Day 1 - Xining - melting pot launch pad for the Tibetan Plateau
Xining was a town full of surprises. I expected a dusty little frontier town but on the first day there found a sprawling city with a pretty world class airport and an upscale development that to our surprise had two Starbucks and a street full of bars (Bar Street) with craft beer from around the world. The surprises kept coming even on the return trip when we saw an even more modern side of the city - more about that later.
First we start with my arrival and if you know how creative Valerie is you won't be surprised that I arrived to this:
After checking in to our cool Tibetan themed hostel the City Nomad, we got busy looking for cold beer (almost impossible to find), local food (BBQ squid, lamb, beef, and "Chinese hamburgers" cooked by the local Muslims are worth the trip for) and supplies for our trek.. We decided to stay here for two nights to help me acclimatize to the altitude since I had flown in from sea-level.
Some details from our cozy hostel
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| Tibetan beer... |
Local food
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| Val's addiction: Chinese hamburgers |
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| Yak jerky or chew sticks for dogs? and a toy Tibetan mastiff - never met a friendly one in two weeks |
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The only cold draft beer we could find.. "protoplasmic" wheat beer from the town of Tsingtao. The owners let us bring in food from the Muslim bbq joint next door because we didn't want to offend the owners of the BBQ joint by taking alcohol there - despite the pub's owner showing us this in his translator:
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Note the can of oxygen and the box of vials of a traditional Chinese remedy both of which I bought in Xining to ward off altitude sickness. We were surprised to find out later that even some Tibetans and Chinese took the medicine at high altitudes...
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| Chili peppers and spices on tofu |
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| skewers emptied of their heavenly spicy squid |
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| spicy sweet potato fritters |
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| squiiiid |
Some other random stuff:
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| always amazed at her ability to navigate this country and communicate with its people |
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| stocking up on Chinese pasta for the trail |
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| supplies for Buddhists with fragrant evergreens to burn in offering (below) |
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| raisins, yak jerky, mystery snack |
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| Xining's main mosque |
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| a tea I bought in a small shop... complete with the glass and 5 or 6 herbs and fruits (dates, rock sugar, a plum?, mystery stuff, etc... |
Finally, a highlight of the couple of days in Xining was ... when we were kind of lost and walked under a bridge where we heard some crazy music coming out of a dingy looking room nestled in the dark passage. We peeped in and saw some kind of performance underway and a few people watching told us to come on in a sit down..
It was some kind of tea shop and from what we could tell the group was practicing, maybe for a bigger performance.. because they seemed to chat with each other during songs and singing.. although it was possible that the chatting was part of the performance..
At one point, an old man who we thought was just watching started a cathartic singing response to the female vocalist.. while he was "singing" she feigned wiping tears from her eyes to show that the old man was crying..
Next up - a day of hitching rides to the mountain - a beautiful ride to nowhere - Sheriff tried to get us a ride....
