On the Road

Rising early I walked the mile to the bus station with my backpack strapped on tightly. There were many people milling around. Waiting. Like me they looked a little unsure. They were westerners and apparently going the same way as me. I found an old bus, paint flaking, bits of rust, and my bus number resting in the front window. I mulled things over as I looked at the dirt on the ground and then up at the other backpackers, dragging on my cigarette. It was fun to be on the road. We were heading to Litang, which was a town at an elevation of over 4000 metres, higher than Lhasa. A ten day annual horse festival for the residents and nomads of kham, an old province of Tibet, had already been in swing for a few days. It explained the higher volume of westerners but still I was surprised.

Black tibetan tents dotted the barren grass land. Yaks and young guys on motorbikes laced the mountain-scape, as we traversed up and hurtled downwards. We passed an overturned truck at a corner, the driver sitting with his pigs. The chinese passengers of the bus found it very funny, laughing out loud together. At points we were above the clouds, travelling over mountain passes close to or higher than 5000 metres. And at the end of a long bumpy ride of about nine hours we could see the tents below us on a plateua and further up the main town of brick buildings.