Was on the bus at 7am.

We were assured by Jane that this would be the last of the horror bus journeys; although it was 7 hours from Xiahe to Lanzhou she told us it was tarmac all the way. So we set off on the journey to Xiahe in good heart. Some of us were more pleased than others to be leaving "beautiful" Langmusi - "there's nothing beautiful in Langmusi" said Kathrin.

For the whole of the rest of the day I wanted to tell her that she was wrong and that there was something beautiful in Langmusi, but ... oh I don't know, guess it just didn't seem worth the hassle. It also didn't feel comfortable to do so. I don't know why.

The morning itself was one of those uneventful journeys. We left Sichuan province without so much of a wave goodbye (given the tour was the "Sichuan Explorer" I guess it wasn't well named as we only actually spent a week in Sichuan!); about the only thing of note when arriving at Xiahe, (apart from noticing the sort of touristy caravan parks just outside the town) was the bizarre fact that it looked like they hadn't finished building the road yet! It seemed as though the plans, stones and labour were all there, but noone had really done much about combining them...

On arrival in Xiahe we checked into the hotel. And, for the first time, not all the group had the same type of room! Mona and Tom had what amounted to the honeymoon suite; the lads, and Kathrin/Valerie got the nice rooms with bathroom and western style en-suite toilets, the rest of us got rooms without bathrooms, and with communal toilets (Chinese style, but in cubicles with lockable doors and automated flush system) down the corridor.

This whole matter turned into a bit of light-hearted banter between the girls and the boys; the boys commenting on how bad their rooms were because hot and cold were reversed on the shower, and one of the rooms had a toilet you had to manually flush; the girls were saying that because of their sacrifice they were going to book into the Sheraton in Beijing and let the lads go in the Youth Hostel! This continued all day!

Lunch we had in the restaurant, was reasonably good but nothing special (chicken biryani). The afternoon was pretty much up to our leisure; I had a wander up and down the city street, and I confess to spending over an hour online emailing and catching up with news!!

Xiahe is actually in a quite scenic location, the weather was bright and clear. It is predominantly one main street - shops either side - stretching out for quite some distance. On either side of the town are some quite pretty mountains fairly close by. Going down the main street to the left of the hotel brings you past the Labrang monastery, one of the most important Tibetan monasteries and the most important outside the autonomous Tibet region. Beyond the monastery is the Tibetan quarter of town; the hotel is more in the Muslim/Chinese part of town.

Xiahe from the top of the hotel, shimmering in the sunlight.

We had our evening meal in the "monastery restaurant". Contrary to what it sounds like, the restaurant wasn't in the monastery, rather it's named after it. Again there seemed to only be one cook or stove (like Leisha's) so getting the food took a while. it was quite nice though!

At one point in the evening I had the surreal situation of being an Englishman seated in China listening to a conversation in Swiss/German on my right and the conversation in Swedish behind me between two Swedes and a couple of Norwegians. I was, not surprisingly, at a loss for words...!