Living.Vicariously.Through: This is Why We Travel: Ganjia Grasslands

Today’s plan was to take a private car out into the Ganjia Grasslands, about an hour outside of Xiahe. After discussing this idea with Phil and Judy, the four of us decided to all split the costs to head out there. So, after checking at a few places in town, we ended up going through Tara’s Guesthouse who arranged a van and driver, no guide, to take us out into the grasslands for 200 Yuan for 5 hours. A hell of a deal if you ask me, since it was only about $8.50 apiece! At 9:30, we met our driver outside of Tara’s and piled in to begin the tour.

The Ganjia Grasslands are exactly that, miles and miles of mountainous grasslands where families bring their livestock in the summers to graze while they trail along in their yurts. Sadly, this was not the time of year for the families to be doing this, so we would first make the hour long, very bumpy drive out to a Buddhist monastery we were to visit first, followed by a visit to a 2,000 year old walled in city, and concluding with a visit to Tsewey Monastery.

Arriving at the first monastery, one could have thought it was not a functioning monastery at all. There were no monks walking around, no people wandering about, and little activity occurring. After passing through the entrance, we made our way up to what looked like the main hall, which was not hard to find since it was an extremely small monastery. We were greeted here by a monk who exchanged a smile with all of us, and motioned for us all to go inside the prayer hall. I have to admit, this seemed a little strange to me because it almost felt like this monk didn’t know what to do with us, so he figured he would just usher us inside. Well, with all strangeness and doubts set aside, we all walked under the curtain and over the threshold to step into a warm, dimly lit prayer hall where all the resident monks were sitting, doing their morning chants.

As I had mentioned in the previous blog, we were able to witness chanting at the Labrang Monastery, but this, here in this small monastery, away from any other tourists or city, we were allowed the chance to experience Buddhist chanting in a very, very intimate setting. This was far from the previous day’s experience. This was REAL. This was Buddhist chanting in the rawest form. This was a moment that could never be replaced. There was just the four of us, four outsiders, inside this hall with about 40 other monks, lucky enough to be allowed to experience this divine moment.

Phil sat silently with his eyes closed, Tamera watched, Judy walked the room, and I stood and listened. Each of us were moved in our own ways. Words I could give, or descriptions I could paint, would never be able to, nor would I want them to, put the reader in our shoes and experience that. This is why we travel. This is the kind of moment that you can’t find if you never go and experience life around the world. This is why we want to keep going. This is why we are doing what we are doing.

Following the 20-25 minutes we stayed in the hall, and after walking around for a while, we headed back to our van, and drove off to the walled in village. This village is in the middle of the grasslands and surrounded by a dirt wall that keeps the wind out. There is nothing special there, except that you can walk the wall. Our driver pointed us the direction, and we started walking it. Well, after about 15 minutes a young couple came up holding tickets. We didn’t think we had to buy tickets, and they wanted 80 Yuan for all of us! Thankfully, Judy, who spoke 10 words of Chinese, stepped up, and after debating for a while, talked them down to 40 Yuan so they would leave us alone and we could just leave.

After our driver returned to pick us up, we headed over to Tsewey Monastery. This was just another monastery, a bit larger than the first one we went to, and so suffice to say, we didn’t stay all that long. We did some walking around, saw the buildings, and Tamera, Phil and Judy climbed up a large hill overlooking the monastery that contained a number of prayer flags, to take some photos of the monastery. Finally, after a long 4 hours of being out in the grasslands, we headed back to Xiahe and ended the day.

All in all, visiting the Ganjia Grasslands was a highlight for us. The van ride in itself with the insanely beautiful scenery was enough to call it good, but the chance to witness Buddhist Monks chanting made the day anything but ordinary. A successful day I think. A moving day to say the least.