Yaks, Tarot Cards and Butter Tea

For spectacular and diverse scenery there are few trails in the world that compare with the Ganden to Samye journey, located in Tibet to the south-east of Lhasa. The area around Ganden and Lhasa is arid high desert. Soon after the first ridge the countryside turns to a more moist tundra - moss and grass divided into 1 and 2 foot sections by hundreds of deeply worn yak paths. On the long descent the trail winds through lush, wet forest beside a fast moving stream, only to emerge into desert again in the Samye region.

Ganden to Samye is supposed to be a three day trek. It took me five, blame it on the altitude if you wish, but I saw no reason to hurry through such a once-in-a-lifetime journey. There are obstacles also, one being a stream at the foot of the first ridge. It was only about ten feet across, but with images of becoming soaked from a fall into the icy water I stopped to remove my shoes.

I was a little embarrassed when a pretty goat herder woman nimbly stepped over the stream on the slippery rocks, scooped up my shoes and socks, and glided back. I waded, holding onto the rocks for balance. As I climbed the bank on the other side I saw the herdswoman - and my shoes - were some distance up the hill where she and her sister had built a small fire. They greeted me with giggles and a cup of butter tea --- it seemed they did not expect a foreigner to know how to properly cross a stream.


We sat quietly, hand gestures and my few words of Tibetan passing for conversation. The principal tool of herders in Tibet is a wool sling about a yard (meter) long, with a woven pocket in the center. With this they can send a rock 50 yards or more with amazing accuracy. Just a reminder of this is usually enough for the goats - occasionally one woman or the other would snap her sling, making a sharp crack, and the goats would quickly move back together.

I finally moved onwards with gestures of silence about the Dalai Lama pictures I gave them, and walked around the hillside to the only lake on the route. There I pitched my tent and watched the evening arrive.

Tashi Dele! I had only gone inside for a short time when a young man hailed me. He herded yaks in the neighborhood and wanted to greet his visitor.

We were exchanging a few words when he spotted my Tarot cards. He looked through them with great interest, seeming to know what they meant, although he had certainly never seen the Tarot before. When he came to the Hierophant I called it "Dalai Lama" with a gesture that said "almost". He nodded as if that was what he had already surmised. As he was leaving I jokingly extracted a promise that he would keep the yaks away from my tent and then quickly fell asleep.

It was first light when came again: Tashi Dele! Tashi Dele! This time it was an older man, likely the father, and he went straight for the Tarot. He studied each card, adsorbing the pictures. I pointed out the Empress as "Tara" but it had little effect - he knew what they were, probably understood them better than I did.


More of my journeys in the Himalayas can be found in other posts on this same blog Tibetan Visions, and still more at the website TravelinTibet: Spiritual journeys in Tibet.


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Tibetan Yak - woodblock print from Kathmandu

Nomads Wander But Are Not Lost

I trek for solitude, enjoying the mountains and the feeling of exploration. Yet when I remember the journey between Ganden and Samye monasteries in the high mountains of Tibet it is the people that come to mind.

There were the two cowboy types that invited me to ride their yak (no thank-you!) and the other two who found me setting up camp near the top of a pass one evening (which is not a very good idea). They insisted that it was only a short walk to the next village (for you, friend, but not for me).


The most memorable was a nomad family I met on the second day. I saw two big brown tents on the hillside and wandered up to ask the proper direction. There was an extended family around a fire of yak dung who greeted me with shouts of Tashi Dele! and the ever present butter tea.

The Dalai Lama had sent word to his people that westerners should be welcomed and the message had spread even to those far from the cities. I certainly felt welcome watching the children run around and the grandmother tend the fire.

The man and woman who were the parents of the kids had a long wooden trough filled with water. Each sat at one end as they washed a woolen cloth with the ends tied together making a loop. They squeezed it in the water then passed it along, the loop going in circles in the trough. It was such an image of domestic cooperation that I often remember that couple when I do my own laundry.


Later I followed a small stream to what I knew was the last pass on the trail. As I came around a bend I was confronted by a spectacular wall of stone, rising out of the mountainside. The pathway up it was easy enough and I shared the space on top with several other tourists - the only other westerners I had seen on the journey.

The more I looked at the countryside the more remarkable the geology appeared. The wall across the pass, for there is not a better way to describe it, was certainly a natural feature. It appeared to be basalt. Basalt is a rock type formed deep in the earth that is not often seen in the relatively young Himalayas. The two sides of the pass were of two other, different, kinds of stone which was also unusual.

The mountains of Tibet and Nepal were formed by the collision of the land mass of India, which had been part of Africa, with Asia. I wonder if this spot where we were sitting was the division between the two land masses, thrust to a high altitude by the forces that built the world's greatest mountain range. I have no idea if it was, but it did mark a division in my travels, for from here on it was downhill and back into "civilization".

Like I said, downhill.


You can read about my journey to Tibet, and see wonderful old photos of the people and land at my website TravelinTibet.com: Tibetan temples monasteries and adventures.

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