Hello small lunatics! Did you all have a good summer? Aunt Kristel and I had an AMAZING summer. We travelled up on the train to the same places we went in the winter holiday, to meet our old friends. Aunt Kristel had to teach in the school, but when she didn’t have class, we went for long walks on the grassland. There were zillions of wildflowers, it was so beautiful, and as you walked, you could smell all the flowers. You can see me with the flowers in one picture! We also climbed the mountains, and from the top, you could see all over the valley. There were many nomads living in tents. Aunt Kristel went to visit some with her friends, but I was afraid because the nomad dogs were really big and scary, so I hid in Aunt Kristel’s pocket while we were there. We stayed there for most of the summer, and had butter tea and tsampa every morning for breakfast! Tsampa is a kind of flour made from barley, and the usual breakfast is to mix it into dough with tea and butter, and eat it! Maybe I’ll bring some back with me next time I visit, so you can try it. We also had nomad cheese, but it’s really not like cheese in Canada. It’s small crunchy chunks. I don’t think Grandpa would like it much, might break all his teeth!
Aunt Kristel also took me to visit Tso Ngonpo with here. That is the biggest lake in Tibet and China. Tso means lake, and Ngonpo means blue. It really is a blue lake! It is so clear you can see down really far into the water. We went out on a speedboat, and then drove all around the lake. On the way we visited Bird Island. That’s a really famous place because there are thousands of birds. But it was really smelly. We could smell it long before we saw it. But it was very beautiful, the island was covered with big black birds called cormorants. That kind of bird always lives by water, because they catch fish. Maybe that’s why they smell so bad. I think mice smell much nicer, don’t you?!
Later we went on another trip to a place called Parey. That was on the border of two provinces, Qinghai and Gansu. Maybe you can find it on the map. It’s exactly north of Xining. It was a really beautiful place, with lots of waterfalls. We only stayed there for one day though, and saw the white yaks! Parey is the only place in the world that has white yaks. Aunt Kristel jumped out of the car once to take a photo.
Next we went to a really cool place called Repgong. In Chinese it’s called Tongren…try and find it on the map! There were many monasteries, and the most famous artists in Tibet come from here, so Aunt Kristel had a good time looking at all the painting and art on the buildings and in the temples. Then we went with a friend of hers to visit his family. But his family were real nomads, and there was no road to the place they lived, so we had to walk and climb mountains to go there! It took about 4 hours, then we stayed one night with his brother’s family in a tent. Can you find the picture of the nomad tent we stayed in? The mother had to get up early in the morning to milk the yaks, you cans ee a picture of that too. Some people put saddles on their yaks, and went away to a village to bring back flour and other things. It was very very cold in the morning! The only warm place was by the fire in the tent. The next day, we walked to another village to visit my friend’s mother. More and more walking…up hills and down hills…no people anywhere, only yaks and sheep and flowers. There were some cute little furry animals called abras, and we tried to catch one so I could talk to him, but they were too fast to catch! (One of Aunt Kristel’s students caught some though, look for the picture!) That night, the family made special food for us, sausages….but it was really gross to watch them making them so we went out for a walk instead, and came back when they were ready to eat! The day after that we visited our friend’s monastery. But it was a special month, when noone was allowed to go into the monastery, and the monks had to stay in the monastery area. So Aunt Kristel and I stayed in a tent on a hill beside a forest by ourselves, and the monks came there to visit us! It was very exciting, and I wasn’t afraid at all!
After that we went back to Repgong, stopping on the way to visit some famous old monasteries. Then we went back on a bus to the monastery school to say goodbye to our friends before we came back here. And two days after we got back there was another earthquake! I think that earthquakes follow Aunt Kristel wherever she goes….
So that’s the end of my story this time!
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