Man Man Zou

We are in Langmusi, which is a small Tibetan monastery town right on the Ganzu and Sichuan province borders. Exactly a month ago, I was somewhat near here, in another Tibetan town called Xiahe. Now we are further south, but higher up (3300m elevation) so I’m very, very cold. Langmusi had its first snowfall of the season today.

Tibetans believe that when someone dies, they leave their body and go to a better place. Since Tibetans believe that there is no longer a use for the body, the best thing to do is to give it back to nature (as in vultures and eagles) in what is called a sky burial. Langmusi is one of the few places left where tourists can view a sky burial, likely because there are relatively few tourists here (Langmusi hasn’t made it on the Chinese tours yet). I was quite reluctant to go, even though seeing bodies be eaten by vultures really appeals to me, because it’s pretty ridiculous and invasive for tourists to stand around and watch… but go I did.

There are about a dozen or so foreigners here in Langmusi, almost all Israeli! Many Israelis travel, we see them in many countries even though Israel has only 6 million people. The Israelis have quite a reputation among other travelers- even more so than the reputation of ‘snobby’ French travelers. Other travelers find them annoying and say that they can be very condescending. Whether or not that’s true, I always find reputations based on country to be very amusing. My experience is that I can sometimes pick out an Israeli tourist when I see someone who just plain looks pissed off at the world. It’s very funny, because they’re not at all like that once I start talking with them. We have been talking a lot with some of the Israelis lately, and except for a psycho photographer who was very, well, condescending, the others were awesome. They jokingly told us we better learn some Hebrew because all the way down Sichuan province to Yunnan is just all Israeli tourists.

So a few mornings ago, along with 8 Israelis, we all shamelessly woke up early to hike up to the burial grounds and watch a sky burial. We hiked for about 45 minutes until we came to the top of a hill that was covered with Tibetan prayer flags. I knew I was in the right place because of the skeletal remains I saw scattered all over a 200m radius, only there was no one there. We walked around and examined all the remains and saw lots of braids, clothes, skulls, jaws, arms, legs, etc… There was one very fresh skeleton, and I could still see the blood on the bones, which led Mark and I to believe that maybe we had missed the morning’s burial. After a while the Israelis decided to leave, but we stayed just in case another one came. There were hundreds of vultures circling overhead and some monks sitting nearby, which made us think there might be another burial.

After I tried to photograph the huge buzzards and eagles for about half an hour, a group of six Chinese photographers showed up. We started talking to them and they said that another body is on the way for a sky burial. I was excited!

Soon after that a dirty tractor with three people (the body choppers) pulled up to the site. They all hopped off and pulled a body and a bag of clothes off the back of the tractor. Then they started yelling at us to come down from the hill we were on. Since we were with the Chinese guys we just followed whatever they did, but of course it wasn’t the right thing. The guys were trying to be sneaky and first they tried ignoring the body chopping people below. Then finally they decided to descend the mountain and instead of walking 300m away like we were told to, the Chinese guys parked themselves beside the monks who were near the body. I don’t know what they were thinking! But one thing I’ve learned in China is that Chinese tourists get away with a lot more than foreigners do because it’s just the Chinese way to ignore the rules. They were told that they couldn’t take any photos, and that they had to stand further away. One guy pulled out his huge video camera and tried to tell them that he was just recording the monks and the birds in the sky, which was a big fat lie and the people didn’t fall for it. So instead of putting his video camera away, he set it on the ground, facing the body, and told them he wasn’t going to use it (though of course it was recording the whole thing!). I found the antics of the Chinese tourists almost as interesting as what was going on.

We finally moved far enough away to keep the body choppers happy. I watched them take off all the clothes from the body and scatter them around the site. Meanwhile there were at least 50 vultures patiently waiting together on a nearby hillside. It was amazing that the vultures knew to wait. None of them were even circling overhead anymore, they were just huddling together and waiting. Finally, out came some huge knives and the body choppers- covered in plastic bags and wearing face masks- started cutting open the body. They took out some organs and flung them onto the grass, which was a signal for the dozens of vultures to come down and feast! Then the body choppers moved away from the body and let the birds take over. The vultures’ faces soon turned red from all the blood. After only 10 minutes, the body choppers shooed away the birds and pulled out the body- it was all bones!!! Those birds ate the entire body in 10 minutes! I couldn’t perfectly see what happened next, but I think the body choppers smashed a hole into the back of the skull to give the birds access to the brains.

While this was going on, the monks were chanting, AND, all the Chinese guys pulled out their cameras and video cameras and started clicking away. I was pretty shocked, but then I saw that they were getting away with it- no one seemed to care because I’m sure they were used to Chinese tourists being this ignorant. Even though there are also plenty of ignorant foreign tourists (myself sometimes included), we don’t get away with anything here because we just stand out too much and locals tend to get uncomfortable with many foreigners around. After seeing the guys’ blatant disregard for the rules, I couldn’t help myself and quickly pulled out my camera for a few minutes to take a few shots (standing behind Mark) and then put it away, feeling slightly guilty. The Chinese guys just kept shooting, with tripods and everything, and they even moved in closer. Before the sky burial began, the Chinese guys were telling us that this is the only place they could find in China that allowed people to watch- I’m sure that’ll change soon, thanks to people like them (and, unfortunately, me).

Seeing the sky burial was probably one of the most memorable things I’ve seen in all my travels.

We spent the rest of our time in Langmusi walking around the many temples. It was so cold that it was better to spend the time walking around outside in the sun, instead of being inside which actually felt colder. I slept in all my clothes, and also wore my toque, scarf, and two pairs of socks to bed.

On our second night in Langmusi, we were looking at cheap jewelry in a shop when a foreign guy walked in and asked us if we knew anything about horse trekking in the area. Before we answered him, Mark and I both stared at each other in confusion- we know this guy! Finally Mark said, “uhh, did you used to teach in Yuanlin?” He answered, “Yes, oh, you’re Mark!” It was Kevin, a guy we knew from Taiwan!

We both didn’t know that we were in China at the same time, and I can’t even begin to think about the chances of meeting in a tiny town all the way across China. It was so weird. At first it just felt like an everyday thing, but later in the night when I was thinking about how huge China is, and the chances of him just walking into the shop, I felt pretty surprised.

So we met later for beers- which meant water for me because I hate beer- and decided to take an overnight horse trek together. The funny thing was that Kevin had just come from a town called Songpan, which was where Mark and I had planned to go to the next day to find a horse trek. He said that Songpan was insanely touristy, and that he had been recommended to come to Langmusi and take a horse trek from there instead. Good advice!

The next morning the three of us met our guide, got on our horses, and left town. We had a big laugh because we were promised an English-speaking guide. Our guide only knew the word ‘horse’, he didn’t even know the words ‘left’ and ‘right’- I later taught it to him, which was much needed because he was always telling us which way to turn on our horses. The blatant lie of a promised English guide was so typical of what happens in China. But it didn’t matter at all because we could all speak Chinese, and our guide ended up being really, really awesome.

About 20 minutes into the trek, Kevin fell off his horse. It was a great start! Then our guide got angry at the horse and grabbed it by the reins and started punching it in the face! At first I felt bad for the horse, but then Kevin asked him to stop, and then we just all started laughing because seeing a man fighting a horse looked so ridiculous. For the rest of our trek, our guide was as gentle as a mother with a newborn child. He actually took care of us in the same way too. Anytime we were doing something, he’d jump up to help. I’ve never seen a man like that- anything from peeling an apple to getting on a horse to zipping up our backpacks to going to sleep, he was there to help as though it was his life duty.

We rode all day, perhaps for 6 hours or so. We took a few breaks, and had a simple lunch. We gained about 400m elevation, bringing us to approximately 3700m elevation where our Tibetan tent awaited us. We rode along grasslands, and most of the way they were dotted with Tibetan nomad’s tents and their sheep, yak, and dogs.

When we came to our tent it was late afternoon. Our guide started a yak-shit fire, and we rested inside. We weren’t supposed to go outside much because there were so many fierce nomads’ dogs out there. After an hour or so, a Tibetan lady came in. It was her tent, and she had been out with her sheep. She was very cute, a little curious about us because I don’t think she’s met many foreigners who can speak Chinese. She took out a box and started making the famous zangba, a Tibetan snack that I mentioned a month ago in a journal post. It’s made by mixing barley, yak butter, hot water, and sugar together into a thick paste.

After a rest, she told us she was heading back out to tend to her sheep. She invited us along, and we huffed it up a hill with her. At the top of the hill I saw how far away her sheep were- they were dots on a big grassy hill across the valley. I decided that with the cold and elevation, I was not lihai (good) enough to come along and help her and shamefully told her that I’d watch from across the hill. Lazy! I think we were all very tired from the horse ride though.

The whole time we ate very well. I wasn’t even hungry because I was a little sick from the elevation, but the food just kept coming. After the zangba, we had hand-pulled noodles for dinner. For dessert, we had the absolute best yoghurt of our lives. The yak yoghurt was fresh from the utter, it was thick and creamy- tasty beyond words!

Our big tent was cold, but there were quite a few people to help warm it up. Some more Tibetan guys joined us in the tent that evening. I’m not sure what the whole story was, since they were not family, just friends. Considering how much I know about Chinese culture now, I’d really like to understand the lifestyle of a Tibetan nomad better.

When it was time to go to sleep, our guide actually tucked us in at night- he zipped up my mummy sleeping bag all the way to the top and tucked comforters under us. Even though it was freezing cold, I was actually warmer than I was in my hotel room because I had so many layers. I slept ok, but had some problems likely due to the altitude. I seem to suffer every possible side effect of altitude whenever I go above 3500m. Headaches, bad sleep, having to pee every 20minutes, and even diarrhea are just some. I have yet to throw up from the elevation, but that’ll probably happen when I fly to Tibet.

The next morning I stepped outside the tent to see more than a hundred yaks and sheep tied up. I didn’t even know they had been rounded up the night before. There were a few Tibetan women out there milking the yaks, and some more shoveling the yak-shit (to be used in the stove fire). The whole area was treeless grass, so finding a place to go to the bathroom was not the easiest thing. I had to walk up a big hill for some privacy, and still I could see herders on the other side of the valley at the top of the hill.

After we had breakfast, we set off again on our horses on a different route back to Langmusi. The second day was somewhat less eventful than the first, but we were all mostly just tired from horseback riding so long. It seemed like sitting on a horse for 6 hours would be easy, but actually it wasn’t. I even got off the horse and walked alongside him a couple of times because my butt and legs hurt. By the time we returned to Langmusi though, I was quite comfortable on my horse and wanted to ride it for longer.

And now it’s my last night in Langmusi before I head down south to a hopefully warmer area.

For the sake of continuity, I should rewind to where I left off in my last journal post in Urumuqi, Xinjiang province. From there, we took a 26 hour train to Lanzhou, Gansu province. We were so tired that we kind of wanted to spend 2 nights in Lanzhou, but then I accidentally broke the shower hose and decided we better leave the next day so that the cleaning maid wouldn’t find it and fine us. Unfortunately that’s the way it is in China. Even though the shower hose just disintegrated and it wasn’t at all my doing, the customer is never right in China and I’m sure the hotel would have held our security deposit or even demanded that we pay more. If my shower broke in a hotel in Canada, there would have been apologies galore from the hotel, and it would be fixed right away. But then again, in Canada, there are no hotels for 10 bucks a night either…

After Lanzhou we took a terrible- but very scenic- road down south to Hezuo, and had to spend the night there before catching the bus to Langmusi.