Afternoon bus trip off into the Tibetan grasslands, up from Xiahe at 2900m altitude to around 3300m crossing the rolling green hills, then back down onto the plains to visit Tsewey Monastery and on to Karnang — also Kharnang or the Chinese Ganjia Baijiao City — to spend the night, Karnang hardly classifies as a city, a population of maybe 500, unpaved roads, no shops and a mass of single storey mud houses inside 1000 year-old city walls. There is a primary school here that Intrepid used to support, but we’ve learnt that the teachers were stealing the donations and none were getting to the school, so the school visit is off the agenda!
The road out from Xiahe to Kharnang is in fairly good condition, except every single bridge is simultaneously being replaced! This has resulted in detours down off the roadway at every culvert and bridge off to one side or the other, across the hopefully dry watercourse, then back up onto the road.
