We are driven up the valley toward the trailhead to the village of Lao Yulin. We meet our staff and horses at the horseman’s house. Dorgi’s is a group of three traditional Tibetan stone buildings set on a small compound and surrounded by a stone wall. It overlooks Kangding valley on one side and up toward the Five Sisters mountain peaks on the other. It is a stunning setting. Peaceful. When we arrive, the horses are grazing in the courtyard while Dorgi’s wife organizes and packs our food and Dorgi prays while circumambulating his own private Chorten. Dorgi’s two grandchildren run out to greet us. They want us to take their pictures and show them the images. They pose and we happily comply.
The staff takes over organizing the supplies and packing the horses with our food and gear. Dorge finishes his prayers and runs over to welcome us. He is the stereotypical Tibetan with a wide, tanned face, well-worn clothing, bad teeth and an ebullience that is positively infectious. He warmly hugs each of us while chanting “Tashi dele!” (Hello!/Welcome!). He takes Bart’s head in a playful chokehold and rubs his hair nuggie style and then kisses both of his cheeks. All the while, he is laughing.
Dorgi’s wife beckons us into the house. Both of them are visibly excited to host us and are proud to show us their home, which by Tibetan standards is quite large and luxurious. Though traditional on the exterior, Dorgi’s home does not reflect the typical floor plan. Generally, the lower floor is unfinished and maintained as housing for animals, including yaks, cows and dogs. The family quarters are on the second and third floors with access to them via steep, narrow ladders rather than the staircase we are greeted with here. Additionally, Dorgi’s first floor is roughly finished and features a Western style entry vestibule with a large family room to the left.
Like most family rooms, Dorgi’s is lined with beds that are covered in brightly colored rugs during the day when they serve as couches. The center table is metal and has a built in electric hot plate with a teapot heating on it. At the end of the table is a wooden cube with a large metal bowl built into it. It is filled with ashes from prior fires and is used for cooking more complicated fare than we are having today. There is nothing on the wall other than a single image of the Potala, the Tibetan Mecca. A 3x5” photograph of the 14th Dalai Lama sits inconspicuously next to a radio on a bureau. I learn that images of His Holiness are again permitted here in Tibet but it is still considered unlawful to celebrate him. I am hopeful that this is a step in the right direction.
Dorgi’s wife lays out small bowls in front of each of us and places a tray in the center of the table that includes a mound of yak butter, sugar and ground barley – or tsampas. She pours each of our bowls with yak butter tea, a staple and significant form of sustenance in the traditional Tibetan diet.
Typically, the ground barley is placed in the tea, which is then “spiced” with additional butter and sugar. As the barley hardens, it is molded into a ball and eaten. I take a sip of my tea and try to smile like a kid in a Campbell’s soup commercial but I am pretty sure that I look more like Lucy after swallowing a teaspoon of Vitavitavegiman. I do not have any more yak butter tea. Our horses are nearly ready so we decide to head out in order to get an adequate lead on them. They will likely pass us in a couple of hours and we don’t ever want there to be too much time or distance between our selves and our gear. I am carrying a daypack that contains all of the items I might need during the course of a day in the mountains. Mountains being temperamental, this is by necessity a fairly wide range of things, including a gortex rain jacket, umbrella, medical kit, flashlight, pole, dew rag, baseball cap, sunscreen, bug repellant, lip balm, whistle, shovel, toilet paper, Purell, cameras, Kleenex, an extra layer, 2 liters of water, a couple of protein bars and a bag of gorp. All in all, my pack weighs about 25 pounds but it’s well designed and fitted so I am quite comfortable.
This is a decidedly different scenario than two years ago when I took my first trek in Bhutan. Perhaps it was because of the enormous expense of getting to and around Bhutan that I chose that particular time in my life to uncharacteristically go all cheap and pragmatic. Instead of gearing up properly, I opted to make do. I pulled down the giant Tupperware that had been collecting dust in my garage since my philandering ex put it there after our last camping trip three years prior, dusted it off and dug out a bunch of what I thought would be perfectly adequate stuff. For example, a NorthFace backpack I bought in 1987 to carry my books in business school would be a perfectly suitable day pack. Yep. There sure is nothing like twenty pounds pressing against your back while hiking in cotton clothing (another error) to get yourself sweating. Hence, my hike through Bhutan was an ongoing dance of enrobing for warmth from the environment and disrobing for warmth from my own sweat. Further, while I did prepare my medical kit with prophylactic items such as Cipro, Zithromax, and Benadryl, I did not think it necessary to actually take the Diamox like everyone else in my group as a preventative for altitude sickness. Guess who got the headache? And I wondered if I really needed a $250 gortex raincoat and a $100 pole? Come on, I thought, my knees are fine and I already have a non-gortex wind coat. Marmot made it, I rationalized. They’re a really famous mountain gear company! With an anorak underneath, I just knew I would be plenty warm. And technically that would have been true had the jacket been waterproof or provided any insulation from the cold and had it never actually rained. Which it did on our last day. So much so that what was to have been an 8 mile hike turned into a 20 mile, 10 hour hike down roughly 6,000 feet in snow and ultimately, pouring rain. Take it from me: you should invest in really good gear.
Back in Tibet, we decide that rather than take the van up to the trailhead, it makes more sense to walk to it. Today is a relatively short day, with only 4 hours or so of walking and only about a 1,500-foot gain from our current location (which is about 1,100 feet above our last sleeping location in Kangding) so we agree we can use the exercise. We hike up a paved road, which the Chinese are slowly extending into Tibet, for about an hour.
Next to us, and for the remainder of the trek, is the Gyazi River, which moves quickly all year long and provides a relaxing white noise for the entire trip. Once we are on the trail, I expect to feel immediately transported into nature and away from the din of city life. But in the first several hours, we wend our way alongside two hydro power plants under construction and several gravel production sites. Rock is the primary material used in residential and commercial construction so you see gravel being ground everywhere here, often by women and by hand…along city streets, highways, anywhere there are rocks to be crushed.
We stop in order to allow our horses to overtake us so camp construction can be underway by the time we reach it. We sit on rocks and eat lunch. A woman rides up on horseback and waves as she passes into the mountains.
She is an herb hunter and this month is the most auspicious of the year for herb and worm hunting. It is such an important month that for its entirety, schools release children to allow them to join their families and assist in the search. Families can often make thousands of dollars in May – a great deal of money to the average Tibetan. Coming down the mountain are two Tibetan men with worn, mismatched outfits and gorgeous broad, smiling faces.
They carry walking sticks and fanny packs bulging with newly harvested worms. One man has a sterling silver machete strapped to his side and the other holds a large axe in his hand by its head, rolling it in his palm back and forth. I know that Tibetans revere life in all its manifestations, but I am a highly imaginative, somewhat cynical American and I have learned by watching my local news to be apprehensive of people bigger than me who carry weapons. I am also a person who is inexplicably afraid of even looking at the gun in a policeman’s holster (I actually believe that by not looking at it, it really isn’t there). Perhaps crime isn’t such a big deal in Holland because Bart seems to care less about the presence of lethal weaponry. He immediately starts teasing both men, who happily tease him back. It’s nothing more than the universal male bonding ritual of pokes and gesticulations and little chuckles of mutual knowing under their breath until Bart tugs the machete right out of its holster with no interference from its owner. In fact, the guy lifts his arms to make it easier. To be fair, Bart offers the man his Canon EOS in exchange before holding the machete up in the air Samurai style and slowly swishing it around.
Boys.
The Tibetan man takes a few pictures of Bart and shows them to his friend on the replay screen. All I can think is that Bart should put that thing back. The machete is pretty much freaking me out.
Apparently, the knife is used as a tool to extricate fungus encrusted worms from their hiding places under rocks and hardened soil. Despite this knowledge, I focus all of my brain cells and meditatively will Bart to return the knife. Finally, he does. With that game over, the men pull out heaping handfuls of worms
and offer to sell them to us for only $3 apiece. I realize that no matter where you are in the world, the flower market in Los Angeles or the side of a mountain in Kham, it’s always cheaper without the middleman. One hand alone contains about $60 of worms ($100 retail). A week’s rations for both of these two. We pass on the worms, offer a joyous Tashi Dale (Goodbye!) and continue on the trail.
We arrive at our camp, Gesar Tsara, at about 3 pm. It is a huge meadow surrounded by mountains situated at 11,600 feet. It is sunny and the sky is a deep, regal blue punctuated with a couple fluffy white clouds. I wander about and take photos of the tents being pitched like a chain of five round orange moons from across the meadow where I stand. 
My companions are trying to help with the tents, but Phillip has brought two staff members along who are specifically trained in and responsible for this task. I think it is a matter of pride that they do the pitching without us girls. So instead, the girls get busy designing the layout of our camp, indicating exactly where and how each tent should be oriented. Everyone wants a mountain view and does not for a moment consider the weather.
We have several hours before dinner so I grab my duffle and enter the privacy of my tent for a little down time. Wow, I think, this thing is huge. I can hear everyone else making the same observation and Phillip, who owns the tents, acknowledges this seemingly luxurious fact with great pride. “Yes, yes.” he responds, “Four Man. Brand new. Never used.” Four man? But I am only one woman. And so is everyone else. Maybe I’m two if you count my 50 pound duffle and 20 pound day pack as an anorexic or prepubescent second. Even so, there is a lot of room in here to spread out and, though I do not consider it at this particular moment, a lot of room in which to get really cold.
The tent’s vestibule, which is formed by the space between the tent itself and the secondary tarp that is placed over it to protect it from potential weather, is positioned to face the Five Sisters peaks. I open the door of the tarp and the tent and push them back to reveal the view. I then lay my sleeping bag atop my ThermaRest and push it to the very center of the tent so I can sit on this relatively cushioned spot and enjoy it. This is some piece of real estate, I think.
The duffle is pretty soft so I decide it is the best back rest slash pillow available to me so that is what it becomes. I tuck it under the head of my bag. I lay my headlamp next to my book and my glasses on top of that along the right side of my bag. This way I can find them easily should I be forced to do so in the dark. I pull out my dopp kit, pulling out a package of Dove facial towels and four bottles of potions that I have been hoodwinked into believing will give me younger looking skin if used routinely. Yes, even in the wilderness I apply my Darphin. Girls.
When I finish, I lean back on the duffel and do two Sunday New York Times puzzles in a row and listen to my iPod.
It is very warm in the tent with the afternoon sun so intent today so I fall asleep. I am awoken by the dinner bell, which is actually Bart screaming “Dinner Ready!” with his voice chanting a single note and then shooting straight up the scale on the “dy,” which he pronounces as “day.” It sounds like a yodel. It is getting colder quickly now so I put on my puffy coat and head to the mess tent.
As we sit around our table in camping chairs that have holes in the arms for beer cans we don’t have, we talk amiably about our relaxing afternoon. Phillip comes in and tells us that dinner is almost ready and then turns to Carol to acknowledge that he is aware of her vegetarianism and has planned our meals accordingly. This sets off Julia and Louise, who seem to think that not eating meat is a sure sign that Carol will starve. Clearly, Julia and Louise suggest to Bart and me as Carol protests that she is fine, we must defer all non-meat dishes to Carol.
I think this attitude is why so many vegetarians are overweight. My own 18 years of vegetarianism were plagued with questions and declarations like: Where is your protein? That’s not enough protein! Isn’t there something missing in your sandwich? Like the sandwich! Last time I checked, the dictionary does not define a sandwich by what is in it. In actuality, it’s defined as a food containment or delivery system.
For those who do eat meat, those who do not eat it are judged the same way as those who do not drink. People don’t get that either. When you don’t drink, everyone presumes it’s because you have a problem. Just like when you don’t have children, it’s because you’re sterile or you’re single because surely you’re gay. The bottom line is that we all judge each other by what we know. And what we know is exactly how everyone else should live his or her life: exactly how we do. Which, in turn, includes eating meat, drinking, being married to the opposite sex and having children.
Several years ago, I took a hiking trip to Basalt, above Aspen in Colorado with my sister Julie. While there, we were not permitted caffeine, alcohol or sugar. Even though everyone knows that vacation is defined as the socially acceptable vehicle for indulgence in lusty, fun behaviors that we diligently avoid at home lest it make us fat, slovenly or a slut, my sister and I viewed this particular vacation as an opportunity to get some great exercise in a gorgeous setting followed by a massage and healthful food. Plus it was a great opportunity for each of us to address our particular addiction: for Julie it was coffee and for me it was diet coke.
Joining us on our adventure spa vacation of deprivation was, among others, a couple of vegetarian ladies from Long Island. I remember Julie asking me why, if they were vegetarians, were they so fat? The truth is that many vegetarians (not ALL!) reward themselves for not eating meat by overeating a lot of bread and pasta and empty calories like dessert. It’s as though vegetarianism is this brand of vegetarian’s license to eat poorly. Ironically, their label defines them as “healthy” and permits them to unhealthfully overindulge elsewhere. As every vegetarian knows, whether they be healthy or unhealthy, there is always food to be had. Always. It’s just a question of whether you really want to eat it.
Not that any of this applies to Carol. Although she is certainly not heavy, she is a healthy, full-bodied woman. She is obviously a woman capable of finding something she is willing to eat.
Dinner is served Chinese family style. We all use chopsticks except Bart, who lacks the dexterity required to make them work. Instead he spears his food with a single stick or shovels it from the bowl to his mouth. Our first dish is a vegetarian spicy tomato, noodle soup made completely from scratch by Phillip even though his cousin is the cook. Everyone insists that Carol get the biggest bowl of the delicious tomato soup. And when seconds are offered, Carol gets dibs. It’s ok, I comfort myself, I am sure there will be plenty more.
But then the next dish arrives and it’s yak meat (uh, I don’t think so) followed by two varieties of pork (forget it! I haven’t eaten that since I was 15 and puked 12 times after eating Shake and Bake pork chops). I start to worry that I am going to starve tonight or maybe even for the entire trek when a plate of chicken is brought in. I am so relieved because I really like chicken. But then I take a bite and am reminded why I really don’t like Chinese food, truth be told. Chicken is prepared whole in China and then chopped into pieces using a meat cleaver, bones, joints, unidentifiable body parts and all. I can’t eat that. Fortunately the latke-like potatoes appear next along with a bowl of spicy haricot vert and I am back in heaven. I start giving subtle cues that I may be a vegetarian too. At least while in Asia.
When we exit the mess tent to return to our individual tents, we are greeted with a dramatic red and orange sky illuminating the Five Sisters back toward Kangding. This is a good sign for tomorrow. We all take several photos and call it a night.
Before returning to my tent, I pay a final visit to the “toilet” which is actually a small 3x3” A frame tent that has been set a respectful distance from the sleeping tents and positioned next to the relatively loud river. The thoughtful location of the tent reminds me of my friend Helga, who when trekking in Bhutan got so sick at altitude that she ultimately had to be brought down the mountain. Let's just say that her illness took on a highly musical dimension, which she found utterly humiliating because their toilet tent had been situated right in the middle of the sleeping tents, all of which were only about 10 feet apart. She told me that after 2 days of distress she begged her husband Dave to take the blame. "Davide! Davide!" she had cried, "You must tell them it is you!" Our discreetly situated toilet has a two-foot hole dug in the middle and the dirt from it has been piled in the back corner and has a shovel sticking out of it. When you have finished your business, camping etiquette dictates that you shovel some dirt into the hole to cover any evidence of it. It’s a sort of wilderness flush.
Unlike “toilets” on Bhutanese or Nepalese treks, this one has no “toilet” seat which would typically be a toilet seat set on a metal tripod. Our “toilet” is just like every other one in China: a squatter. According to Bart, the Chinese are still learning the finer details of luxury trekking. There is Chinese toilet paper propped up on a twig at the tent’s door. Experience tells me that this stuff is indeed, worse than the English stuff you once found in the john at Stonehenge. It came in folded brown squares and felt like burlap. I have some Charmin in a baggie tucked into my pants for just such moments. A girl likes to be quick in these situations. Unzip, hover, go, clean, zip and get the hell out. The entire time, I block my nose and breathe through my mouth. This is a habit I developed while living in New York City. Subway smells can be fairly noxious so you learn to adapt.
I do not intend to get out of my bag tonight to pay another visit to the facilities. I stopped drinking water at 5pm with this in mind but not getting up would be very much unlike me. Just in case, I brought easy on, easy off shoes which I place by the door. It has become noticeably colder outside so when I return to my tent and remove my layers to change into my long underwear, I am a little stunned. I worry that maybe long underwear isn’t going to cut it.
I admit that I have a reputation for getting cold easily. I think this started after moving to California. I grew up in Philadelphia so I clearly have experienced my share of cold winters but after one or two years of year round sun, I developed some kind of immunity to the cold so that now I don’t go out without a sweater if it is even a degree under 75. In Bhutan two years ago, I generally always had about 8 layers on at any point during the day. At night, I probably had 11 layers, two of which were anoraks. One night, I had been reading in my bag and I realized I needed to get up to go to the bathroom. I struggled to get the zipper down on the bag, reaching for it from the inside with one arm and the outside with the other. I had very little room to maneuver because I literally was snug as a bug in a rug. When I finally did get it half way open, I sat up and tried to wiggle my way out of the bottom half. I ended up flopping all over my tent in a highly ineffective attempt to extricate myself and when I couldn’t do so, I did the next least effective thing I could possibly do: I had a temper tantrum. Just like a five year old, but at 14,000 feet. My tantrum quickly devolved into hyperventilation, with me laying head downhill and knees bent under me like a post-run stretch. When I could breathe again, I laughed so hard that I cried.
I do not want to repeat that experience. Earlier tonight, Louise explained to me that my body would stay warmer the less I wear in the pack. It is designed to keep you warm to -30 or some such number that I never want to experience. But doesn’t Louise camp in the swamp in Bolivia, I ask myself argumentatively? What does she know about the mountains of Tibet? So I add a merino wool top and my puffy coat and start scooching down into the silk liner inside my bag. My feet hit the bottom and I think, “C’mon Amy, have a little faith.” So I scooch back up, remove my coat, and scooch back down once more. I turn off my head lamp and place it back with my book and glasses on my right side. Then I zip the bag up over my head so only my face is exposed, turn onto my right side as always and go to sleep.
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