Our second day in Xiahe started officially at 11:30 am, however some of us went up very early to do different kind of activities. A few of us met at 5 am to go back to the Labrang Tibetan Monastery to attend a praying ritual by sunrise, which was an unique experience for all of them. Others went for a challenging running session due to the high altitude (approx. 3000 meters above sea level).
After our individual morning activities a bus brought us to the Sangke Grassland to have lunch in a Tibetan tent with Tibetan food. They welcomed us with traditional white scarves and a shot of rice-liqueur. The following lunch was delicious but unfortunately the Zangba was the only purely Tibetan dish. Zangba is a Tibetan cookie made out of Yak-butter, sugar, flower and water. For desert we had the opportunity to prepare our own Zangba by hand, which was a lot of fun. To facilitate the digestion we were invited to join a Tibetan dance ceremony.
After that the majority of our group took the opportunity to take part in a horse ride through the grassland for around 60 minutes.
As soon as the group was reunited we headed back to Lanzhou where we arrived in the evening. Shortly after the students spread out into the city looking for a nice place for dinner and talked about our journey.