Running On Qing Zang Plateau » Yushu

A beautiful county in Qinghai. 4,450m high. And it's super tough to get there.

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Yu Shu (Jade Tree) is some 800km south west of Xining. I am taking this coach.	Small beds on the bus.		A couple of 100 kms after Xining, it's all dirt road. I didn't know nightmare is waiting for me ...
			At 11pm. I feel the bus running into a stone or something. Then when I wake up at 7am, the bus is still there.	The bus goes kaput at 4,000m! Gosh. The driver doesn't seem to have a plan to fix the bus.
Passengers smoked in the bus last nite. Kam's body slowed down breathing automatically. Result? Lack of oxygen and mountain sickness!	I can either wait endlessly with a serious headache (mountain sickness), or hitch hike 500km to Yushu. I do the later.	I am on this truck, going 30km per hour. Good this is that I know I am at least moving towards Yushu. The bad thing is the bumpy dirt road shakes my exploding head like crazy.	Long and ...	winding road ...
Know why mutton here is extra delicious? Unpolluted sky rains unpolluted water, raises unpolluted grass, feeds unpolluted sheep.
The kind drivers who give me a lift.	Travelling in places like this, anything can happen. Your limits will be pushed and your reserve will be used, or if unlucky, used up...	So you better come travel before you are old.	Nature wouldn't give you a break because you have mountain sickness. Hey, paved road!
				The Yangtsz River originates in Qinghai. This is the first bridge of Yangtsz River? I forgot.
	Light is dimming. Kam still has this huge headache. After this "accident", Kam swears that the next time he travels Qinghai or Tibet, he will drive a car himself!	At some 4am, I arrive at Yushu. All accommodations are close except this inn.	You can have all the electricity you want.
Yushu in the morning.	It's mostly Tibetan in Yushu.		A tibetan temple.	Kam goes to visit the biggest Ma Ni Pile in the world.
It's the size of a football field. 3 stories tall at some places.	"O Ma Ni Be Me Hom" the Six Word Scripture that Tibetans mumble everyday. They also like to carve the 6 words on stone, and thus the Ma Ni stones.	Then they pile up Ma Ni stones to make Ma Ni piles.	Ma Ni piles can be found near rivers, and passes, on mountain tops, you name it.	Ma Ni piles can be small like a table, or big like a room. The biggest Ma Ni pile at Yushu is phenomenally huge.
Atop the Ma Ni pile.			The habbit of piling Ma Ni is very strong in Qinghai, even stronger then that in Tibet. (In Kam's 2008 Tibet trip, he doesn't see much Ma Ni piles at all)

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