Only a short bus ride today (3hrs) to Zhongdian where we checked into the Dragon Cloud Guesthouse near the old quarter.It took a good hour to clean myself and my clothes but thankfully the sun was shining bright in Zhongdian so Meriam didn't have to put up with my washing line in the room for once.
Zhongdian is at an altitude of 3500m (or something near that) and you can certainly feel the change in oxygen levels and impact of the sun. I had a Tibeten meat pie (as in Yak meat) at the Puppet Restaurant (which I definatly recommend) before Jo and I gorged ourselves on the sweat that tasted like cornflakes lathered in honey, we both made ourselves rather sick but it was so worth it. We then hiked up to a temple with a massive prayer wheel, not the smartest thing to do when your still aclimatising, we got about half way and wanted to die it was such hard work (I know that seems lame after conquering Tiger Leaping Gorge but you have to be there to understand). Whilst at the Temple rain clouds appeared so I had to dash back to the hotel to bring my clothes in and the spent the arvo shopping in the old town, I've now fully decorated my apartment walls and will have to start sending stuff home or the seams on backpack may break!
For dinner we found a little restaurant that overlooked the town square. At about 8 the local people started dancing in the square, it wasn't long before their was a few hundred dancing in large circles. I couldn't resist joining in :) so Sheryl, Elinor and myself headed down. It looked simple watching from above, but they have really complicated feet movements. It was a hell of a lot of fun!
The next day we rode out to the Songzanlin monastery, a good 10km ride in the glaring heat of Zongdian. The hills were rather difficult, actually even riding on the flats felt difficult given the altitude.
The monastery has 600 monks currently living their and was quite strange to see young monks running around simply as if they were on lunch break at a normal school. For many poor families in China the monastery offers a way of giving their children a free education, so many will not go on to be adult monks but I would imagine it would still give them a great grounding and basis on which to start their lives.
At night we had a fantastic Tibeten feast. I was quite tired and had planned on heading back to the hostel but got a tad lost but luckily would up on the main street. Stangely enough I ended up opposite the Yak Bar, where some of the English guys from the group were watching the FA cup final. Feeling quite awake now I decided to join them. We got to full time including a power cut of 20 minutes, put then they didn't play the overtime, so it was a few days before we found out that Chelsea had beaten Man U.
Next stop: Dali, after an 8hr bus ride, yuck!
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