What a great day! We spent all day on a road trip from Shigatse to Tsetang but stopped many times to see fascinating sights along the way. The road followed the Yarlung Tsangpo River – a river that most of you have probably never heard of. It is the main river that flows east through the heart of Tibet, then makes a sharp turn south and west and flows through India as the Brahmaputra River. South of the river are the Himalaya Mountains, and north are mountains in the Tanggula Range. The river valley widened as we went along, and got lower and greener, with trees and farmland. This is the cradle of Tibetan history, the home of its first kings.
Four Tibetan girls hitched a ride on our bus. They are 15 years old, on their way home for the weekend. Our guide made them answer a lot of questions for us and sing a few songs.
Our first stop was at a sky burial site. For Tibetans, the preferred burial is a sky burial, where the body is cut up and left on a hilltop for vultures to eat. This sounds extremely yucky to us Americans, but Tibetans consider it the most natural way, and the best way to get to heaven. Those who have committed crimes or died on the 29th (don’t ask why!) have to have a “water burial,” where the body is cut up and thrown into the river. This is why Tibetans do not eat fish. For a sky burial, any hilltop will not do; it has to be a holy one, and there are strict rules about how it’s done. Family is not allowed to attend, but best friends are! The details are best left unread.
We also stopped briefly to talk to a watermelon farmer by the side of the road. He was an old Tibetan man with a white beard, watering his plants one by one, helped by his daughter. He looked ancient but he told us he was 68! Very friendly and talkative, as most Tibetans have been with us.
We stopped to see a beautiful gorge with rapids, then had a picnic lunch by the river: dried yak meat, sausage, milk, French fries, corn muffin, banana, apple, and Sprite. Go figure.
After lunch, we passed the Lhasa Airport, which is actually on this river, a ways away from Lhasa. We saw lots of evidence of a massive tree-planting effort along the river, in areas where the dirt has turned to sand.
The most exciting stop was a home visit. We stopped along the road and went to a Tibetan farmer’s home, with his permission. A husband and wife with two preteen sons, in Gongga County. Here’s Paul with the homeowner.
They live in one of many Tibetan farmers’ homes built with government money, all built in typical Tibetan two-story style. In the courtyard were a pump, a solar water-heating panel, and an outhouse. Also a weaving machine (Don’t be fooled! I have no idea how it works!)
On the roof was a TV satellite dish, and the family had three TVs, one of which the boys were watching avidly.
The ground floor had a primitive kitchen, with a stove that burns wood and yak dung, as well as storage rooms for the barley crop and the TV room.
The second floor had a fancy furnished “guest room” with long sofas and brightly painted wooden tables and a large refrigerator, as well as a room with a Buddha altar, with a picture of the previous Panchen Lama.
The master bedroom had brightly painted walls and trunks for clothing and bedding. The satellite dish was labeled as a 2010 gift from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council. We heard that all Tibetans got them this year, a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the “peaceful liberation of Tibet” in 1950. 
The wife’s proudest possession, though, was a stack of woolen blankets she had woven herself – which gave her much greater prestige than the tall refrigerator in her formal sitting room.
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