The Yak-hair Tent
The tent is made from about 20 sheets of black woven yakhair. Every year the
family will make one more sheet to replace any worn-out or old areas. The tent
pole joints are made from yak vertebrae. There's a long hole at the apex to let
out any stray smoke from the yak dung cooking stove (the stoves have chimneys
but the smoke has a tendency to leak out).
The tent is tensioned by removable poles jammed under the (yakhair) guylines.
The tent fabric is fairly permeable - it lets light in and smoke out. In heavy
rain the top of the tent would be covered in animal hides (or, in more recent
times, plastic sheeting).
We slept, wrapped in borrowed fleece-lined Tibetan jackets and our sleeping
bags. Here's Edie flaking out during the day. We had to keep an eye on her as
any 'sleepiness' could possibly have been attributed to altitude sickness (we
were camping here at 3800m). We had acclimatized fairly sensibly*, however, and
had no problems with the thin air! The tents usually had solar-powered batteries
(the white box, above right) which provided power for electric lights at night,
and for Tibetan music cassette tapes.
*By this stage in the trip we'd been at or
above 3000m for 9 days
The sides of the tent can be rolled up during the day (if it's not too windy) -
this lets in more light and fresh air! A sheep carcass, happily drying and smoking in the tent doorway. Meat is
periodically cut off for use - boiled mutton being a favourite Tibetan dish.
Tsampa
The tsampa-box compartments contain barley flour, yak butter and granules of yak
cheese. Tsampa is a Tibetan stable.
Cooking
Our usual potato and cabbage dish being prepared (L); Edie loved these sheep
offal sausages (C); the inside of the tent is a great place to indulge in
passive smoking - of yak dung (R)
The next meal
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...
LEAF-go-VSO
