requiem

an old friend passed away suddenly over the weekend during his regular badminton game. got a shock from reading Siva's email. it was on the habitat group mailing list, so at first I thot someone from habitat (touch wood!). there seems to be too many these cases nowadays. Seemingly healthy individuals suddenly pass away, many due to undiagnosed heart problems.

rarified air

as expected, the air was thin on Qing-Zang Plateau with Xining City at an elevation of 2300m and Qinghai Lake at 3200m. Some of our tour group had headaches and did not feel too good during our first night there. I felt a slight headache but I was not sure if it was due to the anoxia or the lack of sleep before I left for the trip. our local tour guide got us some Rhodiola or "Hong Jing Tian" medicine especially for the high altitude symptoms.
the Rhodiola herb is harvested from the highlands of Qinghai and Tibet and is effective is relieveing high altitude sickness. the herb can be processed into capsule, tea or liquid forms. This is the liquid form of the herbal medicine. it was slightly sweet even without added sugar.
back in Xining City, we wander into a shop selling local produces. They were selling the herbal form of Rhodiola.
It looked like reddish colour roots
they were also selling the snow lotus plant which I had seen in Xinjiang before. In Chinese medicine and martial arts novels, the snow lotus had been attributed to be a miraculous Chinese medicine.
Ganoderma fungus or "Linzhi". after browsing this shop, we spotted two singaporean aunties at a convenience stall asking for altitude medicine. We guessed from their mandarin accent that they must be either from Singapore or Malaysia. We told her where we thought they could find the glucose that they were looking for. One of them told Robina that she speak mandarin like the locals.

Tibetan sprituality

On our drive along Qinghai Lake, we spotted a Tibetan guy on a pilgrimage. I think that the guy was doing flying leaps, with running start, in order to clear our stretch of the highway ASAP. our coach jammed brakes and stop to observe the Tibetan guy on his pilgrimage. normal procedure was to kneel down, stretch out full length and then stand up (repeat ad nauseum). they do this for 200km from Xining to Qinghai Lake. even with all his paddings, I can feel his pain!
visiting Ta'er Lama monastery and observing pilgrims, made me realised that the Tibetans are a deeply spiritual people. must have something to do with the harsh environment (and maybe lack of oxygen). many Tibetans were praying at the Lama temple while the majority of tourists (both Chinese and foreigners) were gawking and taking photos. Tibetans make monetary and yak butter offerings (the Lama s were busy counting the fistful of dollars!).
One hall was full of solid gold statues (about 30cm tall) of Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Yellow sect of Tibetan Buddhism. we were told that there were about 1000 statues inside. the place must be like Fort Knox!
There were many photos, paintings and statues of the revered 10th Panchen as well. the main prayer hall where the lamas/monks study scripture was festooned with beautiful embroidery and thangka paintings (most of which were hundreds of years old). the pillars were wrapped in Tibetan carpets made from thick wool. sorry but no photos inside...

you can light a yak butter lamp (just like lighting candles in Catholic church) for blessings. Robina and I lit one each for our parents.
everywhere we go around Qinghai Lake, there were shrines, stupas and prayer flags. It seemed like every mountain and lake was considered holy.
Tibetans visiting the edge of holy lake will make piles of stone when they offer their prayers or make requests of blessing from Buddha. I've seen similar rock piles at Buddhist temples in Korea.
this is a pile of slate rocks neatly piled up. the flat slates had scriptures carved on them.

it's like NZ but with yaks

for Robina and myself, this was the first time we visited the Qinghai-Tibetan (Qing-Zang 青藏) plateau. Qinghai is just next to Tibet and has a large number of ethnic Tibetans (plus Hui Muslims too!). with it's rolling hills, wide expanses, livestock and lakes, Qinghai really seemed like New Zealand to me. Unlike NZ, the air is thin with less oxygen due to the high altitude.
Of course, there were plenty yaks in the fields. they look just like shaggy cows. this one was quite curious and rolled his eyes at nosey tourists. I found it quite comical with its "cow-like" black n white patches. nervous yaks almost caused several accidents when they try to sprint across the road into our coach when they were startled. this happened several times and our driver had to jam brakes!

As our tour group drove around the scenic Qinghai Lake, we caught glimpses of Tibetan herdsmen around the lake (which is holy to the Tibetans). We also stopped by a Tibetan town to take a look at how the locals live. The Tibetan people are shy but friendly. Although Robina and I looked like Han Chinese, I told a Tibetan chap that we are foreigners, he said that he knew about Singapore.

A Tibetan herdsmen was driving his sheep flock when we stopped at the edge of Qinghai Lake. Robina was standing right amongst the flock. The herdsman was riding a beautiful horse and has a spare black horse.
We admired the grace of a people born in the saddle and kept their horses in such wonderful conditions. Although he was quite annoyed at us bunch of tourists frightening his sheep, but the enterprising chap was soon offering us to sit on his horse for photos (for a fee of RMB5!)
Our guide told us that motocycle had replaced the horse as a mode of transport by the Tibetan people who used the bike to round up livestock. Tibetans apparently loved their bikes so much that they used their former saddle blankets to drape their motorbike seats. We saw a lot of motorbikes in the Tibetan town. Many of the saddle blankets were in traditional Tibetan motifs.
During our coach drive, we could spot Tibetan Mastiffs guiding flocks. These huge dogs, that looked like a bear, were known to be fiercely loyal and could fight off wolves. This one above was just three months old and was guarding a Lama monastery.
Along the way, I bought some cordyceps from the herdsmen who harvested them from the surrounding hills. Literally known as "Caterpillar in Winter, Grass in Summer" (冬虫夏草), this is actually a caterpillar infected by a fungus. the stalk growing out of the caterpillar is the fruiting body of the fungus like a mushroom or toadstool. Cordyceps is a very expensive TCM herb. However since they were produced right here on the Qing-Zang plateau they are available very cheaply. I was able to bargain the price down to 15 cordyceps for RMB100 (SGD20). As an entomologist, I could tell that these were the real stuff (there are plenty of fake ones out in the markets). Back in the provincial capital Xining, almost every other shop was selling cordyceps.

My Qinghai album is located here. If anyone from within China has problem viewing the pics on Flickr, please download Firefox browser (you should be using this browser anyway) and then download an extension from here to bypass the GFW.

sterile area

spotted at Qinghai airport. does that mean you must be "fixed" before you enter waiting area? either that they must be very particular about disinfecting the place.

visiting Qinghai Lake

Robina and I will be visiting Qinghai Lake or Koko Nor, over the weekend. Qinghai Lake is in Qinghai Province just next to Tibet. in fact, the beginning of the Qinghai-Tibet railway starts near the lake. Qinghai Lake is the largest inland salt-water lake, at the elevation of 3205 metres. The place is famous for the large number of migratory birds (Bar-headed geese, cormorants, Brown-headed and Black-headed Gulls) that nest there every summer; feeding on the local endemic fish, Scaleless Carp (Gymnocypris przewalskii)or "Huang Yu" in mandarin. Hopefully, we can spot another endemic but rare species along the way, the "Przewalskii antelope"(Procapra przewalskii)

In terms of culture, Qinghai has a large Tibetan ethnic minority. we will be visiting a Tibetan town and lama monasteries. we should be able to spot Yaks and drink butter tea! As a carpet enthusiast, I hope to pick up some Tibetan and Qinghai style carpets, which are hard to come by and expensive in Beijing
Qinghai Lake from Google Earth

wedding

Robina and I were back in Singapore last week to attend Pat and Winnie's wedding. here are the girls at the wedding dinner, which was held in a nice restaurant in Clarke Quay.
food was excellent since this was a proper restaurant, not some hotel ballroom banquet food!
the girls were the maids of honour during the church wedding the previous day. they also get to walk down the aisle.
Jovien was the flower girl, despite some moments of naugthiness, she was quite well-behaved.
Ethan was the ring-bearer. bribed by sweets, Ethan played along with the script!