THE HARRELLS TRAVEL

Two weeks in Qinghai was definitely not enough. If I ever get a chance to go back, I want to take Crystal and explore even more. While I was in Qinghai I got a lot of attention for my hair and my skin colour, many people were curious about where I came from and how I got my hair like this. Many people also wanted to take pictures with me. One guy even followed me for 10 minutes. After a while my colleague gave me the great idea to ask to take a picture of anyone who asked to

My second week in Qinghai, took me to the City of Yushu. You can check out pictures and thoughts from week one here. Even though it is the 4th largest city in the prefecture the population is quite small compared to Xining. I was excited to get out and learn more about the city. I soon learned that Yushu's population is nearly 98% Tibetan! It was such a different experience than other places in China where the ethnic majority is Han and makes up around 90%. The first day I w

Everything I heard about the western China was that of an undeveloped area with none of the modernity of Shanghai and Beijing. As such, my expectations were low. I was assumed I would be spending 14 days in dilapidated old buildings, without running water. Luckily, I was wrong for the most part. I spent two wonderful weeks exploring two cities of Qinghai, China. My first stop was the city of Xining, the capital of Qinghai province and the largest city on the Qinghai-Tibet pla