day 199: 天祝藏族自治县 (Tibetan self-governed township of Tianzhu) - = 0km

尕藏 (Ga Zang) got a couple of friends in his off-road vehicle and drove us out to the mountains west of the township:

Here he is, 尕藏 himself:

A cool guy who seemed to take an immense amount of pleasure in showing me the place he was from.

It was a one-hour drive up to the valley, and when we got there, I was just…

…so overwhelmed…

…and - for once - at a complete lack of words:

Awesome.

…

Tibetan regions have a number of animals that you’re not very likely to find anywhere else, like this kind of sheep for example:

You probably know that yaks are also originally from the Tibetan regions, but have you heard of the white yak (白牦牛) yet?

Only here in 天祝 (tianzhu):

Any of these animals you see in any other region of the world - they are all originally from here.

…

These people were not looking for yaks though:

They were looking for one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen:

It’s called “冬虫夏草” - “winter worm, summer grass”, and is also known as “caterpillar fungus”. Basically this is a fungus that infests certain caterpillars underground, kills them and grows a small plant-like body that sticks out from the ground resembling grass during Spring. This “虫草” - “worm grass” is a very expensive ingredient of traditional Chinese and Tibetan medicine.

…

Back to the yaks though - I went after a small herd:

…and I chased them down, since they eventually had to find out that they had been fenced in all along:

These particular ones were rather young animals who were naturally shy and not overly protective of the little one that was with them:

Did I say little?

What I meant to say was…

…just tiny:

Only a couple of weeks old, this baby calf with its adorable big black eyes.

…

When the sun was about to set in the west, I left the yaks to themselves and climbed up a steep hill to take pictures of the snowy mountains ahead:

At an altitude of about 3400m, I have to admit that I didn’t feel that comfortable exercising my flatland mountaineering skills, so I stayed up there for almost an hour, gasping for air and using the little digital camera to record 30 minutes of video that I shortened down a bit just now:

If this is not just majestic - blame it on me, for the reality was.

…

When I got down from the hill, I found out that my friends had not wasted their time either:

They had kept themselves busy fishing, and decided to invite me home to a dinner of fresh mountain creek fish.

Awesome!

It was already getting late when we finally left the mountains behind and rode past this lake on the way home.

I asked my friend 尕藏 to stop for one last photograph:

Reflections on the water. Reflections on the day.

And what an amazing day it had been.

Soundtrack: Myang Chu Gtsang Po - “Sems Pa Skyo Dgos Min ‘Dug”

—total: 2452,2km