Careering past soft black yak-wool tents over country of these proud people, in lorries of their oppressors, I feel privileged and sorry. Only recently have wheel ruts marked these landscapes. Parallel lines of new invaders, like tracks of scabies spoil the mother’s skin.
Thickly wrapped in coats and caps children run to watch in wonder as we pass. Two old men with a brand new bicycle sit on a windy hill. Families drive laden stock to summer grazing. Amidst flocks in a yellow plain, children dance to a mother’s outstretched arms.
Even to my jaded senses soured by too much human misery, these nomads are beautiful. In sheepskin coats with red sashes over silver scabbards richly embossed, they wear bright felt boots with upturned toes, and broad hats of sheepskin or fur.
Humans here seem strangely noble, supporting my attraction to nomadic life, politically the most radical alternative to the status quo. I recall those I love in Australia; rebellious like St Francis himself, choosing “blessed poverty” for love of Earth.
On slopes we follow rough bulldozer tracks. On the plains however, truckers please themselves, racing three abreast a mile apart, each with their dust cloud pluming. They weave in and out together, or swerve in pursuit of hare or deer. Fatalities are cited.
I ricochet between seat and roof in my bucking cabin. Spine shattering jolts teach how to ride these wild mounts. Out of control spinning sideways in gravel, eight-ton trucks are stable, but they bog easily in snow, and break down often in desolate wind swept places.
Walking out into cold emptiness one evening, crossing a rickety suspension bridge I find a village still unspoilt by imperial Beijing, six thousand kilometres east. Men still wear pigtails and are pathetically grateful for ballpoint pens and Dalai Lama photos.
At night we shelter in frail tents or in mud-walled compounds perfumed with smoke of Juniper and dung. At these altitudes water boils at such low temperatures that rice won’t cook on our scant fuel. We live on muesli with dried fruit, powdered milk and hot water.
Chinese outposts are few with communist architecture of concrete blocks, wireless masts, dish antennae and streetlights. We enter via rubbish dumps, moats of broken glass. Dead dogs and human faeces freeze by the wall. Nomads trade. Women fight.
Radiant brown faces stare at us. From confident smiles blaze perfect rows of strong white teeth. Joking, they refuse to swap their tribal coats for my Chinese jacket. In black hovels we fill our bellies, crouching by dung burning stoves. Howling dogs rule the night.
Convoys of army lorries roll in manned by callow Chinese. We fix a ride, our roughest yet. Crashing across stony desert, I’m behind fuel drums on something hard right over the axle. Frozen to the marrow and wearing gloves, try writing in a shuddering truck!
Mortification is part of pilgrimage. Instead of as many prostrations, we’re mercilessly shaken a hundred thousand times in every chakra. It clears out the old, bringing in the new, like rattling dice before next throw – but I’m happy.
