Day 89: Renduo (仁朵) – September 14th

It was one of those long days on the road, driving through the similar terrain we’ve been used to seeing. It really is strange how people can get ‘tired’ of such nice things. Instead spent most of the day dozing in and out of sleep from 7am all the way til 9pm.

At one point, the whole car turned to talking about ghost stories and folklore about driving through the Ali region, getting lost and running into a tribe of chainsaw-wielding man-eaters, or something like that. The stories went on for about half an hour as we drove by this massive field pasture….until the road suddenly stopped in front of this recently built house….our driver was actually LOST!!! We tried to knock on the door, but nobody was home. The house looking brand spanking new amongst a sea of muddy ruins, had this eerie aura of the beginning of a movie. And, as if on cue, the clouds gathered quickly and darkened from afar, shrouding us with a blanket of darkness and drizzling rain…perfect time for murder?

Being the first time we’ve seen our driver get lost (again, there are no roads here, only paths of other cars that diverge every which way), we were sorta nervous. We backtracked our way out for about 30mins to find a nomad to ask for directions….And apparently we were on the right track, they just built this new house for road constructions last month =P

So arriving at our Tibetan host’s home in pitch darkness an hour later, we found him standing in the rain, waving us into the proper direction. For the rest of the evening, we sat around a stove eating air-cured Tibetan meats and drinking the staple tea with salt. The meats were like dry jerky, except this stuff was cured RAW!!!! It also reminded us a bit of the freeze-dried stuff we buy for Bacon… =P The salty tea though, is an acquired taste, and it sorta tastes like miso-soup without the seaweed/tofu. Note to self: Bring seaweed to Tibetan regions next time.

We slept in this mud-hut, and once again thanks to our lovely sleeping bags which we can’t speak enough of, we went sound asleep.