Exploring the Yalong valley

The next morning we left already at 7:30, we had a long drive ahead to the Yalong valley. There we wanted to see the Samye Monastery. This was the first time we left the city and noticed that there were police controls every 45 minutes or so. We often had to show our passports, plus in the city of Tsedang on the way to the monastery our guide had to get another permit for us to visit said monastery.

The drive to it was very scenic and we made a longer stop at a river where you could see the monastery from across but due to a missing bridge we had another 2 hours drive ahead. As you can see the highlight of this stop was a dog with blue eyes. Sylvia was clearly in love.

Finally we arrived at the Samye monastery and while it was impressive with three different levels (lower: Tibetan, second: Chinese, third: Indian style), it was basically more of the same (including disgusting toilets, the word washroom is definitely wrong here since there was never any water to wash the hands).

Then it was time for lunch which we had at the monastery’s restaurant. After that we drove back to Tsedang and already did the program for the next day. First was a stop at the Yambulakang Palace, the most important palace in the country since here the ‘first five’ happened.
First palace, first monastery, first city, first king, first written word (at least I think these were the first five).

Here in this little village I also saw the worst toilet imaginable, I will spare you the details though. What was even more offensive was that they wanted money for it which I flat out refused. So the guide paid them and when I had calmed down sufficiently I paid him back. But it still irks me!!

As usual there was a walk up to be done and this one looked very steep. Sylvia was glad that she brought her trekking sticks with her and looked only a little bit worse for the wear upon her arrival on top.

The view was amazing from the top, we could see the whole valley and understood why the first palace was built here.

On the way down we saw some horses that looked interesting because of their forelock! These here are for Cat!

And since we were already doing so well we also went to the second program point for the next day, the Tradruk Temple. No pictures from here because really more of the same although it was our last one for this trip.

A short while later we checked into our hotel for the night in Tsedang and were pleasantly surprised by the heater in the bathroom. Also the room was a bit warmer than the one in Lhasa and this although here we were told that the heating was not working. It was still warmer though.

Dinner was a tasty affair in a small Tibetan restaurant with more yak meat for me and vegetables for Sylvia. After the meal we went back to the hotel and rested our weary bones. Yours, Pollybert