refused women entry. The monks there were interested in talking to us,
well the one monk who spoke Chinese was at least; the rest just stared
at my hairy arms! Most average Tibetan people we have met on this trip
have not spoken much Chinese, only Tibetan. The guides and shop
keepers have though, thankfully.
We visited Ba Jiao, a 2000 yr old town, which has been an unexpected
highlight of the entire trip. I have seen a lot of old, rural, poor
villages, but this one was special. Set in beautiful wheat fields, the
inner wall of the town survives in its entirety and there are remains
of the outer wall and moat in between.
80 households live within the walls in houses still made almost
entirely of mud and straw, though some recent brick reinfocements keep
the houses standing. Inside one of the houses, where we had lunch, was
a typical Kang adjoining the stove. A Kang is a bed on a platform
which is kept warm from the steam from the stove that is fed under the
bed. Lunch was Tibetan milk tea, Tibetan cake (cheese/butter mixed
with hot water and a kind of flour) and Local bread. Hanging on the
line next to where we ate were two sheep skins drying! Outside the
houses were small mud wall enclosures for keeping animals and wooden
contraptions for hanging the straw to dry. Dung was stuck on the side
of many of the walls to dry, and later be used as fuel.
Nothing in the village or village life seemes to have changed for
centuries, apart from a primary school that was built a decade before.
The locals were using horse-driven carts to transport straw and few
houses even had tvs.
The next day we took a 4 hour bus, avoiding the many yaks on the road
to the Gansu/Sichuan border to go horse riding. First we hiked in a
beautiful gorge, enjoyed the sun and watched the child monks playing
games outside the monastery. The overnight trek was quite something.
Though the rolling hills and mountains were special and seeing yaks
everywhere reminded us where we were, it was the night in the local's
tent that was most interesting. The locals move every 6 weeks during
the grazing season so everything is in boxes and a simple stove is
used for cooking, powered by dung, which the women spend half their
day raking, gathering and drying. There was also a solar panel used to
charge a battery for powering a lightbulb at night. Other tents just
used a car battery for important things like charging mobile phones!
The women work all day, waking up at 5am to milk the yaks, then
unhooking the yaks, who they leash together during the night once the
men herd them back to the camp. Once the yak are gone its dung
collecting time, then cooking time (which takes over an hour) and then
time for chores including going into the hills to collect more dung,
preparing for moving, fixing and sewing, going to market etc. In the
evening they are back cooking, rounding up yak and so on. The lady we
stayed with had been at it since she was 15 but was expecting to
'retire' at 40 to live in the village or town and try to earn money
there.
Each family has at least 2 very evil dogs to keep the thieves away
(other tibetans from neighboring areas) and to keep us up at night
with their barking. With a mimimum of 30 yak each and a hundred sheep,
but with tens of amilies living on the same, or neighboring, hills,
the evening rounding up is incredible as herdsmen bring thousands of
animals back to camp. We stood by the tent surrounded by animals
3,800m high up in the hills and felt how hard the life was, especially
with high winds and cold nights -even in August.
Langmusi town had a couple of chinese youth hostels, which started
appearing a few years ago, but are still outnumbered by those oriented
towards foreign backpackers. The first difference is an all-chinese
menu, the second is the chinese messages and flags all over the
walls, and the various other differences include: karaoke at evenings,
less tourist information and less helpful staff, hot water flasks for
rooms, a bar that is barely used and that sells wine by the shot, and
an internet connection that is not continually used. Oh, and of
course, the awful bathroom conditions!
The day we left Langmusi was a festival day so there hundreds of
colorful Tibetans in town for the day in their best dresses and with
balloons. They are beautiful people with their rugged, weathered looks
particularly striking, particularly amongst the elderly and children.
The youth ride around on motorbikes, but are still heavily involved in
local life, and i have no doubt the lady who we stayed with will have
her son and daughter up in the hills once they leave school at 15. We
did see her nephew herding (and riding, barebak) yaks after all.
We're now on our way to our next destination, which has been
continually up in the air due to the difficulties of travelling in
rural China, particularly getting hold of train tickets. At least
there are always busses with great views of the surrounding scenery,
and taxi drivers willing to take us anywhere for a price (and with 4
of us, not much more than a bus).
