BEFORE ZHONGDIAN
from the walnut garden (effectively the last town on the tiger leaping gorge), rene and i set off on an 8-hour power-hike northwards to the 'remoter' village of haba.
despite meeting some really ugly, unfriendly people there, the rule that people who have not been exposed to too much tourism are
much friendlier was true to form. on tuesday, as we wandered around the town (and another muslim settlement one kilometre above it), we were invited into people's houses, given food, waited upon and generally spoiled rotten. it was one of those days that affirms one's faith in people.haba is built on a (glacial?) valley between two mountains, the fields extending from slope to slope, covered in rich crops of wheat, snow-peas and beans. we wandered around these fields soaking it in. some of you may be familiar with the weed that grew rampantly at the edges of all fields
the host of our guesthouse in haba was suprisingly stand-offish when her husband was around, but when he wasn't, she paraded around in newly bought clothing, begged us to stay another night, and even tossed a condom wrapper among our bags on our last morning there (for reasons that were not immediately apparent). we left.
my back went into spasm on tuesday, and on wednesday i awoke in agony, having pulled...my hip. i didn't even know you could pull your hip, but i did. a tibetan boy at my hostel opened my eyes to my bad shape when he was teaching me some stretching exercises yesterday:
"hey gao, just sit with your back and legs straight..."
his eyes gogged as i embarrassedly admitted "...i can't"
walking has actually been excruciating, and with this stupid 'pulled hip', strained back, a goat bite and a bleeding, inflamed pharynx (after an incident with some wheat that i'd rather not talk about) i started to realise that the way i've been treating my body is catching up with me. i'm not super-human any more...not even close...i'm old! :(
we caught a bus back to qiao-tou, where i had left some things, and rene stayed on the bus heading back to lijiang.
i could barely look at him as we parted - sometimes life is so beautiful that it breaks your heart.
ZHONGDIAN
and so i'm in zhongdian - better known to some of you by it's other name: shangri-la
it's a high town with all signs written in chinese and tibetan, dotted with monaste
ries, buddhist stupas and tibetan farming communities. i'm waiting until i can walk properly again (it's getting there) and then i'm heading into the western sichuan highlands. LIFE
the trouble with life is that there is only one of it. oh how i ache for 5 more lives so that i could taste just a fraction of all the amazing things that this world has to offer! how can the heart and mind rest - even for one minute - when out there, life is so big?
it's not fair, it's not always nice, and it's certainly not easy, but my god life is amazing.
pic 1, 4 + 5 - farmers in haba
pic 2 - weed
pic 3 - the haba valley
pic 6 + 7 - crazy goats
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