We'd gone for a Tibetan style guesthouse so we effectively slept on a pile of blankets on the floor. I woke up to the sound of the owner's children screaming in the courtyard below and felt stiff all over. It wasn't quite the relaxing lie-in that I'd anticipated. For the first time in what felt like ages we weren't getting up early to catch yet another bus.

We decided to change hotel and found a quieter one  nearby where we bumped into the Aussies from DUnhuang again. After breakfast we hired a couple of bikes and just went off cycling to admire the scenery. Along the way some huy had set up a stall on the side of the road and was hailing down anybody cycling past who looked foreign in order to charge them for using the road. He looked as unofficial as you can get and it seemed ridiculous anyway so we cycled past him cursing. Even if it was official it was just another annoying and dubious CHinese attempt to get you to pay for absolutely everything.

After an hour's cycling, we arrived at a little village where we bought some provisions and then turned around and headed for a spot by the river to have a picnic. We stopped at a roadside tent swarming with bees to buy some fresh honey which an old man doled out from a large plastic tub into our plastic water bottle. His wife stood for a long time staring at us as though we'd asked for something outrageous before returning to the back of their tent and occupying herself.

We stopped for lunch by the river as planned before heading to visit the Buddhist Labgrang MOnastery. We were shown around by one of the monks who'd been there 17 years and looked rather bored by having to once again show tourists around. It was as though he'd done the tour thousands of times before and was annoyed that he hadn't been promoted. Still, the monastery was one of the more decorative and impressive ones I have seen. Golden Buddhas and Boddisattvas abounded in candle-lit rooms clouded with incense smoke. The only problem was that everywhere smelled of yak butter which they used not only for food but for candles and even for making sculptures!