Shelter

Bob:

In our last video post (scroll down and watch it first) we’d made quick work of a 7,000 ft climb to a 15,252 ft. plus pass, and were feeling pretty chipper considering the troubles other cyclists had encountered with the steep grades and high elevations. Our regular climbs of Mt. Lemmon (close to 9,000 feet elevation) in Tucson, had prepared our legs well, and we took enough off days for good acclimatization. After a nearly two weeks of our legs getting accustomed to the 80 pounds our so we carry, the climb was not as difficult as expected.

However, rather than the long descent to lower elevation for rest and a decent camp spot, we found the road stayed high, rolling up and down 1,000 feet or so as the weather deteriorated to rain, wind and sleet, and then climbing again. We knew that a night of rest at lower elevation would be essential for the next pass of 15,475 feet, but this was not to be.

Staying High

We stayed high as the clouds lowered and the sky darkened. We were shivering from the wet and cold and the effort of the pass. We knew we had to find shelter, high altitude or not, and hope our light sleeping bag would be enough. We failed to find a flat spot; this is called the Tibetan plateau, but it is riddled with 1,000 to 2,000 foot mountains with steep gorges and very few spots flat enough for a tent. Just as we were about to give up and camp beside the road (not something we do unless in dire circumstances) we saw a Tibetan settlement, and decided to see if we could at least get water. We were low and there was only some snow to eat, and maybe find a place behind a house out of sight. We would have to sleep at well over 14,000 feet, but we needed shelter.

Warmth and Food

As we rolled up to a small stone house/barn, an older looking woman smiled at us and made the international sleeping sign: prayer hands laid next to her head bent sideways. Nothing ever looked so good to us. A young woman, whom we took to be her daughter, and her child were in their small barnyard with their small herd of yaks preparing for milking.

She motioned for us to bring Zippy into the house, which was on the bottom level, the barn. We leaned him up against the stone wall, unloaded our bags and followed grandma (we’ll never know her name) upstairs. Their living quarters was one large room with a small hearth and a cozy fire. There was not a chimney, but a stovepipe reached just as far as a roof hatch, and the space was filled with a blue haze of smoke that softened all shapes and colors.

Home for the Night

The floor was rough cut slabs and the roof was supported by large log beams, but in the stone walls were set modern aluminum windows with latches. Various food items were drying on feed sack material and the beds were rolled up in one corner along with corn husk pillows. The hearth held all the pans they owned, and all the cooking was done on top of the fire. The daughter hurried up from her milking to prepare our meal and grandma sat and smiled at us and attempted to communicate.  She knew no Chinese, only Tibetan, and our communication was by pantomime.

Eating Yak Butter, Grain and Sugar

First, we were served a liquid from a pot that seemed to have a permanent spot on the hearth. It was yak butter tea. It’s pretty much as its name describes: water, yak butter (lots), and a few tiny leaves of tea. Now this sounds awful, but we found it quite good, and warming after a trying day.

Snowy Morning

Our first course was a white crumbly substance that Claire likened to the curds we had in Wisconsin, only they didn’t squeak in your teeth as much and had a very fermented flavor. I looked over and I could see a large pile of what we were eating drying/fermenting on the floor near where we would probably sleep. We ate from a communal bowl, grandma first, showing us how with the fingers of her right hand (this is important to remember). We are not prone to insulting the hostess, so we imitated her. We both liked the unusual texture and fermented flavor. I could see uses for it in other genres of cooking.

Grandma prepared the next course while the daughter finished milking. She sliced potatoes French Fry style and fried them in a huge amount of an unidentified oil poured from a large plastic container stuffed with a rag. Then she added some water for a steamed finish. This was served with rice, and more yak butter tea. It was quite satisfying, and enjoyed with the company of a Buddhist monk who’d dropped in for a meal. Apparently you feed a monk when he shows up at your door, anytime.

After dinner, and another couple of rounds of yak tea, we both needed to relieve ourselves of some liquid, and asked (don’t ask how we asked) for the toilet, which we expected to be a short-drop, i.e. a shallow pit with weather shelter over it. Not here. We were pointed to the guardrail and over the hill to the village toilet. It wasn’t as bad as you might think. Such places in America are littered with toilet paper, the white of which announces each deposit. Here they do not use toilet paper. Remember how all the eating and touching of food is done with the right hand? Yep.

The next morning, just at first light Claire and I both felt a need and headed past the sleepy yaks, over the guardrail where we each found – recently at least – an unused bush. It had snowed overnight and we had two inches of something much better than toilet paper to use. Chilly, but refreshing.

During the night we slept like the family, fully clothed on the floor on light pads with husk filled pillows. We went to sleep to the sound of grandma reciting her prayers on her prayer beads. Breakfast was – guess what – yak butter tea, leftover potatoes and rice, and an addition – yak butter rolled in a mixture of rough meal and some sugar. Again, strange sounding, but good and filling. The little girl of three or so got her breakfast from mom, two teats worth.

Friends

Claire:

It sounds romantic: going to sleep to the sounds of chanting and waking to the sounds of milking. But these women’s lives are a gritty existence that our culture hasn’t known for generations. Hauling wood, water, and food up the ladder to the living space, making butter and curds, grinding grain, hand washing clothes, keeping the fire going, cooking… Mundane, routine, weather-dependent, smoke-filled and layered with years of grime. At first, we were both a little uncomfortable with their aboriginal way of life (we even took some Pepto-Bismol as a prophylaxis against any reaction to the yak butter). It’s kind of like going feral in Australia, at first, you try to avoid the bull dust, then you live with it, until finally it becomes your outer layer.

Wonder What She Thought of Us

The five tiny calves at the bottom of the ladder were the future for these women. Their house was smaller than most in the village. I wondered where the men were? What would the little girl’s life be like? Would she get an education? Would she look at that post card of the horse those people on the bicycle gave her and realize someday what a big world this is? We used Bob’s jacket printed with a map of the world on it to try to convey where we were from, where we’d been and where we planned to go. I have no idea if they’d ever seen a map before. It doesn’t really matter to them, their world is an isolated village along a road between two passes and 50 kilometers from the nearest town. An occasional bicyclist may pass by their house or ask for shelter. To us, these women will always be a part of our world, and I don’t ever want to forget them.

What lies ahead as the yaks are put out to pasture.

Bob:

And it’s not over yet. We left the family as the snow began to melt, expecting the second 15,000 foot pass to be a few kilometers further since we had slept so high, and also expecting the weather to turn.

The Road To Shangri-la is not always what is expected.

So far we are able to post on our own site, but we will be careful with words.

We will still post still photos, and narratives of our travels. And Lucky will still be able to do his blog!

Today we went to the Panda Breeding Center to show Lucky his cousins; here’s his post:

What a day. My cousin pandas are big, even the babies are big, and they are always eating  something called bamboo. I hear my friends P-bear, Foster and Lai Lai talk about it, but they don’t eat either. The Chinese people are proud of their pandas. There were lots of Chinese there making flashes with little cameras and getting into the pictures. I got into  Bob and Claire’s pictures too. I think I’m prettier than those pandas. The old ones just laid on their backs and ate bamboo, but the young ones wrestled and pretended to bite and rolled around. One even slept in a tree. I guess they really are bears. Claire liked the babies best. I’m jealous. She coooed over me, but nothing like she did with the baby pandas! We even got to watch the bottom end of the baby feeding process. Evidently, baby pandas need lots of help with keeping their stuffing moving through and nurses are on constant display stroking tiny panda butts (theirs didn’t have tags that said Made in China). Bob and Claire cheered for that panda when he finally finished.

Claire: It was really fun to see so many pandas and yes, the tiny ones were really adorable, but the cubs, up to a year and a half were more fun to watch. In slow motion, they loll and wobble and tumble and wrestle. They gum, and paw and flop and blink and yawn. Every move they make is absolute innocence and honesty. With the adults needing most of their day just to feed, I don’t understand why the little ones, who are growing so fast, aren’t constantly hungry and lean. Their diet must be very rich.

The rest of our day was fun too. We rode into the center of Chengdu to meet with Peter Snow-Cao of Bike China Adventures http://www.bikechina.com/index.php. He was able to offer lots of very helpful advice about our route: he confirmed that it will be grueling. On the way home, we got lost three times, it was great.

Bob: Now I know why we get lost so much; Claire likes it. Hmmmm. Claire shot another video as we wove through traffic on our way home. Per the above problems, it will be awhile before you see it, but worth the wait. Most of the people we ride with in Tucson will know that I prefer hills to flat traffic rides, but that I have a fair amount of testosterone for an old guy. Well, there is something about Chinese traffic, chaotic, crazy, dangerous, that brings out the old mountain bike racing instincts and skills from twenty years ago. I get into a zone and we merge with the throngs. I absorb the pattern of traffic flow, read “body language” and know when to challenge the cabbie, and when to track stand and let him pass. It is thrilling and calming at the same time, and I can’t get enough of it. I could do without the deepening cough I get from the horribly polluted air, but it will only be a few more days before serious elevations will have me wishing for air of any kind, polluted or not. Peter says our, now generally set, route through Tibetan cultural area (better than Lhasa he opines) will reach elevations of 15,333 feet at least. Yikes.

Tonight we tried another of the family fandians in our local hutong, and had even more fun than before. This time Claire took photocopies of food pages from a travel guide so we would have some idea of what we were ordering. We ordered fish and green beans and eping pejo (they are big and we share) When the fish dish came it was huge and loaded with all the things I love, garlic, chillies and ginger, also tiny bones and the head and tail. The strange head meat (brains?) was tasty. When the green beans came they were peas. Oh well, 50% isn’t bad. Everything was delicious. There was a general loud banter between the staff, regulars and the lao wai (foreigners). Everything we did was watched with general approval of our eating style. One other diner loudly proclaimed that Claire was very good with chopsticks, and better than me. True.

Life is not easy for most Chinese, the average wage here is about 10 kwai ($1.46) PER DAY. Our expensive, for them, dinner this night, because of the protein, was about $6. We made their day. Our average daily expenses so far in China, $29 including the panda tour and special van from the airport. Travel doesn’t have to be expensive to be fun.

Zippy shrink wrapped and ready for China. The wheels are in two other boxes, along with tools and sharp objects, a third bag will carry tent and sleeping bag for the high mountains. We’ll carry cameras and the computer in carry on. We hope all of this gets to Chengdu at the same time we do, unlike our first experience with China and air travel.

The packing is always such an epic. But since these trips are usually Zippy’s ideas, we can’t very well leave him behind.

One more day to get things done.

The High Road to Shangri-la

We leave September 1 for Chengdu, Sichuan, China to begin a tandem bicycle tour of SW China and SE Asia. We begin in Chengdu, Sichuan, where the earthquakes killed thousands last year. We will visit some pandas and probably visit our first important Buddha statue before heading into high country where the Himalayas transition from the Tibetan plateau, giving birth to all the great rivers of SE Asia. After a long crossing into Yunnan, we will drop into the sub tropics of Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and end probably in Bangkok, one of our favorite cities.

We are feverishly making preparations: Zippy, our 38,000 mile Cannondale mountain tandem. He’s our precocious teenager. Though still strong, he always requires a complete rebuild from the frame up, because the places he takes us are hundreds or thousands of miles from a modern bike shop. We like him to start out without the creaks and grinding noises he will acquire after rain and grit take their inevitable toll. Claire sewed patches on holes and weak spots of our 38,000 mile Cannondale panniers (no they are not sponsoring us). We are far to sentimental to buy a new bicycle or panniers; we’ve come a long way together. I’ve been gathering all the tools necessary to fix almost anything that might go wrong in a few thousand miles, though as I learned on our Silk Road Crossing, I can’t carry replacement parts for every eventuality.

Claire is working on her Chinese, and I will, as usual, smile and use various vigorous hand signals attempt communication. The airlines are making it more and more difficult to travel with bicycles, let alone a tandem, so after painstakingly rebuilding him, I have taken him apart, down to the smallest package possible, and it still exceeds the maximum size, but is underweight. We are hoping for compassion from the agents.

There will be more preparation pictures, and another message from Lucky the rescued Panda who is going back to China with us.

There will be many more posts along the way than there were for the Silk Road Crossing; we’re taking a netbook so you can travel with us. Be sure and bookmark this site and check it often. We appreciate your good wishes.