Day 65: Dege (德格) – August 21

Heading up to the monastery with the same name as the city, 白玉寺. As we worked our way up towards the monastery, as all monasteries seem to be built high up on the mountains with the city underneath, we were greeted with many locals. Seems like everybody though, takes a glance at us, then as they bow their sights back downwards, they notice one thing: our prayer beads.

Back in the Labrang monastery, we ‘requested’ (you don’t ‘buy’ these things) prayer beads from a local antiques dealer, and ever since any Tibetan sees it, they’d usually take it out of our hands and start fiddling with it and start talking to us in Tibetan, before ending with a thumbs-up and a “Very good!” in mandarin. We don’t know what the fuss is about, but we’ve got some pretty funny looks, so we guess we got some pretty nice beads….

While in the monastery, we tried to take this shortcut up to the peak, but this dog comes out of nowhere and starts barking at us, causing a chorus of other stray dogs to chime in. At first we were confused, wondering why the dog would bark at us, but then we realized he was trying to lead us back onto the main road…. We tried ignoring him and continue onto the shortcut, but he kept barking… so when we turned back he’d stop barking and lead us back to the main road!?!?! W T F?!?!??! So we gave up our ascent, and made our way back down.

After a long and bumpy (sounds familiar eh?) ride, we finally arrived at the city of Dege. At one point during our trip, we were separated only by a river before getting into Tibet! No worries though, we’ll be there pretty soon.

Missed Story: Back at Wuming monastery, before we left our friendly host we wanted to give something back to her. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much except some Oreos and sausages. Since they were vegetarians, they can’t take the sausages. The host also wouldn’t accept our gifts, but said she would offer it to the grandmaster as an offering…. So… we offered a pack of Oreos to a 活佛！