Originally Posted by
clocker's brother
Yes, dog. They even had pictures of fido by each dish which is how I knew since the menu was all in Chinese. No, I did not try it. I will try most things but had no curiosity for dog meat.
So far the Tibetan food is very different and quite bland compared to the Chinese. In two days I have had yak meat twice. It seems to be the only red meat available here. Last night it was a yak steak and French fries, and today at lunch it was a soup with yak dumplings. If you want to know what yak is like, well it’s a tough life at 12,000+ foot mountains and the meat shows it!
They also have yak butter for everything. Lunch included tea with yak butter. This is a combination that most people would not normally think of, but it was actually ok. I think it is black tea, milk, yak butter, salt and soda water (don’t try this at home!). Of course, there is yak milk yoghurt which is really tart but can be sweetened with honey. Inside the temples they burn these big “candles” of yak butter. It give a distinct odor to the inside and a very slippery floor since the pilgrims all have a coffee thermos full of melted yak butter to add to the candle at the altar as an offering.
The TV is all in Chinese and the lights in the room are no more than 10 watt, so I tend to eat late and go right to bed. I got rid of the headache today from the altitude and lack of oxygen, but it is still easy to exert yourself here by just walking around. You can really feel it when you are climbing up the steps at the monasteries. I leave in two days to some surrounding areas that are even higher, more remote and free of Chinese. The Tibetans have a very distinct culture that the Han Chinese would like to assimilate since they “reclaimed” Tibet in 1959. Half of Lhasa is now Chinese and the two do not mix at all.
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