Lintang

This is Lintang. The streets are full of your typical Tibetan cowboys. More Tibetan spoken here than Mandarin so all the words we've worked so hard to learn were useless. The people were totally different as well, and unbelievably friendly. We loved our time here, it was an interesting place.Lots of old ladies here. Tibetan women must be hardy because they sure seem to live long! Maybe it has something to do with their faith though, because they seem to give new meaning to the term 'devout Buddhist' here. These ladies were always carrying the hand held prayer wheels if they weren't at the temple turning the bigger prayer wheels there.
A small highlight when visiting what was clearly and important stupa/temple... all the kids. They were small, cute, and very very dirty!This place was littered with prayer wheels. An English guy whom we travelled with for a couple days (and as proof it is a small world, we actually met already 6 months ago in Borneo) counted them - roughly - and there were over 400 of varying sizes!And they were constantly being turned by old ladies such as below whom were running routes around the place chanting and turning the prayer wheels. Clearly very spiritual people.Not much is ever mentioned about this monastery. We didn't really know about it, but it is definitely our favorite in China thus far. A little closer look at the main building.
No idea why this belongs in a Monastery, but it was there - a hanging yak!
A group of monks during a chanting session... And something that felt like it was straight out of National Geographic. This is the birth place of the 7th Dali Lama. Inside it was full of old (and I mean 90 years plus) women sitting on mats chanting and turning hand held prayer wheels. It was crazy to walk through. Clearly a very important place for many Tibetans.

And you can't tell here, but its raining! We hunkered down for a few minutes to take cover until it let up. Gives you a nice view of the houses the people live in as well. In the Litang was an awesome place. We loved it, along with the Tibetan people. It gave us a great taste of Tibet, and gives us a great reason to come back. We won't make it to Tibet this trip for many reasons including time, and the issues with getting a permit to travel there. The 'back door' route into Sichuan from Yunnan was a great way to experience Tibet without ever crossing the border!