Waking up with a mild hangover was not the best way to prepare for a 5 hour bus journey to the mountain village/town of Xiahe, a small Tibetan style town 280km south of Lanzhou set in a luscious green valley. STill, we struggled to make it to the bus and the views along the way were worth it. It made a change from the endless brown and yellow desert scenery that we'd come so accustomed to see outside the bus window.

We arrived in Xiahe around lunchtime and at first sight it looked like just another modern, low-rise, white-tiled CHinese provincial town, but before long this gave way to brown mud brick Tibetan houses surrounding the golden-roofed Labrang monastery where some 1200 monks currently live. Once again it was a different CHina to what we'd seen so far. Monks strolled freely around town clad in their red summer robes. They were shopping, bargaining, laughing with eachother and even talking on their mobile phones! A few old muslim men, identifiable by their white hats and long icicle-like beards hanging down from their chins, sat around on the streets watching the world go by or trying to sell passers by items from their shop doorways with their goods spilling out onto the street.

We had a Tibetan lunch of Yak's meat with noodles and then just headed off and explored the town and surrounding villages on foot. It was a lovely rest from the large towns and cities we'd been accustomed to seeing. Goats, yaks and cows grazed on the grass and we found a quiet little spot by the river to just relax and collect our thoughts. Well, it was quiet until a motorbike piled with some young locals dropped by and wanted to chat even though we spoke no CHinese.

We walked back into town past numerous meat sellers waving rags at their produce to remove the flies. The smell of offal followed us down the street back to the hotel and then we saw its source - an old man selling the last remains of what was once a sheep. We quickly got away and sat back at the restaurant we had lunch in as the night fell and a spectacular electrical storm was brewing.