Expedition Update - Departures
The concept of a ‘departure' has all changed since Sebastian’s arrival into our little orbit. Now a departure isn’t simply an exciting...
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Jeff Fuchs
Sep 27, 20221 min read
Tsetan - Tea Horse Road Trader
We sat in the dark gloom of his home, with a bit of lukewarm butter tea roaming around our hands. Another of the remaining legends of the...
Jeff Fuchs
Aug 14, 20222 min read
Tseba, his Tea, and the Walk(s)
One of the most purpose-driven of walkers, Tseba, would prepare a kettle of butter tea every morning before leaving to circumambulate...
Jeff Fuchs
Jul 3, 20211 min read
Latest 'Tea Sessions' Column
Few mortals provide (and have provided) as much leaf pleasure as the immortal Karma. Over years and expeditions, he has alchemized his...
Jeff Fuchs
Jun 30, 20211 min read
Pomo - The Girl Who Could Do it All
'Cheshi' in the early morning in her family’s nomadic camp of Shin’zhu’gong at close to 5000 metres. I continually messed up her name,...
Jeff Fuchs
Jun 9, 20211 min read
The Goddess and the Butter
Her’s was the last tent in the windblown nomadic community of Ala Dhotok (Stone Roof), before we headed up the snow pass of Nup Gong La....
Jeff Fuchs
Apr 20, 20211 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - He Was Late
The horseman assured Sonam and our team that he would appear at 7am sharp the next morning. He promised over several cups of tea, and...
Jeff Fuchs
Apr 10, 20211 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Walks and Words
“When you walk through mountains, you appreciate any arrival. When you walk to a place, you can speak about a place”. An interview about...
Jeff Fuchs
Apr 2, 20211 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Departure and the Cherub
The final destination along the Tea Horse Road, both for our own expedition and for the great journeys of the past, was Kalimpong, in...
Jeff Fuchs
Mar 26, 20211 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - The Tea That Never Came
A simple tea room in Weishan, Yunnan, and one of the only tea rooms in my life that I failed to actually have tea in. Weishan was another...
Jeff Fuchs
Mar 7, 20212 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Choices, No Choices, and some Courage
Ascending up to the Sho La Pass in northwestern Yunnan in May there would always be a chance of weather issues, but it would still be a...
Jeff Fuchs
Feb 3, 20211 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Empress of Cloth
Ponzera, or Benzilan as it is now known, is a small valley town in northwestern Yunnan that lies alongside a headwater stream of the...
Jeff Fuchs
Jan 28, 20211 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Way Out, and Out Again
Yeshi and I shared tea with this old memory palace of time. Goat milk and butter were used instead of yak variations. The tea was deadly...
Jeff Fuchs
Jan 26, 20211 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - There Are No Straight Lines Through the Mountains
Not heeding the warnings of Sonam Gelek; I should have known better at this stage of our journey than to plunge onwards without his...
Jeff Fuchs
Jan 2, 20211 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - A Gathering of Women
Nomadic women of Ganze gather on a grassland to take part in a horse festival. It was through and over such high grasslands that the Tea...
Jeff Fuchs
Dec 28, 20201 min read
Tea Horse Chronicles - 'The Dorjè'
Immersed in a hotspring that is tucked within a mountain cave, sitting beside the venerable and irrepressible Dorjè Kandro. Just days...
Jeff Fuchs
Dec 24, 20201 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - He Said, She Knew
This ‘moment’ was more accurately a series of moments and most of an afternoon, with an old muleteer and his wife. We interviewed the...
Jeff Fuchs
Dec 23, 20201 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Tenzin
Legend, guardian of caravans, and hunter of ‘tea thieves’, Tenzin. We had heard of this legend but worried we wouldn’t track him down...
Jeff Fuchs
Dec 21, 20201 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles - Lhakpa
Always, it seems that it was the mountain mornings and its still clear cold that would offer up moments and characters along our journey....
Jeff Fuchs
Dec 6, 20201 min read
Tea Horse Road Chronicles Part 2 - Coming Snow
Nomads tuck into wools as a snow storm begins to usher in a new sky and new snow-filled gusts near Litang, in western Sichuan. The...
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