Erratum

Well.. it took me a while to fully realise it, but Mongolia and Tibet are actually much closer than the political borders let us think and aside for these 10 days in Beijing, i feel like i just went straight from Mongolia to Tibet!
Anywhere west/north west of the Great Wall, people would tell me "I'm not Chinese, i'm Mongolian; this is Mongolia!".. Even their features would be different.. especially the girls being -in my opinion- generally much prettier.
And since i moved south west of Beijing (Xiahe and down), people tell me with yet greater pride "I'm not Chinese, I'm Tibetan, and this is Tibet! You think that place was called Xiahe but it actually called Labran; Xiahe is the Chinese name, it means nothing to us".. indeed, people speak tibetan and everything is written in tibetan.. And not only do people feel different -to not say colonised- but they really look so too, and the numerous chinese tourists look just as foreign as you and me..

Therefore, Langmusi, my favorite chinese town so far, is actually tibetan and is called Dardzan Lha Mu! It's built in a beautiful valley with a red rock cliff up on one side and sharp peeks and grasslands on the other side.. Quite a different scenery from anywhere around.. Too bad that the weather sucked..