I Manhandled a Yak!
The bus trip from Litang to the village of Tagong was clearly the most epic road journey we’d undertaken in China. And not in an entirely good way. In fact, although the scenery was often jaw-dropping, not even MOSTLY in a good way. From the moment we started departed the station at 06:30 (buses leave EARLY in western Sichuan) the road was a rutted juddering mess.
We climbed up the hill behind Litang and spent the first half of the journey to the town of Xinduqiao winding our way up and over more lofty mountain passes. This section had more in common with the Zhongdian-Xiangcheng journey in that there was lots of snow around, lots of exposed rock and towering peaks all around us. Every now and then we’d pass a small settlement, most of which seemed to be construction camps for the new road that, unfortunately hadn’t quite opened yet. We bounced along the road, my elbow being banged against the window frame next to my seat every ten to twenty seconds for seven hours. Every now and then we’d hit a particularly large bump and everyone on the bus (especially the two of us in the second row from the back) would become briefly airborne. Not fun.
A monk (fellow passenger on our bus) contemplating the barren landscape during a brief stop on the road to Xinduqiao
One of the rough and spartan towns along the road in the high mountains
Sarah, a soldier, a Tibetan teenager and not a heck of a lot else on the road near one of the high passes
The second half of the journey began when we descended from our final mountain pass of the day and into a narrow, steep sided river valley. There was much more vegetation here and though it would have provided more forage, the yaks all but disappeared in the valley. Soon after we entered the valley we stopped at a police checkpoint where we were asked to fill in our personal details and show them our passports, the only such checkpoint we’d experienced during all of our months in China.
As discussed in an earlier entry, western Sichuan was often closed to foreigners for some months out of each year when protests against the Chinese government became more vocal and pronounced. We’d heard stories of self immolations by monks and nuns done in protest over the government though things were quiet when we visited, it was clear that the issues had were not all happily resolved. In Litang we’d seen dozens of police drilling in riot gear at the police station, as well as an armoured truck with a plow on the front and a water cannon turret on top driving down the road. And all through the region we saw four different convoys of about fifty army trucks each driving down the roads.
We reached Xinduqiao in early afternoon, hopped off the bus and were immediately accosted by minibus drivers wanting to take us on the next leg of our journey. For once this was a positive thing, as we hoped to head 30km or so north to the town of Tagong that afternoon. We picked a driver and tossed our bags in the back of his van and set about waiting for him to collect more passengers so we could get going. Once again, something that was often irritating was a boon as it gave us a bit of time to look around the town. I took a walk along the main street, and across the one of the bridges that provided the town with its name (qiao means bridge in Mandarin.) It was a busy looking market town, and with its prayers in Tibetan script spelled out in white rocks on the hills above town and Tibetan style buildings it seemed a pretty pleasant and interesting place. The buildings here were similar to those in Litang, traditional thick-walled Tibetan styles, but again had their own twist. Most of these ones rose up to three or four stories (making them the tallest Tibetan style homes we’d yet seen) and had even more vibrantly coloured window frames. Within half an hour or so, our driver had rounded up enough passengers, so we climbed in and, after a short stop at the post office to pick up some cargo to occupy the seventh and final seat (next to me in the back) we were off. (As if turned out the cargo in question was a dozen or so boxes of ice cream bars… They almost didn’t make it to Tagong intact!)
The little bakery where I picked up some delicious sweet red bean pastries during our brief stop in Xinduqiao
A truck from one of the abovementioned army convoys crossing the bridge in Qinduqiao. Every second truck was festooned with these banners. Presumably propaganda/goodwill messages (again, depending on your perspective) for the residents of the areas they passed through?
The outskirts of Xinduqiao. Despite its being probably the biggest town we’d seen since Zhongdian it didn’t take a heck of a lot to get out of the built up area
The road heading north was quite new and blessedly smooth (though only two lanes wide and kind of in the middle of nowhere, it was supposed to be a toll road. Though it seemed the toll gates mustn’t have been erected yet, as we never had to stop. As we drove we marked the differences between Litang on the dry plateau and this broad, comparatively lush valley. There was much more habitation here, with plenty of tiny villages, settlements and monasteries along the way. And they’d been busy imposing their religious views on the surrounding countryside, preparing many more prayers in white stone on the hillsides and erecting arrays of prayer flags.
Tagong was pretty much a one-street town, with the muddy main drag leading from the south where we entered to the north where the monastery sat, watching over the cobbled main square. On arriving in the square (which was actually round) we were greeted by the sight of several 10 or so year old boys engaged in hard labour digging and hauling rocks. Naughty ones sent to the priests for discipline perhaps?
Tagong main street
Dominating the town was a vertiable forest of colourful prayer flags. The largest arrangement was a triangular field of them, but there were a couple of other arrangements that were impressive in their own right. There was even a huge string of them hung perhaps 400m across the valley and the main road.
We popped into a cafe we’d picked out of our guidebook to have a chat with Angela, the American lady who ran the place with her Tibetan husband. With her help we learned a bit about the surroundings and made our plans for the coming days. She also helped us arrange a homestay with a rural Tibetan family for the next day. We even ended up staying at one of their recently opened rooms. She quoted us the rate and I said something to the effect of “well, that’s a bit steep, but youve been so helpful that we’ll suck it up.” After that she told us she’d be entirely happy for us to go elsewhere, saying that she knew their prices were on the high side, but she purposely had made their place a bit more upmarket to avoid direct competition with some of the other locally run guesthouses. In the end we stayed there anyway, the first guests in their unofficial dormitory (a former two bed room with a third they’d recently squeezed in,) which she gave us at a lower rate, despite knowing full well that, given the time of day she was effectively giving us a private room with a discounted rate. As you can gather, Angela was a wonderful and super friendly lady.
We popped out to check out some more of the town before dark and have a bite to eat. It was a small place, but as the many brown official tourist info road signs on the way in suggested, Tagong had plenty of places to stay, eat and purchase souvenirs/devotional objects (the line was often fuzzy in a place where religion is so central to life and where almost all excess resources seem to be devoted to it.) We poked our noses down some of the bumpy minor roads leading off the (main) street to the residential areas. We saw a market selling monastic robes. A yak sticking its head into a vegetable shop and stealing some peas from a basket before the owner shooed it out. Lots of dogs to make me nervous.
One thing we didn’t see was many Tibetan restaurants. This was a bit of a surprise. Though unlike Litang, Tagong had a significant Han Chinese population it was still very much a Tibetan town. We eventually found one where we got a plate of momos. By dint of exercising our few words of Tibetan we tried to order some vegetable momos and got a plateful of meat ones. To this day I won’t tell Sarah whether they were yak meat or not.
Sarah in the brilliantly decorated Tibetan restaurant. I’m unclear on whether all (or most, or many) Tibetan restaurants were decorated like this, or if it was just the tourist focussed ones. In any case we saw at least a couple of places like this in every town we visited in western Sichuan
Back at Angela’s Kham Cafe we splurged on some more momos (tasty potato ones this time) and some yak ice cream! We also met Angela’s daughter Somtso and spent a good couple of hours playing with and entertaining her (it was odd but fun to meet a six year old kid with a Tibetan face who spoke clear American accented English! Somtso even taught me a Tibetan board game, Mancala. I won’t try to explain the rules here. I’ll just say that it’s very simple, has surprisingly deep strategy and that Somtso thumped me at it the first time we gave it a go.
The following morning we set out to have a look around the outskirts of town. We walked along the wall of huge, 1.5m tall prayer wheels that ringed the monastery watching the (mostly older) devout residents of Tagong go for their morning circuit of the kora around the monastery, turning the big, creaking prayer wheels as they did so. From the edge of the monastery we headed up to a stupa across the road from it. From there we could see the spectacular golden temple just round a bend in a road, as well as a couple of dozen Tibetan nomads with their horses, come into town to do business and also to see if they could coax any tourists into joining them for a (doubtless fabulous) horse trek in the surrounding grasslands.
The forest of chortens behind the Tagong monastery. Note the huge string of prayer flags strung across the valley over the town
Golden temple with Tibetan nomads and their horses in the foreground
A chorten (stupa) on a small hill just outside the town of Tagong
Me hauling away on the huge prayer wheels surrounding Tagong monastery. Walking the kora and turning these heavy wheels every day must leave devout Buddhists in very good shape (if their hard-working lives on the plateau doesn’t do so already)
Tagong gompa (monastery) and main square, with the hillside of prayers in the background
Though as explained earlier, we had other plans. Much to our delight, it had turned sunny in time for our walk out to our homestay. We headed back behind the monastery and crossed a small bridge across the river that ran beside the town. From there we followed its left bank up the broad valley, stopping for me to climb up towards the rainbow-glade of prayer flags both to see them up close and to get some photos of the view out over the town. And it was quite a view. For the first time since the last mountain pass of the previous day’s bus trip, we could see the massive bulk of Yala Shan (Zhara Lhatse n Tibetan) off in the distance. I was a bit surprised to learn that it was “only” 5820m high, but it still rose far above anything else in the near vicinity.
We continued our walk past a second monastery, then turned up a side valley. This was a much less settled part of the country, somewhat drier, with lots of yaks grazing alongside the road that we walked up. We passed a few rough buildings, then yet ANOTHER monastery and its attendant town (virtually all Tibetan monasteries have towns nearby. In fact in many ways a monastery is just a town where monks live. This was actually the first Tibetan town we’d seen up close that DIDN’T have a modern, concrete and glass section attached to it, and it was a welcome sight. There could be no argument that Litang wasn’t “authentic” Tibet, but it made it clear that the homestay we were headed for was likely to be the real deal.
Monks playing soccer outside the Tagong monastery. As Sarah later said, life as a young monk seemed in many ways preferable to life as a mainstream Chinese high school student
The golden temple and snow mountains around Tagong. Note the long string of army trucks on the road preparing to park in front of the temple
Amongst the sea of prayer flags above Tagong
Zhara Lhatse and chortens
Soon after the monastery we climbed up away from the road, puffing a bit as we did so (though we’d descended since Litang, Tagong was still 3900m ASL.) I climbed up to the summit of one of the hills above saddle, making the mistake of running for a bit, which took my breath away for a good few minutes afterwards. The wind up top was fierce and I only stayed long enough for a couple quick snaps of Zhara Lhatse off in the distance before rushing back down to join Sarah on the saddle.
It was much more peaceful down there. Bucolic even. The grass was starting to green after the hard winter. Birdsong was everywhere. Although there was scarcely a bird in sight, there was such a welter of it that almost served to disturb the tranquility of the place! A couple of locals came and went during our sit on the saddle, one lady on horseback rounding up yaks and a man who seemed to just be out for a walk who came and sat with us for a while, doing his best (but failing utterly) to make conversation.
The third (and most rustic) monastery we saw in the Tagong area
Sarah and yaks at the bottom of the saddle
Eventually we headed down off the saddle into the next valley over, following the simple but effective map Angela had drawn for us. We crossed a bridge and headed down the road and before too long were greeted by a Tibetan man who we’d seen taking some target practice with rocks, throwing them with impressive accuracy and power at a can from 20 or 30m distance. He introduced himself as Darga, our host for the evening. We all headed off together across a couple hundred metres more of open grassland to his home, one of three in a tight bundle in an otherwise rather barren section of the valley.
It wasn’t quite as ornamented as the homes in Tibetan towns we’d seen but still had familiar elements. Prayer flags on poles outside, and thick earthen walls. The roof was made of flat slate laid on top of straw and firewood. There was a 1.2m high stone wall forming a yard outside. In the yard were three dogs: a big fierce looking one chained up near the middle, a peaceful medium sized yellow one and a ragged little black and white one that sat near the front door and barked and growled at us until Darga told it to be quiet (it never once barked at us again after that, and even stood guard over us when we went outside to pee and brush our teeth before bed, barking at and chasing away another dog that got too close! Perhaps my opinions of Tibetan dogs needed some adjustment!)
Given how fond of yaks Sarah is, this was a bit of a harsh greeting to life in a rural Tibetan farmhouse. As we walked past on our way to the house, Darga pointed and said simply “dead yak.”
The farmhouse from the outside. When we arrived Darga was careful to point out where we could safely walk without raising the ire of the neighbours’ guard dogs
Inside the house was a small “cloakroom” that led off to the single room that provided all the remaining living, cooking, eating and sleeping area for the home. It was brightly decorated, with posters of Tibetan religious sites, a “picture dictionary” of Mandarin and Tibetan words and, over in the corner above the bed, photos of revered lamas, butter lamps and even a small collection of wood and silk bound sutras (Buddhist religious texts.)
We sat down on mats by the cast iron (yak poo fuelled) stove and Darga poured us cups of tea and a simple but filling (words that could be applied to much of Tibetan cuisine) potato soup. Over the next couple of hours we met the rest of the family: Darga’s wife Soko and his two sons Zerga (8) and Ger (6) [I love Tibetan names! {they actually had another son who was away at school and we didn't get to meet.}]
Zerga and Ger were great entertainment. We played games of shadow puppets and “hand animals” with them and watched them chase eachother around the house in very amusing fashion.
In the late afternoon Darga had to head into town (in fact he ended up spending the night there) and Soko and Zerga went out to round up the yaks for the night. This left us alone with Ger. We continued to play with him a bit, but apparently he had work to do. We were a bit concerned when he started playing with the flue and adding fuel to the stove. Surely this wasn’t safe for a six year old to be doing?! We soon realized how wrong we were, as he gathered ingredients, mixed them in a big bowl, made up some porridge-y gruel and headed outside to feed the dogs with it. Clearly this kid had his assigned chores and knew exactly how to do them (though he was very hesitant about getting near enough to feed the chained up dog… eventually he just gave that one’s share to the other two. No wonder that dog was grumpy!)
The inside of the house
Mountains in the afternoon as the weather closed in
Rawr! “Ger” even sounds like a good name for a fierce monster!
Soko came home with the yaks and immediately set about getting dinner ready. She started preparing some broth, then set to peeling potatoes for the thukpa (Tibetan noodle soup) that we were having. Peeling potatoes was about the first thing we’d seen anyone do around the house that wasn’t beyond my skill level (except for making shadow puppets I guess…) I jumped up and offered to help. The ever busy Ger even tried to take this job away from me, though despite his earlier show of competence I still really didn’t want to let him use the sharp knife. I felt vindicated when, after he’d briefly stolen the peeling knife from me while I chopped, his mom came back and grabbed it away from him, telling him he wasn’t big enough for that job yet.
Since I was peeling potatoes, Soko had gone out to do a bit more work around the farm. After I was done peeling I went out to see what was up and saw her feeding some of the yaks who’d had a hard winter, as well as giving feed bags to their horses, which Sarah helped out with (surprising, given that she can’t utter the word “horse” without preceding it with “stupid.”)
Sarah preparing to feed a horse(!)
Sarah also helped out with dinner making. She watched soko make the dough for the noodles, roll it out (very vigorously) into a sheet, then cut it up into strips. Being something of a baker herself, Sarah thought she could handle this and I’m pleased to say that, although it took a bit longer to get the dough thin enough, her noodles were indistinguishable from Soko’s when they were tossed together and added to the broth. Also added to the mix were oil, garlic, salt, dried vegetables, my potatoes and a few healthy handsfull of dried yak cheese.
While this all cooked we played with the kids some more, this time looking at some of their picture-dictionaries and teaching each other the English and Tibetan words for various foods. Soko joined in too, and while she spoke only a tiny bit of English, it was clear that she understood a lot and was interested to learn more (for which reason I hope she remembers more of the English she learned from us than we remember of the Tibetan we learned from her…)
Sarah and Soko making noodles for thukpa
We all ate together, sitting around the stove and slurping up the thukpa, mixing in a bit of chili, coriander and vinegar to each bowl as we did. The noodles were doughy and hearty. The cheese had partly rehydrated and had a chewy texture and a firm yak-ish and aged-cheese flavour. The broth was simple and salty but good. And the potatoes were expertly peeled. Accompanied by tea it was a great meal. And as sous-chefs we knew exactly how to make it too! Though somehow I’m sure that it’ll never taste quite as good when it’s not eaten sitting on floor mats around a yak dung stove 
Just before bed we took a look through the family photo collection, most of which came from other foreigners who had come and stayed with them. Soko told us that they’d had 15 or so guests arranged for them by Angela. As Angela told us before, she took a 15RMB cut of the 60RMB homestay fee, and everyone seemed pretty happy with this arrangement. The accomodation was a bit rustic but it was a wonderful night (and given that Soko insisted on us taking the “master bed” and building up one for herself out of blankets and skins we certainly couldn’t have asked for more.)
The bed was comfy and the blankets were warm. But it still took quite a while to get to sleep. Part of this was because of the rats (I’m pretty sure they were rats) scuttering about behind an on top of the bookcase near the bed. And more positively because of the storm that was going on outside. Snow had started just as it was getting dark and by bedtime was joined by orangish flashes of lightning and rolling, echoing thunder. It was almost certainly the most energetic snowstorm I’d ever heard.
The shrine at the head of the bed
The next morning when we went outside to help Soko with a few morning chores the thunder had stopped, the snow abated, the air was still and everything was blanketed in white.
Chores done we ate breakfast together, each of us mixing up a simple bowl of khapsay: tsampa (barley flour), sugar and yak butter, to which was added a bit of dried yak cheese and boiling water, then mixed up again into a very viscous paste. So essentially we ate cookie dough for breakfast.
I manhandled a yak! We followed Soko out in the morning and she asked for my help with this nak (female yak.) Apparently she’d had a hard winter and had lost so much strength that she couldn’t stand on her own anymore. They’d been feeding her hay and were trying to get her to her feet so she could go outside to graze. Soko grabbed her by the tail, I by the horns and we hauled her up to her feet. She still couldn’t take her own weight, so we tried a couple more times, but in the end it seemed she’d need a few more days of hay before she could manage on her own
Bellies warm and full, it was time to start the walk back to Tagong. Before we left, Soko gave us a little packet of dried yak cheese to take with us. The night before we’d been talking about making thukpa at home, and had been debating what cheese to use. She’d asked what we were chatting about and we told her. Don’t you have cheese in your country? Yes, we’d said, but nothing exactly like dried yak cheese. So she sent us away with the cheese as a farewell gift.
We said our goodbyes and our profuse thank yous and were on our way. Our stay with Soko, Darga, Zerga and Ger was one of the most fun and memorable parts of our time in China and we won’t soon forget it.
The outside of the house again, this time in the morning
The valley where Darga and Soko’s home was located
Yaks in the morning snow. Funny story: the group of buildings in the background is a nomad settlement project. The Chinese government gave Tibetan nomads money to build homes so they wouldn’t need to be constantly moving and dependent on the uncertain availability of grazing lands for their living. The nomads saw it rather differently. They’d build homes for a cost of 10,000 RMB, collect fake receipts for 20,000 RMB and be reimbursed for these by the government, sell the houses for the 10,000 they were worth and carry on with their traditional lives 20,000 RMB richer
Lovely Sarah and the equally lovely Soko
The snow slowly melted as the sun rose higher and as we walked up the valley towards the main road. By the time we arrived in Tagong we could see little more than a dusting that remained on the hilltops.
We collected our bags from where we’d left them at Angela’s, said goodbye to her and Somtso, then found a place in a shared taxi back to Xinduqiao. I think how much we enjoyed our time in Tagong is illustrated by the fact that were there for about 36 hours but I’ve still managed to write 3000 words about it!
Tagong on the way back into town in the morning
Back in Xinduqiao we were very quickly transferred to a minibus on its way to Kangding, by far the largest city in western Sichuan. The trip there was pretty much entirely spoiled by our fellow passengers (and the driver), four young Tibetan guys who were constantly smoking and playing duelling stereos with one another for the whole hour long trip. There was one small nice bit when we stopped at the top of our final mountain pass of the trip prior to a seemingly endless descent down to Kangding, during which we passed dozens of Chinese cyclists headed up to the pass (most of them having already given up and walking their bikes in deference to the thin air and steep grade.)
A chorten on the high pass on the way to Kangding from Xinduqiao. Despite my complaints about the trip, the one other positive was that the hellish road linking Litang with Xinduqiao stopped there, so it was actually a pretty smooth ride to Kangding
Down in Kangding it was warmer and damper than up in Tagong. The city was crammed into a narrow gorge and sprawled for 10km or more of mostly unattractive concrete highrises. We were pretty much just there in transit, but did manage to spend a little while looking around. I think the place really suffered from being visited AFTER the rest of western Sichuan. Had we not just been where we had, the Tibetan tinges and the mountains looming over the city would have been impressive. But as it was they just couldn’t compare with where we’d been recently.
It rained quite a bit during the afternoon and there was a brief power failure, but by dinner time it had cleared up and we went out for one final Tibetan meal. We pleased the lady who ran the restaurant by ordering items that weren’t on the menu in Tibetan, and had a fun time eating and sharing some butter tea with some Chinese students who were trying it for the first time and decided that they couldn’t quite manage to finish their whole pot.
Yak carcasses for sale at the Kangding market. More appetizing were the tiny little cherries that were in season while we were there
Kangding’s main street (and main river. It sat astride the confluence of three.)
Sculpture commemorating Kangding’s position as the gateway between Han China and Tibetan Kham
The next day, our final in western Sichuan, we headed out to the bus station for our 08:00 departure to Chengdu. The trip was a long one due to heavy traffic on the two lane road that covered most of the distance, but at least the road was smooth and the river valley we followed down was pretty (it was actually quite reminiscent of Taroko Gorge in Taiwan, and I can imagine it being a major tourist attraction were it not so developed and relatively near to Tiger Leaping Gorge.)
The gorge on the way down to Chengdu. It may look wild, but it was dammed in several places, including one that had just been completed and whose rising waters were just beginning to overtake a (presumably emptied) town on the riverbank
The trip bus landed us in Chengdu at around 16:00 in the afternoon. Our time in western Sichuan/Tibet had been completely and utterly different than anything else we’d experienced in China, and this was all to the good. Travelling there was a bit of a challenge and a bit of an adventure, but more than worthwhile.
I’ll finish off by saying a big thanks to Soko, Darga, Zerga, Ger, Angela and Somtso. Though we were their paying guests it often felt more like we were part of the family.
Somtso and friend in the Tagong main square. “What do you have there?” we asked. “A yak skin.” “Where are you going?” “To sell it!” A very different life than Somtso would have led if she’d been back in the US with her mom!
Yeah, I know this is pretty much the exact same as an earlier photo. But I really liked both of them and just couldn’t decide between them.
Tags: China, Kangding, Kham, Llew Bardecki, Sichuan, Tagong, Travel, Western Sichuan, Xinduqiao
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