On the real mission to Tingri
After a much day of needed rest, we (luis, me, and the lovely french couple, jennifer and jullian) get up at the crack of dawn to catch yet another invisible bus to the crossroads some 7km away, hopefully from there we can catch a bus heading to Tingri, about 60kms aways.
The extension visa Luis and I had gained has now been renamed the “Tension Visa”, sure you can have the extra days but you will pay for it dearly, in mental health and in the pocketbook.
We do catch the bus to the cross thank goodness, and before the sun has properly risen, or the people for that matter, we retreat into a tea house, sheltered from the morning coldness,
we wait.
Outside the tea shop sits a group of nomads, warming their bo-cha (yak butter tea) on a yak chip fire. I have had enough of the conversation inside (do you think a bus is coming? When? How? AHHHH. I can almost take no more!) I decide to hang outside with the nomads, offering them cigarettes, I am instantly a good friend and within minutes, I am choking down bowls of butter tea, and chewy tsampa. With a big smile of course..
Trying to explain our situation in sign language, and still very limited tibetan. It seems that they are in the same situation waiting for a bus.. As the morning gets a bit warmer, I am antsy and break out the good ol frisbee for a little in the road pick up game. I start playing with Jullian, but then the nomads want to play, and we get a good toss in. I believe that would be the a first time a Tibetan has seen a frisbee, at least they are a bit more self-explanitory 🙂
While I have been playing, Luis has negotiated for a tractor to take us the 60kms south to Tingri.. That Luis, always on the move, had I travelled to Tibet alone I would have seen, much, much less.. Part of the deal is that we have to walk about 2km out of town, and then the tractor will take us. So we grab our packs and start the walk out of town..
Seated in the tractor, next to bags full of look-sha (a frozen dried sheep carcass) we ride the 60km to Tingri, in the backs of our minds something will go wrong, but this time it doesn’t and we are depostited in Tingri at a reasonable hour and, for the first hour while the rest are off looking for hotel rooms, I watch how they make look-sha,
When the sheep has been killed they pump it up with the air from a bicycle pump so the sheep looks very floaty, I think you could count these sheep as they drift above your head before sleep. Then, with the help of a little kid the dad cuts the skin away from the carcass and then it dries in the frigid air, becoming that delicious, dried meat Look-sha..
Yummy.
Tags: shegar, tibet, Travel
jessica
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