a land of Tibet

We're in our coracle on the Yakra chu on the way to it's confluence with the Cheto chu in the city of Dartsedo! The Cheto chu actually flows in a northeasterly direction. The two are tributaries of the Dardo river. We're actually in the center of what was once Chakla Kindom ,one of the five Kingdoms of Kham ruled by the hereditary leaders, the Gyelpo, and their Queens. Our Footprint Tibet handbook describes the walls of the valley as being quite steep and filled with mist. The sound of the Cheto chu can be heard throughout the town as it flows through a series of concrete enclosures and ghats with considerable energy; on occasion it has flooded over the streets! This seems to be a good place for some hot butter tea; fortunately there's lots of it here! As mentioned, Dartsedo was and still is a place where entire warehouses were built to store the tea coming for the Sichuan province which would be traded for the herbs of the Tibetan plateau. It now is where the Tibetan Language University of East Tibet is located; it moved there from Tawu where we were earlier. We can stock up on our tea then head over there! It turns out the Tibetan language is somewhat more complicated than we are making it as we study our Tibetan language book! One thing we hear right away is that it's a tonal language! Like Chinese it's sort of sung with the pitch of the voice rising and falling from syllable to syllable. The tone can either high fall from a high pitch to a lower one, low fall by falling from a lower one to a still lower one, or just be high pitched or low pitched. I learned this recently because I had mistakenly set my alarm clock an hour ahead and got up an hour early! Having an extra hour I began reading from our Tibetan dictionary and discovered this. When we factor in all the possible dialects especially here in the Chuzi gangdruk, the situation is really complicated! Then there are the honorific forms of the language used in diplomatic and governmental settings which our Tibetan language book describes as being practically another language! It's a good thing Tibetans are relaxed about these things. Then there's all that butter tea to help us think about it. There's a lot more to add but as usual two as one we'll add to the notes later beautiful one!


	Through My Eyes * We're in our coracle on the Yakra chu on the way to it's confluence with the Cheto chu in the city of Dartsedo! The Cheto chu actually flows in a northeasterly direction. The two are tributaries of the Dardo river. We're actually in the center of what was once Chakla Kindom ,one of the five Kingdoms of Kham ruled by the hereditary leaders, the Gyelpo, and their Queens. Our Footprint Tibet handbook describes the walls of the valley as being quite steep and filled with mist. The sound of the Cheto chu can be heard throughout the town as it flows through a series of concrete enclosures and ghats with considerable energy; on occasion it has flooded over the streets! This seems to be a good place for some hot butter tea; fortunately there's lots of it here! As mentioned, Dartsedo was and still is a place where entire warehouses were built to store the tea coming for the Sichuan province which would be traded for the herbs of the Tibetan plateau. It now is where the Tibetan Language University of East Tibet is located; it moved there from Tawu where we were earlier. We can stock up on our tea then head over there! It turns out the Tibetan language is somewhat more complicated than we are making it as we study our Tibetan language book! One thing we hear right away is that it's a tonal language! Like Chinese it's sort of sung with the pitch of the voice rising and falling from syllable to syllable. The tone can either high fall from a high pitch to a lower one, low fall by falling from a lower one to a still lower one, or just be high pitched or low pitched. I learned this recently because I had mistakenly set my alarm clock an hour ahead and got up an hour early! Having an extra hour I began reading from our Tibetan dictionary and discovered this. When we factor in all the possible dialects especially here in the Chuzi gangdruk, the situation is really complicated! Then there are the honorific forms of the language used in diplomatic and governmental settings which our Tibetan language book describes as being practically another language! It's a good thing Tibetans are relaxed about these things. Then there's all that butter tea to help us think about it. There's a lot more to add but as usual two as one we'll add to the notes later beautiful one! * courtesy of A Luminous Diamond (Bright) Crystal Show productions. The information for the sketches is courtesy of the Footprint Tibet handbook by Gyurme Dorje. ( please click here to return to my spinning for you!)