Little wonders

A Chinese ant's view.














Little wonders need few words. I've taken the comments of some of my friends at heart in that the blog is rather looooooooooong, so here's a short one. (Well, relatively short.) The last week I've been on a mission impossible that led me from Xining to Tongren (via Ping An) and from there to Dawo, the last town before the high altitude plateau (let's say Tibet and neighbouring areas) if you take link roads.

Why impossible? It's climbs all the way! And when you go downhill, you can see the next climb waiting for you..



Up to Tongren, a town built around a Buddhist monastery that dates back to the early 14th century, there was quite a bit of agriculture.



I stayed the night on this hilltop. Right-hand picture: tent with garden.



It might sound a bit odd, but on this hill I was suddenly very aware of my own, and all the other life around me. A kind of existential time, where the beauty of things appeared in their full glory. On almost every day there's a moment where I realise: "Wow, this is swell", but on this height it lasted from the moment I pitched my tent, to the moment that the sun had disappeared behind the hills.



Halfway through the nineties Moby shook up dance halls all around the globe with his hit 'Feeling so real', and although I wasn't old enough back then to feel real, I did hear this tune in my head when I found myself at this place.



The next morning I woke up with sunrise and by the time I had packed and got back to the road, I saw this morning dew rise from the valley.

Later on that day I followed the course of the Yellow River. I had a dive at this spot. Clear fresh water, surrounded by mountains that went pale with the low-hanging clouds.



Then the road curved away from the river, and followed a side stream through a narrow gorge. At one point there's this Buddhist shrine, a demarcation point. From here there are less and less mosques, and more and more colourful prayer flags and festoons.




In Tongren I visited the monastery, which was OK. Monks are actually very normal people, I came to realise. They wear trainers, drive motorcycles or cars, and once I saw a few dumping trash from the window into the ditch next to road.

Just like anywhere else in China you find these silly show dogs. Speaking of which, luckily the guy sitting next to me in the cyber cafe ran out of credit, as he was non-stop watching movies of dog fights. Very disturbing, but with a kind of magnetism that draws your attention if you are aware of it.




It got interesting when I met with these craftsmen, who invited me for lunch. I had visited the building in which the Buddhist printing press was on display, and moments later I spend time with the very people that carve the printing plates out of wood.

After yak tea with butter and 'mo mo' (meaning bread), one of them made a phonecall.



The day before I had visited a temple complex in a nearby town, where the highlight for me consisted out of the decoration of a newly built temple. Guys where busy painting the panelling, an activity that comes with meticulous precision.

In another monastery I was invited by a painter, Wang, to stay for the night. He works with his colleagues on a 'thanka' (a kind of cartoon depicting the life of the Buddha) and he has been doing so for more than one and a half year! I told him that I cycled with intervals from the Netherlands to here in less time. He replied by saying that the work drives him mad. When it's finished (another 7 months), it will go to a rich manager in Beijing who is willing to pay 1,5 million Yuan for it (more than 1,5 ton Euros). An impression will follow in the next entry.



Saw these labourers, coming down from the hillside to the west of Tongren.

The footprints I photographed near a temple in the old monastery. Tells you something of the endurance of worship. Worshipping, to me it is nothing more then normalised neurosis. All along my ride I've witnessed people worshipping, and it comes with the strangest behaviour patterns. All in a sudden it's normal to kiss the doorpost, or the threshold. To walk backwards, shout at the top of your lungs into nothingness, inflict pain on one's own body.

This time I saw an old lady with wooden blocks on her hands, clapping them together in the air above her head, taking a big step, lying down, in the dust, and doing this for as long as there was holy pathway.



It gives a nice communal spirit though, worship. Women are polishing bowls, in which the men place candles.