After the Tiger Leaping Gorge we headed north-west to Zhongdian (Shangri-La).
One of the villages on the route north
We were gaining height all the time, and the landscape was becoming more and more dry. I’d mentioned how I wanted to try Tibetan tea, so Alex made a phonecall and arranged for us to have lunch in a typical Tibetan house. This turned out to be really interesting – to see how a typical house operated. Tibetan houses in Yunnan tend to be large and built around a courtyard, with the livestock living on the ground level, the family on the floor above, and storage above this.
The Tibetan family house
Cooking pots
Meat hanging up to dry
Balcony leading to the living quarters
Inside, it was spacious, highly decorated and quite smoky, with an open fire on a pit towards one corner.
Alex churned the yak butter for the po cha
The po cha, which is made from tea leaves, yak butter, and salt was fine, though a bit of an aquired taste.
Lunch was stewed yak with potatoes, which was really tasty.
Yak for lunch
We also tasted powdered barley, and a nip of the local hooch.
The loo
The veg garden. The wooden construction is for drying barley.
The ground floor, where the animals sleep.
This ‘local’ experience gave me a great idea. I could meet foreign tourists at Edinburgh Airport, take them to Fat Mac’s flat where they could try eating his broth and breed, and sample his home brew, visit his allotment and listen to him rant on in unintelligible Glaswegian. We could make a fortune.
Hmm. Maybe not.
This is actually quite interesting. Did anyone set themselves on fire?
The house fire is situated in a sandy pit, so that the house won’t go on fire. In some houses, they have a bag of water above the fire that can be pierced in emergencies. In terms of Tibetans, more live in Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu, and Yunnan than in Tibet Autonomous Region. The ones we saw in Yunnan seem to be doing very well for themselves, with lots of new schools, new houses, roads, etc. That’s the benefits of being part of a large country.
I say! Albert would be interested in seeing an indigenous Scottish homestead on his next visit. As long as you provide a translator.
Albert would have to sample the home brew.
I’m sure he’d lend a hand to pour it down the sink.
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