Tag Archives: Tibet
Time with Tseten – Tea Horse Road Trader
We sat in the dark gloom of his home, with a bit of lukewarm butter tea roaming around our hands. Another of the remaining legends of the days of trade and odyssey journey-making along the Tea Horse Road, Tseten was … Continue reading
Tseba, his Tea, and the Walk(s)
One of the most purpose-driven of walkers, Tseba, would prepare a kettle of butter tea every morning before leaving to circumambulate around Litang’s Chode monastery. No less than three rotations would ever be done and afternoons would often see Tseba … Continue reading
Dolma, the Titan
Over the course of a decade of repeated visits to a nomadic community and little Dolma’s clan near Litang, I would continuously be in awe of the ’nomadic ways’ of doing simply anything. Moving up to a half dozen times … Continue reading
The Goddess and the Butter
Her’s was the last tent in the windblown nomadic community of Ala Dhotok (Stone Roof), before we headed up the snow pass of Nup Gong La. It was another morning of cold along a portion of the Tea Horse Road … Continue reading
Tea Horse Road Chronicles – He Was Late
The horseman assured Sonam and our team that he would appear at 7am sharp the next morning. He promised over several cups of tea, and that was usually the sign of a deal that was done and agreed upon. The … Continue reading
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
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
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
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