We told her to wait for us at the hostel as we wanted to go back to the RanWu Lake to take picture. The weather today was the best so far; clear blue sky with no clouds. So we wanted to try our luck again at the lake and promised her we will return shortly. True enough, when we reached there, it was as if we had come to Switzerland. The reflection of the snow mountain on the water was clearer and a sunnier weather added brighter colors to the already scenic picture.
Once we were satisfied with the number of pictures taken, we rushed back to pick up the teacher. Her name was 诗拉左卡 (I am sure this is the wrong spelling but sounds like that) and she said all Tibetans’ names are given by their Lama when they were born. The names had no meaning at all. We wanted to go to this village called 雅子村 in which lies the 2nd largest ice glacier in the world, known as 来古冰川. And lucky we had ZuoKa with us because this village was really secluded. Without her, I am sure the now dis-oriented ZK wouldn’t know how to go. Ever since we entered Tibet, ZK had become close to useless as much as direction-sense is concern. He had become as lost as we were. Guess he wasn’t as experienced as he claimed.
ZuoKa said that she graduated from 拉萨师范大学 (the equivalent of NIE in SG) and had to do 1 year of teaching in a village. She chose YaZi Village because that’s where her boyfriend was staying. Although she wore a face mask to protect her face from the strong UV, from her modern dressing (purple coat and furry boots), I guessed she must be quite pretty (at least for a Tibetan). When we finally reached the village, we asked if she could be our guide for the rest of the day and skipped school in the morning. She agreed without hesitation and asked another teacher to relief her. There were just 2 teachers in the school (like that means 1 principal and 1 vice-principal?) which was located on the hill not far away. She pointed it out to us and said the school was beside a big tree. We declined her invitation to the school because the school was so freaking high up the hill!
We moved off to the ice glacier area and had to pay a small entrance fee. We drove passed a checkpoint and slowly ascended a snow mountain. It was like an ice paradise hidden inside the mountain. A completely different world. There was a greenish blue lake in the middle and we saw the ice glacier floating on it. We didn’t get to see the entire glacier as part of it was blocked by mountain but it was huge enough.
Further down the mountain road was a village called 来古村. Some of the villagers who were looking after the sheep nearby came curiously. I guess this place is one of the least visited tourist attractions.
At a turn of the mountain road, we almost crashed into an oncoming tractor. Both parties had to back off slowly and it was quite dangerous as we were at the edge of the road. A bit of carelessness and we would have fallen off the cliff.
We decided to get out of the car and go on foot and slowly enjoy the scenery. ZK and ZuoKa stayed in the car though. I must say I was a little worried for the young and pretty teacher. Don’t forget, ZK had a bad guy’s face, haha.
Slowly, we made our way down the mountain, with Kenneth and JH most reluctant to leave this paradise. Back at the village, ZuoKa led us to a hut where her boyfriend’s uncle lives. We were welcomed by our host, a middle-age man. The hut was made of stones and wood and there was little light inside. There was a stove at a corner and our host began boiling water to serve us tea. The famous Yak’s Butter Tea, 苏油茶. We were warned beforehand that this tea will make you puke.
When it was poured to us, we took sips cautiously. To my surprise, it was not as bad as I was told. Probably because ZK told the host to put less salt in our tea. YES. It is salt not sugar.
We were also offered their staple food 沾巴 (or also called 藏巴), a brown color powder made from 青稞. When eating the powder, it tasted a bit like peanut but the moment the powder mixed with my saliva, it became starchy and stuck to the roof of my mouth. In fact everywhere inside and I couldn’t even talk! I might possibly be choked by it if I were to take too big a mouthful.
Next drink was a delight; 酸奶. I thought it must be some disgusting thing but it actually was yoghurt! Yummy. Too bad he only gave each of us a small cup. As for the Butter Tea, he kept refilling for us against our wish really. We decided to give some biscuits and food to the kids in the hut and they were really excited.
The host, showing his hospitality always, taught us how to eat the Zang Ba in their traditional way. Or the disgusting way. He told us to mix the bowl of powder with the tea. Then he gave each of us a big slice of butter. We had to mix everything together and made dough out of it. Then, using our fingers, we had to squash and squeeze the mixture into a ball. The end product was a brown solid ball.
This ball was completely tasteless and yet disgusting. Never had I tasted something so tasteless yet so bad to eat. Without finishing half of it, I was already full. Thinking I should drink some tea to get rid of the sticky food inside my mouth, I drank a mouthful only to find myself in a torture. After eating the dough, the tea had become Super Si Bei Pai Lim. Still, not wanting to hurt the host’s heart, we finished the tea but not the dough. We said we would bring the Zang Ba along and eat it on the road. Of course the Zang Ba ended up in the dustbin in our next hostel.
We thanked the host and left his house with the teacher. She brought us to 2 brothers whom let us ride their horses for a small amount. It was my first horse ride and one of the brothers was holding onto the rein initially. I told him I wanted to ride on my own and he then passed me the rein. At first the horse didn’t move despite me kicking it at the sides. Suddenly it started trotting and it really startled me. I was a bit panicky and sensing that I wouldn’t be able to control the horse, the brother ran forward and took back the rein. That was my brief horse riding experience.
When all of us had our fun with the horses, we bid the brothers and the teacher goodbye. It was really a unique experience and we were lucky we had the teacher as our translator and guide. While on our way back to the hotel, JH jumped suddenly. He touched his waist and looked around frantically searching for something. He said he think he had dropped his money pouch which contained all his $ for this trip. Gosh! He couldn’t remember where he dropped it but was sure he didn’t leave it behind in the hostel. As the amount was a lot, we asked ZK to turn back to the village. The problem now was: Did he drop it in the Tibetan house? Or while horse riding? Or worse, at the ice glacier area.
When we were back at the village, the teacher was still around and we told her about this. We decided to split up and so CCG, the teacher and I went searching around in the village while JH, ZK and Kenneth go back to the ice glacier. Our guess was the pouch was lost at the glacier, because we were running around there and he might have dropped it while taking pictures.
After searching around the places we had been to in the village, we couldn’t find it and decided to wait for them to come back. Really, we felt that the chances of recovering the $ was very slim. The ice glacier place was very big in the first place. And there might be other tourists or villagers who would pick it up. The teacher, still feeling worried, went with another villager on motorbike to the ice glacier. The 2 brothers went also on horses. As for CCG and I, we were left behind with the other Tibetan kids.
We just sat there looking at each other as we had language barrier. I had enough of this boredom and decided to teach them Chinese. I asked CCG to take out his notebook and pen and at first it was just writing numbers in Chinese. I got bored by that too and began drawing cows, clouds, mountains and teaching them the corresponding Chinese words. It was fun until one of the kids wanted to draw the thing that he wanted us to teach him. He drew a cactus looking thing on the paper and I thought he wanted 仙人掌 or 花. He said no, and pointed at his dick. Well done. I was really stuck that time. I couldn’t possibly said 鸟 because I had just taught that. The real meaning that is. In the end I just smoked through and said that’s all I could teach.
I played football with a boy (kicking stone), witnessed him smashed a torchlight into pieces, watched how he crushed every single ant he could find on the ground. Time crawled. At last, the 2 Tibetan brothers were the first to return and were shouting, “钱有了！钱有了！” (Found $) We couldn’t believe our luck (or rather JH’s). Soon everyone returned and true enough the money pouch had been recovered. As a display of our gratitude to the villagers, we surrendered all our food supplies in the jeep. Someone had to top them up in the next town, and that’s JH for sure.
Everyone was extorting JH $ in the jeep now. CCG and I asked for a treat as we were left stranded in the sun with the Tibetan kids. Kenneth said he caught a cold while searching in the ice glacier. Even ZK chipped in and said while waiting for JH, he had smoked a few packets of cigarettes. A dinner treat from JH seemed to be inevitable and we demanded 烤全羊 (roasting a complete sheep).
Coincidentally, we met 3 of the cyclists we met last night. They were going to the ice glacier too and they proved to be genuine seasoned travelers. We had a teacher as our guide by chance. They were a level higher. Somehow, they managed to meet the village head of 来古村 on the way and with some hand gestures, managed to hitch-hike his tractor. That is what I call truly interactive kind of traveling.
We skipped lunch as it was getting late (and we were still very full from the Zang Ba) but also because we knew tonight we were going to have a feast, courtesy of JH’s treat. On the way to our next town 波密, we met the 69 year old cyclist and he said the 5 of them had split up. Traveling on the road on bike alone for an elderly is really an incredible feat. This kind of people really showed passion in the things they do. I wonder if I would ever have such passion for something in life. We told him to take care as we moved on.
It seemed as if the autumn season had arrived (though it was summer of course) as we saw forest turned red and yellow. It was scenic and made the rest of the journey a joy. Moreover, the cold weather that we had endured for the past few days had turned warm. We arrived at Pomi near dinner time. Great timing. As promise, JH said he would pay for the meal and ZK instinctively took over the menu. We shouldn’t have let him done that. In the end, he ordered all his favourite dishes. The only food that I ate was my bowl of rice which was the only dish that wasn’t spicy. That’s the problem when you are too nice to other people. We should have said no to all his orders.
Still it wasn’t a big issue to fuss over and after dinner, we walked the street. We saw another guy from the group of cyclists and he was talking to a Korean elderly traveler. The Korean spoke some Chinese but wasn’t very fluent. As we thought Koreans are one of the better English-speakers in Asia, we conversed in English. But his English was just as bad as his Chinese. It seemed like he was traveling alone and had been taking public transport from one city to another. Another daring elderly traveler.
Once again, although the town was considered relatively modern, hot water bath in the hostel was still a rarity and we had to walk a distance to a public bath shop. A shop that charged a fee for hot shower and many of the town people were bathing here. I felt refreshed after the hot shower which was much desired. It was indeed worth the $ and effort.
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