Zöige to Langmusi, CHINA - 21 may 2002
Zöige was so charming we woke up at 4:50am and hastened to the bus station to catch the first bus out. Langmusi was our next destination and when the ticket window opened, I pushed and shoved against unruly Tibetan monks to try and buy bus tickets.
To my surprise, the ticket-seller said that the bus for Langmusi was full. Oh no… I could not imagine spending another day in Zöige! In my desperation, I asked for Hezuo which was a town much further away. Now, this was the start of a series of bus-ticket scams. He claimed that I could purchase the tickets for Hezuo.
Hezuo was about 8 hours away and Langmusi was only 2½ hours away. It was the same route all the way to Langmusi Bridge. If the bus for Langmusi was full, it would also mean the bus for Hezuo was full. Yet, he said I could buy the tickets for Hezuo. He just wanted us to pay for more than where we wanted to travel, I knew it! I did not want to relinquish my place at the window and reluctantly obtained the tickets.
We were directed to yet another muddy, ratty bus. Jane popped her head in and in a shaky voice, pointed out, “Boy, this looks like the medieval times…” I took a peek and was similarly shocked.
The lights were dim. The entire bus was packed. Staring back at us were wild-unkempt-haired, dark-skinned unsmiling men in yak fur coats. In fact, this went beyond medieval times for me… they looked like cave-men!!
We did not know what to do. I was actually a little nervous. Thank goodness, the curly-haired bus conductor assured me he would get seats for us. Firstly, he ordered those cave-men at the back to pass the baggages out through the back window so that he could pack them at the top.
Once done, Curly climbed into the bus and spoke to two guys sitting near the exit. He asked if they could move to the back and let these two ‘Lao Wai’ (their slang for foreigners) sit here. He added, if anything bad happened to us at the back seat, (flash-back: On our way to Zöige, Jane bounced so high she hit the roof and then, slammed her chin on the seat in front of her when she landed! She could have bitten her tongue off!) ‘wo men pei bu qi’. In direct translation, the last line meant: We cannot afford to pay.
OK, taking into consideration readers’ cultural differences, I would spell out what he really meant. He meant that they could not afford to have anything bad happened to us tourists, guests to their country. Hmmm… for example, compare the difference between the below newspaper reports – ‘There was an earthquake last night and 300 people died’ vs ‘There was an earthquake last night and 300 people died, including 1 international tourist.’ People tend to be more ‘horrified’ when international tourists are involved in accidents. Hope you know what I mean.
Anyway, I was really touched he was so concerned for us. I was even more touched the two yak-men moved to the back wordlessly.
At 6am or so, the bus jiggled away. Half an hour later, the bus stopped. Apparently, the rain last night caused the one mud track out of Zöige to be even muddier and a heavy truck up ahead was stuck.
The grounds to the left and right of the mud track were rather flat. But they were of soft peat and those impatient vehicles which went off-road to get around the traffic jam were promptly stuck too.
Many passengers disembarked to check out the road conditions. Others left to pee and poo in the peat. A pair of the most colourful characters on our bus (one with a cow-boy hat and Mod-1970s sun-shades and the other older one, a Golok Tibetan with dread-locks and a mobile prayer-wheel) even took the opportunity to rescue a yak stuck in the mud in the distance. It had looked like a lump of coal to me, how they recognised it as a yak-in-trouble from our bus was beyond me.
Outgoing buses and trucks started to queue all the way back to Zöige.
Slowly, a flurry of activities began. The Zöige police got involved and chains and tractors were delivered for some tricky extraction.
We waited four hours before we sensed some success up ahead. When it was our turn to cross, Curly yelled at us to get off and run. Our bus made the dash across the worst bit and it went successfully! Hooray!! All smiles abound as we boarded the bus and made our second attempt to leave Zöige at 10:30am.
Another 30 minutes passed before we came to another stuck-vehicle situation! Oh no… How is this story going to end? After a long wait, a bus, similar to ours, made the attempt to cross off-road and was stuck after five metres in the peat. Later, another one made the brave attempt. It travelled all the way to beyond the last incoming vehicle but got stuck while trying to get back onto the mud track.
Mod-shades guy smilingly turned to me and muttered that this was good news. If that last bus could make the attempt (well, almost), so could ours.
We were once again asked to get off, walk across the peat and wait. To block ourselves from the biting, chilling wind, we sheltered ourselves next to a truck… for another 2½ hours.
The stuck truck was finally yanked out of the mud. In the distance, we could see our bus make its valiant move steadily. It bypassed the other trucks in front and then, went off-road dangerously. It travelled on the slanted peat and made it to the other side all in one speedy attempt. It did not get stuck like the other two buses before us. We cheered and yelped for joy!! I sprinted down the mud track to rejoin our bus.
The 6½-hour ordeal had secured strong bonds among us passengers and possibly, made firm friends among some of the Tibetan guys. We finally left Zöige at 1:30pm without any more incident.
At Langmusi Bridge, we got off and tried to hitch a ride for the remaining 4km into Langmusi town. A CHINA MOBILE van stopped for us. My charm worked on the guys and we packed our dusty backpacks into the cleanest van we had seen in a while.
Langmusi is a muddy little town on the border of Sichuan and Gansu Provinces. Almost like a one-pig town. There is no paved road at all. The main thoroughfare is this one muddy track. It had been snowing the past few days and now, with the snow melted, the track was wet and slippery. One’s boots could come off while walking through the sucking mud.
We stayed at a new hotel near the Sichuan Monastery (there is another Monastery across the town on the Gansu side). For such a tiny backwards town, we were surprised to find a brand-new TV set and electric blankets in our hotel room.
Finally, we trudged out to Leisha’s Café for our breakfast at 5pm. We had heard something about Leisha. She apparently made heavenly apple pies (which she starts chopping the apples upon your order) and yak burgers. It was really strange to find this sort of food here.
The locals here consisted of more of those Tibetan yak-men wearing huge sun-shades and carrying menacing gold daggers. Some of them, especially those riding motorbikes, looked like mean, mustachioed outlaws. But actually, they were really friendly. We were greeted by the children, women, these men and monks constantly with ‘Hellos’.
Once fortified with food, Jane and I started wandering around town and lusting after the hunky and handsome Tibetan monks.
“Oh look… that one is my height.” Jane pointed out.
“Hey, that cute one just flung his robe and it brushed against my shoulder…” I stared, enamoured. “Ooooo…” Jane teased.
There was a blackout at Langmusi that night. Our hotel owner Adaisya had assured us that he had a generator but that spluttered away and gave up on life too. With no electricity, the TV set and electric blanket were useless. Soon, it started to snow.
Langmusi, CHINA - 22 may 2002
It had snowed throughout the night and continued to snow this morning. It was freezing cold in the room. I had never seen falling snow before. But now with inadequate clothes, it was probably not the best time.
We lingered in bed as long as possible, but finally, hunger compelled us to get dressed and head out to town. I had to do some shopping if I wanted to survive the cold here. Shopping in Langmusi? Hmmm… not quite Paris and Milan which I was used to but I guess it would do for now.
After food, we attempted to walk around but were simply too cold to head off anywhere seriously.
A very special moment for me was to actually and clearly see the six-sides of a snow flake that landed on the sleeve of my jacket.
We returned back to the hotel to defrost. Out of pity for us, Adaisya relocated us to another room that had a hot pipe (which carried the hot water to our shower) in it. This warmed up the room and cheered us up considerably. We felt human enough to take a nap.
That night, we had a late dinner at a Muslim Restaurant. We noticed here that a few restaurants had TV sets and VCD players. There would be a speaker outside to broadcast the programme being shown out on the streets. As we imagined not many people here to own TV sets or VCD players, this must be a marketing ploy to get people to come into the restaurant to watch the programmes and hence, buy some food or tea. It was warm and cosy in the restaurant and soon, we started lusting after the teenage Muslim boy serving our food too.
As we crawled our way gingerly in the dark across the mud track to our hotel, we passed by the monks selling tickets to the Sichuan Monastery. They had already made several attempts to sell us the tickets yesterday and today. But we were too hungry yesterday and too freezing cold today to entertain any thoughts of sight-seeing. The two monks invited us into their quarters to chat. There was a hot stove in their quarters that warmed us up pleasantly but we only lusted after one of the monks.
The monks launched their promotion campaign, explaining that the Sichuan Monastery is more special than the Gansu Monastery because in one of the funerary stupas, there lies the body of one of the past Buddhas who died in 1800+. After many years, the body had been exhumed by a monk and at that time, it was still undecomposed. The monk hid it in the mountains and it was again exhumed in 1980+ and finally, it was moved to the funerary stupa. It remained undecomposed, of course. The 11th reincarnation of this Buddha, whom they all worship now and who is called ‘Huo Fo’ (Living Buddha) now lives in India. Hmmm… this greatly intrigued me and we promised to visit the Monastery tomorrow.
No hot shower today! And I only discovered this after I was under it! Argh…
Langmusi, CHINA - 23 may 2002
The weather was warm and beautiful today. Incredible!! Jane was now glad she stayed another day in Langmusi.
We bought the tickets for the Sichuan Monastery and started walking to the caves. Halfway there, it rained tiny hailstones. But the sun remained up, so we were not too perturbed by this strange occurrence.
Jane and I crawled into a cave, hoping to spot the natural shape of an ox, as indicated in the brochure. It was a holy cave and many Tibetans had tied the white or yellow holy scarves around. In the darkness, however, we could not make out the shape of any ox and soon, crawled our way out.
I was wandering around outside when an old monk approached to me. Apparently, he was one of the care-takers around here and he asked me to join him in the cave again. He explained certain things to me but with his thick accent, I did not always understand his Mandarin. I was told to drink from a spring in the cave. It tasted sourish. He showed me formations that resembled a ‘snake’, ‘frog’, ‘elephant’, ‘monkey’, etc… A good thing he was here to point out all these formations which we had missed.
On the outside, he brought us to see more naturally-formed shapes of Buddhas sitting in rings of light. He took us on a circuit route up in the snow round the fenced-up home of the ‘Living Buddha’ (the one living in India, I am sorry but I never got his name) if he ever come to Langmusi. I learnt he came once in 1984 or so.
We reached the funerary stupa which contained the undecomposed body. There were a few locals waiting for the old monk at the gate. As he let them in, I stood at the doorway and to a Tibetan lady, I reached my hand forward. She curiously clasped my hand. I stroked her turqoise rings and smiled, silently admiring them. She returned my smile. It was such a sweet moment and I felt a hint of connection. I observed them perform their prayers and chants. I was very touched by their devotion.
The body was now put into a structure so only the face could be seen and the face had been dusted with gold powder. Still, it was a very humbling sight for me.
As we were leaving, the old monk called after us and beckoned us to return. He had taken out the Tibetan-Chinese Buddhism dictionary and turned to the last page. He told me to copy down a chant in Chinese and to chant it 108 (Tibetan’s magical number) times a day. The benefits are stupendous, he added. He was really quite a kind, sweet man. When we thanked him, he said, fate brought us together… otherwise, we would not have met outside the cave. Oh, it was so great to have met him!
That night, there was no hot shower again. I made a fuss and asked for Adaisya's help. He explained I should let the water run for 5 to 10 minutes and demonstrated for me to see. Later, he knocked on my door and asked me to write for him in English the instruction to get the hot water. Adaisya's hotel is new and his limited English is not too bad but not good enough to form this instruction. So, I wrote: “If the water is cold, let the water run for at least 5 minutes and the water will be hot by then.”
An hour later, as we were leaving for dinner, Adaisya was still trying to memorise this catchy slogan but he got it all mixed up. I gave him a tip: Copy it and stick it outside the bathroom’s door. His eyes lit up and twinkled with wisdom. Hey, always glad to help.
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