Day 73 - Litang

3.10.09

We get up for our Sky Burial experience at a bright and early 8am, wait until about 9am when the owner of the hotel then tells us that the burial is off as apparently no one died yesterday and so there is no body to 'bury'. In a way I am quite glad as thinking about it, I'm not sure it is something I want to witness. Also the turning of someones burial into a tourist attraction doesn't seem that appealing, especially as we are told that it is 'OK to take pictures'.

Seeing as we are up early, we take a walk up to the local Gompa which is undergoing either major redevelopment work or major building work, it's halls being repainted and the statues renovated/new ones cast. The Gompa is populated by dozens of young monks, some look about 7, who show us around the different buildings and lead us up to viewing platforms where we can see the rest of the Gompa's buildings and the town. I talk to one of the young monks who is about 14 and it turns out that his family live in Yunnan province, which is at fastest, about 3-4 days away by bus. It must be a hard life living so far away from your family and is a kind of extreme version of long distance boarding school. After our schooling by the young monks, we head back to the hotel and one of our party of four (Vlad) decides to have a rest, while the Italian guy (Francesco) takes a bus onwards and starting his journey off into Yunnan province. Me and Nick, decide to climb one of the hills over looking the rear of the town and what we think will be a short stroll, turns out into two hours of high altitude, out of breath hardcore steep walking. It is a viciously hard climb and considering Litang is supposed to be up there in the league of the highest towns in the world, the air is very very very noticeably thinner.

For the evening entertainment we hit a Tibetian dance hall/drinking club/bar/barn/shack, I'm not quite sure what it was, but it was quirky. With dodgy over pushed speakers and fairy lights in the roof, I'm sure we were sitting in a metal barn and it was definitely unheated. All the aesthetic points good and bad aside, the venue was amazing fun and the people so happy. Definitely recommended if you ever make it out to any Tibetian areas.

Day 72 - Ganzi, Litang

2.10.09

I met two Americans and an Italian guy yesterday who are also going to Litang and so we all decide to head off together and get a cheaper group fare. We end up getting the fare for 80Y each as opposed to 110Y, which is a very nice discount. The ride is quite slow and we are also transporting a sick monk, who is ill with a mystery ailment that gives him a stomach ache, headache and causes him to throw up every time we stop. I give him some Ibuprofen which sorts out his headache and some of the stomach pain and then some herbal tea which I picked up and is supposed to be good for stomach bugs. I'm not sure if the herbal tea worked, but good old Tesco Ibuprofen got rid of his headache nice and fast. We pull into Litang in the early evening and are soon followed by bus loads of Chinese tourists all travelling during the eight day national holiday. The town suddenly becomes rammed and every hotel sells all its beds, our hotel owner even putting people into his house so they can have a place to stay. My late night town exploring ends up putting me in the middle of a rainstorm and some seriously wet and windy weather, arriving back at the hotel a bit cold and damp, I am told that we have the opportunity of going to a sky burial the next day. Wikipedia describes a Sky Burial as...

Sky burial or ritual dissection was once a common funerary practice in Tibet wherein a human corpse is cut in specific locations and placed on a mountaintop, exposing it to the elements or the mahabhuta and animals – especially to birds of prey. In Tibet the practice is known as jhator, which literally means, "giving alms to the birds." The majority of Tibetans adhere to Buddhism, which teaches rebirth. There is no need to preserve the body, as it is now an empty vessel. Birds may eat it, or nature may let it decompose. So the function of the sky burial is simply the disposal of the remains. In much of Tibet the ground is too hard and rocky to dig a grave, and with fuel and timber scarce, a sky burial is often more practical than cremation.

What basically happens is the body is placed upon an altar and then cut into pieces and the bones bashed to a pulp and mixed with flour and then it is all fed to vultures who eat the body parts. I'm not quite sure if it is something I want to see, but it is common practice in this area and if we do make it, then it will be one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen.