Modes of transportation!

Animals on the road!

Vulcan posing!

The magnificent scenery on the way.

It was a magnificent day.

Today was a wonderful day. Leaving early we had about 40 kms on the motorway and then continued our driving on a 2 lane highway. These roads are probably better than most 2 lane roads in Australia or the USA but it was a winding road as we climbed to 3,960 metres.

What spectacular scenery. Rivers were still partially iced over and the mountains were snow capped. Yaks and sheep were the animals mostly seen and in addition the different modes of transportation and the way they were stacked made good photography.

Lunch of home made noodles at Ebao were delicious and better than our usual picnic lunch because of the cold!

At Ebao there were also two monuments for the Silk road…one in stone and one in metal. Both were very good.

Although I could describe the scenery I will let the photos do it for me…absolutely beautiful!

We arrived in Zhangye and by 4pm were able view the Buddhist temple with its large reclining buddha.

We drove to Xining and visited the Kumbun or Taer Si monastery. This is the Gelugpa (yellow hat) sect of Tibetan Buddhism.  The monastery dates back to 1577 and is the birthplace of Tsongkhapa, the founder of the sect. We noticed snow on the distant mountains en route.

Monks still live here and many of the temples are open to the public. The first thing we noticed is that there are pilgrims prostrating on the ground inside the complex. Complete with knee pads, aprons and gloves and wooden boards on their hands, they walk 3 steps, lie flat on their stomach and pray. Than stand, walk another 3 steps and do it again. This is very important to them and the monastery is considered very holy.

Wandering around the complex we noticed the prayer bells and the bright colors that adorned the buildings both inside and out.

The Yak butter scripture temple contained sculptures carved out of yak butter!

Our drive today was to Lanzhou. Setting off at 8.00am from our hotel in Tianshui, we arrived at the Water Curtain Caves which was about 10 kms off the motor way at about 10.00. We were able to get permission to take our cars up the narrow road close to the rock face where usually only the shuttle buses were able to go.

We then walked to view the attractions for a couple hours. The hillsides reminded us of the Olgas in Australia, although to different people in our group it reminded them of different things.

On one side of the valley was the Water Curtain Cave where many small Buddhist temples had been built. Climbing up, it was fascinating to explore the many different temples, all in use today. In the wet season the water cascades over the entry of the cave thus giving it its name.

On the other side of the valley the large statues of Buddha carved into the rock face were impressive.

On arrival in Lanzhou, we explored the local night market and found a wonderful Muslim restaurant. Pointing to what a group of young men were eating, we ordered two of the same. The restaurant was making their own large noodles and these were continually being rolled out, torn up and thrown into boiling water. Our meal was these noodles in a lamb broth with vegetables. It was absolutely wonderful and unknown to us when we ordered and ate it, it would cost us a total of 20 Yuan (4 dollars)