noodle soup and our first eight treasures tea (muslim tea).  The driving in China and Tibet is very interesting!  Lots of ambitious overtaking manovers and horn blowing.  From what we can gather the basic road rule is so long as you honk your horn as loud and as many times as you can you can do as you please.  We closed our eyes lots of times during this drive.  Labrang is a fairly small town famous for the Labrang Monastry which is one of the 8 important monastries of the yellow hat sect which the Dali Lama is head of.

This little boy wouldn't leave his kitten.
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Once we caught our breath we took a walk around the town.  The most interesting thing is the 1174 spinning prayer wheels which the local tibetian people spin as they walk around the perimeter of the monastry - always clockwise.

the monks flung off their boots and headed into the temple

Had a lovely meal at the Labrong Monastry Restaurant where we felt like we had been invited into someone's front room for dinner.  We shared our dining table with a Tibetian monk who was watching the TV.  Our host turned off the TV when we arrived and there was no end of complaints from the Monk - he won and the TV was turned back on.  Our food of chicken, vegetables, rice and muslim tea cost us 30 yuan (2 pounds) in total.

Some young monks
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The thing that strikes you about this village is that it is absolutely full of monks of all ages and the entire village commerce is geared towards them with shop after shop selling yellow and purple robes, temple statues, offerings etc.  The odd shop selling 'North Face' fleeces and jackets sits between these shops.

What surprised us the most is that the Monks live a fairly normal existance here.  They all appeared to have mobile telephones and cameras etc.  They also sit in the restaurants and cafe's chatting with a soft drink or coffee.

Having a game of basketball with monks
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On our first full day in Labrong we took a bus to a monastry about 2 hours away which is part of the 'Bon' sect which is a different part of Buddism.  The Monks here were very friendly with lots of very young monks.  Parents sometimes send their sons here when they are very young - 5 years old sometimes, to gain an education from the monks.  This is sometimes the only way that these boys can be educated.  More often that not these are second sons as there is no money left to educate them.  We were told that it costs around 250 yuan to educate a child for one year in China - around 17 pounds.  After a tour of the temple we all had a game of basketball with the monks.  This has to be the most surreal moment of our trip to date - wow, could these guys play!  I don't think they must spend all their time in meditation.

Our first Muslim (8 Treasures) tea - delicious
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After saying goodbye to the bon monks, we headed to a walled village around 1 hour away where we could climb up the village walls and sit and have some lunch.  When we arrived we were met by just about all the kids in the village.  They were really interested in our sunglasses and food.  I let one of the kids try on my sunglasses and thought I had lost them forever!  He was away showing all his friends and must have worn them for about an hour before I eventually persuaded him to give them back to me.  I wish I had had another pair as I would have loved to give him a pair - although I am sure that I would have caused a massive fight amongst all the kids!  The kids were absolutely fasinated by Adams ipod - they were all queuing for a listen of his music on his headphones.  They couldn't understand how they could hear the music and no one else could.

Prayer wheels in Labrang
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Our last morning in Labrong was spent visiting the Labrong monastry.  This place was absolutely amazing but with an overwhelming smell of yak's milk.  We were shown around lots of individual temples and watched the monks preparing for prayers.  They all were sat on the steps of the temple - at first only two or three then gradually more and more arrived and starting chanting.  In the end there must have been around one hundred monks chanting on the steps.  All of a sudden a bell rang and all the monks flung off their boots and headed into the temple.  All that was left were around a hundred pairs of well worn boots lying around the steps.  How they ever knew which ones were theirs was a mystery!