Scrambling through

With shaking knees and clammy hands we stand on the edge, staring into the Nu River. We have spent four days trekking to the Tibetan village behind us. We have climbed a 4000 metre mountain, crossed landslides, slid on our bums down a glacier, slept on river banks, run out of toilet paper, peed while yaks watched, been bled by leeches, and seen the best scenery China has to offer. Exhausted, I slump down next to our two guides, one of whom hands me paper and a bag of tobacco. I roll a triumphant cigarette, my first since we began. I cough. It hurts. The two guys look up and laugh.

Finding guides had been more of a farce than I could have ever thought. For two days we walked along the Dulong River, asking at every village we passed for a guide who could take us over the mountains towards Bingzhonglu, a national park in the far northwest of Yunnan province, China. We were always directed to the next village. It wasn’t until we met ‘the young one’, a 20 year old who was hiking the 5 hours back to his village with his wife, his mother-in-law, and his 2 children, that we finally got a ‘yes’.

I’m called in to eat. The guides go off to meet friends in the village. They only come here when travellers need guides, but the villages are connected through family members. Emi, my friend on this adventure, is asleep. After 4 days of food cooked in pork fat, Emi’s vegetarian stomach has had enough but I am hungry. Lunch is meat, veg and homemade alcohol. Lovely food, awful booze.

Only one member of the family speaks our common language, Mandarin. The rest speak a Tibetan dialect. It can be depressing to study a language and then still not find someone with whom you can use it, but in this instance it was just nice to see new faces.

The Mother takes me through the family photos; trips to Lhasa, trips into Yunnan. She looks over at Emi, jumps up and rummages around in a cupboard. She hands Emi a pot of pills, points to her stomach and smiles, then turns back to show me more photos of her family in front of monuments. She clearly knows medicine. Three people come in that afternoon for her advice on ailments.

We should really leave and hitch a ride to Bingzhonglu, but the family decide Emi is too sick. We can leave in the morning. That night, with hundreds of flies sucking the sweat off me, surrounded by elaborate paintings of gods, jungle scenes and images of Mao I want to keep going. Walk deeper into Tibet.