Category Archives: Mountains

Mountains – Their serene and brutal abilities had been honed into me from years of climbing and wild escapades that began in Switzerland as a child. In the immaculate words of a Himalayan muleteer, “the mountains laws are unambiguous, honest and eternal”.

Tea Horse Road Chronicles –

The final destination along the Tea Horse Road, both for our own expedition and for the great journeys of the past, was Kalimpong, in Western Bengal. It became for many muleteers and tea traders a kind of plush retirement community; … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Part Human and a Little Part Goat

Over the course of years since meeting Dorjè I’ve written and pondered much about him. “Part goat and a little part human” was how he was described to me. Perhaps sounds unfair but the goats’ abilities in the Himalayas are … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Choices, No Choices, and some Courage

Ascending up to the Sho La Pass in northwestern Yunnan in May there would always be a chance of weather issues, but it would still be a surprise when, even at the relatively kind altitudes of 3000 metres, the skies … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Tea and Bloodlines

On foot our team of four puttered and wandered west (often faintly lost) through the Nyanqen Tanghla mountains in Tibet towards Lhasa. Highlights seemed on some days to be every single breath and moment. On other days, the grind of … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – The Great Bend of the Yangtze

It was here at the ‘first bend of the Yangtze’ in Yunnan province that the Mongolian armies of the Yuan Dynasty crossed the great waterway and would ‘take’ the previously independent region into the greater fold of the Middle Kingdom … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Empress of Cloth

Ponzera, or Benzilan as it is now known, is a small valley town in northwestern Yunnan that lies alongside a headwater stream of the Yangtze River. For its size and population, its contributions to the Tea Horse Road spanned vast … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Way Out, and Out Again

Yeshi and I shared tea with this old memory palace of time. Goat milk and butter were used instead of yak variations. The tea was deadly but his memories as he recounted the days of watching caravans along a portion … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – There Are No Straight Lines Through the Mountains

Not heeding the warnings of Sonam Gelek; I should have known better at this stage of our journey than to plunge onwards without his counsel…but onwards I plunged. Consistently accurate and intuitive, Sonam had warned against our team traversing a … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Blessings and Warnings

“When you are lost in the mountains you must sit and think with your good brain….think!” Continue reading

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Tea Horse Chronicles – Tea’s Value

“Tea is our everything. I don’t know where it comes from but we take it every day in the morning, afternoon, and night. Our children learn to make it when they are young but we must help them get the … Continue reading

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