Tibet—The Yak Nomads Summary and Analysis

Messner, Nena, and Tsao leave Lhasa with a Chinese liaison officer named Cheng. As their two vehicles pass the ruins of a monastery and grazing yaks, Messner is delighted to be in Tibet, but he becomes indignant when they reach their primitive accommodations in Shigatse, Tibet's second largest city. In the morning, they visit a monastery and a market, and the next day they travel 300 kilometers to Shekar Dzong, an old fortress from which they can see Everest. The next day, they reach a pass at 5,000 meters and see a Tibetan hunter, which sends Messner on a rumination about Tibet's story of the creation, which began with rain that created the ocean that then frothed up to create land. Gods populated the land, but when they drank a juice that flowed from the...