Our next destination after Xian was Xining, the capital of the Qinghai province. It’s located on the Tibetan plateau, and we planned to continue from here through the mountainous scenery along the Tibetan border into the province of Sichuan. But we didn’t take the Chinese government into account… Upon arrival in Xining we were told that the border region that we wanted to cross was closed for foreigners at the moment – apparently because of a rebellion (or the anniversary thereof?) of some ethnic minority in the towns on our route. So they wouldn’t sell onward tickets to anyone with a foreign passport. On top of that, Yushu, the next town on our planned route, had been devastated by an earthquake last year, and apparently reconstruction of the town was ongoing with lots of people still living in tents.
Forced to change our plans, we accepted the offer of a very friendly, English speaking and seemingly trustworthy Chinese guide to take us to the countryside to stay with a local family – all the hotels in the city were full since it’s summer holiday time and the Chinese tourists flood trains as well as hotels. Xiao Yun, our guide, turned out to be a walking encyclopedia, and told us many stories about life in China during the 2h bus ride to the remote village that was our new destination. Finally the bus (filled with locals that were wondering what on earth these foreigners were doing here) dropped us on the roadside, and we walked through fields of soybeans and barley to the village. The family that hosted us lived in a typical village home: the grounds surrounded by a huge wall, inside a maniac watch dog and a rather large garden where they grow most of the vegetables they eat. The one-storey house itself, built from bricks and mud, was simple but clean. There was electricity, TV, fridge etc, but no running water. Our bed in the spare room they rented us for 4€ per night had pillows filled with straw – welcome to rural China. The family cooked delicious food for us, even though some dishes had garlic as their main ingredient. At nightfall, we wandered up to the small temple clinging to a mountain slope above the village. Our guide knew the few Buddhist monks that lived there personally, so they were welcoming and let us wander around between all the various gilded sculptures of gods – seemingly one for each of the possible problems that could bother the villagers, who would then come up here and pray to the respective statue. The pilgrims had also piled lots of donations in front of the various gods – ranging from candies to watermelons. Our guide told us the monks would leave the sacrifices for a few days before eating them for lunch.
Since we couldn’t go to the mountains on the Tibetan border, we opted to climb one of the peaks around Xining. Our guide took us to Ma Qi, a 4500m mountain that was pleasantly off the beaten path (as was the whole village experience – we didn’t see another foreigner or even Chinese tourists for our entire stay there).
The drive with the taxi to the trailhead was incredibly beautiful: rolling hills covered in a mosaique of bright yellow fields of rapeseed and green fields of barley. The fields stretched high up on the mountain slopes – the Chinese really seem to use every possible inch of arable land. The way to the mountain was lined with beehives. They belong to migrant beekeepers that had pitched up their tents beside the road, where they stay with their bees for the flowering season in the area, and then move on to a different region.
When we started the hike, the peak was covered in fog, but a few hours later, when we were just underneath the summit and the air was getting noticably thinner, the clouds gave way to sunny blue sky. So we were rewarded on the top with a literally breathtaking panorama of the surrounding mountains, and in the distance we even saw some really high snowcapped ones. In the land of over 1.3 billion people, peaceful moments like this, far away from bustling and crowded life in the cities, are even more special.
