Into Zoige

Bo came to meet me at the airport Saturday. He had a red jacket on and looked quite happy. Business was really good for him this past summer.

It snowed the day before and didn’t stop until this morning. The air was fresh as usual and the mountains well covered in white. Jiu Zhai(Nine Villages) must be an exciting airport to land for pilots, peaks after peaks after peaks and all of sudden, the runway appeared that seemed quite sloped to my untrained eyes.

The sun felt warm even though it was less than 20F. We had a quick noodle at a restaurant ran by a Muslin family. Half-frozen streams by the well-paved road and the dried grass covered hills reminded me of my first trip to Lhasa. We climbed a 3800m mountain pass with icy patches and a few trucks slid off coming up, but otherwise, an uneventful trip to Zoige town. Quite a bummer the hotel I used to stay didn’t have in-room cable anymore and internet cafes in town insisted on checking ID card I don’t have. Have to stay unplugged for quite some time. Sleepy, slept early.

It snowed again overnight. Sun out on Sunday. Tried to call a few places in Langmusi, I might base there instead if I could find internet, and it would be a more interesting place than this dull and characterless Zoige town.

Daerji, the village head in Chagu happened to come to town and we met briefly. He said he would tell the other villager I interviewed last time to be ready to have me there for a few days. All good.

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