mian tiau niu rou

last week was a busy mix of four-wheel driving through the roof of the world, opening an orthopaedic workshop in chamdo and flying to qingdao in the east of china to join the national orthopaedic fair.

after weeks of planning and trying to arrange my five permits, for a foreigner needed to visit the ‘forbidden’ chamdo region, our trip started early saturday morning, october 13th at 7.00 am. we gathered just outside lhasa and left with our jeeps for a two day road trip to chamdo, located 1000 km (north) east of lhasa (still in tibet). the scenery is wonderful and landscapes kept changing during the entire trip, mainly because of the elevation differences. we climbed to heights above 5000m and descended to valleys around 2000m. sometimes the road was paved while other times we had to endure rough sand paths that are not drivable by normal car. so at the end, we were shaken up quite well. beautiful nature and quiet mountain villages are the only thing you see during this trip. i am really delighted that i could join this exceptional trip and that my driver had previous experiences driving these roads. at 9.00 pm we arrived in a village were we stayed for the night and the day could not have ended better than with a nice and hot bowl of ‘mian tiau niu rou’ (noodle soup with beef).

a short night later, we left the village at 6.30 am and started the second part of our trip. the scenery kept changing again and again. the trip was never boring. around 6.30 pm we arrived in chamdo. the chamdo staff of the tdpf (tibetan disabled people federation) welcomed us just before entering the city. first we headed to our hotel, dropped our luggage and then joined a wonderful welcome party. the food and drinks were really delicious and the atmosphere was extraordinary. especially the good food was lacking on our way there, as salty yak butter tea is not my cup of tea.

the next day we checked and opened the new workshop. first, a grand opening ceremony took place. the local government official held a speech, which was broadcasted at the local television. in the evening we had an impressive farewell party because i was flying to qingdao the next morning. the menu was really lavish and a lot of drinks, beer and the tasteful local wine were drank abundantly. the local wine has a very nice taste and feels very warm because of a high alcohol level of 56%. a local tdpf member told me that it is very good for your health, especially on high elevations, but you have to drink it slowly, otherwise it will damage your liver. at 2.00 am I decided it was time to go to sleep as i had to get up only three hours later to catch my flight. so I left the party and enjoyed drunken dreams.

at 10.00 am i arrived in chengdu (stop-over) and drank a couple of much needed coffees before i met my two tibetan colleagues (from lhasa). in the late afternoon we took the airplane to the coastal city of qingdao.

qingdao is a wonderful city. i drank a real cappuccino (and I had a western style pumpkin soup and foccasia, mmmm…) for the first time in three months which felt amazing (the foam of lhasa cappuccino’s is much too milky). compared to qingdao, lhasa is a small and isolated city so western influences did not reach us yet. starbucks, Italian style pizza’s (we do have the frozen kind) and other luxuries just do not exist in tibet.

because of qingdao’s coastal location, the seafood is delicious and really fresh, which made me eat way too much. also the local beer is incredible, because the most popular Chinese beer, tsingtao beer, is brewed here. we had a lot of parties with local orthopaedic companies, who had a stand at the fair, mostly with delicious seafood and beer as the main ingredients.

qingdao city is very modern and has a mixture of chinese, colonial (german influences) and modern architecture. the scenery is extraordinary because of the city’s location on a peninsula with lush mountains and a beautiful sea dotted with islands.

the orthopaedic fair started thursday morning and also many international companies were present. multinationals like otto bock, ossur and endolite were there but most of the companies were from all over greater china. the most important goal of our visit to the fair was to locate companies who can deliver cheaper materials than the current icrc (red cross) materials we currently use in lhasa. the icrc materials and components have to be ordered from switzerland, which is very expensive to transport and takes a long time to pass all the checkpoints before it enters tibet.

i believe, it will be impossible to serve poor people within tibet after handicap international’s handover to the local authorities, as hi is also covering the expenses for the poor people. if such high costs are needed to bring the materials into tibet, it would be much better to use local chinese products. a lot of contacts were made with local companies, but it was not always easy because i did not have a translator at the fair and most of the chinese exhibitors did not speak english. but I managed to meet some really interesting people and some possible benefactors. saturday evening i arrived in lhasa again and could take a well deserved rest on sunday before starting my work again on monday.

saturday we (joyce is coming too) will leave for chengdu, with the famous tanggula express, to join the handicap international china meeting and to cuddle with the baby giant panda’s, for which chengdu is world-renowned.