Tea Horse Chronicles – The Hostess, The Keeper

Posted on January 7, 2021 by JeffFuchs
A nomadic hostess (nemo) offers up a smile to our sun and grime battered crew near Ala Jagung, Tibet. The smile that comes from living so vitally and so close to Mother Nature’s moods never fails to move the blood. Such hosts and hostesses could ensure that they were shown preference by muleteers along the Tea Horse Road, through their generosity and care-taking abilities. Tea was an offering beyond a simple beverage. It was an adhesive and tribute to a journeyer; it was a promise that with its offering, all was well (at least temporarily). For us, this woman offered up butter tea, disks of homemade barley bread, a happy rant about the weather at close to 5000 metres, and her home. The mountain mantra is and always has been, ‘Cooperate or Perish’, and this was demonstrated time and time again across the expanse of our journey across the Himalayas. Her tent, tea, and smiles would embed themselves in our team’s bones for much of the rest of our journey, even though we would only remain with her for a couple of hours. Her spirit (and tea) raised us, and that smile and energy still rate as some of the better fuel I’ve fed on – ever. It was a brief but intense bit of restoration on our journey.
Himalayan hospitality - Tea
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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Jokhang Boyz

Posted on January 6, 2021 by JeffFuchs

After 52 days of trekking from my then home in Zhongdian (aka: Shangrila/Jiantang/Gyalthang) in northwestern Yunnan, a small celebration (and first shower) is had in Lhasa amidst those who have come from every corner of the Tibetan Plateau to pay homage. Of the three main strands of the Tea Horse Road that coarse through Tibet, we took the central hub. It is the one that remained (at that point at least) the most intact, the most direct, and the most isolated and daunting. Here in the gentle chaos of Barkhor Square, we take a pose in front of the timeless Jokhang Temple. At various times all of these gents were pivotal characters along the journey and in my life. The slim and polite denim-clad Sonam (at far right) belies one of the most ferocious wills and straight up strongmen that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and journeying with. Amongst this group he was the only one on every one of those 52 days and nights of journeying on the Lhasa portion and he would be a partner on dozens of subsequent mountain journeys. Tireless, authentic, and brutally compassionate, he remains a light amongst it all to this day. From left to right, Yeshi (The Wizard), myself, Dakpa (The Alchemist), Tenzin of Litang, and Sonam Gelek (‘Spiderman’). A rare moment of unity in one place; the journey for Sonam and I to arrive intact embedded Lhasa’s meaning more deeply into the bones than any book or preconception of the place. A good moment that! A couple of short days later Yeshi and I would depart on a winding journey south into Kathmandu and onto Kalimpong, India. The Tea Horse Road (Cha ma gu dao, Gya’lam) journey would not end for another few months.

Tea Horse Road Expedition - Portrait in Lhasa

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – A Gathering of Women

Posted on January 2, 2021 by JeffFuchs
Nomadic women of Ganze gather on a grassland to take part in a horse festival. It was through and over such high grasslands that the Tea Horse Road moved towards Dzogong, Chamdo, Lhasa and beyond. Nomads and their lands were a vital part of the the route’s core, transversing their lands, and enlisting them for safe passage. Horse festivals were vital stops for caravans as it was here where horses, mules, tea and other commodities could be traded and bartered. They remain to this day, gathering occasions to share and pay homage to the horse and the skillsets needed to manage them. Food, family, and fineries meet for days at a time. On this day, the nomadic community showed up in all of their finery, gleaming with silver, corals, and turquoise as these festivities were in some ways as much about gathering and bonding as they were about horses. In eastern Tibetan regions of Kham, many women braid their hair into 108 separate ‘micro braids’, which references enlightenment and is an auspicious number in Buddhism.
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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – The Pluck

Posted on December 30, 2020 by JeffFuchs

Napu went up the tea tree amid a forest of tea trees, shimmying along a support branch, until she could access the buds and leaves two metres off of the ground. I shimmied up along side her to watch her pluck. In every direction around us in the camp air ancient tea trees spread and wandered in every direction. The tea was the forest and the forest was the tea. Ferns and orchids were intertwined with bamboo clusters, and the smell of loamy soil completed the setting. This wasn’t any perfectly coiffed series of tidy rows of neat tea shrubs. This was a beautiful symphony of bio-dynamic bliss and little minimal human interference. It was very much a moment when words weren’t needed to sum up a divine kind of space for an eternal fuel and commodity.

Plucking tea

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – The Crossing

Posted on December 29, 2020 by JeffFuchs

One of the gems of old world Himalayan transport and the Tea Horse Road in particular was the yak hide ‘ferry’ that would take tea, salt, mules and journeyers across waterways where there were no bridges. It still does operate in nooks of the Himalayas, though not many of these iconic pieces of the the caravan-travel world exist. Yak hides (six apparently needed) were sewn together and ‘treated’ with resin. Displacing very little water, they were conducted by competent hands that used oars as steering and propelling mechanisms. This viewing was a special moment on our way from Lhasa south to Kalimpong, near a place called Saga. Yeshi and I would take a brief back and forth journey across the torrents of glacial water.It was a symphony of motion, nature, and where time just briefly halted.

Tea Horse Road Travel

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – ‘The Dorjè’

Posted on December 28, 2020 by JeffFuchs

Immersed in a hotspring that is tucked within a mountain cave, sitting beside the venerable and irrepressible Dorjè Kandro. Just days before, we began the fifty-two day walk from my – then – home in ‘Shangri-la’ (Gyalthang) in northwestern Yunnan, to Lhasa along one of the main routes of the Tea Horse Road. Dorjè was a kind of Peter O’Toole of the mountains – elegant, naughty, strong in a way that very few mortals are strong, and utterly devoted. Notorious along much of our routing through northwestern Yunnan province for being able to calmly smoke a cigarette, sing (out of tune), take sips of firewater, and carry on a conversation…all while carrying 25kg’s up 45 degree slopes.

The Dorje and I take a moment to heal

He never did make the journey all the way to Lhasa, having had to turn back in Chamdo, Tibet, to help another team member and friend, Dakpa, return home after succumbing to sickness and dehydration. Dorjè featured heavily (in so many brilliant and provocative ways) in my book “The Ancient Tea Horse Road” and in fact easily warranted a narrative and book dedicated entirely to him and his exploits. Though he loved tea, he loved whisky more…and we loved him more still. Very much missing ‘the Dorj’.

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – The Fry…a really Good Fry

Posted on December 27, 2020 by JeffFuchs
Dakpa and I had been rolling around tea forests, tea houses, and tea characters for months along strands and points of the Tea Horse Road at this point and though there were many ‘moments of the leaf’ upon our journey, this one summed up so much, so simply. A young family embedded in tea harvesting, production, and selling in an epicentre of tea for centuries, Yiwu, was buzzing around their little home . Yiwu was one of the main tea origin points in the history of the Tea Horse Road and Dakpa and I had arrived exhausted and with a thirst. We installed ourselves in this tea frying sanctuary out back of this little home and silently watched successive waves of leaves get pan-fried and churned. We were damp wrecks and we simply sat sipping tea, taking in tang of baking leaves that hit the nasal cavity like the rich, sweet wafts of a bakery in full cry. We did this for what felt like hours allowing the leaf fuel to seep into us. Tea’s vital stage laid bare amidst a humid day of mists. We left with some tea in hand, happily wired.
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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – He Said, She Knew

Posted on December 24, 2020 by JeffFuchs
Tea Horse Road Interview

He Said

This ‘moment’ was more accurately a series of moments and most of an afternoon, with an old muleteer and his wife. We interviewed the gentleman who lived near my home in Shangrila and he began (and ended) our chat with some locally brewed barley whisky and a bit of tea. His wife sat quietly listening to him recount his tales of time spent upon the Tea Horse Road, which went on for hours and as time progressed and successive whiskies were downed, she would intervene more and more often to gently correct certain parts of his tales, which included dates of journeys, relationships, and even cargo of some of the caravans. She knew because she had kept records of his absences and had cared far more about his work than perhaps he realized. He became gently irate and insistent with her and she calmly annihilated his logic and facts until we were no longer part of an interview but rather amidst a torrent of arguing. It was magic and she was quite epic. In the end, we believed (almost entirely) the woman.
Tea Horse Road Interview

She Knew

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Part 6 – Tenzin

Posted on December 23, 2020 by JeffFuchs
Legend, guardian of caravans, and hunter of ‘tea thieves’, Tenzin.
We had heard of this legend but worried we wouldn’t track him down upon the route. Worried that we would not get time nor access to listen and take in an incredibly unique perspective of the days of trade along the Tea Horse Road. There was the added draw of Tenzin becoming a kind of idol in our team’s collective mind. Tenzin had acted as a kind of headman of caravans that were run by a monastery, and it was within his mandate to protect the sacred commodities of tea, salt, wool, copper, and mules…and punish those who thieved. In such a way he became known – by his reputation for both protecting and punishing. We found him living simply in between the two great snow passes of Shar and Nup Gong La (East and West Gate Passes respectively) deep within Tibet along a stretch of the trade route that cut through the Nyenchen Tanghla Mountains, a sub-range of the greater Transhimalaya system. Sitting with tea outside, Tenzin was composed, regretful at times, and utterly graceful. He worked his mala beads continuously during our hours with him. He only asked that we remember him as someone who did his job along the route. He regretted some of what he had to do in the name of protecting the caravans on their journeys through the sky. I remember him as grace personified.
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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Part 5 – The Load

Posted on December 14, 2020 by JeffFuchs

A continuation of some of the embedded moments – both large and small – of our 7.5 month expedition to chart and document the Tea Horse Road.

Along the Tea Horse Road, the careful daily ritual of loading and unloading of commodities was considered an art form. Securing loads that didn’t chafe animals with too tightly bound a harness, was just as important a skill as securing it ‘just’ tightly enough that the loads didn’t tip or unbind. Here a nomadic host of our team readies our mules as we prepare one morning. It is still an honour to assist in the loading (Tibetan: “gyap’kè”) and unloading (known as “gyap’po”), upon the Tibetan Plateau and still a skill taught to young children. Many a time I’ve been politely, but firmly, shoved aside by men, women, and children as I try and contribute to the loading process. I have over the years timed locals as they competently strap commodities and gear atop yak, mules, and horses. On average they are three times faster than I’ve ever been, and their loads are far less likely to go wonky on the journey than mine. Skills of the mountains matter and so do too the codes of welcoming and farewells.

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