TRAGEDY IN THE DARK../ Labrang/ 19.7.2007

There has been an accident… The look on his face was that of a scared child’s We rushed out from the tent. It was very dark outside. A sound could be heard from a distance. Like a moaning. It was difficult to anything. I could feel the presence of the horses…but something was truly wrong. Mahmut, our horseman shouted from a distance and his voice sounded also shattered. It came from somewhere below..

It was a nice morning – with clear skies, fresh and crispy air. Our camp was close to a Tibetan tent village. Lot of typical Tibetan tents - white wall tent like with blue decorations and some additional colors here and there. The setting was nice too –by a river with high green hills surrounding it. The only disturbing thing was the roadwork close by that kept going the whole night trough. We were invited to one of the tents that later turned out to be this tent villages restaurant/shop/meeting place. A nice evening that was. We started quite early because the distance ahead was over 30 km in a hilly terrain. Through beautiful alpine meadows up to elevations over 3400m. A lot of climbing, that was quite heavy for my old friend Urs Jakob - who had joined us in Lanzhou. He sure was a part of the crew because he was with us for the whole first part of our expedition last year. At that time he was on foot or by jeep – this time on horseback. He did well and it was not an easy ride, even for an experienced rider. Our destination was the monastery of Labrang – also called “ The Little Lhasa” A large monastery with 2000 monks and 300 nuns –the largest in present- day China – including Tibet. In the real Lhasa there are only 700 monks - Beijing does not allow more. At the end of Urs first real day on horseback we were surprised by a heavy thunderstorm and this was when we were descending from the high sierra. It was a slippery path down – with the horses gliding on their back feet several times. When it rains here..it really rains and all these mud roads are truly muddy. But we made to our camp and looked forward to the following day - just 40 km left to Labrang. But in the morning it was raining and we had to wait for the skies to clear - which they did in the afternoon and we could continue. ! 5 kilometers later with decided to stop for the day and put up our tents. It was a nice setting – between the road and the river. Different flat levels. Like small plateaus really. We chose a nice one that was overlooking the valley and the river. Not so far from our tent was a steep cliff with a fifteen-meter drop to the grassland by the river. Our horse had a lot of good places to choose from –specially the area by the river was very suitable grazing….but a bit further was something even better. A fenced area with a lot of delicious grasses – and not cultivated at all. I decided to find out who was the proprietor of this piece of land. In China land is not privately owned – only for lease. And this lease is usually not transferable. After some no-nos and we do not know I finally found the right guy. He was spending the evening with his neighbors, drinking a little, talking. He seemed to be a leading figure in this village and after some negotiations he agreed to let the horses be inside the fenced area and graze during the night. He seemed to please with the extra 50 Yuan that he had earned and was glad that the horses got a nice place for the night. So I strolled back to our camp with the god news. We decided to celebrate –due to the first two days on horseback for Urs. Some nice wine. Cheese and a god meat soup that our cook had prepared. The wine and cheese was something that Urs brought with him from Canada. So there we sat and enjoyed our meal when we where suddenly interrupted by our new young guide – who called himself “ Elmer”. He said there is a lady outside who wants to talk with us. I asked what she wanted to talk about and Elmer said that she had some claims on that fenced area where our horse were. - “ She wants 100 Yuan for letting the horses be there” No way Jose –we have already agreed with one person about this and we are not going to let us be blackmailed like this. This kind of “milking” is - sad to say very common. - Go and tell her that we do not accept this. A deal is a deal…. I said to Elmer. Few minutes later he came back and said that this lady is very pertinent and that she is the wife of the man who gave us the permission in the first place.. - What! ... So this was either a family plot or then that she was pissed of with her husband being out with his pals drinking and selling their assets to cheap.. I did go out and tried to talk to the woman. She had two small children with her and they did not like this tense situation. One of them had a flashlight in the hand and pointed with it to the village. He wanted to take his grandmother home. But she was stubborn and the result was that we gave the horseman Mahmut orders to take out the horses – to a suitable place. There were lots of them. So we continued our dinner for fifteen minutes when Elmer rushed in to the tent again. This time he was very upset. -“There has been an accident… one of the horses fell down…” We rushed out –Kristian after the sound of moaning down below. I checked with the other horses - they were restless and very close to our tent. Actually between the cliff and our tent almost. - Get a Vet quickly! - Kristian shouted I called David – our main man in Urumqi and the person who was our contact to the Kazak horse breeder who gave Motor – the retired European Thoroughbred to us. It was Motor who had stumbled in the darkness over the cliff. Now he was laying 15 meters below..Moaning. I knew,.. That was the sound of death. I felt chock, anger and despair. This was a friend, true companion, and a member of our team. He was a very smart horse..A kind horse that stumbled on a human error in the darkness of the night. The horseman had been so eager to move the horses that he did not take them one by one but four at once and moved them to a totally wrong place. This is China..

All news