Tibetan Plateau, China
After two weeks of cycling, 1400km and 15 over 4400m passes I was even ahead of my schedule to make it through China before the end of my visa. I was needed to cycle just 90km a day the following two or so weeks to make it. Then I got sick and ended up having 8 days of fever.
I asked for a place to sleep from a young Tibetan shepard and got invited to stay with his family. They lived in an old horse stalls turned recently into a home. Through a piece of plastic serving as a window next to my bed I observed they took their 50 yaks up to the mountains every morning and brought them back at the sun set. I got tsampa with yak butter and yak yoghurt for breakfast, then yak meat, yak butter, yak milk and potatoes for lunch and again yak meat, yak butter, yak milk and potatoes for dinner. I stayed there for 3 nights until I felt a little bit better to move to a town near by which had a pharmacy and a hospital.
The hospitality I received from my Tibetan host family was humbling. I was treated like a family member even though there wasn’t even a way to communicate. They refused for the money I tried to give them for their help, but eventually accepted to have my thermos flask and my back up torch.
#biketouring #tibetanhospitality #China #Sichuan #December2015
