Road trip in rural china(1): Tibetan region and beliefs

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]And The Chingghai Tibet Plater is the least populated yet the most culturally rich and myster.

[00:00:31]So my dad and I decided to take a road trip to explore this area. Our trip started from Jagana which is a small village located in Gansu province.

[00:00:46]Jagana was first known by the outsiders in the beginning of 21st century when an American adventure called Joseph L first came to this place. He called this place as the Eden on the earth because he was touched by its beauty of the nature and the authentic lifestyle of local people.

[00:01:09]Hey guys, I'm currently at Jagana and it just looks so unreal. It's like someone just pluck some mountains on the place and it's just so different. like I've been to Switzerland. Um I think it looks a little bit like a more wired than Switzerland. It is also known as the stone city. At first I thought because of the houses they might be made of stone but I was wrong. I think it actually because of the mountains. They are just like stones standing there for thousands years. And the houses they are actually made by wood or mud for most of them. And nowadays there are lots of new buildings because of tourism.

[00:02:03]It is very difficult to judge if it's a good thing or bad thing for now.

[00:02:10]The altitude has climbed quickly from Jagana from 3,000 m to almost 4,000 m.

[00:02:19]That's why we have encountered this snowstorm.

[00:02:32]Hi guys. So now is 10th of May and it's uh and altitude of 4,000 m and it's still slowing crazy. We soon have met our first obstacle on our way. We stopped by a small avalanche.

[00:02:55]It has not only stopped us, it also stopped others. Even the people who drive assume we Okay.

[00:03:20]You did a tin.

[00:03:38]After many attempts, the white car decided to give up. Eventually, another SUA tank 300 helped to pull the white car backward and then it decided to go through the small avalanche first because it has more thrust and it is also driven by a local people who is familiar with this kind of road condition.

[00:04:09]So, it passed it. Congratulations. We are all really um excited and we appreciate his help.

[00:04:21]And now all the SUA is going to go through the snow first. And we those people who drive family cars going to follow them because we need to um keep us safe. Make sure that we don't stuck there.

[00:04:41]So, my dad is going to try as well.

[00:04:44]Let's see if it's going to work.

[00:04:45]>> Of course, it works. That's why we end up with this and this.

[00:05:07]>> Are you still married to that dentist?

[00:05:11]Cut your teeth on play. Pretend I'm all of it. Baptize your boredom in Chardonnay.

[00:05:19]Your timelines mosle lined with soft spoken lies. No light left to see them. But at least you look alive.

[00:05:32]I think my Heat. Heat.

[00:05:44]I don't know how you do and so we are antelopins and it is basically the best best university and in let's see Tibet Buddhanism culture and they have lots of faculties like medicine or study the traditional um secret scripts something like that and they have like many monks live here and study here from all over the Tibetan region and the buildings are actually quite beautiful amazing Hey, I think they need to took off shoes.

[00:07:09]Okay. Let's go.

[00:07:48]I think they are doing some rituals. You can hear like some noise inside like What day?

[00:08:41]together.

[00:09:13]You think that people can just rest here?

[00:10:21]So you can see all the buildings from here.

[00:10:26]Can you see the buildings behind of me?

[00:10:29]And they were built around 300s years ago. And they were actually built by Neporas rather than Chinese. And so for each of the tail of the building, it worth more than $2,000.

[00:10:47]And it is not made of gold, but a they are made of coopers and then covered by gold. However, only the gold covered on each of the tails worth than $2,000.

[00:11:04]And if you count, you know, all the years and all the um cultural meanings and all the heritage, it going to be like a you know, so valuable you cannot even know how much it worth. Crazy.

[00:11:28]Oh, so they have to work in clockwise.

[00:11:36]Never work onto clock clockwise. It is not like lucky.

[00:12:15]Oh, so when they go around the building, the monastery.

[00:12:27]And they have to do it clockwise as well. Like you cannot go anticlockwise because it's just unlucky in um Tibetan culture. Look, all of the people are going like clockwise.

[00:12:56]So this one is 3 kilometers long and it was built because of um the e illiterate people cannot really read um the you know the script. So the secret script. So they built this and they put like some um secret script inside and every time you turn it it's like you read by yourself for like hundreds or thousands of time. So um usually you do this by pray for health um you know or peace whatever.

[00:13:40]Okay. I don't think we will do 3 kilometers long. We will do like half of it 1 kilometers.

[00:13:52]This is the word longest prayer wheel road. And you can still see some disabled people on the road begging. I don't know if the Buddha ever heard about their suffering and they're praying.