Two weeks....

Gansu.

 Yaks and dunes. Camels, caves, the Buddhist “louvre,” monks, paragliding. 9 days of vacation. Three trains, buses, subways,  at least three plane rides. Dorm beds, motion sickness (definitely), altitude sickness (maybe), cheap beer.

We head out in two weeks on possibly the most adventurous trip of our traveling existence. Gansu province is tucked between Inner Mongolia, Sichuan (or Szechuan), Qinghai and Xinjiang provinces. It was formerly part of Tibet and has a population that is 50% Tibetan, 40% Han (“chinese” Chinese) and 10% Hui (Chinese Muslim). Regional cuisine varies between yak milk, boiled donkey with noodles and high altitude white teas (in the mountains) to spiced donkey kebabs with flat breads and chickpeas in the desert.

We are going for two reasons: One, nobody just happens through Gansu. You either GO THERE or you never do. It’s not a place we will ever just walk through on our way to somewhere else so we thought we better do it now or not at all. Two, it has some incredible places to visit.

Exhibit A: The Mogao Caves. The most impressive collection of Buddhist statuary, relics, paintings and ancient writings are contained in these desert caves. Caves is a barbaric way to describe them apparently as they are well carved caverns hewed out of the rock by master carvers. They were paid for with silk road money and have been around for a long, long time.

Exhibit B: The desert. We are talking about some of the tallest stationary dunes in the world. Gansu has a piece of the Gobi, the Taklamakan and Jadian Beran deserts. There are crazy sand sculpted rocks, buried cities and fabulous oases to feast our eyes on. Not to mention the possibility of overnight camel rides, dune buggying, sandboarding, paragliding off the dunes or ultralighting (for 100yuan a half hour… crazy cheap).

Exibit C:  Little Tibet. Xiahe is the home of one of the six most holy monasteries in the Tibetan world. It is positioned high in the mountains and receives few Western tourists because of its remoteness. The chances of altitude sickness are minimal but definitely there. The chance of seeing monks clad in robes spinning prayer wheels and chanting sutras while we sip yak tea on a heated kang overlooking a high mountain plateau in the foothills of the Himalayas…. Likely.