Sangke Grasslands

We stopped for lunch, and were served a meal very similar to the last few. By the end of the trip there were some foods I was sure I would never want to eat again, thanks to these tour group style meals, and certainly by the end of the trip all I ever did was pick at my food. After eating we piled into the bus and drove off towards the Sangke grasslands. 

The grassland are approximately 14 km outside of Xiahe where we were staying, and are the home of many Tibetan nomads who live in traditional Tibetan tents and raise yaks, as well as offering horse back riding to tourists. The Sangke grasslands provide spectacular views of the mountains surrounding us, and even offered views of snow-capped peaks. There were only so many horses available at a time for the ride and so we split into two groups. I chose to save horse back riding for last and so spent the first half hour of time in the grasslands with my friends taking in the views. 

The grass, plain a first was actually surprisingly diverse, and dotted with tiny patches of beautifully colored flowers, my favorite ones pictured here. People had fun chasing the baby yaks around and someone found a soccer ball and got a game going. I have to say again that I was thrilled with the mountain air. I felt better than I had since I arrived in Shanghai where I’m constantly suffering from allergy and struggling to breathe through the smoggy air. 

 More Prayer flags, an important part of Tibetan life here. 

Distracted by our game of soccer, it seemed like no time until the other group returned and we got out turn on the horses. We saddled up and rode out. My horse was slower than the rest it seemed to me and for the majority of the ride he simply wandered around, not caring to catch up with the group. I was slightly frustrated but I soon learned to appreciate the calm composure. We ended up turning around to go back the way we came and suddenly I found myself in the front. My horse seemed to take some pleasure in this and took off running, me clutching to the reigns, unsure of how to control the situation. We flew down the trail, startling yak along the way who reared up and purred my horse ever faster onward. Terrified that I wouldn’t be able to stop when the time came I’m sure I was screaming by the time we reached our starting point, at which point my horse calming slowed to a stop and patiently waited for me to descend. Maybe he just wanted to get home? 

I’d received an adrenaline rush from my horse experience and I was ready to have my traditional tent visit now. It was in the same place we had ridden the horses and we all piled into one of the tents to begin the experience. The girls were met with a shock. There was a men’s side and a women’s side. The men’s side was decidedly better with rugs laid out for sitting on and tables for the food to sit on. The girls on the other hand essentially had the floor to sit on. The Americans, who truly believed that all things should be equal, did not take this well, myself included. Why should we have to sit on one side? We managed to be outraged enough that rugs were brought over for our side. The tent was smoky and difficult to breathe in. We were told that the smoke was kept inside to keep out insects for which we were grateful but I think we all would have been happier to avoid choking on smoke.

Eventually they brought out the food, or rather the ingredients for our food. We would be dining on yak butter milk tea, and some sort of cookie dough like substance we were to make from barley flour, milk tea, sugar, and yak butter. The yak butter milk tea was fairly self explanatory. Milk tea in general is currently a huge fad in major Chinese cities and it’s a traditional drink out here in the west. The essential idea is simply tea brewed in milk rather than in water. The only difference between this and yak butter milk tea was the addition of yak butter. The weirder taste test was definitely barley flour mixture. 

 

The Ingredients. 

 Final product.

You start by adding two large scoops of yak butter to a bowl, then you pour the milk tea mixture over top (it’s not an exact amount), before adding a sizable amount of barley flour and a spoonful of sugar. Actually, you can add sugar to taste, or at least that’s what I did to end up with my cookie dough-like mixture. We kneaded this with our hands for a while until it formed a sort of paste, which you were to eat just like that. Everyone was hesitant but it wasn’t half bad. Although I have to say, it’s not something I’d want to eat every day for my entire life. 

Once we finished mixing our snack and eating it, we all scrambled back on to the bus to head back into Xiahe for some real dinner and some souvenir shopping. Back in the town my friend Slater was discovered my some young Tibetan girls (a few years younger than us) who thought he bore some resemblance to Justin Bieber. The girls were fascinated by us Americans and gave us gifts (I received a bracelet) and they sang us a Justin Bieber song. A few of the girls made plans with us to 
meet for breakfast tomorrow which we happily accepted hoping to learn a few new things about the Tibetan culture. 

 Yum, lamb skewers.

Ew, sheep intestine and heads. 

The dinner, which I was so excited about, turned out to be a disappointment because it was once again the same food. So I made plans with a few others to go find some lamb skewers after dinner for a real meal. The lamb was delicious and I made my way back to the hotel unsure of my plans for the evening. We started off in the hotel, watching the Chinese version of power rangers, laughing as our Chinese fluent friends translated for us, before hunger drove us out again. I wasn’t the only one who had been unsatisfied by the dinner and we found ourselves at the same street food place where I had previously purchased lamb. This time though we had them make us a spicy egg sandwich that they fried in front of us and served piping hot into our awaiting hands. Delicious. 

 With my new skirt.

Then we spent a few hours on the empty streets of Xiahe taking pictures, talking, and enjoying our last night in the town, because we were due to leave the next day. I wore a new skirt I had purchased from a local shop. Brightly colored in the night I released some steam by running down the empty streets of Xiahe. Although I was excited to start our journey to the Desert the next day I was going to miss Xiahe.