No Name

No Name
Originally uploaded by Kees & Sarah

The summer is now so far gone, that I will leave most of the things I wanted to write about. There is however one things I really want to share with you.
In October we went to Zaduo one more time (this time with my father). It was a beautiful trip, many places were snow covered en that makes things look very different. At one point we were sitting by the river to rest and enjoy the scenery, when a man came to join us.
He talked with us for a bit and then asked if we would come to his house. We couldn't fully understand him, but we did understand that this was not a “come to my house and eat” kind of invitation, this guy wanted something of us. He took us to his house, which was right at the edge of the town and ask us to go in. Once we were inside it very quickly became clear why he asked us to come: He had a severely handicapped child, who was in a wheelchair, and he wanted a photo of her. She obviously did not have proper control over her limbs and she could not talk, but she look reasonably well looked after. He had photos of his other children, but not of her. So we made a few photos and promised we return the next day with a printed photo. When we talked a little more the story started to unfold further. The child was indeed a girl, she was 13 years old (his oldest child), even though she looked about six. The saddest thing about it surfaced however when we asked for her name. “She doesn't have a name.”, was his answer.

Video Camera

One of the things I found in Zaduo was how relatively easy it was to meet people. At some point we were just walking around the town, taking some photos and shooting some video, and someone comes up to me and tells me he has just bought a video camera and can't get it to work. So he takes us to his house and shows me the camera. It was quite different from mine (he had a camera with a hard-drive in, which is not necessarily a good idea at 4100m), but as the principle was the same I managed to show him how to use it, partly with my very limited Chinese, partly through my Singaporean friend, whose Chinese is very good. In it self not very exiting, but a good example of how easy to it is to meet people.

Flowers

OK, time to pick up where I left off (several month ago). Still quite a few stories to tell, so I'd better get on with that.

The second trip I made this summer I went with a six friends. We ended up in a town called Zaduo, 225km past Yushu. The drive there took a little longer than intended, because the scenery was so beautiful we just had to stop all the time and make photos (note to self: put those photos on the internet). Anyway we arrived in Zaduo and found a little hotel where we stayed for three days. (There is a whole other story there, but you will have to ask me about that in person.)
On our first morning we went out to find some breakfast, which turned out easier said than done, but we ended up in this little restaurant and ordered "jaozi" (a kind of dumplings). While waiting (for a long time) for our breakfast, this guy walks in with a bunch of wild flowers in his hand, he sees us sitting there, comes and stands right next to our table and just stands there staring at us, flowers still in his hand. After a few minutes the situation becomes a little uncomfortable, fortunately the lady of the restaurant asked him what he is doing, as if woken out of a trance he suddenly gives me the flowers and walks out of the restaurant. We were all a little surprised and not sure what to do with those flowers, so in the end we gave them to the lady of the hotel we were staying.
I have to say that I expected to enjoy Zaduo, but I did not expect to be welcomed with flowers.

TTEW

Well it has been a very long time again. I have meanwhile made my third trip to Yushu this summer (this time with my father) and have a lot of things to write about, now I just need to find/make the time to do so.

The first thing on my list is something that made me smile when I saw it. We were in Yushu town and came back from a restaurant. It was already dark at this point, which is probably why I noticed the neon letters on the building next to our hotel (which probably is some kind of night club): "Tsampa Tibetan Entertainment World". In itself nothing funny about that, just the combination of words is about the most unlikely one I can think of. For those of you don't know what Tsampa is, I better explain that. Tsampa is a breakfast dish that is very common in Tibet. It is roast barley flower mixed into butter tea, so it becomes a dough like substance. It is the most basic breakfast you can think of. The flavour is good and I really quite enjoy it. But hopefully you can see that combination of "Tsampa" and "Entertainment World" is really quite an unusual one.

Stones

OK, I have just returned from my second trip to Yushu, so maybe it is time to tell you a few things.

The first thing that comes to mind is a pile of stones, 3 minutes west of Yushu town. It is not just any old pile of any old stones, but a pile of "mani" stones. "Mani" stones are stones that have been engraved with Tibetan scriptures and "mantras", especially the mantra we know as 'O Mani Paday Hum' appears on many of the stones. The pile of "mani" stones I am thinking of is however not any old pile of "mani" stones, piles of "mani" stones appear everywhere in Tibet, sometimes a pile consists of only ten stones, usually more. This pile is however (according to sign) 283m long, 75m wide, 2.5m high and contains an estimated 2 billion stones. Most of the stones are not only engraved, but also painted, from a distance this gives the whole pile the appearance of a rubbish dump.

The fact that there are "mani" stones here, makes this a sacred site for the Tibetans, the fact there are this many of them only increases that fact. As with all sacred places, the Tibetans will walk around it, always clockwise. They believe this will improve their karma and thereby have a chance on a better rebirth (a little like reincarnation, but that is a western concept).
When we were there, between two and three hundred people were walking around the pile, most of them were using prayer wheels and constantly recited "mantras" (both with the purpose of improving their karma).

It was good to see so many Tibetans together, but sad to see them busy with this pointless exercise. It is however not an unusual picture on the plateau. Tibetans are very religious people and they are always working on improving their karma. It doesn't always happen on this scale, usually less, sometimes more, but it happens all the time, wherever people are present. The improving of karma often takes the most important place in their lives, and humanly speaking there is nothing that will stop them doing so.

Manhattan

When we first arrived in Yushu town Caleb complained a little that he did not like it. In his words: "There isn't even a burger bar here." On Sunday we met a couple of friends from Xining and spend the morning with them. At the end of the morning they asked us: "Have you already been to Manhattan?" Turns out that Manhattan is the local burger bar (a bit like KFC or McD). Of course we had not been there yet, as we did not know it existed, but guess where we had Sunday luch?

Caleb had a good holiday.

Meeting

I thought I better write a few holiday stories before I forget them.

One day we were on our way to another little town and we had stopped to stretch our legs. From the other direction someone came our way on a motorbike (there are lots of motorbikes on the plateau). I waved to him, just being polite, but I had forgotten that you wave people down when you are in trouble (the nearest village was 50km back), so he stopped straight away. I think he thought it was interesting to talk to a foreigner. He was a man of about 60-70 years old, with a great smile and three teeth in his mouth. (He did not want to go on the photo, otherwise I would have shown you.) We talked a little (with my limited Chinese and Tibetan I can't talk very long and after a few minute he went on again. It was one of the meetings that makes it really fun to be here. I hope this kind of things will happen to me much more often.

Roads

Roads on the plateau are a little different from roads in the west. If it is on the map as a main road it most likely has a road surface of some kind, but that is not guaranteed. On our Yushu trip it happened several times that the road surface just stopped and we suddenly were driving on a dirt road. At one point I noticed a very large dust cloud behind us and when I looked at our speedometer I realised to my amazement that we were doing 80 kmph (50 mph) on a little dirt road. Maybe I am getting to used to the roads around here.

Directions

When we were on holiday we came past a little town where we did not know how to go on, so we did what you would do anywhere: we asked for directions. Now asking for direction wasn't so hard, but the answer we got was even easier, be it a little unusual: "Take that road and follow that for 400km".
I presume distances here are a little different than what we are used to.

Yushu Holiday

Well we are home again (actually we have been home for almost a week). We have travelled a lot in one week. Here are a few numbers. We have been away for 8 days, have driven 2592km (1,615 miles), have come over 12 mountain passes, the highest two were 4824m (15,826 ft) and 4760m (15,616 ft). We have visited 4 towns, which were at an altitude 4100m (13,451 ft), 4050m (13,287 ft), 3750m en 3700m and have used 3.5 tank of petrol (our car has a 90 litre tank).

On the way there we have seen a lot of interesting things, especially a lot of animals, including: sheep, yak, pigs, antelopes, marmots and even a wolf.

We made Yushu town our base and slept in a little hotel there, from there we made day trips to other places. One of the towns was 225km down the road and it was a 5 hour drive. A little far for one day, but we were glad we did manage to see what it looked like out there.

If you want to see some photos have a look here.