Litang, heart of the Tibetan nomad country

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Litang sits at over 4000m elevation in the middle of a wide, treeless alpine valley, inhabited at this time of year by semi-nomadic Tibetan herders and their yaks, sheep, and a few cattle. Clusters of tents are everywhere, with motorcycles, which seem to have largely replaced horses for herding duty, alongside. The tents are black (made of woven yak fur), white (probably canvas), and blue (issued by the government as temporary shelters in earthquake-ravaged areas, but apparently co-opted by the herders for this purpose). The tents and animals go right up to the edge of town, and yaks freely roam the streets, along with the ubiquitous Tibetan dogs.

Litang is known for its early August horse festival, which was over by the time we got there. However, we were told of some horse events happening, so Kathy and I, armed with directions for the taxi driver written in Chinese by our hotel proprietress, headed 7 km west of town one morning to see what was up. We were dropped off at a gathering of colorfully-dressed locals, from the tents and from town, and pretty soon riders, one-by-one or in twos or threes, raced about 100 yards across the grass, either doing stunts on the backs of their horses or tried to hit a target in the middle with arrows or something shot from a gun as they rode by at full speed. A group of monks on the sidelines near the target formed sort of a reviewing stand. After a couple of hours the festivities stopped, everyone dispersed, and we hitched a ride back to town.

The lamasery above town is impressive, with several gold-topped temples. We took a taxi up to this one, having been winded by the three flight walk up to our hotel room at this altitude. Two of the temples are either under construction or reconstruction. It is really amazing to see the intricate newly-painted walls and ceilings in bright colors. Here we ran into a group of young monks (or monks-t0-be0 and Jacob egged them on a bit as they were sliding down an outdoor bannister and otherwise raising a bit of Hell. Soon an older monk came along driving a tractor and scolded them and they calmed down for a little while at least.

We sat on the steps near the entrance before walking back down and Jacob had a conversation with a group of women who were drying cedar for incense and small flowers for some other use in the temples. We also talked with a Tibetan guy who had been to Seattle to see a lama from that temple who now conduct Tibetan Buddhist worship in his Seattle home. Pretty soon a group of the young boys came by and started reaching for stuff in my bag. One of them pulled out the Lonely Planet, and Jacob started pointing out all the photos of different places in China. The women gathered around too and insisted that all of the pictures must be from India because that is the only part of the world, other than Tibet, that they had any knowledge of.

Another day we hired a car so we could see the highway west of town and we got as far as the pass (4685m) near Batang, which itself is near the border of the Tibet Autonomous region. The scenery was impressive all the way, culminating with beautiful views of high snowy peaks to the north just over the pass. The driver was a Tibetan who speaks excellent Chinese, so Jacob was having animated conversations, all of which he translated for us. We drove through the scene of battles between the Tibetans and the Red Army in 1950. Our driver said that Litang held out the longest, even though the Red Army had firearms and the Tibetans had only stones to throw. He also showed us a place where the Chinese government tore up about a quarter mile of river bed in the 1990s to mine gold. He told us that some of the earth moving equipment was overturned and that the locals said that it must have been due to the bohdisattva of the mountain who did not think the mining was a good idea. He also told us that the high level of police activity we ran into in Xinlong, on the way to Litang, as well as the military facility in Litang and the police vehicles that looked like tanks that we saw in town were all put in place after the unrest of 2008. Although there was no violence in Litang and surrounding areas, there were apparently many peaceful demonstrations.

One day the proprietors of our hotel suggested that we go to see a sky burial north of town. They said that two people from Litang and three from Batang who had recently died were going to go through the ritual that day. If you don't know what sky burial is, look it up in Wikipedia, although be warned that the photos and descriptions are pretty graphic. We thought this was not an appropriate event for outsiders to witness and so didn't try to get there. But the next day the guy who drove us west on the highway asked if we had been to the sky burial the day before. He thought it was a fine thing for visitors to witness and said that his only concern was Chinese tourists who post videos online for the purpose of ridiculing Tibetan culture. Later we talked to some kids in town who pointed to the hills where sky burials take place and said that you can go up there and see the human bones.

A few days after we got to Litang, we ran into the guy who drove us here from Ganzi, the one who didn't quite know the way because he had never been there before. As prearranged, Jacob called his cell phone to let him know that we had had printed some of our photos for him at a local shop. He was up at the temple when Jacob called and had a woman translate (he speaking Tibetan and Jacob Chinese). Soon he showed up back in town for the prints, with three women with him in his van. One of them was the one who spoke Chinese well. Another one was older and may have been sort of a chaperone. A little later we saw them eating in a local restaurant, clearly being treated by our former driver. Apparently he was enjoying the money he earned for driving us before finding his next fare to wherever. This may be a modern Tibetan nomadic pattern.

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Photos

One of the temples at the Litang Chode Gompa
The hangings are made out of woven yak fur, like the black nomad tents

Comments

[Kit]

So many questions...
What an incredible experience! Beautiful scenery and your blog makes the people seem so open and hospitable. Is it partly because of Jacob's ability to speak chinese - even though it's not the local language? (Somehow your photos look WAY better than the Omak Stampede, also ended a few days ago...) But, questions: What are "butter sculptures?" Are they like ice sculptures? If they're really butter, do they eat or burn them before they go rancid? Cliff's first question was "What kind of motorcycles do they use?" The tents look huge - do you know how large a family lives in each one? Are those cooking/smoke vents in the top? I'm looking forward to seeing all your photos and hearing more about your adventures - thanks for keeping up the blog! Kit