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August 19th 2006

Published: August 30th 2006

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VictorT

Horse trek

Fany, me helper and Sheke (guide)

Friday August 18th

We knew we had until 8AM to cancel the trek if it was raining, if we didn't do it before that we would have to go even if it rained. It wasn't raining when we woke but it was cloudy, rainy weather. We walked around but decided not to cancel it as we hoped it would get better. We went to Leisha's and I had the shaksooka. This had to be the best breakfast I've had in my life I'm serious this stuff is great. I love it. Our trek starts at 10AM so we killed time in an internet cafe. By that time it started raining quite a bit which was quite annoying. We went to the office and asked if we could leave a bit later, hoping the weather would improved so we left at 10:30 instead when the rain wasn't so bad anymore. Our guide's name is Sheke and seemed quite nice although he didn't speak english much. We had a helper with us who would bring the horses back to the village since the second day was trekking

It was the first time I rode a horse for more than 5 minutes (and

Horse trek 2

Aisling, Fany me and Sheke

second time overall) so I didn't know how I'd react but it was pretty easy. I got the hang of it pretty quickly although I felt bad everytime I gave him a quick in the belly to make him go faster. It takes a while to get used to the fact that your mode of transport has a mind of his own. My horse seemed quite hungry (not that he looked badly treated or thin) and would stop to eat grass whenever he could. We left the village and headed for the grasslands. The weather was alright by this point. Slightly rainy at the beginning but it stopped pretty soon and after that it was just cloudy. After about 3 hours of riding we hit this small nomadic tent where we stopped for lunch.

We sat in the gerts while the girls were cooking the meal in an oven fueled by yak shit. Nomadic people using dried dung for fuel and I was relieved to realized that it didn't actually smell anything, thank god. The tibetans teens who were hanging around the tent were even using the pile of shit as their seat. The meal was potato cooked in

Horse trek 3

That's right they're burning shit. The girl on the pic is 16 years old and already married.

animal fat with rice and yak butter tea. I was used to this kind of thing but Fany really didn't like it while Aisling didn't seem to have too much problems. Using Aisling as a translator we managed to get some conversation going. We were curious as to why everyone who lived in that tent appeared to be late teenagers and they told us it was because their parents were in a grassland higher up and they'd come back in a month with the animals. In the meantime the kids were just hanging out with the boys chainsmoking and the women doing all the work. There were 2 girls there who were sisters. The one who I managed (accidently) to take a shot was 16 and very beautiful and she was married. The older sister (17) wasn't married and it caused an akward moment when we asked and she told us. When Aisling said that in the UK girls don't marry until they're 30 Sheke said it was too late to have children!

After this lovely conversation on marriage we decided to head for the next part of our journey. Before leaving one of the kid asked if he

Mountain

We slept high up on that mountain

could pull my hair which I thought was funny. He pulled on my arm's hair and on my beard. I guess you don't see hairy foreigners everyday! We continued riding for about 2 hours. I was getting pretty decent with my horse by that time and I was having great fun. It ended a bit too fast to my liking at around 4PM. We went up a mountain until we hit a few nomadic tents. The mother was very friendly and invited us inside to rest. She offered us some very very rich yak butter tea with rice which I drank only to be polite as it was just so disgusting. There were 3 kids, the mother and another woman who didn't talk much. We talked a bit through Aisling but we soon fell asleep for about an hour. When we woke up me and Fany decided to have a walk around the neighbourhood. Threatening clouds were making a comeback and we could hear thunder in the background so I opted not to bring my camera with me. It turned out to be a mistake because we saw some incredibly gorgeous rock formations in the mountains after we walked in

Mountain 2

one direction for 30 minutes but I couldn't take a shot.

We pass throught a few herds of sheeps and yaks. We also saw a shepperd who told us to come closer. We went to see him but we didn't have much to say except "Tashi delek", "Yaks" (while pointing at the yaks) and gesture a bit. It was quite funny however and he seemed happy to see a human being after a day of looking at boring yaks. We headed back to the tent and it started raining midway throught but it didn't matter. Back in the tent we played cards a bit with the kids although we never really got their rules. I tried to introduce them to "Speed" which is a game simple enough to be able to explain it to someone who doesn't understand your language but the boy almost had a fit when I asked if I could show him a game. Fany did her part in the spreading of french culture by teaching the kids the song "Les champs-elysees" but it seemed another frenchie passed by before because they already knew it (although it was the only western song they knew).

We

Mountain 3

spent the lateafternoon/evening talking with the nomads with the help of Aisling as we couldn't really go outside as it was raining hard. Before sunset, the men brought in the herds of animals near the tent and the mother went outside to help them tie the animals for the night. Sheke prepared dinner while they were working outside: we were lucky to have the same thing as we had for lunch. Fany tried hard to repress cry of joy. I didn't manage to finish one bowl of rice and potato. Sheke told us that we westerners don't eat enough, he said tibetans can eat 5 of those bowls but foreigners almost never eat more than one. Well the food they eat make Big Mac combo look fat-free so I guess it's normal we can't eat as much.

We spent the rest of the evening smalltalking with the family (including the father who came in after he brought in the animals). We were quite happy to have Aisling with us because without her there wouldve been quite a lot of akward silences. We went to sleep at around 9-10 and I got the spot close to the edge of the

From the tent 1

tent. I fell asleep relatively fast.

Saturday August 19th

Even though I fell asleep fast I woke up several several time during the night just as fast, if not faster. It seems that nomadic tents are made of 20 layers of yak hairs but this is not enough to be waterproof. They have a plastic thing under the roof but the thing is that I was sleeping very close to the edge of the plastic thing which means everytime I moved during my sleep I'd get under the water that was dripping from the plastic "roof". This meant I spent the whole night waking up because I had cold water dripping on me, then waking and moving but I was never conscious enough to decide to wake up Sheke to ask for another spot to sleep (I couldn't just move as the sleeping spots were all taken and he would've had to spend a few minutes to make another for me). I even screamed something at some point when a lot of water fell on me. Aisling thought I was having a nightmare or something and I simply wandered back to sleep.

We woke up around 7:30-8 the

From the tent 2

next day, several hours after the mother. The weather was really shit that morning: very cold, very cloudy and raining. We were in the clouds so we couldn't see anything. The plan for the day was to climb the highest mountain in the area (altitude:5000m) and then go back down on the other side and come back to Langmusi throught Namu Gorge. We couldn't do this plan in the current weather (which reminded me a lot of Yading) so we opted to wait. We were pretty miserable that day, especially when we realized that breakfast was simply yesterday's dinner heated up. It was maybe the second time since I started this trip that I really got depressed. I was cold, wet and tired and I lost my optimism for a few moments.

We spent the time by going outside to look at the mother milking the yaks and talking with Sheke. The women really work in lot in nomadic tibetan culture. The mother was out very early milking the yak in almost freezing weather (her hands have to be exposed for hour and she can't weat gloves while milking). We were given a little text before we left for

From the tent 3

Neighbours!

the trek which confirmed that women did most of the work among nomadic tibetans.

Aisling wanted to wait until midday to wait for improvement but I asked that we leave at 11:00 unless thing got better because I just wanted to move and go somewhere because I felt not well and wanted to do something to get away from it. By 11:00 the weather didn't improve so we decided to part. I put several layers of clothes (5 in all) and I looked like a total idiot (see picture). We said goodbye to the mother and went our way. We walked down and up some hill and passed a herd of yak. Sheke ran after them and grabbed a yak who had a rope hanging from his nose. He jumped on top and came back to us on the yak and asked if anybody wanted a ride. Aisling got on top and they climbed the hill on the top of the yak. After they were done they release the yak who seemed eager to join the herd back. I had never seen someone ride a yak before and it seemed an interesting experience but much harder than horse

From the tent 4

Aisling and Fany with the wind in the hair

riding as they always want to head off in random directions and you have to pull hard on the rope to bring them back on the rightful path.

We walked down for a long time and given the rain it was quite slippery. We entered Xinre valley and followed the river for about 2 hours before we hit a small electrical station we had seen the day before. Sheke told us to get in there and to our surprise we went to eat with the manager of the station. We had tibetan bread and tomato and it felt so good to be eating food that had less than 75% fat. The manager was a proud tibetan and we felt bad because we always forgot the few words of the local tibetan dialect we were trying to remember so we said thank you and hello in chinese which he commented on. He was quite nice however and at some point they decided to write our name in tibetan. Fany and Aisling weren't too hard but they really stumbled upon Victor. They managed to write something that sounds more like Vikitor but it was quite funny.

After that dinner we

Yaks and sheeps

They come back to sleep in front of the tents

walked on the grasslands all the way back to the village for about another 2 hours. At the entrance of the village we stopped at the place where they make tsompa (that ubiquitous tibetan food made out of barley). It is a water mill that is used to crush barley into fine powder (which is then mixed with yak butter tea and sugar to make tsompa). The old lady there was quite funny. Back in the village we gave the sleeping bags back to the woman who run the business and went looking for a hostel. I didn't want to go back to the other hotel we had used (Langmusi Hotel) as they have open toilets and I'm not chinese enough to be comfortable with going to the toilet "fully exposed" Sheke brought us to XiouFeng Hotel (I'm really not sure about the name though) but they didn't have hot water until 6 so we decided to shop around but it was the same thing everywhere so we came back and got a room there. 10 minutes after we got the room the owner knocked and said hot water would be ready in 10 minutes. That was really nice. We

Mommy Yak

They release the baby yaks so that they suck milk from their mom. It makes it easier to milk the yak after.

already had the room so he could've said "What's the point of being nice they already paid". I'm just pissed off that I'm not 100% sure of the hotel name so I can't recommend it to everyone.

We went to eat at Shanghai Times in order to "spread the money" like that chinese girl said. We had eggplant in spicy sauce and spicy chicken accompanied by beer which was good. The young couple who works there is indeed lovely. Good place to go if you want some good chinese food. We wanted to go back to Leisha's because of her other famous dish: apple pie. We passed by the horse trek company to invite Sheke for a beer and the woman who runs the show told her she'd call him but that he wasn't allowed to drink as he was still "on the job".

We went to Leisha's and ordered the apple pie. Me and Fany had planned to go to the internet cafe after but those plans were abandoned because of the overwhelming amount of nice backpackers at the place. We spent the whole evening chatting, swaping stories and having a great time. We saw an israeli

Milking Yak

Women have to milk yak no matter the weather, old school style.

guy who managed to eat the Big Mac Yak Attack in 22 minutes, a world record. I talked with another israeli who had somehow heard I had been in Yading and asked for directions. I also talked with 2 friendly israeli girls. I told one of them how she should try shaksooka for breakfast, a local dish. She told me that it wasn't really a local dish but an israeli one! Ooops. We told Leisha's that she had lied to us about shaksooka being local and she laughed at us! We also talked with Sheke who had been a great guide despite the shitty conditions. I said bye to everyone at 11 and I made it for bed as we were planning yet another early morning bus the day after to go to Xiahe. Only me and Aisling this time as Fany had to get a plane from Lanzhou and couldn't come with us. Langmusi was a great experience. It is a shame that the weather didn't cooperate but there's nothing you can do about that. If you want to find a laid-back backpacker haven in China it is not Yangshuo anymore, it is right here at the border between