I got 3 hours sleep then my alarm gave me a fright at 4:50am. I don’t like being woken suddenly; I don’t like remembering my dreams. I don’t like to be reminded about unconscious anxieties about an uncertain future that my conscious thoughts can effortlessly nullify. I read on the BBC website a few years ago that scientists discovered that people who read factual books are less likely to remember their dreams but people who read novels have much more vivid ones. I should go back to reading Richard Dawkins instead of Mark Twain and that Afghan fellow. I had piano sonata 2 (by me) in my head when I had my early morning coffee then when I arrived at the bus station I involuntarily had an acoustic version of Rocket to the Moon by Runrig floating around my cranium. I love the reverb of music when you don’t choose to hum it in your head, it’s so much more multitimbral when it’s impulsive and sparks an indescribable emotion. I like starting sentences with I.
When in Beijing I moaned about their pathetic breeds of dogs. In Tibetan culture they have real dogs. Charlie the cyclist (Yangshuo blog entry) told me about the Tibetan Mastiffs and I assumed that because he has such a good command of the English language he was using overly powerful vocabulary to describe the inbred mutts. They are just as evil as he had said and I would have donated both of my mother’s kidneys to have seen a puny little Beijing Shitzu prancing around Kangding at 5:30am instead of those raucous beasts, no offence mum.
The 6:30 bus from Kangding to Litang left the bus station on time but then spent half an hour loading up with goods on the edge of town to be taken to the Wild West of Sichuan. Neither words nor my poor photos from the moving vehicle can describe how majestic Gongga Shan and the surrounding peaks were when we ascended across the mountain passes. My bag of chilli flavoured French fries exploded on the first 4000m + pass from the change in air pressure. I was gutted, that bag was supposed to last me the whole journey. The 10 second rule doesn’t apply for the floors of Chinese transport (at least not the whole bag).
As we started to ascend on the second high pass the bus driver stopped to buy a live chicken. The whole of the bus gathered to one side to see what price he got it for. It was only £1.60. I was tempted to buy one myself but the bus departed before I came to the conclusion that the amusement of taking a chicken to stay in hostels would in itself have been great value for money. I thought about this for quite some time (you have time to think on long bus journeys). I would have named it Sanchez and got a bicycle in Dali with a basket on the front and taken it with me until I got to the Laos border then donate it to some vegetarian expat in Jinghong. I would have given it its own Facebook profile as well.
The 10 and ½ hours felt great and passed in no time. I was randomly thinking good thoughts and smiling and chuckling away to myself more or less constantly. I love bus journeys through new and unfamiliar lands. It was only 101 miles by air but the winding passes take ages, the roads are just gravel and therefore very dusty and bumpy. After every high pass the bus is spewing out steam and needs hosed down for 5 minutes which slows the journey down further. There are small, dusty, dry stone or corrugated iron houses up in the mountains that serve as Lorry and bus hosing stations. It must be a lonely life scraping a living in a harsh and barren wasteland where the highlight of the social calendar is whilst servicing the daily bus and Lorries stopping to get cooled down with some h2o for a few minutes a day. As always in China, construction is never far away and when the tunnels are opened some time in the near future, people like me won’t be able to experience the joy of crossing the mountain passes and the roadside dwellers will be forced to leave the certainty of their small world and hopefully find somewhere that’s fulfilling.
Although the landscape was at times similar to Scottish landscapes, when we reached the third pass and were properly in the Tibetan plateau it reminded me more of the North American plains prior to the decimation of the land and culture by the white settlers. It’s filled with countless yaks dotted across the horizon, nomadic herders who live in tents not all that different from tepees in an unforgivable, cold and dry, seemingly endless land of grass and rolling mountains.
This is what the sides of all roads would look like if roads weren't paved.
Litang itself is a dirty wee town which oozes with character. The locals claim it is the highest town in the world. It isn't, but the air is very thin. The dogs roam freely as do the yaks who have taken to recycling human waste with great effect. They may be free-range but they certainly aren’t what I’d classify as being creatures that produce organic meat. One had a cardboard box hanging out its mouth when the bus approached the station. The population is predominantly Tibetan. I had read a couple of blogs about Litang and opted to stay in the highly recommended Peace Guest House. Unfortunately it’s so popular that every guest house has named itself the Peace Guest House. Copyright infringement means nothing in these necks of the woods. With a bit of luck I found the original Peace Guest House next door to one of its many replicas. I was greeted with smiley faces from the old ladies whose descendants own the place. They all had really friendly wrinkly faces and one of them spun her hand held prayer wheel while sipping on yak butter tea the whole time. I love the faces of people who live in extreme environments. To me they have faces that personify wisdom even though they are often the least educated people on the planet and therefore in some ways the most narrow minded people on the planet. It then occurred to me again the similarities of this place to the plains of North America. If Tibetan people were placed among Native Americans for a photo shoot I’d never be able to distinguish one weathered face from another. Their jewellery is in a similar style and steeped in mythology and superstition, they are deeply spiritually connected to the land, and the Tibetan ladies even wear a type of moccasin shoe when indoors. They have a similar diet and tough nomadic culture in a ruthless setting. In addition, they are both conquered people.
I was given yak butter tea which tastes like cheese sauce before the cheese has been added to the mix and made with slightly sour milk. There was also a Yak blood sausage which tasted a bit like beef but more like black pudding. I had to cook my share longer than the locals; I like my blood to look un-bloodlike. There was also bread which is like hard dry Naan bread with a bit of a bitter flavour. Finally there was yak cheese which is similar to goat’s cheese but bitterer.
I was later joined by two Japanese and a Dutch man and we went for another Tibetan meal of Tsampa (an indescribably bland concoction which was actually not bad) and excellent fried dumplings. We were joined by the owner of the hostel who speaks excellent English. His Tibetan name translates to Long life and that’s what we call him. I can’t help thinking about Duracell bunnies when I’m talking to him. He’s the best hostel owner I’ve met. He stayed for 7 years in India living in the town where the Dalai Lama is a refugee and as a consequence of having left the middle kingdom seems to have a better understanding of Waiguoren than other Zhongguoren. There was a power cut and we went back to the hostel and chatted in the candlelight until the power came back on and the chatter and laughter inevitably in this day and age changed to the sound of keyboard buttons, mobile texting and Skype conversations. The ever thoughtful Longlife had anticipated my lack of foresight and turned on my electric blanket for me.
I think it was one of my happiest ever days. On one occasion I had to stop myself from laughing uncontrollably when drinking my yak butter tea and munching on yak meat thinking about what it might have been like if I was having this meal with the Tibetans and Sanchez was sitting beside me. They had been very welcoming and I didn’t want them to think I was laughing at them.
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