Karate kid..

I managed!
After 20 days in China, i did it! I caught a fly with my chopsticks!!


...well, ok.. this one was swimming in my soup, but still, you may appreciate the performance!

Hospitality vs courtesy

Amongst the things that strike the western mind when we come to asia, is the difference in values.. to not say the total inversion of values!

For instance, tibetans are extremely friendly and welcoming. Anywhere you go they yell at you the only few english words they know, so it usually goes "Hello! I love you!" (sounds almost like Jim Morisson!)
They stop you and invite you to join their picnic, invite you to their house, to their tent.. have a tea here, some tsamba there (tibetan breakfast/snack consisting of flour mixed with salted tea and some yak butter).. from comfortable modern homes to more modest dirt houses.. the nomads tents are an incredible display of food and drinks; tea, sodas, biscuits, fruit plates, nuts... all nicely arranged on the central table.. they give you everything they have, and it's often very difficult to not accept at least a little something!
Communication is always extremely limited but smiles and generosity come by the truck load!
You got the point; hospitality is a must, and far more important than anything we know in europe.. bring a gipsy looking tibetan to a french village and everyone will rush home, closing doors and windows until the "danger" has gone by!

On the other hand, the "courtesy manners" and other "rules of life in society" that we usually take for granted, seem to have no correspondance here! Without a second thought will they spit right on your shoes, blow their cigarette smoke in your face in restaurant or buses, stare at you while you take a shit (thanks to their "voyeur friendly" type toilets), fight for a seat in the bus...

Go figure!.. it's just another world!

Ganzi..

..where was i?
Sertar.. i didn't decide to stay.. so the next day, the 6 hours bus ride to Ganzi actually took 11 hours.. and here I am in Ganzi!

The Lonely Planet says that "it's impossible to take a bad picture in Ganzi" (makes you wonder why i ended up here!).. Well, after a day and a half and 7 rolls of colour film in a row (very rare), i would say that it's not impossible.. but it does requires some creativity! (although, i don't mean to seem pretentious but i may have gotten some pretty bad shots myself!)

At least, we've got some decent light now.. ever since i left Mongolia the light has been horrible, and i've been shooting almost all black and white.. the light is finally back to normal (normal+ i'd say!) so i'm pretty happy to switch back to color..

some random images taken on the road..

(on the first one for instance, you may, if you have good eyes, see a nice tibetan village on the mountain..)

5am.. waiting for the bus...

and some shots around Ganzi..

Bruised bottom..

3 hours of bus to get from Xiahe to Zorge, from there, 3 hours of taxi to reach Honguyan, and 4 more hours of taxi to finally reach Maerkang in the evening...
One day to chill in Maerkang and 9 more hours of bus and bumpy roads to get to Sertar...
I'm making my way slowly towards the official Tibet.. visiting loads of small and beautiful Tibetan villages and landscapes..
But the closer i get to Tibet, the more I hear that my chosen route is closed to tourists... it seems like it's not gonna be an easy task...

i'll keep you posted :-)

Local artificial stuff

No comment..

What's for diner tonight?

the picture is not very clear.. but you should get the point!..

Chinese privacy!

I almost forgot to tell you about the chinese toilets.. no door for more intimacy!
These are actually pretty good; they have a wall to separate each one, and a flush.. pretty fancy trust me!

Erratum

Well.. it took me a while to fully realise it, but Mongolia and Tibet are actually much closer than the political borders let us think and aside for these 10 days in Beijing, i feel like i just went straight from Mongolia to Tibet!
Anywhere west/north west of the Great Wall, people would tell me "I'm not Chinese, i'm Mongolian; this is Mongolia!".. Even their features would be different.. especially the girls being -in my opinion- generally much prettier.
And since i moved south west of Beijing (Xiahe and down), people tell me with yet greater pride "I'm not Chinese, I'm Tibetan, and this is Tibet! You think that place was called Xiahe but it actually called Labran; Xiahe is the Chinese name, it means nothing to us".. indeed, people speak tibetan and everything is written in tibetan.. And not only do people feel different -to not say colonised- but they really look so too, and the numerous chinese tourists look just as foreign as you and me..

Therefore, Langmusi, my favorite chinese town so far, is actually tibetan and is called Dardzan Lha Mu! It's built in a beautiful valley with a red rock cliff up on one side and sharp peeks and grasslands on the other side.. Quite a different scenery from anywhere around.. Too bad that the weather sucked..