How Did I Get Here?

The morning I left Litang the industrious street cleaners were already at work: two tubby pot-bellied pigs sniffing at the pavement curb and meticulously consuming all the rubbish in their way. It gives recycling a whole new dimension…

The bus dropped me off in Kangding, a forgetable but convenient cross roads town used for passing through and not discovering. The town equivalent of a one-night stand. Nestled deep in the folds of a valley, its life force is a torrentious river coursing through its centre.
The only notable event happened on my last night just before I fell asleep. I kept on hearing scraping, shuffling noises outside the window, I thought it was people coming back to their rooms. Finally I got up and looked through my window which overlooked a narrow alley. To my utter horror I looked down on a man’s head, climbing up the wall (I was on the 2nd floor), towards my open window. With the volume pumped up to max, my voice was my only weapon: “Hey, what are you doing??”, I hollered at the faceless intruder. Thank god spiderman didn’t think it necessary to answer my idiotic enquiery into his crepuscular activities. It was enough to change his mind and he lurched onto the other side of the alley wall, scrambled onto the roof, and melted back into the amorphous darkness.
I had to tie the window closed with my shoelaces, as the iron pegs were missing (from a previous burglary?). While doing so it dawned on me that I have no problems in dealing with a prospective burglar, but confronted with a cockroach in my room, I’m reduced to a pathetic, hysterical wreck who has to accost complete strangers to kill or get rid of the harmless ‘tresspasser’.
I’ll be the one in the safari park that would rather throw herself into the jaws of a lion than stay in the car with a grasshopper.

So, after this little nocturnal adventure, I was quite happy to leave Kangding and headed off to Tagong the next morning. Tagong is a charming village set amidst velvety green hills, their slopes smooth as a cow’s hide, grazing yaks stuck on like ticks. The landscape here has a softer, prettier face, beguiling with its make-up of violet and yellow flowers. Overlooking the town is a majestic mountain, punctured by thousands of colourful flag poles, like a toothpick-pierced pineapple. I was told that you go up the mountain, plant your flag, and then send a prayer; not for yourself but for the whole of humankind. Judging by the number of flag poles, there are a lot of Tibetans praying for us.

That afternoon I met a monk with the auspicious title of Lama, meaning master teacher. His name was Atung and he had the eyes of a man who has never known the meaning of dishonesty. With me were three other travellers, an Italian couple, Giovanni and Valeria, and an English girl, Michelle. After showing us around the monastery, Atung invited us to his little monastic room. Like all Tibetan interiors it was an Alice-in-Wonderland kaleidoscope of colours and murals. Atung could not speak a word of English but his cousin told us that he had walked from Tagong to Lhasa and was imprisoned twice by the Chinese during this epic walk.
For a man who had dedicated his life to abstinence and contemplative solitude, I was surprised at how touchy-feely Atung was. Apparently its not taboo for Mahayana Buddhist monks to touch women, as in Theravada Buddhism, prevalent in Myanmar and Laos. He wasn’t shy with the hugs, and eagerly posed arm around waist for photos. He took a particular liking to me (I seem to have this effect on men of the cloth), and insisted that I go to Danba village with him and visit the nunnery. I could already see it: instead of a concubine in a harem, I’d be bundled into a nun’s habit and forced to join a nunnery…

The next day we got a local guy to take the 4 of us into the mountains and stay overnight with a Tibetan nomad family in their tent. Our guide’s name was Dolce; yes, like the Italian for sweet. At least that’s what it sounded like ,so he got stuck with that name for the rest of the trek. He had a horse, which we jokingly called Gabanna. Dolce seemed to like the proverbial Dolce Vita, prefering to stay put on Gabanna while belting out Tibetan nomad songs, or rather, the same line from the same song, over and over.
The trek started off on a deceptively easy and relaxing pace. Then, a few hours later, just as we were thinking about lunch, Dolce pointed to a mountain with a monastery perched on top. We gathered that this was the lunch venue. Giovanni, who worked for Alitalia and moonlighted as a DJ, was more used to working up a sweat on the dance floor than on a steep mountain track at high altitudes. We weren’t even halfway up, when he exploded into a string of blasphemies, rattling them off like rosary pearls.
“…..Porco dio! Deez must be over 4000 meters, I’m secure of it!”, he gasped, sounding like a heffer giving birth. It turned out he was actually spot on. Later, an English speaking Tibetan told us the monastery was in fact situated at 4200m.
We finally made it to the summit and collapsed in a heap outside the monk’s quarters. By now we were ravenous. Dolce warmed up some tea and dropped a dollop of rancid yak butter into each cup. On the table he placed a bowl of lumpy, fizzy yogurt and some teeth-chipping bread sticks. A word of advice: if you ever go on a trek with Tibetans, bring your own food. Which is exactly what Dolce did. He non-chalantly opened a container of pot noodles and scarfed it down in front of us. He could’nt understand a word of English but I made it very clear how disgruntled I was.
After relaxing with the monks for a while, we set off again for the final haul to the nomad’s tent, Dolce’s friends, where we were to spend the night. We arrived at the nomads just before dusk, two tents on a grassy mountain slope sprinkled with yaks.
Dodging the dung mines, we were ushered into the tent and sat down on little yak skins, strewn around the central fire. The family and neighbouring nomads trickled in and joined us around the fire. The chasm between our two worlds was filled with timid smiles and curious stares. The children wore oversized clothing making them look stunted, the dirt creeping up the sleeves and edges. The mom was my age with a serene but battered face, like a worn doll’s. Her hands told me more about her life than words ever could. Course and cracked like bread crust they spoke of harsh winters and hard lessons; the freshly bitten fingernails revealing the innate, commonplace anxieties of a woman and mother.
She broke up some yak dung into the fire and put on a big pot of water. We were desperately hoping supper was on its way. My stomach was speaking in tongues and Giovanni was gleefully rubbing his hands in anticipation. We should’ve known what was coming…. With wearying predictability mom took the pot off the fire, and served us the staple of tea, bleary with butter, and stale bread sticks which could double as a weapon. The corners of Giovanni’s mouth wilted: “Porca miseria! Is not true! Is it de deenner? Pleez don’t tell me theez!
All we could was slurp up the tea morosely and chissel away at the breadsticks. Stomachs still empty we went outside to fill our eyes with a spectacular sunset. Grassland and skyland stretching endlessly into the horizon, creating the illussion of infinite space all around us. For the nomads it merely signalled the onset of some more chores, all centered around the yaks. The yak is the most imported source of sustenance for the Tibetan people. They drink yak’s milk, and yak butter tea, eat yak yogurt and milk cheese. The yak meat itself is eaten fresh or dried or steamed in dumplings. Yak oil is burned in temples or used to light their tent in the dark. The hide becomes a leather bag or blanket, the fur woven into a tent is home. When a yak dies or is slaughtered its skull is placed on a stone alter or hung over a doorway for protection.
Mom set off to do the milking and the men rounded up some straying yaks. The children dragged the baby yaks into the tent and tied them to a rope spun across the one side of the tent. I asked or rather gestured to Dolce why the baby yaks slept inside the tent. He threw his head backwards and howled like a wolf.
Oookay…having to deal with foul-smelling toilet holes is one thing, but possibly fending off wolves or wild dogs is another. While it was still light, I thought it’d be better to get the matter at hand out of the way. One of the girls came with me to show me the “toilet area”. She led me a few meters from the tent and stopped. No trees, bushes, the only way I could get some privacy was behind a yak. To make matters even more awkward, the girl just stood there looking and smiling at me. I thought only guys suffered from the occasional stage fright but now I know how it feels.

By the time I got back, I was relieved to see that mom was slowly preparing dinner. She mixed some flour with water and rolled out the dough thinly, cutting it into strips, so that it resembled a crude pasta. Her daughter was cutting up some potatoes. They dunked the ‘pasta’ and potatoes in a pot of boiling water and added some spring onions; unleashing an ode to the spring onion, courtesy of Giovanni. We relished this stodgy pasta and potato broth after the staple of buttered tea and bread sticks.

Bedtime was looming and I was getting a bit worried about the sleeping arrangements. There were no mats, matresses or bedding in sight. We were soon to find out. Mom walked over to the pile of dried bush branches- the same used for the fire -and laid them out on the ground in 2 heaps. She threw some yak skins over the branches; this was the matress. She motioned to Michelle and I to lie on top of the one “matress”. Single sleeping was obviously an unknown novelty. It felt like we were on a funeral pire. Barely wide enough for one person, we had to lie mummy-like on our backs while mom encased us with numerous skins and fur-woven blankets. The cold was more piercing than the sour, musty odour emanating from the covers, and I surrendered myself to the experience as she tucked us in. Ofcourse my side of the bed was right next to the tied up baby yaks. From where I lay, I could reach over and pat their fluffy little heads. So, that night, instead of counting sheep, I literally counted yaks. There were 12 of them. It didn’t help me to fall asleep though. Mom and Dolce were shouting a conversation, the baby yaks were farting and then it started raining, drops falling on my face. In the end, I dozed off counting all the reasons why I’m so happy with the life I have.
Several travellers I’ve encountered wistfully utter the predictable refrain “Oh, but they’re so much happier than we are”, while they’re lounging in a cafe, sipping a cold bottle of beer (the equivalent of a day’s wages for the “happy” people), taking a year off after uni, to travel round the world and pay good money to sample other people’s poverty.
Given the choice, I’ll take the morally corrupt, money driven, spiritually empty, materialistic “Western” lifestyle anyday. Because it gives me the freedom to choose. Which is a privilege most people in the world don’t have. My life is mine to do with as I please. It’s not in the hands of nature, my clan, my parents, my husband or my dharma.

I woke up as the first rays of light filtered through the canopy of the tent, slowly subduing the blue black cold of early morning. I could sense the drum beat meting out the relentless daily rhythm. The yaks, also sensing it, shuffled impatiently. A while later the horse’s hoofs thudding outside.
Prune wrinkes under her eyes, Mom got up to a new day filled with the same chores. Her future days strung together like the beads in her necklace.

Tags: China, China and South East Asia, Sichuan, Tibet, trekking

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 6:00 am and is filed under China and South East Asia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.