Disoriented in the Orient: Yaks, prayer flags and cowboys with altitude: a back route through Tibet

That should perhaps be tibet with a small t, as we haven't crossed the border into what China currently classifies as the Tibet Autonomous Region. But the route we travelled from northwestern Yunnan province into western Sichuan province took us through the heart of Kham, historically the eastern section of the Tibetan plateau. Ethnically it's more Tibetan than most of the accessible parts of the TAR, due to China's policy of encouraging Han Chinese immigration into the autonomous region - 80% of the population of western Sichuan are Tibetan, compared to 40% in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. With the high altitude and jagged, snowy peaks, and the ubiquitous yaks, monks, prayer flags and monasteries, we now think we've experienced so much genuine Tibetan life that there's little need to pay through the nose and jump through the bureaucratical hoops necessary in order to visit China's fenced-in version of Tibet. And did I mention the cowboys?

Tibet appeared just a couple of hours north of Tiger Leaping Gorge; the bus climbed up a small gorge onto a plateau, and suddenly pointy-roofed Chinese buildings and cows had given way to stocky, mud-coloured Tibetan house-castles and huge woolly yaks. I was pleased that the change was so obvious - in Yunnan we had supposedly travelled through several areas populated mostly by various ethnic minorities, but I had found it difficult to differentiate the people and their villages from the Chinese norm.

Our first stop in Tibet (and last in Yunnan) was Zhongdian, otherwise known as Shangri-La (see earlier blog entry). Here the local people backed up the impression of having entered a different country - they were noticeably taller and darker-skinned than anyone we'd seen so far in China. Prayer flags were hung across the main square in the old town, there were huge dogs tied up in courtyards ready to scare the living daylights out of any stranger that hovered too long at the gate, and yak butter tea was on offer at all the foreigner cafes. Oh yes, and it was COLD - we were at 3200m and, particularly in our concrete-floored room on the first night, we could feel it.

Locals dancing in Zhongdian's main square

Having spent a few days adjusting to the altitude and cold, we decided we were indeed up to the challenge of the tough backroads route north into Sichuan. Fortunately it was warmer inside the minibus than on the road at this 4000m-plus pass.

After two days of long bus journeys reaching altitudes of nearly 5000m (more than half of Everest!), and one run-in with the police (we were sold a ride in a private car, only to be stopped, told it was illegal, taken back to our start point and put safely in a licensed minibus), we arrived in Litang, in Sichuan or Kham depending on your perspective. At 4014m, Litang is apparently one of the highest cities in the world. And it was rather cold.

Even the yaks wanted to go inside

Fortunately we soon came across Mr Zheng, who was only too pleased to welcome our group of eight cold, unwashed foreigners into his cosy little restaurant.

Like all Tibetan towns we've seen so far, Litang has a massive monastery complex on the edge of town. The walk up to it would have taken about ten minutes at sea level; here, we arrived breathless after about three quarters of an hour of heavy-legged dawdling.

We arrived just in time to see a procession of monks blowing trumpets and banging drums, then chucking a load of yak butter sculptures of evil-looking mini-skulls onto a bonfire. The local onlookers seemed very solemn, but we were just a bit bemused. A nearby yak was clearly unimpressed and decided to recycle the leftover yak butter once the monks had moved on.

Monks inside the monastery complex

But easily the best thing about Litang was the ordinary people. I say ordinary - we all spent most of our time there wandering the streets wide-eyed, turning and pointing at a seemingly endless procession of local dudes dressed like we'd never seen folk dressed before. These were genuine cowboys, with wide-brimmed hats, bandanas, heavy animal-skin coats and motorbikes with tassles hanging from the handlebars to the floor. They were also almost inevitably wearing sunglasses, despite the fact that it was snowing most of the time. But not sunglasses like you or I know sunglasses...

Of course the look worked better on the locals, who we all agreed were some of the most ridiculous yet coolest-looking blokes we'd ever seen. Faye was clearly impressed (I told you they were tall).

Reluctantly, we left the cowboys of Litang and headed east over more snowy plateaux

We were delighted to see that our next stop, in the Tagong grasslands, was as Wild West as Litang

Cowboys and prayer wheels at the Tagong monastery

A monk's life isn't all asceticism and prayer you know

One morning, I walked around a little hill five minutes out of town, and came across an unexpected and unbelievably pretty scene of grasslands full of yaks, prayer flags and a golden temple backed by an impressively spiky peak, which must have been over 6000m high seeing as the town itself was at 3700m. Even if not, it was still one of the most mountainy looking mountains I'd ever seen.

The following day, five of us hiked to a nunnery in the hills where we met the sixth member of our group, who is studying Buddhism and had stayed there the previous night.

The plan was to hike to a village populated by semi-nomadic Khampa people, and possibly stay overnight in a tent warmed only by fellow-resident yaks and a good fire. On the way to the village, a gnarled old man with two scary dogs (one of whom nearly got his teeth into me before being subdued by this lithe old geezer) invited us into his cold, bare house to have tsampa. Tsampa is the staple diet for most Tibetans - it's roasted barley flour that you mix with yak butter tea to form a doughy ball that tastes of pretty much nothing, with just a hint of roquefort provided by the ageing yak butter. As something you have a couple of bites of to say you've tried it, it's fine; as a whole meal, it's not quite peppered steak and chips.

This was lunch. It was enough to convince us that we didn't really want it for dinner too, and should therefore press on back to Tagong town and our electric blankets. Still, the old man, who didn't speak a word of English, Chinese, or even Lonely-Planet-phrasebook Tibetan, had been incredibly kind and hospitable. We returned the favour by trying to stop his baby granddaughter from crying and moving her away from the boiling water on the stove when he disappeared for some time, presumably to tend a distressed yak.

Another reason to return to town was the Chinese (and therefore strictly not Tibetan) restaurant we'd adopted as home, complete with mother figure, who even let Faye help her make the ravioli-like dumplings that go in a spicy broth to make a perfect breakfast on a cold morning.