17. June 2026, Labrang Monastery

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Had a good start of the day with a local breakfast and a Tibetan monk joining me and asking me all kinds of questions and invited me to visit another monastery. Unfortunately, his mandarin was not very clear, so the goggle translator had problems translating what he was saying and I had not downloaded the Tibetan language set. Anyway, it was all good fun and we had a good laugh about it.

I then embarked on a long walk along the Kora and around parts of the monastery, which is a healthy 3 km walk. And no, I didn’t spun the koras (prayer wheels) but kept walking along with the Tibetan folks. Many Tibetans who are living here are doing this every day, and some multiple times a day. Keeps them young, but don’t want to know the conditions in Winter.

Went back for a good coffee to the little cafe around the corner and now back to the hotel to wash things and to prepare for the afternoon walk to see the monks doing the afternoon ceremonies, if the ticket is still valid to get back into the core monastery. This is a small town of monastery, and only a small part is open to the public. It is really big.

Unfortunately, the internet is a bit slow here, and the picture uploads are failing. Will need to do it later again.

My local breakfast (with Nescafé)
With 3km long, Labrang Monastery has the longest Kora (prayer wheel walk) amongst all Tibetan monasteries.
Plenty of wooden house entries.
Prayer boards
The town of Xiahe, where the Labrang Monastery is located.

Not a long riding day, but a long walking day. Good preparation for tomorrow’s pass crossing. It’s only 260 km, but the navigation tells me 6 1/2 hours. So I better prepare for another long, but slow ride on national roads, which are mainly good two lane roads.

Finishing the day with an ice-cream.

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