Yak Yak Yak (or Yakitty Yak)

How about the Ringed Seal to the Inuit? Or the Caribou to the Lapps? Or perhaps Salmon to the First Nations of the Pacific coast? Nope… I can’t think of any other animal as important to a culture as the Yak (Bos grunniens) is to Tibetans.

Please prepare yourself for a ROS = Run On Sentence!

What other animal is your work horse (or work Yak) in your fields – tilling the soil – is your transport, keeps you warm either as a fur blanket or by the burning of its excrement (formed into Yak patties and dried in the sun … often pasted on the sides of houses), keeps you dry at night (Tibetans use Yaks in tent construction), makes shoes and jackets and pants and bags and ropes (Yak leather can be made into ropes), whose bones can be made into tools (from combs to knives), can be used as an insulating refrigerator (the poop again is used for this)...

Tibetan noodles with Yak

and … provides you with a great array of food products:  Yak milk, Yak butter, Yak yoghurt, Yak cheese (often sold in chunks wrapped in Yak intestine) and of course Yak meat!

And the Yak butter is not just the delicious yellow spread to be slathered on a piece of bread or mashed potatoes … Yak butter is also the waxy oil that holds the wick that lights the lamps in monasteries across Tibet.

And… had I been allowed to photograph inside the Potala Palace in Lhasa, I could have shown you the lustrous glow of the palace floor made such by the inclusion of Yak butter in the floor construction (as well as regular polishing no doubt).

And of course … the Yak is the animal symbol of Tibet (like the Kangaroo is to Australia)… and generates tourism dollars when tourists come along who want to have their photo taken on the beast!

My contribution to Tibetan tourism!

National Immunization Day - Video by World Media Academy

Here is a short video of my experiences with the National Immunization Day in India where 169 million children were immunized against polio on a single day in April. A huge thank you to Kamal Pariyar (a Nepalese student at the World Media Academy) and my colleague Julie Nolin (from BCIT and the World Media Academy).

I am not sure if a future in media is in the cards for me but it was fun to work with Kamal to film this. A huge thank you also goes out to Lokesh Gupta, the manager of India's PolioPlus Committee in New Delhi who arranged my visit and allowed me to learn by doing with the PolioPlus campaign.

Please note that I made an error in my commentary... Rotarians around the world have raised over 1 billion dollars to eradicate polio from the world and Rotarians in India alone have raised over 143 million dollars! Be the change you want to see in the world!

North Face of Mount Everest - Tibet

Cho Oyu (8201m or 26,906 ft asl) from the Friendship Highway in Tibet

I was up most of the night … partly due to the cold … and partly due to the altitude! Nyalam in Tibet is ‘only’ about 3800 metres above sea level but that’s still pretty high (12,500 feet). Altitude sickness can affect anyone regardless of their fitness level. The key to avoid it … is to move to higher altitudes gradually – like what you do when you trek (walk) in high mountain ranges like the Himalayas where day by day you  move up a bit & down a bit.

One of the dangers of doing an overland journey from Nepal to Lhasa is that you must cross a number of 5000+ metre passes (the highest is 5,260m or 17,250 feet asl) and you stay at about 400 metres asl for much of the journey. To put these altitudes into perspective 5620m (or 17,250 feet) is  2000 feet higher than the tallest mountain in British Columbia (and for my friends to the south, that is about 3000 feet higher than Mount Ranier in Washington and Mount Shasta  in California).

Tibetan prayer flags at the summit of our first 5000m + pass

And because we are driving … going up in altitude very rapidly … I was certainly feeling it! I can remember suffering from altitude sickness (minor) on two occasions… once in Europe at Zermatt in Switzerland and the other in the mountains of Peru – on both occasions I went up too fast and was fine once I went down in elevation.

Despite the shortness of breath, minor headache and general ‘feeling crummy’ I was doing okay and was stunned by the scenery. For much of one day we were able to view many 8000+ metre peaks including Makalu, Cho Oyu and the grand-daddy of them all … Mount Everest!

Each high pass was decorated with Tibetan prayer flags (of 5 main colours) that say a prayer with each gust of wind. What a treat to see again (I remember seeing them when trekking in the Annapurna and Everest regions on the Nepal side of the border years ago).

Vehicle access also has other impacts … one of which has to do with ‘visitor experience’. There was a recent article in a Kathmandu newspaper about the reaction of locals vs international travelers to the construction of a road in a traditional trekking area. The locals were excited to finally have road access to their villages … whereas the reaction from some international trekkers was that the roadway detracted from their ‘tourist experience’. They wanted the ‘traditional Nepal trekking experience’ and did not like having vehicles passing them as they walked the mountain trails. I can understand viewpoints on both sides of the coin.

TIBET - What a Difference 100 Metres Makes!

With my dear friend Pema Nima Sherpa

At the moment my bladder is full of what feels like 5 litres of jasmine tea. I am not actually a huge fan of jasmine tea but it was the only warm fluid on offer here in Nyalam an hour or two inside the Tibetan border. Nyalam is at about 3800 metres (or 12,500 feet) above sea level so things are a bit on the chilly side.

My day started at the crack of dawn… 4:45 to be exact when I arose from my short but deep slumber in my guest house in Kathmandu, Nepal. I was doing some final organizing when I heard a tap tap on my door … it was Pema Nima and his son there to be sure I was up and ready to go. Pema is like a guardian angel... always by my side to ensure I don’t get cheated or to offer to carry a bag or to explain something about Nepal as we walked the streets of the city.

When you travel as much as I do, I become cautious and I am always on my guard. There are bad people everywhere in the world but there are also wonderful people. Pema Nima Sherpa is one of the most honest and thoughtful people I have ever met. When I arrived at the Kathmandu airport Pema draped a white silk scarf (a Kata) around my shoulders in a Buddhist sign of respect and this morning his son draped another to wish me a safe and peaceful journey.

I am now wrapped with 4 layers of blankets (and two Buddhist white silk scarves) in my tiny guest house. There was snow mixed with rain about 30 minutes ago and now it is just darn cold. I am the only foreigner here tonight and I spent my evening hanging with the locals downstairs. It is so very interesting to see the transition from traditional to modern … and the mix of Tibetan and Chinese culture … but I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at 5:30am when we departed Nepal’s capital Kathmandu for the border with the Tibet Autonomous Region a mere 111 km away.

My first meal in Tibet - Noodles!

When I first visited Pema Nima’s homeland it was called the Kingdom of Nepal, but today it is the Republic of Nepal. This is because the King was ousted by the Communist Maoist party and for much of the past 15 years Nepal has internal conflict between the Maoist and Nepalese armies. Today though things are relatively stable and foreign visitors can walk freely around the city but I was shocked at the number of police checkpoints we had to go through to get to the Tibet border.

I started counting after the third and I think in total we went through 7 checkpoints. Some we were waived through…. others my bag was checked… and another they wanted to see my passport. I made it through without a problem though and a few hours later arrived at the Friendship Bridge… the conection from Nepal to Tibet … and my goodness what a difference 100 metres makes!

Kodari on the Nepal side of the Friendship Bridge

Pema Nima joined me all the way to the red line half way across the bridge but could go no further. Only my guide and I were permitted to pass the Chinese soldiers and continue on to the border checkpoint. It took awhile to coordinate my transfer from the Nepalese guide to the Tibetan guide but it worked out fine and soon we were through customs. I was a bit worried about all the camera equipment I was carrying but they did not seem to be worried about that at all … they were more interested in whether I had any books or any CDs or DVDs. I showed them my Birds of the Indian Subcontinent (they were not all that interested) and also my Lonely Planet guides to Thailand and Malaysia…but what they were really looking for was a Lonely Planet guide to Tibet, which is apparently illegal to bring into the country.

As soon as I was out of the customs area I felt different. I was in China. There were police and soldiers here there and everywhere. They did not question or bother me but … they were there! And … the script on the signs turned from Nepalese to Chinese characters. The music on the radio was Chinese and the smells coming from the small restaurants were … Chinese.

The upcoming week should be most interesting!

A Musical Contribution for Catt-Trax 3 by Julie Pelletier

As mentioned at the start of this grand adventure ... I have invited musicians to contribute to Catt-Trax 3. You have heard Omar Gonzalez... and the next musical contribution is from my dear friend Julie Pelletier. Julie and I worked together in Kootenay National Park many moons ago ... before she went on to do her musical studies at UBC which culminated with her PhD in Piano Performance at Stony Brook in New York. Enjoy :) 

Kathleen Winter's little movie for CT3 & Earth Day 2012

I have also invited writers and artists to contribute ... and I am so honoured to have a contribution from Kathleen Winter ... one of Canada's foremost authors. Last year Kathleen's novel 'Annabel' was nominated for three of Canada's highest literary awards and she was shortlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction. Enjoy Kathleen's words and voice :) 

Allison Kwesell - Making A Difference Through Photography

Photojournalist Allison Kwesell, a Rotary Peace Fellow studying in Japan and documenting the Polio Plus National Immunization Day in India, discusses how photography can contribute to a better world.