12 - Tibetan Yak Meat & Butter Tea

While in Chengdu, as it's only 3 hours away from Tibet, we went out for a group lunch to sample some true Tibetan food. There were only two of us game enough to try some butter tea, which at first was quite disgusting, but with some sugar added, became quite delicious - I ended up having about 7 cups of it, quite certain I would suffer quite a bit of extra weight as a result. The food was interesting, not sure if I’d call it tasty. We started with some really delicious rice fried with some kind of chive & some tiny pieces of yak meat. Then there were these balls of something that looked a bit like truffles, but I preferred my title of ground yak balls, which made them look even more ominous than they already did. There was quite a bit of yak at the table really - yak meat pieces (too over cooked for my liking), yak meat sausage encased in yak intestine (tasted okay), & a yak meat hotpot. The only vegetables served were some potatoes, nothing else I could remember anyway.

11 - Chengdu - Tibetan Quarter

The hotel was smack in the middle of the Tibetan Quarter, the largest Tibetan community outside Tibet. There had been some kind of uprising several weeks back, & previous groups travelling at that time had to stay elsewhere. Seemingly, there were some violent riots & police & army were going around checking if there were any journalists in the area - you did not want to be a journalist in the area at that time. Of course, it was all over the lack of Tibetan independence, & thing it coincides with the 50th anniversary of the takeover of Tibet by China. There were, of course, Tibetan people everywhere. All the shops sold Tibetan wares, especially Buddhist ornaments, & I bargained hard for a wooden beaded bracelet. I was a tad shocked when, for the first time in China, a child started begging to me to give him some money. He was spurned on by his mother who encouraged him to run after me. The kid, who would have been only 5 years of age, followed me even when I waved him away, grabbed hold of me & was overall incredibly persistent. Even though I really wanted to give him some money, I didn’t because it only encourages begging - & Frank says that it’s better to give some money to charity institutions.