I hardly slept last night. I think I went to bed too soon after eating, plus my cold is getting worse.

We did a walking tour of Labrang Monastery this morning; it is actually the only way to go round it. It's a fully working monastery; this much is fairly self-evident when you see the numbers of monks walking round the main street!

As for restricting the desires of life, I now have this image in my mind of a monk on a motorcycle!

Obviously this monastery was a lot different from the others seen so far. It's *big*, maybe a thousand or so monks - also a nunnery - a whole building surrounded by large prayer wheels. As has been said, it's one of the most important Tibetan monasteries. The Lama here isn't in residence though, revealingly the guide stated that he was in the "Chinese Office" in Lanzhou; some collaboration between the monastery and the government there! It explains how something so large can stay active, also a bit why they cannot expand to pre-1960s levels (3,000 monks and more impressive buildings and walks) - there's a bit of give and take on all sides.

Our monk guide (Jane thought he had nice arms) was a lot more dedicated than the critical pseudo-revolutionary Karsang! He certainly felt passionate about his job and role, maybe he was getting a touch un-nerved by our resident investigative journalist in disguise (Radka).

The monastery is spread over a fairly wide area, and there's a lot more to it than Langmusi. You can tell that this is more respected and influential in the size and strength of the buildings (Langmusi's looks like a country church in comparison!!), and by the value of the ornate fixtures and furnishings -> there's a lot of money in this place!

Junior Tibetan Monk Olympic Gymnastic Competition!??!

One interesting event in the monastery, we passed through the large main hall. It was dark, and full of monks praying; chanting; in the Tibetan language! When written down it looks a bit like Sanskrit; indeed that's where the Tibetans got their written language from.

We finished the monastery tour about lunchtime, and, after a bite to eat in the "monastery restaurant" again (hee² you notice just how often we always go to the same old places!!) we formulated afternoon plans. Most of the group were to go to a small village in the sticks; a 2,000 year old mud-walled village of uncertain origins. I decided not to travel, mainly due to my cold -> Jane and the Odettes insisted that I go to bed!

I wandered up to the rooftop terrace and sat and wrote for a bit. After talking to Tom though, it got colder and began to rain a bit. Inside I met Jane, which surprised me as I thought she'd gone to the village. She was going to bed to read, but intended to go shopping later. I still needed to buy souvenirs so asked her to give me a prod when she left.

Stayed in the room, relaxing, for an hour or so, writing and having a lie down. Eventually, Jane did call by, and we went out.

We walked down the main street, passing through many of the shops. Jane bought herself some silk; there was a shade of blue I liked so I bought some myself; gawd knows what to use it for but meh. Jane was going to use hers for cushion covers.

Bought a couple of other things too. Leila wanted something genuinely Tibetan Buddhist; figured she wouldn't be able to read a book so bought her a red prayer flag and a prayer wheel. The wheel took some hard bargaining (from 75 to 40 Yuan). The quality of wheels were varied, some of them were cheapo things; some were solid wood and cost 200 Yuan! Saw some other bizarre things too; blocks of wood imprinted with Tibetan symbols, varying sizes of Buddha and other Buddhist deities, knives, and other more bizarre things (bow and arrow?!). Also bought a teaspoon, despite Jane saying I wouldn't find one (this may seem odd in the land of tea, but in fact the Chinese don't take sugar in their tea!).

Came back to the hotel. Surfed a bit, then we all met in the room just below the rooftop patio again. The others had had a reasonable time at the mud-walled village, although they had a bit of hell getting there - the driver took them on the long route and the roads were a bit poor so they had been jolted about a bit for around an hour longer than they should have been!

We kinda all went our separate ways for food. Unusually then, we didn't eat at the normal restaurant! After grabbing some more dodgy rice wine (£3/bottle with a picture of some 80s English footballer complete with perm on it - although it was a modern picture of him, we never did find out who he was!), "the lads" went to a place called "Snowland" which was opposite the usual place. It was quite busy, being full of the Intrepid mob. Service was relatively slow; Andy and James had nearly finished when Alan got his, and all three were a distant memory by the time me and Dan got ours! Was nice though.

We got back to the hotel at 11pm and descended on Alan/Dan's room. We were joined by a couple of the New Zealanders and had a bit of a party. I didn't stay too long though; still wasn't feeling so good, so I went to bed about midnight.