Big Stuff in Qinghai

So, our time in Xining is drawing to a close. Tomorrow we will be hopping a plane to Lhasa. Both of us are really excited about this trip! The "Roof top of the world" and "Shangri-la". Cool. We really don't know what to expect there. We have been told that Lhasa is really Chinese in feeling and to try to travel out. With the new train line that has been opened, new restrictions for foreigners shortly followed. It will be interesting to see what we can do, what we can't do, how much the things we can do are and how much the things we can't do wind up being. Many things are, umm, "negotiable" here.

What have we been up to in Xining? Well, not a whole heck of a lot. A couple of days ago we went out to see the very large Qinghai Lake. It is a large salt water, "surreal" lake. And well, yes, that is correct. Large lake. Don't know about "surreal", but it was, um, water. It seems that many of the sites that we have gone to see natural and unnatural usually aren't worth the money we pay to go see them. Sure, there are exceptions, but how much do I really want to pay to see a large, gold, painted plaster statue? Also, we have to pay to see natural features like the lake. Not a small amount either, then pay to take the tram around the area, pay to take a boat out, etc. Usually when we conclude our day we are relieved to be off of the tour (Chinese tours are definitely one of the circles of hell) and our general thinking is not how cool the experience was, but at least we won't wonder what we missed.

Anyhow, about the lake. It was an interesting area. Coming from the very brown and dry Guyuan, Xining is very lush in comparison. I enjoyed looking out at the green hillsides. It was almost as if someone covered all of the hills with velvet green drapery. It was beautiful! The scenery was also very interesting - these green hills turn into rocky hills which turn into sand dunes which turn back into green hills.... We had a great tour guide, but concluded that being a Chinese tour guide would be horrible! He spoke some English and he seemed to be excited that some foreigners were on his tour - I think that we were his first.

We also met a couple of people from Poland who were traveling up from India, Nepal through Tibet into China. They were fun to talk to and they were able to give us some travel advice about traveling around Lhasa and Tibet. They also told us about visiting Poland and Belarus, the guy was very excited about Belarus (see Matt's blog). We were able to share some frustrations we have experienced along the way and got some laughs. When we went our separate ways - he called out, "see you in Poland!"

What else...

Today we walked by one of the largest mosques in Western China. Again, yes, it was big. Foreigners aren't allowed inside, so we just gazed at its bigness from across the street. It was fairly unremarkable though. It just seemed to lack the character we have seen in other mosques here in China. But, yes, it was big, so there you are.

Now, we are just trying to get everything together for the trip out to Lhasa and who knows where else in Tibet - we'll see what the PSB will allow us to do. Hopefully the altitude won't make us sick for too long and even more so, hopefully neither of us will have a case of acute mountain sickness and have to leave.

The next time I check in will be from Lhasa. If you have any shopping requests, please drop me a comment. I may not be able to fulfill any of them as, well, I am a volunteer and all, making a volunteer's salary. But, at least I will be able to try to bargain for some things and you may get lucky!