Qinghai Movie Clips

The following are 13 short movie clips from the Amdo region of Greater Tibet in Qinghai Province. I used a Fujifilm Finepix F70 EXR digital camera and was most pleased (especially with the photos taken in low light). Meanwhile, Sander is working on his own short film of our journey ... due out before the end of the academic year.

Movie Clip #1: XINING BUS STATION
A 360 degree view of Sander waiting one minute at the Xining Bus Station. Note: The men in maroon (robes, tunics, chubas) are Buddhist monks; those wearing white skull caps are Hui (one of China's Muslim Minorities).

Movie Clip #2: BUS RIDE FROM XINING TO TONGREN -- ROAD THRESHING
Farmers making use of traffic to thresh their hay.

Movie Clip #3: SANDER ON BRIDGE IN TONGREN
While walking from our hotel to the intersection across the bridge to wait for a bus to our next destination, we stop to look around.

Movie Clip #4: TONGREN INTERSECTION
As others have noted, an intrusion of sound can be an assertion of power. After walking over the bridge in Tongren, Sander and I stop at an intersection of time, cultures, and change. It was at this intersection, under a tree on the southwest corner, that Sander and I waited hours in good company for the bus to Henan to arrive. Finally it did. And off we rode into the mountains and onto the steppe.

Movie Clip #5: INSIDE BUS DURING RIDE FROM TONGREN TO HENAN MONGOLIAN AUTONOMOUS COUNTY
Buses can be crowded and ours from Tongren to Henan was no exception. The front and seats were packed as well as the aisle.

Movie Clip #6: QINGHAI STEPPE
Grasslands and rolling hills above the tree line where yaks, sheep, goats, and horses grazed among Tibetan Tents and Mongolian yurts.

Movie Clip #7: ZEKU -- FESTIVAL AND HORSE TRADING
When the bus stopped in Zeku to drop off a passenger, I stepped off to capture a moment of Tibetan horse trading during a festival.

Movie Clip #8: SANDER BUDGETING FROM HOTEL BED IN HENAN MONGOLIAN AUTONOMOUS COUNTY
After racing to the provincial wilds (and dramatic lower costs of living and traveling) in the Amdo region of Greater Tibet, Qinghai Province, Sander takes over our budget. As Sander works the numbers, I peek out the window for a view of the street in Henan Mongolian Autonomous County. The sign on the bus and the edge of town, that I saw, called this place Henan. But other sources called it Yougan Ningzhen. The elevation was around 11,000 feet and Sander and I were experiencing some of the effects of altitude sickness.

Movie Clip #9: HENAN MONGOLIAN AUTONOMOUS COUNTY -- TIBETAN JEWELRY-MAKING
Although the jewelry-makers working on Tibetan pieces seemed a little uncomfortable with our filming, they had granted us permission.

Movie Clip #10: HERISI - TERTON CHOGAR GONPA - CHANTING AND DRUMMING MONKS, Part I
Sander and I thoroughly enjoyed our visit to this monastery near Heri (Hor), west of Zeku and Henan, Qinghai Province, P.R. of China. After following the sounds of chanting and drumming to this inner sanctum, a monk outside gave us permission to visit and film inside. It was amazing! Unfortunately, I stopped right before a monk walked by spreading smoke. Part II, which follows, captured a little of the smoke.

Movie Clip #11: HERISI - TERTON CHOGAR GONPA - CHANTING AND DRUMMING MONKS, Part II
Buddhist monks chanting and drumming as Sander and I watch and film.

Women of Amdo on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Photo: The two young women in Zeku who walked over from the tar-choks and flirted with Sander (August, 2010).


We had more difficulties photographing women than men. But here are a few. Photos now, comments later:

A Belated Thank You and Credit

When Sander and first talked about taking a journey together, he expressed an interest in Tibet and Mongolia. Without any financial restrictions, we began mapping out our ideal journey.

Our initial plans started out by flying to Amsterdam, then heading to Finland, before landing in St. Petersburg by boat and in Moscow by rail. From Moscow, we planned to take the Trans-Siberian Railway to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. After a week or so in Mongolia, we planned to take the railway to Beijing and on to Lhasa, Tibet. But then the financial realities set in and we had to make hard decisions.

While looking for options, I stumbled upon two websites designed and maintained by Losang. Losang is from the United States but has been living in Greater Tibet with his wife and their two children for the past eight years. He has carved out an absolutely fascinating living for himself through research, contributions to notable publishing houses and television shows, and leading tours.

When I shared Losang's websites with my son, he pored over the pages and photographs (I've also recommended these two sites to my former colleagues interested in this part of the world). Shortly after Sander began exploring Losang's pages, he enthusiastically expressed an interest to go to the Amdo Region of Greater Tibet (located in Qinghai Province, China) to see the Tibetans and Mongolians who live there. This change of plans made our journey financially possible. It also made Sander more excited than ever for our journey (and our journey turned out to be everything he expected and more).

Now, we can't wait to go back!

Losang's two websites can be found here:

Land of Snows
http://landofsnows.com/los/Home.html

Life on the Tibetan Plateau
http://kekexili.typepad.com/

It was from these pages that I discovered two of the five books I took along (Mapping the Tibetan World and Footprint: Tibet Handbook).

So I must give my belated thanks to Losang for all we learned from his websites, photographs, and book recommendations.

Final Note Before Return Journey

Photo: Sander receiving an invitation to visit a yurt or tent on the steppe in the Henan Mongol Autonomous County, Amdo Region of Greater Tibet, Qinghai Pronvince, P.R. of China (August, 2010).

Many thanks to Daryl and Courtenay Houk for their support and assistance on so many essential fronts!

And special thanks to Courtenay Houk for reading, editing, and posting my blog entries (sites like blogspot, facebook, and others are blocked in China). I will elaborate on my current submissions, and add more, in addition to many photographs -- and film clips -- following our return home.

We will begin our journey home tomorrow.

Brad


Photo: Sander shot this photo of me outside of Guide's Jiaotong Luguan as we were heading back to Xining.

Letter to Daryl

Photo: After traveling from Xining to Hong Kong in one long day, a late-night-exhausted-blurry-view of lively Hong Kong Harbor from the amphitheater of the Youth Hostel on Mount Davis, Kennedy Town, Victoria, Hong Kong Island, August, 2010.

Hey Honey,

Yes, Sander and I arrived in Hong Kong last night. Our journey went like this:

We took a taxi yesterday morning from our hotel in Xining to the airport about 20 miles east. We boarded the plane around 1:35 pm and took off 30 minutes later. To our surprise, after only a couple hours, we were landing. This was too soon to be Guangzhou. People started to get ready to disembark. This stop was not explained to me when I purchased our tickets and it was certainly not printed on our tickets. I don't know if we were the only ones who were clueless though. When the stewardess announced what was going on I could neither understand her Chinese nor her English. Minutes later, with a lot of lateral movement by the plane (which we have noticed a lot of during our domestic flights in China, making the flights more wild than a roller coaster since roller coasters don't move that way [at least the ones that stay on the tracks]), we abruptly landed in Changsha!

Changsha?

Once off the plane and in the terminal, and after being told to wait at the wrong gate at the wrong time by a woman at the Changsha information counter, we ended up on the right plane at the right time and assured by a more reliable source that our luggage was on our plane.

We arrived in Guangzhou around 6:00 pm and were soon in a taxi for the Guangzhou East Train Station.

We went through Chinese customs and caught the Express train to Hong Kong with 20-30 minutes to spare. On the train, knowing the hostel closes its gates at night and locks them but unsure of the time (I was thinking possibly 9:00 pm but more likely 10:00 pm, but that was 24 years ago and tonight it was already after 9:00 and going on 10:00.) I told Sander that it's a killer hill up to the hostel and were it closed we would either be camping out or paying for a hotel that would in one night cost more than the hostel costs in three.

I asked Sander, "You need to ask yourself a question: 'Do you feel lucky?'"

Sander replied with an emphatic: "Yes!"

We arrived in Hong Kong where we went through their customs and were in a taxi for the youth hostel by 10:30 pm via the Harbor Tunnel and then through Central and Kennedy Town in Victoria on the north shore of Hong Kong Island. At it's western point he took a hard left and drove up to the top of Mount Davis approaching the hostel just below the summit. It's quite a summit.


Photo: Impressionistic view of Hong Kong Harbor at night from youth hostel, August, 2010.

As the taxi pulled to a stop, we saw that the gate was still open! We hopped out, Sander paid the cabby, and we grabbed our gear reading the sign on the gate as we entered: GATE CLOSES AT 11:00 PM AND WILL NOT OPEN UNTIL 7:00 AM. We made it inside by 12 minutes! Twelve minutes!

Can you believe it!

Ours was an incredible sprint across China. To have covered all that distance -- in China -- in one day, through all those different methods of travel, and then to get inside where we had reservations with minutes to spare was incredibly lucky. I told Sander, "I'm traveling with luck," as I looked at him. He replied, "I'm traveling with luck," as he looked at me.

We were both lucky and totally exhausted!

We still are.

Right now we're in Kowloon, on the north side of Hong Kong Harbor and north of Hong Kong Island.

After scouting out how we were going to get to the airport the day after tomorrow, we decided to take the Star Ferry across the Harbor just for the fun of it. To enjoy the ride. To enjoy the sights of Hong Kong and Kowloon and the harbor itself. It's a beautiful harbor and a gorgeous day.


Photo: The famous Star Ferry, which we used daily to travel back and forth between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.

Having hardly eated yesterday, we pigged out on some Hong Kong pasteries this morning and then sat down and had a real meal for a change from yesterday. For tonight we're entertaining the thought of picking up a Beijing Duck and taking it back to the hostel with us where we will wash clothes, write up our journals, and just relax. Maybe we'll view the harbor from the summit of Mount Davis just above our hostel too.

Anyway, thank you for writing and just wanted you to know where we were and how we got here. We'll soon be on our way home.

I love and miss you too!

Brad

Sander the Yak

Photo: Yaks walking the street of Zeku, Qinghai Province, August, 2010.

We were in the market near our hotel in the Tibetan Quarter of Xining today. The Tibetans, like the Chinese, are not the most hairiest of people and body hair often interests them. Two Tibetans observed Sander buying a sling before commenting on his hairiness. Of course, yaks are really hairy too. In fact, they seem hairier in real life. The yaks we saw looked like they were wearing great beards, or skirts, sweeping against the ground by their hooves as they grazed. Sander and I, like the Tibetans, love yaks and feel, as Basho might have said, that they are deserving of their Chinese name: MAONIU (hairy ox). Meanwhile, the Tibetans, were scrutinizing Sander's hairy face, arms, and legs, and inquired if he was buying a sling shot to use for yak herding back in America. Impulsively, I made horns with my forefingers and placed them pointing skyward on either side of Sander's head while telling them that Sander was a MAONIU. They laughed and laughed! And so did we in the market, here in Xining, in the Tibetan Quarter.


Photo: Sander, in the market trying on boots, after buying a sling and conversing with two Tibetans.

Guide

Photo: Sander on the ancient city wall surrounding the old part of Guide, August, 2010.

Following our drive from the steppe town of Tongde to the oasis town of Guide (pronounced: Gwee de), I am more confused about the physiography of Amdo, Qinghai province, than ever. Wherever we've traveled in Qinghai we seem to have been encircled by mountains. When we rode onto mountains, there were always higher ones in the distance. When we got to those, there were still more. Mountains were everywhere and there were different types. In the oasis of Guide, we were encircled by rugged, dry, hot, barren mountains. Below the moutains, even the water was hot. Some of the hotels fed off the hotsprings.

Upon entering Guide, our bus passed the Wenquan Binguan, a new, three-story, hotel that looked both inviting and way beyond our price range. (Sander and I had a very low price-range.) When we stepped off the bus, we walked through the station and out to the street where we looked for the Jiaotong Luguan - the Traffic Hotel (Traffic hotels provide the basics. Best of all, they are cheap. We like cheap).

We scanned the Chinese characters on signs and found it instantly right next door. We entered, asked if they had any rooms and the price for the two of us. They had rooms and would make them available to us. Sometimes foreigners aren't permitted to stay in places like this and are instead directed to more expensive facilities where they are also taxed.) The price for our room was 60 Yuan Renminbi (less than $10 total for a two-bed room). We liked the price and asked to see the room (a common practice). The attendant walked us upstairs, down the hall, and opened a door. We stepped inside and looked around.

Sander and I were absolutely delighted to have our own toilet to say nothing of the shower with 24-hour hot water (maybe this hotel also tapped into the hotsprings below). Without looking any further, we said we'd take it for two days.

We spent the next two days exploring the remains of the old city wall. In fact, it was the old city wall that Sander wanted to see most in Guide (it was the reason we came here). Over the past few weeks, I'd mentioned Xian's old city wall, in Shaanxi Province, and another I'd read about in Pingyao, Shanxi Province, which got Sander thinking. Since we would not be visiting Xian, and now that Pingyao was scratched off our itinerary, Sander decided that we should stop in Guide, just for the wall, on our way back to Xining. We had to ask around to find the wall.

When we did, I could see disappointment in Sander's eyes. The wall was nothing like the stone or brick ones he'd imagined ... like the ones I'd described. Guide's wall was made out of adobe bricks and although it was 30 feet tall in many places, it was also in need of repair in many more. Nevertheless, the wall did not lack history. It was, after all, built during the Ming Dynasty and in the neighborhood of 700 years old. To salvage something positive from the experience Sander proposed that we climb the wall. The wall was such a steep and precarious climb that I tried not to show my reservations. Instead, I suggested we walk the perimeter first to scout out a good place to climb to the top.

As we walked around the wall, we noticed signs that we thought might've said something to the effect of, DON'T CLIMB THE WALL. There was a police car nearby and people walking in and out of the surrounding villages. Just as we wondered if anyone would care if we climbed we saw a well-dressed girl walking on top of the wall. My reservations evaporated and Sander found a place to climb.

Photo: Sander climbing Guide's ancient city wall (August, 2010).

With a little effort, we made it and walked along the top looking at the vast courtyards within, the many neighborhoods without. And we simply explored. There was much to explore. It was a fascinating wall. The heights were at times dizzying and we had so much fun we decided to return the next day.

Photo: The stone carving we found in Guide's ancient city wall (August, 2010).

We spent the next day on top of the wall drawing. From a hole in the top of the wall we found a circular stone with a carved pattern like a nautilus shell. We wondered what it was used for and talked about how it must have been regarded as junk before getting tossed into the wall centuries ago. It might, therefore, be hard to say how old it really was. By the end of the day, I don't think Sander was at all disappointed in the wall.

Photo: Sander drawing on Guide's ancient city wall (August, 2010).

It was also so hot that between us we drank 10 bottles of water that afternoon before sitting in the shade along a street eating ice cream, hanging out, watching people and traffic pass by.

Photo: Sander atop Guide's ancient city wall (August, 2010).

Photo: Brad sketching on the top of the ancient city wall of Guide (August, 2010).

Mongolian & Tibetan Encounters

Photo: The motorcycle has been replacing the horse on the steppe among Mongolian and Tibetan herdsmen. In the Henan Mongol Autonomous County, where Sander and I spent 11 days, we saw Mongolian and Tibetan herdsmen on both horses and motorcycles ... but mostly motorcycles in the town of Henan.

During a bumpy bus ride between Zeku and Heri, Sander gazed out upon the steppe and watched Tibetan women in chubas filling large green bags before asking, "Dad. What are they harvesting?"

Squinting out the window in the direction Sander was looking, I said, "Just as people in Vermont are collecting firewood for their winter, so the Tibetans here are collecting yak dung for theirs. Eventually, they'll pile it into a mound and probably, later on, mix it with water, make it into round fistfulls, flatten it into circular patties, then slap them against a south-facing wall. There the patties will dry in the sun. Once dried, they'll peel them off and stack them away for the winter."

We've been smelling the smoke of yak dung fires lately. Not only from cooking fires but ceremonial ones from below our room in Heri, neaby residences, and Buddhist sites. I've actually taken a liking to the smell, almost as much as I did to the pinon pine on the Navajo Indian Reservation. It's a smell we find most everywhere here.

Everywhere, the Mongolians and Tibetans have taken a liking to Sander. Tall, chuba- and sash-wearing, rough-looking men with weathered faces, would stop or walk over to Sander on the street and lock eyes with him. A bit startled at first, Sander would look toward me. Only a couple times did I have to say, "Meet his gaze, Sander, and hold onto it. Look deep into his eyes the way he's doing to you. Then, when you're ready, flash him a big smile." Unlike the Chinese, who consider it disrespectful to lock eyes for most any length of time, the Mongolians and Tibetans love it. They meet eyes and capture you. It's as if they read who you are in how you respond. Sander, from then on, would meet their gaze, and hold onto it in a long intimate exchange. Then curl his lips into a huge smile revealing his braces. Without fail, the Mongolians and Tibetans of Amdo, who value any form of generosity or act of kindness, even a smile, responded with an even bigger one and often one decorated with many gold teeth. As the the Mongolians and Tibetans of Amdo captured Sander, Sander captured them.

Photos: Captured in an Amdo gaze: 12 people we met.











We were also captured by more than a few monks between Henan and Tongde. They would so often approach us, grab us by the hands, lead us to a certain spot, ask to be photographed with us, and we with them exchanging cameras, and then we would go our own ways. Although sometimes there were other requests. In Tongde, after such an exchange, a group of monks invited us to eat with them. Since we had just eaten, we declined and told them that we were going to climb the mountain. They liked the idea, especially, I think, because they had just climbed it themselves. They then invited us to drink together after we returned. We thanked them but, even though hardly any of the monks we encountered since Hong Kong tried to solicit us for money, declined to take them up on it. But the gesture itself was like another Tibetan smile.

After visiting the monestary in Heri, Sander and I were walking back through town when it was crowded with people from the steppe. Horses were being traded and huge bales of sheepskins as well. Utensils, tools, and food were being purchased. Motorcycles, the new horse of the steppe, were everywhere. A Tibetan on a motorcycle locked eyes with me as he drove slowly past. I locked eyes with him. He looked as if he could have played the lead role in a film about an Amdo fight for independence. I flashed him a big smile. He, to my suprise, stuck his tongue out at me! I told Sander.

"Yeah Dad. It's a sign of respect or admiration. I've gotten it a lot. Actually, I've started doing it back."

Sander and I left Tongde on the Amdo steppe by bus and rode to Guide (pronounced: Gwee de).

The Voice

Photo: Sander with monks in Tongde (August, 2010)

Sander and I didn't know what the police were so concerned about. We didn't know what we might have captured on film that would send an officer out to get us within minutes after we started filming. Maybe he was followng up on a complaint from a resident, such as the Hui man who rode by on a motorcycle that I happened to catch. Had I known he was Hui when he first came into view, I wouldn't have filmed him. I know the Hui (who are Muslim) don't like to be filmed. (In 1997, in Shijiazhuang, a Hui man once threw a rock at me while I photographed a Hui street market. I got the message and have since always asked.) Sander and I have done lots of asking permission on this journey.


Photo: Tongde, a town on the Qinghai steppe, but deep in the protected Baqu Valley with loess cliffs to the north and south (August, 2010).

But what if the police were concerned about us filming the many new communication towers and installations that line the rim of Tongde's gorge? China's military has made enormous strides in the past few years and Qinghai, the Amdo region of Greater Tibet, might still be a sensitive region regarding potential social unrest among the Tibetans. There are many Tibetans here. Tibetan is the language to know. In fact, as I write this in a little Tongde internet cafe, everyone around me is speaking Tibetan, not Chinese. If the possibility of social unrest is an issue, that might explain the army barracks, as well as the armed police barracks, in most of the towns we've visited in Amdo. If this was over anything regarding the military, I wondered if this might be a problem. So I prepared. The officer said he would be at our room at 8:00 pm.

Before 8:00 I looked up words for world, government, tower, and shadow. I wanted to be prepared to explain that a government that spies on its own citizens would surely spy on other countries. That whatever Sander and I might've filmed from the ground has already been photographed from space. That even if those images didn't provide the information desired, the height and many other details could be extrapolated from the length and shape of the shadows of the towers based on time of year and time of day. I played out the possibilities and came up with a short list of keys words to use and commited them to memory. I wanted to be ready.

I've dealt with the Chinese police before for riding my bicycle in closed areas. The Chinese police simply do not mess around sometimes. At other times, they make examples out of people. I thought of possible accusations and appropriate defending arguments and memorized key words. I tried not to show Sander how nervous I was.

At 8:00 pm sharp a gentle knock came to the door.

I opened it and invited the officer in. He was alone.

He smiled and handed me the camera. I didn't understand everything he said. So I asked Sander to open the camera to see if his film was still in there. It was.

The officer explained that everything was good. He seemed to be as happy as I was that there wasn't a problem.

He asked how long we would be staying.

I told him we'd leave the day after tomorrow. I asked if we could take pictures in Tongde.

He assured me that that would be fine. We were allowed.

I thanked him.

He thanked me, shook my hand twice, and saluted me twice.

I didn't expect anything like this. It was so easy. So quick. So pleasant.


Photo: After saving money in our spartan accommodations in Zeku and Heri, in order to get a shower in Tongde, we had to go with a suite for about $25 per night (August, 2010).

Once he left, Sander and I reviewed the film. The beginning was a segment Sander shot of the monastery in Heri, the town where we spent two days before our arrival in Tongde. In Heri Sander had gorgeous shots of the stupas and prayer flags.

Then we watched the short piece I filmed of Sander walking earlier that day. At the end of the clip, we could hear a voice yelling for us to stop.

A voice, a story, Sander may never forget.

I know I won't.


Photo: Sander at the bus station in Tongde. If one can navigate China's transportation system of busses, trains, and planes, one can go about anywhere in China with ... RELATIVE ... ease ... surprises ... hardships ... and rewards.

Paranoid

Photo: Tongde stretches out along a canyon of loess cliffs along the Baqu River.

Tongde is in a gorgeous valley! A long, east-west trending, deeply-dissected, gorge that resembles a smaller version of the Grand Canyon-but with more grass on the less-than-verticle slopes. There are many verticle slopes thanks to the loess near the top. There are caves in the loess. We checked one out. I'm sure the caves are old. The town looks relatively new and is comprised of two main roads running parallel to each other with, like much of China, lots of frantic construction. Beyond the construction and noise are high cliffs north and south. Our hotel, the Tongde Binguan, faces the north-facing southern ones. Last night Sander proposed that we climb it where we saw a man and yaks standing precariously on a narrow switchbacking path. I suggested that I walk with Sander's video camera and film him for a change. He agreed.


Photo: A view looking south from our hotel window.

Late this morning, we walked out of our hotel, crossed the busy main street, turned left, then right down an alley. As I started filming Sander, we descended toward the river. There were wading yaks and a Tibetan woman yelling and throwing stones at the yaks from the north bank in an effort to herd them upstream. Sander paused on the bridge nearby where prayer flags covered the railings and fluttered in the breeze. It was a soothing breeze on this sunny, hot day. I zoomed in on Sander, the yaks, then the Tibetan woman. After pulling away I spun around to catch a glimpse of the village near the bridge at the edge of the town, the cliffs in all directions, the huge horizontal stand of prayer flags up the path at the top of the gorge, and, finally, on Sander as he started the climb. The climb was so steep that for every four steps Sander climbed up he slid back down one or two. He slid a lot. But I slid more. We stopped and discussed how we were going to tackle this before Sander said he wanted to see if he could make the climb up the path he chose. Suddenly, a voice, called to me from behind. I ignored him at first, not sure if it was me he was talking to, and continued to try to follow Sander but with noticeable difficulty. I heard more shouts. Before long, I could not ignore them any longer. I recognized the blue uniform. The police. We walked toward each other.


Photo: The path we took seen from a distance.

He told me that he was the police. I told him I know. (Someone must've seen us and called the police.)

He wanted to know what we were doing. I explained.

I asked if he spoke English. He said he didn't.

He wanted to know where we were staying. I told him.

He wanted to know where we came from and where we were going, that is, what our plans were. I told him.

Then he wanted to know what we were filming. I told him that I was filming my son climb up the mountain.

It was the filming that concerned him. Maybe something on the rim?

He wanted to know other things but my Chinese is very limited and I didn't understand everything that he was asking. I told him so. He didn't believe me. He said that I was understanding what he wanted and that I spoke just fine. (Okay, maybe I knew a little more than I let on but I still missed way too much and guessed at the rest. I do a lot of guessing when I speak Chinese.) We argued about that for a while, but, the end, which I did know, it was camera and film he wanted.

I asked if I could take his picture.

He flinched.

He asked if he could confiscate Sander's camera.

I told him that I loved China and the people (implying that and wouldn't intentionally do anything to harm anyone), that I even taught English to a college for the People's Liberation Army.

But he assured me that he would return it tonight. But tonight could mean a long time waiting. I didn't want to wait if I didn't have to. I pinned him down for a time. Eight o'clock pm. He told me that at 8:00 pm he would bring Sander's camera to our room.

I asked if we could climb the hill.

He said we could. We shook hands. He walked away.

Sander and I continued up the wall of the gorge. It was steep. We slid backwards a lot. Tiny stones rolled under our feet. The goats are good at this but even the yaks take their time. The yaks really take their time. We met yaks along the way. Later we met goats. The goats are fast.

Near the top Sander and I stood among a horizontal stand of prayer flags. The flags, the gorge, the town, altogether they were breathtaking! Too bad we couldn't film this! Even worse, too bad I couldn't film Sander make the climb. Yet the climb wasn't over. We still hadn't climbed onto the plateau at the top of the gorge (we were planning to climb up all the way and walk along the rim then hike down via another route). We continued up.

But just as we approached the top we were met by a large, angry, chained dog barking hysterically at us. A woman peaked from over a wall to a home we previously hadn't noticed. She wasn't doing anything to calm the dog. The dog, watching us, wouldn't stop. It looked vicious. We picked up some rocks, turned around, and carefully descended...looking behind us periodically. We slid a lot. One does not want to slide at the wrong spot on a path like this. We didn't slide at any wrong spot but there weren't many right ones either. I thought about the camera and film.

I hope they don't keep Sander's footage and I certainly hope they return the camera.

He should be at our room by 8:00.

If he shows up on time and alone it should be good.

If he shows up later than 8:00 with others it might be trouble.

Back on the main street Sander and I sat in front of a store eating ice cream. It was a perfect time for ice cream and conversation. We decided to walk to the internet cafe.

The cafe was practically filled with Tibetans, most playing computer games and some shouting at each other. Sander and I got online. He read and responded to some emails and is now watching Colbert. A man came in and was watching me from the other side of the room. Five minutes later, as I continued to write this, he stood behind me. He just stood and watched. After a few minutes I said hello. He responded and walked away.


Photo: Among the first Chinese characters that Sander learned were WANG BA (internet cafe). In no time Sander was picking out these characters all over many of the communities in which we stayed (August, 2010).

I just feel we've been watched a lot today.

Maybe I'm paranoid.

Brad