June 2009 Archives

Leaving the monks in the morning, I begin following their directions (between the mountains and take the left fork), I’m still within sight of their monastery when it starts raining, heavily. The next hour I sit under a tree pondering my decision to go hiking to the next town, by my estimate some 100km away.

When the rain clears I continue the walk as the scenery is breath taking.

I reach a small village within a couple of hours walk and am offered food (more Tsomba) and yak butter milk tea. Not grasping that I don’t speak Tibetan at all one of the teenagers writes something in Tibetan for me to read, thinking my English is a different dialect of Tibetan.

After half an hour’s rest and eating (while one of the monks takes photos with my camera), I bid farewell to my new friends thinking that it’s far too early to call it a day.

Half of the village came to wave goodbye, very excited to have their first foreign guest.

The weather is hot and no one is around, so I decide to wash up in the river which is a relief after several hours of fast paced walking into the mountains. Tiger Leaping Gorge is a walk in the park compared to this.

Several hours after the bath in the river, I sit in the countryside looking at wildlife, resting and chatting with a Tibetan (we don’t understand each other at all).

Evening is approaching, I’ve just passed another village and it’s starting to rain. By the time I reach the next houses it’s raining heavily and I am soaked.

The houses I see belong to one family, they all consist of one room with bed and stove, stockpile of yak manure and room underneath for livestock.

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Eventually, the family understand that I’m looking for a place to sleep for the night and the guy next to me says I can eat and stay at his place. He likes my camera and poses for photos every two minutes. Lunch/dinner consists of Tsomba, again.

I wait outside for evening to approach while the two guys next to me go to round up their yak, goats and horses for the night. The young boy (black and orange jacket) is full of energy and incredibly aggressive. When he’s not posing for photos, he’s throwing rocks at goats or trying to hit me with a big stick.

As night steps in, things get a little weird. A couple of friends of the guy I’m staying with arrive and as I’m returning from the bathroom, I catch them going through my bag (small compartment with no lock). I tell them off and make sure to keep the bag in sight at all times. Next the guy asks to use my camera and proceeds to take photos of himself and his friends posing. Things get really weird as one of his friends starts removing his pants while the guy takes photos of his pubes and man bits. At this point I take back the camera and wish I’d picked somewhere else to stay for the night.

When it comes time to sleep, the guys setup a bed for me outside, where the mat is in the photo. I fall asleep on the hard ground (with bag next to me) a little pissed off at how the night turned out, the guy has the audacity to ask for 20 Yuan for the bed.

I wake up several hours later as the wind is howling and snow is falling on me, notice that no one else is inside so I go inside and take his bed thinking he’s gone to his friends for the night.

The guy comes back several hours later to find me sleeping in his bed, I tell him it’s not cool to sleep outside in the snow (which has stopped now), so he helps carry the bed (jackets, pants and other clothes to keep warm) inside. As I’m falling asleep, I realise that it’s him, the friend who was stripping down and the little aggressive boy sharing the bed and it saddens me a little that they have to live with so little, even though he is a jerk.

I wake up at the crack of dawn, incredibly sore and tired from little sleep that night, eager to get away from this weird Tibetan.

Deciding against backtracking to Manigango before going on to Sershu, Gregor and I decide to follow a rarely used road that hugs the Tibetan border (on the Sichuan side) since it’s possible to follow it to Sershu.

We hitch a lift with some Han Chinese who believe all of the government’s propaganda about the Tibetan spiritual leader. They also have no idea about the significance of the day (it’s the 20th Anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square), we notice nothing to indicate that anyone in the town knows about the date. We ask to be dropped off where the road diverges towards Sershu, but instead are dropped off right at the border.

The bridge is all that separates Sichuan from Tibet. The checkpoint that would have cost 300 Yuan to cross consists of nothing more than the red and white booth with one police officer asleep, I could easily cross the border in a taxi or one of the many other cars that pass by.

After entertaining this fantasy for a couple of minutes, we start walking back towards the road that leads to Sershu, passing a group of soldiers marching towards Tibet.

Twenty minutes of walking later, Tibet begins to beckon, she whispers there are no police in this spot, come on over, who will know?

In the foreground, Sichuan and our road. Across the river, Tibet and glory.

Looking around to make sure that there are no people watching, I find a suitable spot to cross the river.

It’s incredibly cold to walk across but incredibly easy to swim. The problem lies in getting my bag across. Gregor suggests putting it in a taxi and having the driver drop it off at the other end. I’m reluctant as there’s nothing preventing the driver from driving off with everything and leaving me without my belongings and clothes.

I come out of the river to find two motorbikes have stopped. One of these containing two monks tells us there is a monastery several minutes away where we can spend the night and that they have a boat to cross the river. We continue walking with extra enthusiasm and eventually a truck stops to give us a lift.

After a few minutes drive, we pass a bridge, completely unguarded and I decide that this will be my entry point into Tibet come nightfall so I don’t have to trouble the monks for their boat.

When the driver drops us off, just past the bridge, he tells us the monastery is 4km away. As we’re walking, I see a police car coming around the corner towards us, I shout police and instinctively Gregor and I run off the road into the trees for shelter. We’d heard from Elise that several people were stopped by police just outside Dege and driven back to town saying they’re not allowed to be there. The police car hadn’t noticed us and we’re able to come out of hiding and continue our walk.

Four kilometres pass, as do many more and there is still no monastery, it’s now too far to return to the bridge at night however there is still the option of the monks boat so we press on, stopping for some water at a hydroelectric plant. As we’re walking out Gregor notices another police car and walks straight back in and takes some more cookies saying we’re hungry. The people inside think nothing of it and several minutes later we’re back on the road.

It’s late in the afternoon and we still haven’t reached a monastery so we begin to get nervous about we’re we’ll be spending the night. Eventually we come across a Tibetan guy who tells us that the monastery isn’t far (heard that before) and that it’s on the Tibetan side of the river, the next one on our side of the river is twenty kilometres away.

Unwilling to walk another twenty kilometres, we decide we’re going to the monastery on the Tibetan side, the man follows us. We reach the bank and wait for the boat to come pick us up.

The boat is operated by a deaf and drunk Tibetan who has to battle with the current. He rips us off.

We stop by the first shop we see in the village for a celebratory Pepsi and are greeted by two drunk Tibetans who offer us a bed in their home. Preferring to stay in a monastery, we decline the invitation and start walking from the shop to the monastery.

One of the drunks decides to give us the grand tour of the village, taking us to every house shouting something to all the Tibetan women he sees. He stumbles around and makes sure to spin every prayer wheel within sight. He takes us inside one of the monasteries, which really pisses off one of the monks since the man is drunk and we get the feeling we may no longer be able to stay in a monastery. The drunk doesn’t get the hint that we’re trying to get rid of him.

Eventually, a Chinese speaking monk comes out and Gregor asks him if we can stay at the monastery we’d seen from the river. The monk says this isn’t possible since that’s where the senior monks go to pray however we can see the outside and stay at his place. We agree to this and the drunk takes this as his cue to leave us alone, first turning around to pee, almost getting it on his shoes, then almost stumbling over into it.

As we’re doing the tour, this time with the monk, more come out to join us and we take a few pictures before going inside for a late lunch/early dinner.

Lunch/Dinner consists of Tsomba, only this time one of the monks shows us a different way of making it, laughing at the mess we make on the floor.

After spending the first night in Tibet, Gregor takes the boat back across the river to go to Sershu, while I decide to hike into the mountains to see if I can make it further, I’m told the next village is a day’s walk away.

While in Dege, Gregor has the brilliant suggestion of calling a counterfeiter to organise a set of fake permits (for myself only). Finding one is not as difficult as you’d imagine. In most Chinese towns and cities I’ve come across, there are phone numbers painted on walls. These are the numbers of counterfeiters who can make fake passports or work permits (Hekou) to allow Chinese to work in other cities. All we need to do is walk around Dege to collect some of these numbers and begin the process.

After a 15 minute walk around Dege, we have a collection of ten numbers to try, so we return to our hotel room to begin calling. After trying the numbers, we have four potential leads, with one quote being a third of the other three (which I consider too expensive for forged papers).

We call the man again, telling him we’ll take one set of forged permits for 200Y (40AUD) and he asks us to show up outside the post office and give him a call. After we call, he asks us to drop the necessary information (Name, Passport #, Passport Photo) into the post office box.

This is where things become a little suspicious. First of all, I’d never heard of anyone needing a passport photo for the permit and secondly, how is the man to remove the documents from the post office box, I highly doubt he works for the post office.

We tell him that this isn’t necessary and that we’d like to meet with him, see some sample documents prior to giving money, he says this isn’t necessary and that he needs the passport details in order to make a permit and that we can give them over the phone.

Nervous that I’m dealing with the PSB (police), I ask to meet him first to see a sample, he declines this request and says he cannot proceed without the information. After much hesitation, we send him a text with my name, passport number, country and d.o.b.

Half an hour later we receive a text that we should wait outside the post office the following morning at 9am and give him a call to pick up the permit.

The following morning, Gregor calls the man and tells him that I will come alone to the post office, inspect the permit and if I find it of acceptable quality, will pay the money for the permit. Since I don’t speak Mandarin, I will simply call him from the post office, which is his signal to meet me.

At this point, I’d found plenty of samples of the permit on the internet (after circumventing China’s great firewall) and was now semi-knowledgeable in the field of Tibet Travel Permits (for travel into Tibet, required for Lhasa and a few areas around it), Alien Traveller’s Permits (for areas outside of Lhasa) and Military Permits (for areas close to the border with India e.g. Mt Kailash). I’d contemplated making my own permits but decided against it.

I arrive at the post office at the required time and call the man, only to hear a reply in Chinese, I tell him (in Mandarin) that I don’t speak Chinese and that I’m calling about Lhasa and Tibet (Xi Zang). He hangs up and I figure he understood. I sit at a spot with several exits, should it turnout that he’s police and I need to make a quick getaway.

After several minutes, he’s sent several text messages. After fifteen minutes, I decide that he isn’t coming and head back to the hotel (taking a route where I know if I’m being followed). Gregor reads the messages and calls the man.

Gregor says the man wants us to pay the money up front by delivering it into the post office box, I laugh and tell him there’s no chance that’s happening, which he’d already told the man. We decide that this number was a scammer and that there’s little chance of getting the permit, so we head out to breakfast.

While out, the man calls again, saying this isn’t America and that this is how business is done in China, money first, then documents. We tell him we’re not giving money until we see the documents and if he can’t handle this, we’re not doing business with him. The man sends several more text messages to the effect of money first then you get the documents, we ignore these and decide that the fake permit is a no-go (the other prices were too high).

On the way back to our hotel, we pass the minivan drivers who offer us a lift to Ganzi/Manigango (where we’d come from). I tell them I want to go to Tibet but have no permit. One of the drivers says he’ll get me past the border checkpoint for 300 Yuan. He’ll fill the van with Tibetan passengers and I’ll hide in the back under their bags. As interesting as this sounds, I tell him I don’t have that kind of money (since I still have to organise my own transport to Lhasa and may still be caught by police). We ask the man about the location of the checkpoints and he tells us that there is only one checkpoint between the border and the first town in Tibet and gives us the distance to the checkpoint.

We thank him for the information and pack our bags for the trip to Sershu, I decide against going into Tibet. I’d heard of one of my former travelling companions (David from Israel) being unable to make the trip disguised as a Tibetan monk.

Gregor and I eventually decide to explore Dege town and pay a visit to the Scripture Printing Lamasery, an old school printing press for Tibetan prayers/chants.

Wearing my disguise, Gregor and I make our way to the lamasery and first perform a Kora (clockwise lap around the place) to scope it out. With Gregor some distance behind me, I make a move for the interior of the lamasery, walking past the ticket seller to get in for free as a Tibetan. It doesn’t work, he calls out to me and I’m forced to buy a ticket.

Lamasery entrance with Tibetans walking the Kora around it.

Nevertheless, I decide to persevere with the disguise and walk around without removing it. The disguise partially works, people more than 10m away don’t pay me any attention, however when someone does see that I’m a foreigner, they call out to the others who stop what they’re doing walk up to me and peer at my eyes/mouth under the balaclava, confirm I am white and say hello.

Busted by the workers and sweating heavily in the heat, I remove the disguise deciding it was fun but won’t really work and meet up with Gregor to tell him the news about the failure.

Although the lamasery has a rule against photography, the Chinese tourists inside are happily taking photos and the workers pay them no attention. Feeling brave, I take out my camera and take one photo. As soon as I do this, one of the workers approaches Gregor and I, looks at the photo I took and takes the camera from me. The man then proceeds to take photos of all of his colleagues and the work they do.

To make a print, the workers, always in pairs, take a clay tablet containing the scripture, coat it using a naturally made ink and press a sheet of fabric to it to print the scripture on it.

To get an idea of how much scripture there is, imagine two storeys of six rows. Every row has a shelf and in each shelf lie hundreds of these tablets, it all adds up to a lot of work.

The photographer and myself (out of disguise).

The view from the second floor.

Dege, located 40km from the border with Tibet, is a town where you can’t use the playground equipment since it serves as a clothes line for the nearby residents.

This doesn’t stop me from finding out how much strength I’ve lost over the past few months; less than 10 pullups :(.

The local minibus drivers are always trying to get fares so I ask them how much to Lhasa. After they quote a price, I have Gregor translate for them that I have no permit. This normally scares them off and they stop pestering us about a lift. One driver however offers to take me for 600 Yuan (120AUD) in two days and takes Gregor’s number, saying he’ll call the day before he goes to confirm it.

I start planning my assault on Tibet and decide I need a disguise to look as Tibetan as possible, which is difficult since I’m taller, hairier and whiter than all of the Tibetans I’d seen prior.

The disguise consists of gloves, worn by every truck driver I’ve seen (2 Yuan a pair), a balaclava, popular with Tibetan motorbike riders (10 Yuan) and a cheap bag to disguise the fact that I’m a backpacker (15 Yuan – two bags).

We spend the day not doing much more and I decide to try my Tibetan disguise the following day at the Dege Lamasery (Bakong Scripture Printing Lamasery).

Gregor and I eventually decide to move on after a great time hanging out in Da Tong Ma (Elise left the previous day). When we climb onto the bus to take us back to Ganzi, the floor is covered in sunflower seed shells, everyone on the bus has been spitting them on the floor (as is fairly common in China/Tibet). To pass time we bet on who will throw up first. Gregor wins easily as one of his girls is queasy from the start and is throwing up within half an hour.

I introduce the woman sitting next to me to the wonderful world of western music, giving her a sample of music from the sixties to the present day. She likes it, a lot.

When we eventually arrive back in Ganzi, we meet up with Zhouma who takes out to KTV (karaoke) as a goodbye. KTV is conveniently located upstairs from a whorehouse, and given the place’s general seediness we don’t dare to guess what else goes on here. While waiting at the whorehouse for the KTV place to open, we see one of the prostitutes that had come with a truck driver to Zhouma’s motel the day before. I wave and tell her I’ve seen her before but she doesn’t understand English. I ponder the fact that most people in Ganzi don’t have showers every day (since few, if any, houses have them) so they head to a communal shower “hot springs” in town. Do the girls in the whorehouse shower between clients? I don’t think so. There’s something to keep in mind if you decide to take a prostitute in a small town in China.

Zhouma and her BFF at KTV.

Following Ganzi, we hitchhike along to Dege. Although it is very illegal to hitchhike in China, this doesn’t prevent us from flagging down a detective on his way to see his son perform for Children’s Day (a Chinese holiday where children where new clothes, receive lots of spending money and put on performances at school for their family).

The second lift we receive is heading all the way to Dege, at a snail’s pace. We do most of the trip in first or second gear.

Just out of Manigango, we pass Yilhun Lha Lake.

We travel only slightly faster than this Canadian mountain biker we pass. Our driver is so impressed that he stops to chat with her (using Gregor as intermediary). Our driver also stops to tell us he’s having a nap and proceeds to sleep for the next 20 minutes.

Along the way, we head over Chola Mountain Pass at an altitude of 5050m. Gregor has prepared for this pass by purchasing the coloured prayer paper our driver used on the trip from Litang to Ganzi. We throw it in the air while our Tibetan driver chants.

It’s just after sunset (9pm) when we arrive in Dege and after a chat with some monks, Gregor and I are staying at a very cheap motel where it’s us and several monks who are very excited to speak with Gregor about our trip. One of the monks shows us a DVD of his brother (a famous Tibetan musician) performing some of his hits.

Eventually, we make it up the mountain in Da Tong Ma for an amazing view of the town.

The place we’re staying in, opposite the monastery has some really cool dogs.

There’s the little pup that always rolls onto his back when I come to play with him.

The rasta that loves to dance.

And the friendliest of all, this big boy that they say will bite you. The pup in the background is a stray, but loves to hang out with big boy.

� This girl, also a stray, along with little pup stays around big boy a lot, he’s very handsome.

We eventually make it to the town’s monastery where one of the monks gladly offers us some tea and cookies. Another monk joins us and the original is on the phone to his friends in no time, asking Elise, Gregor and myself to say a few words to each person he calls.

Left monk is the one that offers us tea and calls his friends, inviting the middle monk, the only one of the trio that speaks Mandarin to translate what Gregor is saying. The monk on the right is the one that joined us while we were drinking tea and took the most photos of us on his camera phone.

Walking around town, we hear the chants of children in Tibetan and decide to investigate, schools are always interesting places to visit.

The school, still under construction, already has a satellite dish.

The school is a monk school, when we arrive, all of the boys are busy chanting in Tibetan.

When class finishes, the young monks in training are the same curious boys you find everywhere.

The monk/teacher is as curious as the boys.

We find out on our second day that two Tibetans were killed the previous day, one shot for picking worms in the wrong field. The other is killed in a knife fight, quite common in Tibetan communities (every guy we see is carrying a knife). So much for small towns being safe. We’re told the sky burials here occur after the body has been buried for one year.

The day we leave Da Tong Ma, it snows. This, however, does not slow down our bus driver.

So there we were, in a poolhall in Da Tong Ma, two tourists, a fourteen year old, smoking and drinking school truant, a monk with a Kappa beanie and a Tibetan that looks like he’d have no problem killing you.

The guys watching, sometimes as few as three, other times as many as fifteen, all carry knives.

The truant wants to play for money, the monk has no problems with it. It’s the monk and me against the truant and the scary Tibetan, and they’re down five games to two.

One of the onlookers does not smile, he does not talk; I catch him staring every time I glance in his direction.

How did we get here?

Tashi introduced us to his friend (the truant). He came over one day while Tashi was at work. I let him play with mspaint on my laptop, he in turn invites us to play pool with him.

The truant, playing with paint.

We walk down one of the streets into an unmarked house. The courtyard has three pool tables, each of which has ripped felt and slopes in seemingly random directions. The pockets are missing nets and all of the balls in the bucket are chipped or dented in some way. The pool cues are all slightly crooked and instead of using chalk, the truant shows us that you simply use the wall. To top it off, under every pool table is a pile of dried yak shit.

Setting up a game of 8-ball, notice the yak shit, dodgy pockets and bucket of balls.

We start playing, Gregor and myself against the truant, a version of nine ball using only six balls that must be sunk in order. There is no ball in hand rule, a spot of tape marks where the cue ball should be re-spotted, the other end of the table has a similar mark for re-spotting balls sunk in foul. Whoever sinks the most balls, wins.

After a couple of games, we teach the truant 8-ball. As we play, a small crowd forms, one of the crowd (Kappa Lama) cheers all the time and laughs every time we make a bad shot. Since Gregor is bored of playing I take Kappa Lama on my team. The truant in turn takes the scariest onlooker on his team.

After we finish playing, the truant refuses to pay his losses (AUD 60c). I decide not to beat him up over it.

Far left, onlookers with knives. To my left the scary Tibetan. Lining up a shot, Tashi, our friend that drove us to Da Tong Ma. Holding the other cue, the truant. Behind the truant, the guy in the cowboy hat staring at me, he’s that guy. Far right is my homeboy Kappa Lama.

Da Tong Ma, due to its distance from any city big or small has been relatively untouched by tourism. Prior to our arrival, you could count the number of foreign visitors on one hand, which several people recounted to us.

The initial impression we made of Da Tong Ma was that it’s a real wild west town. All of the Tibetans carry knives, wear cowboy hats and ride motorbikes or horses.

As foreigners, we’re quite the attraction in the town and every time we go down the main street, a crowd will form around us.

We stay with Tashi’s uncle Asi and spend the days sleeping, eating, playing cards and drinking. We offer to work on several occasions, however as guests, we’re told time and time again that it’s not necessary.

Tashi during one of our evening drinking and cards sessions.

Unlike us lazy foreigners, Tashi has work to do, he drives his truck in a three hour loop fetching rocks for the construction of the monastery. In total there are seven drivers who each drive to the quarry several times a day free of charge.

We join Tashi on a couple of his trips, and part of one of the trips I ride on the roof of his truck, like several Tibetan girls did on the way to Da Tong Ma.

On the last trip of the day, Tashi and I join the crew from the quarry for a dinner at their place, the tent in the above photo.

When Gregor and I first arrived to Ganzi, we met a Taiwanese monk who we’d assumed was a tourist passing through the town. The monk in fact has a lot of influence in the town due to all the community projects he undertakes. One such project the monk has undertaken is funding the building of a monastery in a rural village by the name of Da Tong Ma.

The monk, having heard of our experiences at the local Tibetan school invites us to spend a couple of days at the small village as his guests. Elise, Gregor and myself gladly accept and the following day join the monk’s driver (Tashi Judah)� in his truck for the drive to the town.

The town lies five hours drive north of Ganzi along a dirt road, unfortunately our truck breaks down numerous times along the trip and the trip takes closer to nine hours. The first time we break down, we call a mechanic from Ganzi to make the repairs. The mechanic arrives an hour later with a punctured tire losing air rapidly, we offer to change the tire while the men repair the truck. Unfortunately the men used their spare half an hour later and have come close to bursting another tire.

After a quick repair job involving a glove, screwdriver and glue, the mechanic and his companion are able to leave back to Ganzi, while we continue our trip to Da Tong Ma, only to break down half an hour later.

The second time we break down, we are in a position where no trucks can pass us, so they’re forced to stop and after a cigarette, they decide to help fix our truck.

When we break down the second time, the driver of the orange truck comes out to help. If you look closely, you can see a 4WD in the back of the truck amongst all the other supplies. Had I taken a photo a minute earlier, you’d have seen a man climbing out of the 4WD in the back of the truck.

The truck overheats numerous times along the way and we eventually arrive at Da Tong Ma at 11:30pm.

I’d enjoyed my time at the school so much that I ask Zhuoma if we can return the following morning. We get the go ahead and are given two hours in which we can teach several classes.

The morning’s Tibetan class (with Gregor and Elyse sitting in the front row).

Rather than have the same conversations with the students as we did the previous night, I decide to give the students a lesson in some basic English: nouns, verbs and adjectives.

After coming up with adequate definitions for the terms (which the students copy into their notebooks). I write several sentences on the board in which the students have to pick the nouns, verbs and adjectives. After the class finish the task, I have them come up with some sentences which the rest of the class need to work on.

Inevitably, when one of the students raise their hands to offer a sentence, they ask me to sing a song. Since we have plenty of time in the lesson, I have them work on a few more sentences first. Towards the end of the class, we follow the same routine as the previous night. First the students sing a Tibetan song, then I enlist the help of Gregor and Elyse to teach the students “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.”

After the class finishes, we go outside to watch the flag raising ceremony while the students sing the Chinese national anthem. The director asks me to examine one of the students English. I ask that we do it away from the other students as it' may be difficult for the girl to perform in front of her peers. He says it’s no problem, so we have a short conversation in front of the other students. I tell him that the girl’s English is quite good and should be adequate for the college entrance examination which pleases the director. He asks me to test the other students and I suggest we break them up into three groups since there are three of us and each of us take a small group and talk to them.

After taking a group, we sit in a circle, introduce ourselves, talk about our age, where we’re from and how many people in our family. I then have the students talk about their favourite music, TV shows and sports. After an hour long lesson, I teach the students a game we played back in Australia, by the name of bullrush.

The playground where the students and I play bullrush, something that wouldn’t be allowed in Australia (since it could hurt the precious children).

After the lesson ends, the group I have goes to another class and I’m given a new group of students. This new group knows less English than the first group and we have much difficulty repeating the introduction exercise that I did with the first group. The second exercise we do involves the students saying: “I think I am” <insert adjective>, I think he/she (person to their left) is <adjective>”. Many of the students struggle with the exercise, so instead we do some vocabulary building exercises to learn words to describe people, colours and animals.

The class ends an hour later, and the students break for lunch. We say goodbye to the students, give them our emails if they want to practice their English with us and go to have lunch with Zhuoma. All in all, a very successful couple of lessons.

Turns out teaching isn’t all that difficult ;)

While eating dinner, we meet a Tibetan girl (Zhouma) that studied English at university. Zhouma is the English teacher at the local middle school and after some chit-chat, invites us to come to her school to meet her class and speak English with them the following morning (Monday).

After some back and forth, we decide to go to school following dinner (9:00pm on a Sunday night). The school is a boarding school and the students have class from 7:00am until 10:00pm.

When we arrive at the school, the students are incredibly excited to meet us and each of us is given a classroom of students that we can talk to.

My Tibetan classroom for the hour.

After answering a lot of questions from the students about my background, the students ask me to sing a song. I tell them that first they should sing me a song. One of the students walks to the front of the classroom and sings a Michael Jackson song and does a few of his dance moves (including the moonwalk). I try and imitate and the students all laugh.

After the dance, the entire class sings a Tibetan song about the mountains and the rivers, Tibetan countryside. I didn’t think the students would actually sing. Now I’m faced with a classroom of teenagers chanting sing sing sing sing.

I decide to teach a song that all the students can participate in, a song we all learn in primary school in Australia – My Highland Goat.

The class does very well at singing and I have them write down the lyrics in their notebooks so as to sing it with their teacher another day.

When 10:00pm comes around and the students need to finish class and go to bed, none of them are interested and instead barricade the door so Zhouma can’t come in and tell them to go to bed.

I’m amazed to see such eager students staying back at class, however I remove the barricade and after taking some photos with the group, wish them a good night.

In preparation for our trip, we buy some fruit, nuts, water and a fake north face backpack. One of the lifts we get from Ganzi to the base of Zuo Da mountain is in a pickup truck with six people in the cabin, and nine (including us) in the rear tray.

Altitude at the beginning of our ascent: 3651m

We realise early on that the path we took is not the one we were directed to by the Tibetan boy we’d met the day before, and are soon making our way through sharp bushes and over rocks that slide down the mountain as we step on them.

Our bag starts falling apart within twenty minutes of starting our climb and we repair it in true Macgyver fashion using a cigarette to burn holes through the straps to tie them together.

After several hours of climbing the non-existant path and almost giving up several times, we make it to a clearing where we decide to stop for lunch (lightening the load of the bag in hopes of having it last the entire trip).

The clearing where we stop for lunch.

After several more hours of climbing, we can see the peak, and as we forgot to bring some celebratory scotch, we decide to have a smoke instead.

Gregor and myself in front of the peak of Zuo Da Shan.

Circumnavigating the peak, we come across a valley and can see mountains so large, their peaks are obscured by clouds.

Valley with mountains behind Zuo Da mountain.

Five hours after beginning the climb, we reach the highest point of the climb, 4821m, an ascent of 1170m. From this point, I take a 360 degree panorama of the view.

The peak of Zuo Da Shan is the peak on the far right of the image, an estimated fifty metres from where we stop climbing.

After admiring the view and celebrating our climb, we begin the journey down following the path we should have taken for our ascent.

On the way down the mountain, we pass numerous yak and horses.

The condition of our bag for most of the trip. One of the straps broke, both straps were separated from the bag and the main zipper also broke, yet somehow the bag lasted the entire trip with Macgyver ingenuity.

At the base of the mountain, we impress some local Tibetans with our story and the photos of the peak while we wait for a lift back.

Our lift back to Ganzi comes in the form of two foreigners (Elyse from France and Ben from Belgium), who’d hired motorbikes for the day.

When we return to Ganzi we decide to have dinner together.

Walking around Ganzi, we come across one of its monasteries. We enter to find several women doing the prayer circuit – circumnavigating the inner temple in a clockwise direction. They ask us to join them for a few rounds, which we do.

Stone formation outside monastery.

From the monastery we walk to another village and are given a tour of their monastery also.

We climb a small mountain and meet a local Tibetan boy who invites us to his place for lunch.

Admiring the view atop the mountain. We decide to climb the mountain at the top right (above the right flag) the following day.

When we arrive at the village, we are invited by a Tibetan woman to eat lunch and try the local food, black tea, butter and a flour which you mix together and eat. After lunch, we realise that this isn’t the house of the boy we’d met earlier.

After describing the boy’s appearance to some of the local kids, we meet his sister and pass on a note to him. In the process of looking for the boy, most of the village’s children and some of the old women join us in our search.

Some of the village’s children, one of the old ladies and myself, hanging out.

One of the girls has boogers running out of both nostrils but every time I try to catch a picture, either she or her boogers disappears.

I decide to travel north, along the Tibetan border to Ganzi with Gregor, a German fellow I’d met in the inn at Litang.

We hitch a lift in a ute and have to sit in the tray at the rear of the vehicle, where we feel each and every bump and hold on for dear life to ensure we don’t fall off the back.

As we’re driving out of Litang, we pass close to fifteen military trucks driving in the direction of Litang. Seeing this, combined with the amount of soldiers we saw at the sight of the fire and the fact that Litang was very recently closed to foreigners due to Tibetan protests gave us the feeling that something serious was about to happen in the city and we are glad to be leaving.

The second lift we get is with a Tibetan guy heading all the way to Ganzi, incredibly lucky given that there is one car on the road every hour or so.

As we arrive at the top of one of the mountains en route to Ganzi, the driver stops the vehicle and takes a small bundle of Tibetan prayer papers, throws them in the air and says a phrase in Tibet. He tells us that this action will allow his wishes to come true.

Along the trip, with Gregor’s intimate knowledge of Putonhua (Mandarin) we talk with the Tibetan driver and learn of the difficulties faced by Tibetans in regards to religious freedoms, operating businesses that compete with those of Han Chinese, the inequality between Tibetans and Han Chinese and also how many Han Chinese look down on Tibetans, calling them dirty and primitive.

Buddhist stupa along the way to Ganzi.

We stop for lunch of yak meat, baba bread, peanuts and fruit along the way. A Tibetan guy on his motorbike stops by and says hi. We offer him some peanuts, he declines. We offer them again, he takes the whole packet and rides off. We decide to not offer any more of our food.

We arrive in Litang after seven hours and two police checkpoints.

The morning after the fire we attend a Tibetan Funeral. Although we arrive towards the end of the ceremony, we know the details.

A Tibetan van arrives at the burial site, three people step out, carrying a box with them.

The men take the body of the deceased Tibetan out of the box and tie it to a stake in the ground.

The men step away from the body and allow the waiting vultures to eat the flesh and eyes.

When most of the flesh has been devoured, the men untie the body from the stake, and one of them (the butcher) removes the skull from the spine and smashes it open to remove the brain and throw it to the vultures.

The butcher now hacks at the bones and grinds them to a pulp, adding an unknown powder to the mix while the other two men chase the vultures away. We arrive at this point in the ceremony.

When the butcher is finished with the bones and flesh, the men walk away from the remains, allowing the birds to feast once more.

Vultures devouring the remains of the body. In the background, the van the body arrived in; the butcher walks to the creek to wash the blood off his apron. The other men stand off camera smoking and observing.

For more info, refer to Wikipedia.

On the night of Friday, 22nd May 2009, from our hotel, the Potala Inn, at 11pm, as we’re about to go to sleep, we notice a fire beginning several doors down.

11:09pm from our hotel window.

11:11pm people have gathered outside to watch.

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11:15pm the entire building is in flames.

11:18pm the military come in to assess the situation.

11:19pm officers see me taking photos and tell me it’s not allowed.

11:21pm soldiers carrying plastic tubs filled with water run at the fire in single file, throwing the contents towards an open window. Several soldiers with DSLRs start taking photos of soldiers and the fire.

11:22pm the soldiers have initial success as the fire dies down in the room that they target.

11:24pm soldiers continue attacking the fire.

11:26pm soldiers are ordered to withdraw from the fire fight and resolve to watching the flames engulf the building.

11:30pm fire truck arrives and begins dousing the flames with the hose.

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11:38pm fire truck continues battling the fire.

11:39pm soldiers are standing in formation with wash basins within 30m of fire.

11:47pm building is still ablaze, fire truck has left the scene.

7:46am fire is out, building continues to smoulder. Our hotel is located to the left of the smouldering building, in the background.

Following lunch, my luck changes and I spend three hours walking prior to getting a lift. Several tractors, bikes and trucks later, the sun is about to set and I’m still three hours drive from my destination. Not wanting to hitch in the dark, I walk to the nearest Tibetan village (Zhengdou).

Zhengdou village.

The reception I get is of morbid curiosity, all the people within sight approach me and say hello, I ask for a hotel or guesthouse using the universal gesture of hands to cheek and tilted head.One of the shopkeepers says something to one of the girls, who in turn tells me to follow her.

We enter a Tibetan house and she asks me to join the gentlemen sitting in the living room while she pours me a cup of Tibetan butter tea. After exchanging some words with one of the men, she explains to me that there are in fact no guest houses or hotels in the village and that after some discussion with her father, it’s ok for me to stay with them. She leaves me with her father and his companions to drink beers and it’s soon clear to me that they don’t want me there.

When dinner is ready, the men (including myself) eat at the table, while the women (the shopkeeper and her daughter who brought me here) sit and on the floor by the fire.

The following morning, the mother cooks me a Tibetan breakfast of Baba bread and butter milk tea. When I leave, the family refuses to accept any money for the food or accommodation.

Walking along the road I pick up a lift on another Tibetan motorcycle and finally get a lift on a local bus to Xiangcheng where I decide to spend the night.

I walk through Xiangcheng with my laptop asking locals if there is an internet cafe I can go to. Eventually I come across the office of three bludgers that let me use their computers, since all they do is play computer games all day (my kind of job).

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After uploading my latest photos from their computers, we grab some dinner and walk to the local monastery, where we are chased by wild dogs. I decide to call it a night after that.

The following morning I board a bus bound for Litang as I’m too tired from the past few days to hitchhike.

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The scenery from Xiangcheng to Litang is amazing and there are several spots along the way where I wish we’d stopped to take photos. I decide to continue hitchhiking from Litang.

I decide to hitchhike from Deqin to Litang (in Sichuan Province). The first day is easy travelling and involves no more than thirty minutes walking and only three trucks. The first peak we cross, it starts snowing.

Along the way, a dump truck emptying its load is upended and the driver runs out once the front wheels land.

I spend the night in the same town we stayed at along the way to Deqin.

The first bend of the Jinsha River.

The second day I wake up at dawn to make it to Xiangcheng by nightfall. In the morning I need to take a boat across the Jinsha River to reach the highway to Sichuan. this saves a thirty kilometre detour.

A girl from the local school gives me directions to the pier, and decides to escort me after seeing the clueless look on my face. We get to the boat and no one is around, the girl rings the number on the boat and says the driver won’t be around any time soon. She runs over to the other pier, calls the number for the boat on the opposite side of the river and says it will be here any minute. Two hours later the boat driver arrives and makes the trip, charging me 10 Yuan for it.

On the other side of the river I manage to find several lifts and spend only two hours walking. The last of these is a Tibetan motorbike driver who looks like he belongs in a western. When we arrive at his village, he offers me a lunch and several hours pass before I realise that I need to be on my way.

Playing with the kitten while waiting for lunch. This kitten was unable to meow, when it tried only a wheeze would come out.

The morning I plan to begin the return journey to Tashi’s, it’s raining. After several hours waiting for the rain to clear, I eventually give up waiting and part ways with David.

The way to Xidang over the mountain is far less scenic than the way around it, however it’s incredibly quick and I make it back to Xidang in three hours. I decide to continue hiking from Xidang to Felai Si and Tashi’s guest house thinking it’ll take at most another eight hours.

A minivan driver offers to give me a lift the whole way, however I tell him I have no money so he gives me a free lift to the start of the walking trail. He stops the car to once again tell me how far it is and asks if I want to pay. I politely decline and turn to start walking, only to hear that one of the tires has punctured and is rapidly losing air. The driver takes out his tools to change the tire and I stop to help him. When the tire is changed, I turn and start walking, he tells me to stop and gives me a lift free of charge and I have to say, I’m incredibly grateful for his generosity.

Yubeng village, tucked up in the mountains, is currently inaccessible by road and as such tourist numbers haven’t grown to disproportionate amounts yet.

Every direction you look in is worthy of a postcard and as such, I take far more photos than I usually do.

Overlooking Lower Yubeng Village.

Rather than taking it easy after the previous day’s walking, I decide to see both of Yubeng’s major sights within the same day. The first of these is the glacial lake and involves a three hour walk, mostly uphill.

I arrive at the lake to find no other people present and spend the next hour taking in the serenity, pondering the beauty of nature and taking photos.

I’m not a fan of backtracking and so leave the lake by following the stream it creates. This involves following a rough path over not-so-stable rocks and crossing the stream numerous times. Not the brightest idea, although not the stupidest thing I do all day.

After returning to Yubeng from the lake, I begin the walk to the Sacred Waterfall.

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Along the way, as is norm for the day, I take plenty of photos.

The waterfall, or rather waterfalls, sit hidden at the top of a mountain, adorned with Tibetan prayer flags and the mounds of rocks found throughout Yubeng.

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After visiting the waterfall, a combination of not wanting to backtrack and a love of snowboarding has me take the second stupid (albeit fun) detour from the main track.

I decide that rather than walking back down the mountain, I will snowboard my way down using a plank of wood I find lying around. When I’m halfway between mountain and snowfield, after losing my water and walking stick, I realise the way down is far steeper than I’d first thought. Unfortunately the way back is too steep to get any solid footing and so I have to continue my way down.

After reaching the snowfield, with only a few scratches, I proceed to run down the snow field, throw the plank in front of me, jump on it with cat-like grace and proceed to be the first person to snowboard down from Yubeng waterfall. The ride is short-lived when the board hits a block of ice, sending me flying through the air, arms flailing. Sheer dumb luck allows me to land on my boots, skidding down the rest of the way down, past a couple of Chinese girls who’d been watching the spectacle with much amusement.

I successfully make the trip back in a fraction of the time that it took to make the climb and would recommend others do similar if it weren’t so dangerous.

All in all, I return to the guesthouse twelve hours after I’d left and consider myself ready to tackle the climb to Everest Base Camp (5200m).

In the morning we begin the walk to Yubeng by following the Mekong river, some local Tibetan women on their way to a day in the fields point out the path. The trail starts with a walk alongside fields until we reach a small village, David and I become separated just outside the village and so take in the surrounding scenery and atmosphere at our own pace.

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The path continues from this village along a stream (used as the source of all the towns water) until you reach the Yubeng river. Here you’re crossing small waterfalls and are walking along a narrow path, obstructed by two cows.

There’s no choice but to follow the cows as the path is narrow; to the right the water is icy and to the left, the steep drop prevents you from trying anything daring.

Your companions have no problems with the waterfalls, oblivious to the dangers of falling, so you follow suite.

After the walk along the cliff’s edge, the path widens as the Yubeng river rises and the path hugs the river, criss-crossing it several times.

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As the path continues, you come into a forest and pause several times to take in the beauty of your surroundings.

You emerge from the forest to a farm where the farmer greets you with a hello.

You come across an abandoned building and decide to explore.

You continue along the path into another forest and get the feeling that you’re being followed. You turn around and realise your suspicions were true. Your stalker, realising they’ve been caught turns and runs away.

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You clear the forest and pass through an archway where you stop to take photos.

From here it’s not too much further, and soon you see Lower Yubeng Village.