The same day we visited the Tibetan monastery, our driver took the bus to the grasslands of western China. It was empty and lonely and gorgeous out there. All of a sudden, he pulled up to the side of the road, where there was a dirt path stretching out towards the hills to our west. We all piled out of the bus and were surprised to see a Tibetan woman standing there, complete in a long skirt with a scarf over her nose and mouth. She led us down the path, past some mud dwellings to a house near the end of the path.
Outside were dozens of yaks, tied together hoof to hoof. There were even some baby yaks (not as cute as baby Chinese, don't worry). We entered the house and were instructed to take off our shoes and sit around a table on some blankets, which we did. In a few moments, another Tibetan woman came in and lit a little metal stove in the middle of the room, then put in cow dung (yum!) and topped it off with a copper kettle. She passed around cups and put a bowl of sugar and a plate of yak's milk in the center of the table. A little later, our yak's milk tea was hot and ready to drink.
I'd never had yak's anything before, and I have to say how pleasantly surprised I was. It was delicious, warm and filling and comforting after a long day walking around in the cold. After a cup or two, we headed out to ride some horses. But I, with my unusually small bladder, had to use the bathroom.
What are bathrooms like in Western China? Well, there were towels hung at about waist-height around a hole in the ground. Two slabs of stone were placed on top of the hole, leaving an empty slat to aim into. And believe me, that was a beautiful and welcome change from the appalling gas station bathrooms I'd visited earlier that day, which contained unthinkable horrors. I'm not exaggerating even a little bit.
Then I hopped on my horse. A young Tibetan cowboy led my horse for a few paces, then with hardly any warning mounted the horse behind me and took the reins and off we went! We were flying, galloping over the grasslands, passing my classmates. We weren't going extraordinarily fast, but we did keep a pretty quick gait as we rode down the path I'd just come up. I was nearly the last to mount a horse but we were the first to the end of the path by a long shot.
As he tied the horse to a nearby fence, I asked if he spoke English. He shrugged. I asked if he spoke Chinese. He shrugged. So I started speaking in Chinese, and he complied. I asked how many people were in his family. where his home was. Was it up where we'd drunk the tea? He shook his head and pointed to a group of tents a little closer than the mud houses.
It hit me then how absurd and wonderful my life is. I was thousands of miles away from home and had just ridden a horse with a young man who'd grown up and lived in a tent his whole life in the grasslands of China. My life doesn't get more surreal than that, I don't think.
The sun was setting and we were to take off soon for a Tibetan dinner, after which our bus broke down (but didn't catch on fire, as it did later in Dunhuang). But I think that's another moment I won't soon forget--standing at the end of a dirt path with someone from a completely different world, but sharing a common language and experience.
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