In the coming weeks a trip back into the characters and moments of our journey along the Tea Horse Road (the first documented western journey along the magnificent highway through the sky).
The first segment then begins here.
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We started our journey in the dark near the village of Nyalam on the Tibet-Nepal border on a morning of driving snow and wind. As pale morning light took over from dark, all of the winds and snows stopped as though flipped by a switch. This little one was bouncing around with other children running around in the heights near one of our tea break points.
The Little One of Nyalam
She fixed our entire team with those eyes and she moved my entire world in a second. Months into the Tea Horse Road journey, this was one of those moments that marked time. For my own journey at that point, she marked a transition point as we made our way off of the Tibetan Plateau and would soon begin the long coiling route to Kathmandu. If felt like she knew everything in a moment by sheer intuition…it feels like she still does looking at her even now.
About JeffFuchs
Bio
Having lived for most of the past decade in Asia, Fuchs’ work has centered on indigenous mountain cultures, oral histories with an obsessive interest in tea. His photos and stories have appeared on three continents in award-winning publications Kyoto Journal, TRVL, and Outpost Magazine, as well as The Spanish Expedition Society, The Earth, Silkroad Foundation, The China Post Newspaper, The Toronto Star, The South China Morning Post and Traveler amongst others. Various pieces of his work are part of private collections in Europe, North America and Asia and he serves as the Asian Editor at Large for Canada’s award-winning Outpost magazine.
Fuchs is the Wild China Explorer of the Year for 2011 for sustainable exploration of the Himalayan Trade Routes. He recently completed a month long expedition a previously undocumented ancient nomadic salt route at 4,000 metres becoming the first westerner to travel the Tsa’lam ‘salt road’ through Qinghai.
Fuchs has written on indigenous perspectives for UNESCO, and has having consulted for National Geographic. Fuchs is a member of the fabled Explorers Club, which supports sustainable exploration and research.
Jeff has worked with schools and universities, giving talks on both the importance of oral traditions, tea and mountain cultures. He has spoken to the prestigious Spanish Geographic Society in Madrid on culture and trade through the Himalayas and his sold out talk at the Museum of Nature in Canada focused on the enduring importance of oral narratives and the Himalayan trade routes.
His recently released book ‘The Ancient Tea Horse Road’ (Penguin-Viking Publishers) details his 8-month groundbreaking journey traveling and chronicling one of the world’s great trade routes, The Tea Horse Road. Fuchs is the first westerner to have completed the entire route stretching almost six thousand kilometers through the Himalayas a dozen cultures.
He makes his home in ‘Shangrila’, northwestern Yunnan upon the eastern extension of the Himalayan range where tea and mountains abound; and where he leads expeditions the award winning ‘Tea Horse Road Journey’ with Wild China along portions of the Ancient Tea Horse Road.
To keep fueled up for life Fuchs co-founded JalamTeas which keeps him deep in the green while high in the hills.
