biking, camping, digging!

qinghai travels, continued...

DAY 6
-drove from xining to qinghai lake, 青海湖. qinghai hu means clear sea lake. it's the namesake of qinghai province
-with the help of our [awesome] support team, we biked 15 km with the gobi desert dunes and snowcapped mountains on our left, and qinghai lake on our right... with some pretty intense climbs too! wishing i was lance. enjoyed a few high-fives from passing tibetans on motorcycles.
-had a delicious hot lunch at our campsite of fresh carrots, peppers, potatoes, squash, and cold KFC chicken legs. there's nothing like eating outside
-group nap time, instigated by han bing
-some of the group went for a second bike ride, another 15 km down the lake. we stopped at a tibetan camp and rode horses on the beach. it was fun but we didn't actually have much of a choice... they were aggressive salesman!
-at dark we ate dinner and the weather became freezing fast. to cheer us up, bing arranged a bonfire, and we traded off with our hosts, singing english and tibetan songs. tibetan singing is beautiful and really unique, it's a high-pitched, opera sort of thing that comes from the throat. once again, so homesick for lhasa...
-HAILSTORM! just as we went to bed :)









DAY 7
-arose at our campsite, freezing.
-wang shifu (master wang, our insane bus driver) make us fresh fried eggs to eat with bread and instant coffee. i don't really know how to convey wang shifu's charisma in words. he is a happy, middle-aged man from xining that drives like a maniac... making blind passes in tunnels and around turns on cliffs. he will come within inches of running over innocent tibetan families, without even blinking. he can drive a tour bus off-road like no one's business. he can also set up a tent, sing, dig an oven in the dirt, make fierce fried eggs, and force you to take successive shots of moonshine liquor. he's the man.
-drove to one more scenic spot by the lake, then everyone passed out for the ride back to xining
-celebrated china's national holiday in our own fashion... drinking tsingtao and tibetan barley beer in our PJs! way too exhausted to go out





DAY 8
-on our last day, we were lucky enough to be guests at a farm in rural qinghai. the travel agent who had helped han bing plan our trip invited us to his parents' home, where they grow potatoes and brew backyard barley liquor.
-we spent the morning digging up potatoes (hamstrings were sore the next day!) and then learning how to roast them underground. the family made a huge lunch for us and then we all toasted our trip with their homemade moonshine... strong stuff! [see wang shifu, behind bing making the toast]
-in the afternoon we drove to the airport :( it was a sad moment when wei xiansheng, our guide, refused to say goodbye to us! we can't even speak about the loss of wang shifu...





and so. now we are all back in beijing. on sunday we did laundry and got settled back at school, on monday we prepared powerpoints of our adventures in qinghai, and today we presented them to our chinese teachers (in chinese, of course). everyone seems so happy with the trip... we all learned so much, became much closer as a group, and had opportunities to do so many things we could never have orchestrated ourselves. biking in the desert? playing with tibetan elementary schoolers? i don't think it's a stretch to call those once in a lifetime experiences.