As the Uma Highway neared Xiahe, the Gobi desert began to rise into a landscape of mountains. Outside the window, a hundred nameless peaks—some sharp, others sloping—were scattered across the plains of Gannan. The wind-scoured rocks tumbled from the summits to the foothills, like chocolate beans absentmindedly spilled by an unseen hand. The tunnels came in quick succession, each one slowing our pace, as if coaxing us from the world of the ordinary into a wilderness of devotion.
For four minutes, darkness enclosed us. Then, suddenly, the russet mountains disappeared, and in their place, a vast grassland unfurled—an immense green silk, tossed into the air by invisible hands, rippling and rolling all the way to the horizon. It was early summer, yet the mountaintops still bore their crowns of snow, like silver-haired elders standing solemnly against the sky. They had been here forever, silent witnesses to the ebb and flow of Gannan’s time, watching over the land as the prayer wheels turned.
“It felt as though we had slipped into a tunnel of time.”
And in a way, we had. Geography breeds isolation, and isolation invites myth. Xiahe, deep in the Tibetan lands of Gannan, was spared the weight of tragic histories and abandoned ruins. It remained, instead, wrapped in the warm and unbroken dreams of its ancestors.
Outside the window, a white horse moved at an unhurried pace along the roadside. At the sound of our approach, its rider turned—a Tibetan woman, nearing seventy, her skin bronzed by time and sun. She was slight, almost frail, yet she rode with the quiet ease of someone who had known the rhythm of the saddle her whole life. For a fleeting moment, our eyes met. Hers were clear, untouched by the passing of years, as if time had simply chosen not to leave its mark upon her.
The road stretched on, winding through mountains and meadows, untouched by the world beyond. And the woman, astride her white horse, seemed less a traveler than a spirit—an embodiment of the land itself, keeping silent vigil over this sacred place.
As our car disappeared into the distance, she paused in the middle of the road and, with slow precision, lit a pipe.
Labrang Monastery
The sky hangs low, a fine drizzle drifting on a breeze that feels too cold for summer. Only yesterday, on our way to Nordan, we passed Labrang Monastery under bright, open skies, where devotees in traditional Tibetan robes thronged every corner. Yet this morning, in the chill of dawn, the sprawling complex stands almost deserted, save for a single thread of smoke rising from the red-walled temple, as though calling out a quiet welcome. The russet Danxia formations all around lend Labrang an austere, mysterious grandeur; and thanks to its relatively low altitude, lush greenery shelters the halls and monks’ quarters, imbuing this rainy day with a subtle warmth and tranquility.
As one of the premier institutes of Tibetan Buddhism, Labrang Monastery has journeyed through eras largely free from the scars of war, maintaining a gentle detachment from worldly affairs. Beyond the daily rhythm of chanting and study, the monastery provides sustenance, lodging, and instruction for over a thousand monks, while offering a sacred haven for Xiahe’s faithful to engage in their daily dialogue with belief.
Here, tradition and religion steer the course of life, making the monastery the very heart of everyday existence. At dawn, the people commune with the Buddha; by day, whole families gather at the temple to pray; and at dusk, they fall asleep to the murmur of scripture. Perhaps only by preserving such profound customs can they remain unruffled by the majestic landscapes at every turn—and find, in this land they have long called home, a peace that endures.
“Are you truly yourself?”
The lama guiding me into the temple never answered my earlier question about how I should address him. In the drizzle, he inclined his head slightly, eyes following the ground. Then, in the vast courtyard of Labrang Monastery, he quietly posed the most resonant question of all: “Are you truly yourself?” His gaze was steady and serene, touched by a faint detachment—the fruit of many hours spent reciting scriptures and steeping in silent meditation. “How many lives will you have?” he went on. “What grants you life? What do you fear?”
He seemed not to expect a reply. Rather, his questions felt like a gentle admonition—a chain of reflections that may unsettle some, yet spark a sudden impulse to look inward. For those who follow Tibetan Buddhism, the divine does not dwell within the temple walls; only Buddha statues reside there. Life, from its beginningless origin to its boundless horizon, is interwoven with the cosmos, and each existence is itself a manifestation of the sacred. They revere the gods without being bound by them, knowing that divinity lies within and needs no external pursuit.
By midday, the temperature rose, though the rain showed no sign of easing. Elderly devotees, calm and composed, slowly turned their prayer wheels, their deep, reflective eyes lifted toward the horizon as a chill wind stirred their white hair. They made their way along Labrang’s prayer-wheel corridor, a path that circles the monastery and takes two hours to complete. In the dryness of Xiahe, this rainfall was keenly awaited, though walking through the cold wind demands unwavering faith. Here, it is no rare festivity but an everyday ritual.
As children of nature ourselves, perhaps we too should harbor a sense of awe. Guided by the tether of our own belief, we may strive to draw nearer to the essential truth that resides between sky and earth.
SangKe Grassland
At three in the afternoon, a mist began to rise over the Sangke Grassland.
Beyond the perimeter of Labrang Monastery stretches a vast expanse of grassland, known in Tibetan as tán. However, the scale of these plains far exceeds the common image of a small, verdant meadow. These grasslands span the borders of Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan provinces, once submerged beneath an ancient sea. To call them tán may be an echo of that distant memory. The nomads’ tents are scattered across the Sangke plains, dotting the vast green beneath the mountains. Puddles and streams shimmer in the sunlight, slowly converging into meandering rivers. The noise of the outside world is a distant murmur, and whatever ripples of modernity reach here are muted, their force spent by the time they cross the high mountain passes.
A winding country road skirts the foot of the mountains, linking the grasslands of Gannan. There is no one in sight—only the occasional nomad on a motorbike, disappearing swiftly into the immense mountains, leaving behind nothing but a faint sputtering sound. Here, cattle and sheep reign. As the car moves forward, boundless grasslands stretch out on either side, while the great mountains loom ahead. No matter how fast or slow we go, the mountains always seem to recede, just beyond reach. In this vastness, space itself loses meaning, and all that remains is the unsettling awareness of one’s own smallness. These are the pastures and mountains once immortalized in nomadic ballads, yet they are no longer spaces that can be measured in mere distance. The mist rises, creating an illusion—not of vapor climbing skyward, but of the emerald forests pulling me gently downward, sinking into the valley below, where wisps of smoke curl from the nomads’ homes.
Here, under an endless sky, the nomads confront solitude each day. Only an innate optimism grants them the extraordinary resilience to endure a life of simplicity and hardship. They are like the quiet, shy mimosa plants growing in the valley, preserving their own beauty and solitude. Standing atop a ridge, gazing at the boundless grassland, I feel the wind howl past, carrying away all sound. A sudden, inexplicable melancholy overtakes me—a feeling that seems to have drifted across centuries to settle in my heart, like a celestial melody. Physical distance becomes a metaphor for the unseen barriers between people, and cultural differences harden into the labels that define us.
Today, it is no longer difficult for travelers from inland China to reach Xiahe in Gannan. Yet with each passing year, elements of inland culture seep into the Tibetan way of life, quietly eroding the customs and traditions that once anchored the nomads’ existence. In this great tide of civilization, they hold little advantage. The mountains, pastures, and livestock that once carried divine significance have, for many, lost their sacred essence, reduced to mere means of survival.
So when the autumn winds rise and the first snows dust the roads in white, and when the lone horse at the gate lifts its head toward the vast, silent sky, it no longer hears only the whistling wind—it hears the distant call of another world.
Norden
Nestled in the gentle folds of the Sangke Grassland, the Nordon Camp is quietly coaxing the old pastoral ways back into being, burnishing them until they gleam with their former light. Perched high on this plateau, it flings open its doors only from May to October, a fleeting season that somehow lands it among the “world’s finest hotels.” Yet luxury here shrugs off the usual trappings—no logos, no lofty price tags. It is something truer, something woven from the earth itself, from the deep, patient soil and the gifts that nature scatters so carelessly. The Xiahe River loops around it, the grasslands stretch wide, and together they draw a soft boundary, wrapping this once-quiet corner in a tender, private embrace.
When night creeps in, the herders drift off, their breaths slowing to the rhythm of the land. By ten o’clock, the heavy clouds relent, peeling back to reveal a sky so fiercely alive with stars it almost hums. The Milky Way unfurls above, bold and bare to the naked eye—a wild, unshackled chant to existence. Down below, the Tibetan staff gather on the grass, their movements shy yet sure, to kindle a bonfire. There’s no clamor, no boisterous calls—just a circle of voices and steps, soft as whispers, around the flickering light. They say Tibetans sing the moment they can speak, dance the moment they can stand. Their feet press the grass without sound, a quiet echo of a people who have stood firm here through countless years. Their robes catch the fire’s glow, the brocade shimmering as they turn, like birds that sweep the valley’s arcs in daylight.
The songs they lift are soft, brimming with longing—ballads that could have spilled from Tsangyang Gyatso’s own heart, tender threads of defiance against the great, empty stretch of time and solitude.
