It’s our first time in China’s Qinghai province, which is larger than any country in Europe. It occupies a large chunk of the Tibetan plateau, and to Tibetans, this land is known as Amdo, one of old Tibet’s three traditional provinces. 

Our first stop was the town of Tongren, or Rebkong in Tibetan. For several centuries, Tongren has been famous for producing some of the best Thangka paintings in the world. It’s a Tibetan Buddhist art form which can take years to complete one piece. 

The drive to Tongren was incredibly beautiful, with steep, red rock walls – a landscape that resembled Zion National Park in the USA. We decided that we’d have to explore the area on foot, so that’s how we spent our first day. 

I wasn’t sure how we would access the area, but as luck would have it, we found a random city bus that plowed the route via small communities. For just 30p each we took the 45 minute journey up the valley to an area where we wanted to start our hike. It was a day of winging it, and things didn’t go quite to plan when the road we were following became private land. 

Luckily our spirits were high and we got back on track by sticking our thumbs out and hitching a ride with a Tibetan man who took us to the next area we wanted to hike. 

This area was much better and we were standing right beneath the red, sandstone peaks. The only downside was the electrical cables that also ran along the route. While the sun was shining, the air seemed to be thick with haze, causing the long distant views of the peach-coloured hills to be a bit bleak. 

Our walk led us through a village where we stopped for some freshly baked bread and an ice-cream, before arriving at a scenic area we spotted on our map. It had very few reviews and thus, hadn’t become a popular place yet so it was completely free to visit. 

There was a pond with pedalos, along with trails and pavilions that led to viewpoints. Tropical flowers filled the grounds and the whole place was really cared for, which was strange as we were the only people there and it was free to visit. The area offered the best desert views we’d seen all day so it was well worth the effort to reach. 

The next day was spent admiring the Thangka art in the area. We started at the Wutun Si monastery, which was made up of two complex, and we opted to visit the lower one. 

The entrance to the monastery was fabulous, with a tall, three-sided Buddha statue and intricately decorated gompas. A few old Tibetan ladies sat on the wall outside, while Craig headed into a room to spin a humongous prayer wheel, which must’ve been at least 10 meters tall. Ropes hung around the edge so people could pull the heavy prayer wheel. Once Craig got it moving, the Tibetan ladies joined him inside. Clearly they’d wanted to spin the wheel but weren’t strong enough to get the momentum going, so once Craig had it spinning they happily joined in, grabbing the ropes and moving in a clockwise motion. 

The monastery itself wasn’t my favourite as it was undergoing some building work. We were allowed in the hall where we watched the monks emptying oil from bronze dishes, wiping them clean and stacking them in piles. 

Lying next to the monks were piles of donations, and each monk left the room with a huge bag of toilet paper, face tissues, and laundry detergent. 

There wasn’t much to explore in the monastery, but luckily just as we were about to leave, a monk called us over and unlocked the door to a grand temple, adorned with Thangka paintings, Buddha statues and multicoloured fabric draped around the high ceiling. 

He then took us to some Thangka studios which was great because that was the main reason we came to the monastery. We were shown the artists at work, along with the final pieces. I think the monk was hoping we’d buy something and he’d get a commission, but even the smallest piece was out of our budget. 

There were other Thangka studios which we popped into in our own, one of which was owned by Tashi Dangzhou, a renowned local artists who was trained by one of the four great Thangka artists. Tashi has since recruited children from impoverished families and taught them the Thangka skills for free, 31 of them have now become part of the Regong Thangka artist group. 

I asked him how much an A2 sized painting was, 380,000 yuan he replied, approximately £40,000. 

We said goodbye to the artists and made our way west to the 400 year old Gomar Gompa. Before we reached it, a Tibetan man began saying something to us, before showing us a video of someone doing a Thangka painting on his phone, and pointing to the building down the driveway. We figured it was another artist studio, so we smiled and followed him in. 

The man had a cool style, with a funky mullet, smart white shirt, and wide legged black trousers – Tibetans just know how to style themselves well. The man suddenly placed a white scarf around each of our necks and had us stand by a doorway in the room for a photo. 

He then told me to sit down on the floor, in front of a Thangka painting which would be worth at least £40,000, and pretend to paint on-top of it. I was very confused at what was happening, he didn’t speak English and suddenly I had a paintbrush dabbed into a red pigment in my hand, touching the lips of a Buddha on the painting. What the hell was happening? Was it a scam – to say we ruined the painting and owed thousands of pounds for the damage? 

He gave me a pad to rest on my hand, just like the artists use so that their natural oils don’t go onto the painting, and then he told me to pretend to paint while he videoed me. 

When he found us on the street we’d just bought an ice lolly, so he proceeded to remove them from our hands and stab them into a plant pot while we did the important filming. It was so random and had us in hysterics. 

It soon became apparent that this was a promotional video for his business, but we weren’t entirely sure what the business was. We suspect a sort of cultural centre, for learning about the Thangka art form. 

He then asked us to walk through the various rooms, admiring the artwork. The man then edited the video and put some atmospheric background music over it, covering up the sound of me giggling. It was such a random experience, and before we left he insisted on gifting us Tibetan key rings and cans of drink to take away.  

We eventually made it to Gomar Gompa which had a rustic, medieval walled village, but no one in sight. We made it to the famous stupa though, which was a very beautiful white building, adorned with colourful artwork. Inside were prayer wheels which we spun, along with a little kid who followed us around. 

Then it was time to make our way back to Tongren, where we missed our bus because we were standing in an unofficial stop – luckily a local took pity on us fools, pulled a u-turns and drove us back to town. 

Feeling inspired by the desert landscapes we saw around Tongren, we opted to explore another one further west which we accessed from Xining. 

At the front of the bus was a tv showing cctv footage of bus crashes. Ironically, a man was watching these clips of buses flipping upside down and people being projected out of the windows with his seatbelt undone the entire time.

The park was bizarrely quiet so we really enjoyed the calm environment, the only issue was the extreme heat which made the walking tough work. We did a big loop hike which offered fabulous views of the textured hills, striped with pink and white minerals. On the other side were tall, red cliffs, where we were able to venture off track and slide through slot canyons. 

It was exciting to stray away from the trail, as it’s rare to do in China, and occasionally it felt like we had been transported to Utah and were out exploring the wild desert of America. We even came across a badger who scurried away as we scrambled over a boulder. 

After a few hours of wandering around the park, the heat became too insufferable and we headed back to the road to catch a bus to Xining where we would begin our long journey to Tibet.