Thorn Tree travel forum

1

Meet up with Losang? :)
Cheers!

2

I hear he is out of town somewhere.

I met Art and Grace though.

No longer posting on TT because TT sucks.

3

Did you visit that temple north of town? Or visit Dalai and Panchen's birthplaces?

4

There is a nice page on Losang´s blog on Takster , Dalai Lama´s birthplace. I thought the Panchen Lama was born in Nakchu ...?

high road to ..

5

Losang is in the states at the moment. Have you visited the tibetan market opposite the busstation?? quite funny with the monks looking for a new robe, tibetan nomads etc.

6

Climb one of those hills around the city.
Buy a Tibetan rug (I think at the market #5 mentions).
Go to Qinghai-Tibet Adventure Travel and ask them for a brochure- they mention a lot of places in the east Qinghai area that aren't in guidebooks.

Which Panchen Lama?
The 10th Panchen Lama's hometown is somewhere in Qinghai south of Xining, I believe- I think near Tongren.

And, why are you stuck in Xining?

7

I meant the 10th Panchen Lama. It's just west of Xunhua (3 hour bus ride from Xining). We passed by it on the way between Xunhua and Tongren. There are Salars in Xunhua.

8

I was thinking of Takster but I'm doing laundry now, so maybe later. I was also thinking of climbing one of the hills opposite Kumbum where there are a bunch of prayer flags. I took a peak in Shuijiang Market yesterday but this being a weekend, it was heaving and I was tired after kicking some Chinese guy's ass at pool so I headed home.

I was going to head back out towards the bus station though, it looked pretty interesting.

zhaoyun, I'm not really 'stuck' in Xining, just waiting for Tibetan Connections office here to sort out a permit and ticket for me. I only got to speak with them on Friday, but they need three working days to arrange everything (although I'm hoping to be out of here Monday).

BTW, does anyone have a good recipe for cooking pigeons? Every market I pass seems to have them and they look pretty tasty....

No longer posting on TT because TT sucks.

9

OK so I decided on Takster.

The bus from the Xining Main Bus Station to Pingan costs Y6 (a nice Chinese man insisted on paying my fare for me). From there I hopped in a cab showed the cab driver where I wanted to go (written in Chinese by one of the receptionists at the hotel). We drove two minutes and then stopped. There was a police jeep at the entrance to the road we needed to go down. The cab driver was told to stop and hand over his ID, and English speaking person (who I suspect was police officer out of uniform) was called over to explain to me what was happening. First this guy said we needed permission to go to Takster so we had to wait till the authority was given. Then a few minutes later, as a crowd gathered, there was supposedly an accident ahead and then finally there was traffic ahead and that was the only road we could use. Rather than get my cab driver into any trouble and fully aware of what happened recently after the Dalai Lama was awarded his medal in the US, I headed back to Xining.

What a shame.

No longer posting on TT because TT sucks.