East of Croydon

by Sue Perkins

  Then, almost as if he could sense my confusion, and in a testament to how little he held on to the horrors of the past, he whisked me up off my chair and started dancing. It was a strange dance, and a stranger tune, a little like ‘The Birdy Song’, delivered in a high-pitched wheeze that sounded like a Franco-Mandarin hybrid.

  So there we were, two people from two entirely different worlds, bound to each other by the international superglue of music and movement. Same as it ever was.

  After a couple of minutes we sat down again, both wheezing – him through age, me through altitude sickness. He got out his prayer book. I haven’t been to church in thirty-four years, yet he and I sang through that plainsong in Latin, long after Olly and Matt had stopped committing it to tape.

  I sing through the Kyrie and the Gloria. I am eight years old. I am rocking my sore buttocks from side to side on the hard wooden bench, the rich tickle of incense in my nose. I sing the Credo, the Sanctus. I see my dad at the end of the pew check his watch and roll his eyes. I know he is bored and wants to go play golf. I sing the Agnus Dei. Dad sees me looking at him and winks. We stifle a laugh. I finish singing. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Amen.

  There’s something in my eye. Bloody chickens. I must be allergic to bloody chickens.

  The church was surrounded by vineyards, planted by the French missionaries some hundred and fifty years ago, and each household owns a plot. Some villagers sell the grapes in the nearby village of Badi, and others still make red wine following the techniques taught to their ancestors by the priests.

  That afternoon, I pottered down to talk to the workers tending the vines. As I approached one of the houses, a tiny Tibetan mastiff puppy, a blur of black fur with sandy points, danced towards me on his back legs at the end of a long chain.

  ‘Can’t you let him off?’ I asked the couple standing next to him. ‘To play?’

  They laughed, hard. As if the request was crazy. As if anyone, or anything, would want to do something as pointless as play.

  I sat with the pup for a while, tickling his back legs, feigning hurt as his milk teeth pressed either side of my fingers.

  ME: When will you let him off? Surely he has to get used to the other dogs.

  They laughed again. That little dog would grow into a big dog. And that big dog would one day be a dead dog, and only then would they take it off the leash.

  Before I could head down that melancholy side-road, my attention was drawn to a young girl, poking her head between the gateposts and laughing at me. I laughed back and blew a raspberry, for good measure. She stuck out her tongue. I lifted up the end of my nose, exposing my gums and nostrils and gurned. She did the same. We clicked, immediately, profoundly – to the point that Vicky was impatient to separate us so I could actually get on with some work.

  My interview was with a quiet, soulful guy who whispered his name. The wind took it before it reached my ears. I say he was quiet. I mean silent. I was not upset. I was starting to learn the foolishness of asking big questions to those who lived a life of subsistence. There was no sound in the valley, save the snip of his rusty shears on the vines, and an occasional burst of my inane babble. Around us, the little girl – who I assumed was his daughter – danced, her arms outstretched in the faint breeze. I caught her eye, and before long, we were dancing together, and playing tag through the tumble of vines. I did not know her name. I do not remember being told it. She held my hand, and I felt a tug that went beyond the temporal. It was the tug I feel every time a little one grabs my palm – the faint twinge of loss, the faint echo of what might have been.

  It was an odd day. Baggy. Usually I’m up and at it – but today the crew needed to take sweeping shots of the mountains, of the ancient road scarred by the hydroelectric dam being built. I found myself with very little to do, and with very little energy to do it with.

  I asked to be driven to the top of the village, to the temple overlooking the valley. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to think. I walked out onto the thick flat rock that extended from the mountain’s edge. Beyond, a carpet of endless green punctuated by the occasional whitewashed stupa. I cleared my mind. I tried to meditate. To my surprise I began to cry.

  Then, out of nowhere, the wind got up – sharp and sudden. The flaccid boughs of prayer flags around me tautened and the air was filled with furious noise – like the beating of a million wings.

  I started from my meditation. I looked over to my right, sensing something new on the landscape.

  And there she was, the little girl from the vineyard.

  What the hell? How on earth had she got up here so quickly? I was driven and it took at least five or six minutes. She must have sprinted, yet her chest wasn’t heaving. She wasn’t even out of breath.

  She extended her right arm and beckoned me over with a twitch of her hand. I got up and wandered towards her, suddenly light-headed. I clasped her little fingers in mine, and together we walked back down the mountainside in silence. After fifteen minutes or so, we came to an abrupt halt by a tiny concrete dwelling. Outside were two old women, sitting either side of the door, like gatekeepers. Both were dressed in emerald green and knitting furiously.

  I was starting to feel that this reel of my life was being directed by David Lynch.

  The pensioners looked at me with trepidation as I approached. The little girl said something to them in a low voice. They relaxed and nodded. I was ushered through the open doorway to the single room beyond. The little girl gestured towards a wooden chair, draped in a yak-hair blanket. I sat.

  ‘STAY,’ she seemed to be saying. Yet her mouth didn’t open.

  She dragged a chair across the room, stood on it and, with great difficulty, stretched up to a little cupboard mounted high on the wall. From inside she brought down a candy bar and a plastic juice carton.

  She removed the straw from its wrapper, punched it through the silver disc at the top of the container and handed it to me. Same with the biscuit: she ripped the foil, exposed a bright pink cake beneath and pressed it into my palm. Then she returned the chair to its place and sat next to me, her hand resting on my knee. I looked at her and was shocked to find she was viewing me with a mixture of curiosity and … and sympathy.

  It’s like I’m a patient, I thought.

  It’s like I’m her patient.

  The long silence was broken by a woman entering the room. I assumed she must be the girl’s mother. I bowed.

  ‘Tashi delek,’ I muttered.

  ‘Tashi delek,’ she replied.

  Yet the child didn’t behave like a daughter. And the woman seemed deferential, timid. Even a little afraid.

  The girl spoke once more, in a low whisper. The woman left.

  She reached for a remote and turned the television on. The room exploded with noise and colour. She slipped her hand back into mine and we stared at the screen, wordlessly, occasionally slurping our juice.

  I began to feel distinctly woozy. It must be the heat. The lack of oxygen. Or poison. Has she poisoned me? Has she?

  We sat there, holding hands, for what seemed like hours – the endless, high-octane adverts washing over us.

  Finally, she moved. She turned to face me, handed me the remote control and said: ‘Sue. You can change channels any time you want, you know.’

  In English. In plain, uninflected English.

  My heart was racing. I’ve gone mad. I’ve lost it. I’ve come all this way and I have lost my mind.

  ME: Did you speak? Did you speak just then? I heard you! How come you know English? How come you can say that? How? What are you? What are you?

  The little girl just smiled, and lightly touched my cheek with her palm. Then, she got up, gestured for me to follow and led me out into the afternoon air. I stood there, gasping in the light, whereupon she ran down the hill until I lost sight of her.

  I still struggle with that day. I struggle to make sense of it. Did I imagine that voice, even though I saw it come out of her mouth? Even though I could hear it as clear as day?
Was I hallucinating? Had I temporarily taken leave of my senses in that strange, otherworldly high place?

  The unknowable is frightening. That’s why we’re hardwired to rationalize, to find answers. But with that little girl, I chose to believe something else – something fantastical, that which is unprovable, random and crazy. I chose to believe that she was an angel. My angel. And, yes, she may have been born from the fires of madness, sadness, or plain and simple oxygen starvation. She may have been a projection of a brain now badly malfunctioning with prolactin overload. But she remains an angel, nonetheless.

  And when I came home, I did, indeed, change channel.

  24. It’s Not What You Do – It’s the Way That You Do It

  We ascend again, still further into the Himalayas, four thousand metres and counting. We climb as far as Shangri-La, the most exotic place name on the planet, a citadel in the yellow plains, where wild dogs roam and people spin round and round on a vast prayer wheel to the point of collapse. Whatever you believe, we are near the heavens, for sure.

  My voice had gone from wheezy to full-blown Dalek. The lack of oxygen meant that everything I said now had the sinister overtone of a tin-can Kaled, hell-bent on destroying all known planets in the galaxy.

  ‘WHERE IS THE NEA-REST TOI-LET?’ I’d ask, and people would jump. I’d become used to the fact my new Davros voice prompted fear.

  After a few days acclimatizing, the headache finally went. I felt clean and clear. We journeyed onwards as far as the border between Yunnan and Zogang but could not process any further. A thick barricade of prayer flags greeted me at the pass. In front of me lay the majestic Khawa Karpo, the mountain sacred to all Tibetans – but, sadly, it was wreathed in thick cloud, so I didn’t get so much as a peek at it.

  There are direct flights from Shangri-La to Lhasa twice a day. It takes, on average, a mere two hours to get there. Easy, yes?

  Easy, that is, if you’re given permission by the Chinese government. We weren’t given that permission. Instead we had to take four flights, skirting round the edges of the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

  – From Diqing to Kumming (that’s 1 hour)

  – From Kumming to Chongqing (that’s another 1 hour 15 minutes)

  – From Chongqing to Xining (add an extra 1 hour 40)

  – From Xining to Yushu Batang (and finish it off with a final 1 hour and 15)

  President Xi Jinping – sir – with the greatest respect, I want you to know that I hold you personally responsible for my deep-vein thrombosis, lumpy legs and spider veins.

  Landing in Yushu was like landing on another planet. The runway was a simple strip mown into an endless pasture of soft yellow grass – so yellow you felt you were descending into custard.

  The terminal was empty save a couple of kids, with pinched, flushed cheeks, and their grandfather, all sitting in silence waiting for their relatives to descend from the sky. Chinese guards in thick gabardine uniforms were holding their automatic weapons at the ready, in an airport the size of your average restaurant.

  I was picked up by a wonderful guide named Tashi. We drove past a vast herd of yak, heads down, munching as far as the eye could see.

  ME: You know there are around twelve million yaks in this area?

  TASHI: Yes.

  ME: And only six million Tibetans.

  TASHI: OK.

  ME: You know what that means. If the yaks get their shit together …

  TASHI: It’s over for us …

  It was a four-hour drive to our overnight stop in Sharda. On the way we saw small groups of men and women walking at the edge of the road, mumbling mantras to themselves, hands raised to the heavens. They would take three small steps, drop to their knees, lie face down on the earth, then stand again. Then they would take another three small steps and repeat the process. Walk, kneel, lie, walk, kneel, lie. Most wore red and orange robes; some were in animal skins. Others had wooden paddles attached to their hands. This was to protect their palms from the sharp gravel, but also, so that when they raised their hands to the heavens they could clap.

  ME: Where are they going?

  TASHI: Lhasa. To the holy temple of Jokang.

  ME: And they do this the whole way?

  TASHI: Yes. Of course. They will be there in about five months.

  Through rain, snow and dizzying heat they walk, breaking the momentum with devotional prostration. A reminder to be mindful of each step and be present in the now rather than the later.

  I thought about me in the car in Kentish Town, screaming if I didn’t make the lights.

  Finally, we hit the edge of town and the familiar dusty streets. The hotel felt familiar too; young kids smoking on Reception, the customary whine of an old TV. I’d never been there, but I’d seen it all before – the polished marble floors in the entranceway, the lacquered, ornate hardwood chairs … a wilful distraction from the horror of the actual rooms upstairs.

  I was given the honour of the Presidential Suite. Sure, there was still the mandatory overflowing toilet that I’d had in every other Chinese hostel. The difference was this was a large overflowing toilet – and that’s what puts the P in Presidential, folks. I spent the night in a vast carved bed strapped to a tank of oxygen, watching the puffs of dust emerge through the broken windows as the lorries rumbled through the streets in an endless line.

  The most wonderful thing for me about this part of the journey was that no one could agree on its exact end point. For hundreds of years, locals have recognized 94°18’14E, 33°34’15N as the source of the Mekong, or Dza Chu, as it’s known there. In 2001, a Japanese research team published the source as some forty kilometres away from the Tibetan recognized points. Then, in 2002, a Chinese expedition claimed the location as six kilometres away from the Japanese location, and on an entirely different mountain altogether.

  Either the Mekong is having a laugh and moving every now and then, or weather and climatic conditions make pinpointing it virtually impossible.

  Two things were clear; first, the start of the Mekong is found somewhere in the centre of Dzado County, in one of the most rugged and remote spots on the planet, and second, this was as near as I was going to get to it. fn1

  We set off the next morning to the most north-eastern part of the plateau, arriving at a tiny outpost some four kilometres from the town of Nyalga to meet the first family of the Mekong. They were yak herders. In the winter they stay here, and in the warmer months they are nomadic, following their animals across the vast plateau.

  I knew they had never seen a Westerner before. I had thought long and hard about the impression I wanted to make on them – but I never got the chance. As soon as I opened the car door, I was grabbed by the entire family – two at each arm and several at my back – and manoeuvred into the house. It was my very first Tibetan love-bomb, and I crave it still.

  The house was a single-storey concrete dwelling with two rooms, one a bedroom with low-slung wooden cots, the other a living space with a roaring open fire at its heart. A thin, sweet fog filled the air, as the mother, Ama, got busy with the kettle.

  ‘She’s making your drink,’ said Tashi. ‘It’s the local speciality.’

  Ama opened a pot, delved inside and pulled out a fistful of yellow fat. It squelched between her brown fingers. She put a clod of this butter in the pot, along with some barley powder and what looked like milk curd, then poured on some tea. Yak butter tea, the Tibetan staple. The result was an earthy, nutty brew full of fat and salt. I could get quite used to it.

  A man called Dave Asprey tried yak butter tea in the Autonomous Region in 2004. He liked it so much, he added grass-fed butter to his morning brew and the Bulletproof Coffee was born – the beverage that launched a million wellness blogs. I thought of life up here – the simplicity of limited ingredients, the integrity of their farming practices and life in general, and then I thought of the pitiful ways we have tried to deconstruct it at home with our barley ‘mylk’ and bone broths.

  We left at midday and climbed
the mountainous plain next to the house. The sun snarled at my cheeks and turned them red. It’s strange up there – you’re simultaneously hot and cold. I had now acclimatized, so finally had the chance to relax and be transported by the beauty of it all.

  The land was dotted with black, as the yak spread like marbles across the plains. The husband, Aba, looked on at his herd in pride. Occasionally, if one of the brutes got out of line, he would send a stone skimming, at lightning speed, to its hocks, and it would rumble off, duly disciplined.

  I noticed that several of the yaks had brightly coloured ribbons in their ears. I asked him what that meant.

  ABA: It means they are safe. They are untouched. They are our gift to the gods and we will look after them until they die a natural death here in the mountains.

  We wandered to the river, a river I had spent the last four months looking at. I had seen it filthy and clogged in Ho Chi Minh, raging in Laos, dammed in China – and here … Here it was like the purest of streams, bounded by white rocks and soaring mountains.

  I have never been anywhere on this earth that I loved more, save perhaps the furthest reaches of Cornwall and the Scottish Highlands.

  I stood back as Aba knelt by the water. He washed his face three times, took three bowlfuls and threw each of them back, one by one.

  Me: Do you fish?

  I was optimistic. Surely here I’d be able to see fish taken from the Mekong.

  ABA: No. We take nothing from the water. We want to preserve it for the others downstream. We want to keep it pure.