Bitterly cold morning. Bo came in early and we hit the road by eight, which was just about sunrise for this part of China. Nothing changed much from June except the landscape, now all brown with spots of dusty snow. Just passed the gas station outside the city, someone in a police uniform waved us over. Apparently he was only looking for a ride. Most likely Bo told him we were passing by. He got on, and soon fell asleep.

The section just after Si’Chuan in Kham was paved, a nice little break from the mostly bumpy dirt road.

The Black River was frozen. Soon after crossing the bridge toward the three villages, I called Daerji. We still managed to make a couple of wrong turns and ended up in Gasha instead of Chagu, where I wanted to go. The half-finished new brick houses in Gasha were painted pink and purple, ugly in my eyes.

Eventually we found the school in Chagu. In a little while, Daerji came to lead us to the home of the Sangji’s. He was the one who rode me to the sand dunes in the summer. His wife and daughter helped carried my luggages in and Bo soon took off.

Daerji and the other village head stayed to chat for a bit. Their Mandarin is marginal so it was difficult to carry a conversation. Sangji’s on the other hand is much better. His daughter made me Zanba, the mixture of roasted barley flour with tea, sugar, yak butter, and small bits of dried yak cheese. All mixed by hand to a small dough and ate like that. Not bad.

The day goes on leisurely for Sangji, who, even only in his forties, has already become a grandfather. His younger daughter and son-in-law do most of the family chores. Since it was winter time, the family stayed at their more permanent camp and once a day herd their yaks to drink by the Black River.

When it was watering time, Sangji rode me to the open grassland. I filmed a few amused herders riding toward the camera, one of the girls though had the most elegant rope-throwing style, swinging her rope with a metal tube at the end in a circle above her head as a way to tell the yaks where to go.

At this time of the year, the Black River is completely frozen. One young man was there crushing the ice open for the yaks. It was a beautiful sight with yaks, ice, water, herders on horse in the background, but I was sure it was so terribly cold for the ice-crasher, who had to pick the ice blocks by his bare hands to throw them away. One of the nicest things for the highland here though, is its almost constant warm sun during the day. After crushing enough icy surface, the young man laid down on the ice to take a break and asked me if I wanted to film him taking a nap like that.

Sangji’s family snacked a lot. Maybe because I was there, they ate all the times and constantly offer me food. In the middle of their room was a yak-dung burning stove. It was amazingly warm and didn’t smell bad at all. Come to think of it, it is a very sustainable way of fuel, as long as their grassland is plentiful, the herders will have enough yaks for food and fuel. The cycle, hopefully, could continue on.

The sun set late as well, almost 7 at night. I filmed some more how the herders drove their yaks back to the pen near their home. The whole village at dusk smell like burning yak dung. Temperature soon dropped to way below zero.

When we were warming up inside, the wife came in with a big basket of dungs and the granddaughter wrapped in her pretty little dress. The little two-year-old is very pretty. “Highland blush”, the red cheeks from the sun that are so normal for girls here have not reached her. She was shy for a bit but very soon, her naughtiness came right out.

For dinner, Sangji’s family cooked me a whole pot of yak shanks. That’s the best meal for guests. Their good-heartedness is what motivated me to come and film them, as always.

Night fell quickly but the room was kept warm by the dung fire. Kind of sad in a way herders here have well adopted TV watching at night. If I go back to Qiunatong, that small Tibetan/Nu village down Yunnan, will they still sing and dance by the fire?

Sangji’s family put me in the part of their house where his daughter slept. It was shabby of course, broken window and dirt ground, but that’s already their best. The blankets they gave me were so heavy I could barely move under there. It was warm enough. Just that all the dogs in the village decide to put on a choir at night.