Finally! New Xiahe Travel Info...

I want to apologize to anyone who has come to this blog looking for up-to-date information on the Xiahe region, because you have not been finding it here.


The only excuse that I can offer is that I have three young children at home (ages 1, 2, 3) and I travel almost non-stop (3-5,000 km/month) in my little Chinese van. So I am busy.

(BTW, that is my 3 yr old son Gabriel in the pic, with my van in the background)


Here are a few quick updates:


Travel restrictions have almost entirely been lifted in the region, and Snowy Mountain Cafe in Xiahe re-opened in July with menu full of our old favorites, as well as a few new dishes.

As of October 9th, 2009, Xiahe and Langmusi are still open for tourists.


If anything changes, I will try to post the information here on this site!


FYI, our Langmusi restaurant will be open in March of 2010.

Xiahe Open Again

It has recently been confirmed to me that Xiahe (Labrang) in Gansu Province has now officially been re-opened for tourists.

Our cafe in Xiahe (Snowy Mountain Cafe) has been closed since early April (just after the unrest began), but we are planning on reopening in March at the beginning of this year's tourists season.

Xiahe is a beautiful place to visit any time of the year, so please make plans to come see us sometime this year!

Off the Map

For anybody who is wondering why I have not been posting anything on this blog for the past month, I have been gone from China for the past 4 weeks.

My family and I are currently in the United States and I don't have any new information on the situation in Xiahe and Langmusi at this time.

As far as I know, the same restrictions continue now that have been in place since March of this year. As soon as I have a little more time, I will begin posting more interesting information on our region, in hopes that you will be persuaded to come back for a visit as soon as the travel restrictions are lifted and things return to normal.

It is a shame that the whole summer has gone by and very few have had the chance to visit the mountains, rivers, and grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau in southwestern Gansu.

Xiahe Flash Flood

One night last week there was a surprise flash flood in Xiahe.

It evidently started pouring down rain at about 1:30 a.m.

The rain fell so hard that it broke loose parts of the mountains and the water and rocks and mud came cascading down the small ravines leading to town.
The dangerous flood of mud and rock came crashing through some of the neighborhoods on the edge of town and down onto the main street.

At least 4 people died after being swept out of their destroyed homes by the flood waters, and many more were injured.
The main street was left covered with mud and rock.

Featured Destination: Tao River (洮河)

I had the privilege to visit a beautiful portion of the Tao River (3,150 m/10,350 ft.) during the last week of July. Together with some co-workers of mine, we went swimming in the river for an hour or two under beautiful blue skies and warm temperatures.

The water was cool, but not too cold. It didn't take too long to get accustomed to it and begin to launch out into the current for a brisk swim. The Tao River begins in the eastern Qinghai (far southeast of Xining) county of Henan (河南蒙古族自治县), which is home to a large Mongolian population.


From there, the river flows directly into Luqu County in southwestern Gansu Province, which is where we took our swim. There are only a couple small Tibetan communities located up-river from this location, so the water is very clear and clean. The grassy riverbank provides an awesome place to lay out in the sun and dry off or warm up after a swim.

To get to this particular location, which is the best we found, you can come from either of two directions:

First, you can hire a taxi from Xiahe to the town of Kecai (科才), and then have the taxi continue another 15 km past town to where you see the valley open up and the large, blue river flowing on the right side of the highway. You have arrived. A round-trip in a taxi (with a few hours to swim) will cost you at least 150 RMB up to 250 RMB, depending on how long you stay. The distance from Xiahe to the river is just over 100 km.

Second, you can take a bus to Luqu (碌曲) from Langmusi, Hezuo, Linxia, or Xiahe. From Luqu, hire a taxi or even a tractor to take you up the road heading to Kecai. The distance from Luqu is only about 15 km to the part of the river where you can enjoy a great swim. This would be a much cheaper way to go.

If you wanted, you could even take a swim in the river as it flows just next to Luqu. The scenery is not as gorgeous, and you might have an audience watching you, but you can walk there from town.

(NOTICE: This trip is not recommended at this time! Both Xiahe and Luqu are currently closed for tourists. I am posting this article primarily to wet your appetite for next summer!)

I'm Afraid to Post this Blog

With the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics taking place just last evening, I wanted to share something about what life is like as the Olym-pics begin in this great nation.

However, I am afraid to write too much about the fact that we are currently living in what pretty much amounts to a "po-lice state" (see this article).

To put it simply, if I write too much about the details of life in our area and the increased presence of the "authorities" all over town and blocking every highway to keep any political unrest from occurring, our blog could easily be black-listed and we could even get in trouble and be forced to leave (deported) permanently.

So I am not going to say any more than what I already have.

Featured Destination: Wendu Monastery (文都寺)

As I mentioned in a previous post highlighting the various things to see within Xunhua County in Qinghai Province, there are a large number of Tibetans living up in the mountains surrounding the large Xunhua valley.

Wendu Monastery is the largest monastery in this immediate region. It is situated just 4 km off the highway stretching from Xunhua to Tongren, and about 25 km from Xunhua Town.

I was there the other day and a couple of the local monks told me that there are 300-400 monks residing at what seems to be a small monastery.

The surroundings are beautiful and opportunities to hike and explore abound, although there are no "marked" trails.

I would be possible to hire a taxi from Xunhua to take you and wait for you for a few hours for probably 100 RMB (maybe a little more) round-trip.

However, if you hired a taxi to take you one-way (probably 30-40 RMB), then you could hike back out to the main highway (4 km) and catch a ride on a bus or collective taxi from there back to Xunhua, or on to Tongren/Rebkong to the south.

SnowyMtnCafe.com Unavailable

I just found out that our main website, www.snowymtncafe.com, is not available in China for the time being.

To access the site, you will need to use a proxy. I recommend www.proxychina.org as a decent proxy that works for almost every site that is not available from within China.

I don't know how long it has been this way, or how long it will be unavailable, but for the time being I am having our site point to my blog (which will hopefully stay available!).

And I plan to add links to our travel articles here on the blog, because that was the main attraction of our website anyways.

No Go for Langmusi

On Monday, July 28th, I drove with some of my co-workers from Xiahe down to Langmusi. We were heading down to continue to work on getting our cafe in Langmusi ready to open for business.

We have had problems recently getting permission to enter Langmusi, and that day was no exception. In fact, we were told that we were not allowed in AT ALL, even though we have a business license for our cafe in Langmusi and all of our documents are in order.

We ended up spending 4-5 hours dealing with many high-ranking police officials in that region, trying to get permission to enter Langmusi so that we could continue making preparations to open our cafe whenever tourists are allowed in once again.

The answer at the end of the day was "no". So even those of us who have visas to live in Xiahe, are not even being allowed to travel farther south into other areas such as Langmusi.

The police seemed confident, however, that things should open up in September. I have heard that before ... in May, June, and July, so its hard to know whether to trust them or not.

I guess we will see.

I will post some pictures from this past week as soon as I can...

Featured Destination: Xunhua County, QInghai (循化县,青海省)

I spent a few hours this week passing through the county (and town) of Xunhua. If you look in the Lonely Planet for Qinghai Province, you will find a small section about Xunhua, so I won't go into too much detail here on how to get there, where to stay, etc. Let me just share a few pictures and my own recommendation of the place.

First, Xunhua sits in a fertile valley along the banks of the Yellow River. It is surrounded by arid mountains of red, brown, and sometimes almost purple coloring, making for an amazing contrast of color between the lush green of the farmland, the deep blue of the river and sky, and the red rock of the mountains.

Second, Xunhua is the home of the Salar (Muslim) ethnic minority. The vast majority of the Muslims you see here are not Hui, but Salar. They speak their own language (similar to Uygher) and at times look more central Asian than Muslim Chinese.

Third, there are also a large number of Tibetans living up in the mountains surrounding the large Xunhua valley. Wendu Monastery is the largest in this immediate region. It is situated just 4 km off the highway stretching from Xunhua to Tongren, and about 25 km from Xunhua Town.

Fourth, Xunhua town is a very quaint and inviting place. It is small, the streets are lined with trees, and there is an abundance of fresh fruit (in summer) and local family owned "tea gardens" where you can eat a meal or just drink Eight Treasure Tea (八宝茶).

Fifth, there are innumerable places to hike in this immediate region. You can take off walking from town to hike along the river or up in the mountains. You can follow the Lonely Planet instructions to get to Mengda Heavenly Lake. Or you can follow my instructions on how to get to Daowei Tibetan Village and/or Dalijia Peak.

Sixth, you can take a dip in the Yellow River. There is a large swimming race every year in the river just outside of town. This year's race was held earlier than usual because of the Olympics coming up next month. Normally it is held in August. The water here is cool but clean.

Xunhua is a great place to visit any time of the year, but especially from Spring through late Summer. I don't think you will be disappointed by taking a few days to explore this region!