Wen Qingshan pondered for a while, then raised his wrist and looked at his watch, and said, "In this way, we still have to walk for about four to five hours, and it is now a quarter past four in the afternoon, which means that we will not arrive at Dagadoma Village until about nine o'clock in the evening." ”

After hearing what Wen Qingshan said, the cheap immediately shouted: "Damn! Wouldn't you have to wait until dark to get there!? ”

Wen Qingshan smiled slightly and said, "It's late, but it's not necessarily dark." Because Tibet is located in the westernmost part of China, although Beijing time is also used, but in fact the time zone is more than two hours different from Beijing, so the time of darkness is about two to three hours later than that of the mainland, and at nine o'clock, the sky should not be completely dark, if you are lucky, you may still be able to see the sunset. ”

We rested on the spot for more than half an hour, and everyone felt much better than before, and Dong Xiaodan's complexion basically recovered after inhaling pure oxygen. In a hurry, we continued to drive.

When we finally arrived at Dagadoma Village, as Wen Qingshan had estimated, it was already past nine and ten o'clock. However, it was not completely dark, and it felt like six or seven o'clock at most.

There are only twenty or thirty households in the whole village of Dagadoma, dotted on a relatively gentle hillside, and now the sky has darkened, and many people's homes are lit up, and we can see it from a few kilometers away from the village, and as far as the eye can see, those lights seem to be connected with the starlight in the sky, giving people the illusion that heaven and earth are inseparable.

We drove along a rugged country road full of mud to the foot of the mountain, and from the village on the hill came a loud barking of dogs.

Since the car couldn't drive up the hill, we had to park at the bottom of the hill. As soon as I got out of the car, a cold wind hit me, and I couldn't help but shiver. The temperature difference in the plateau area is really not ordinarily large, during the day, I only wore two single clothes, and I didn't think there was anything, but now the sky has just darkened, and the temperature has dropped below zero, fortunately, we all brought down jackets, so we hurriedly turned out the down jacket in the box and changed it on.

After everyone had changed their clothes, Pasang led us up the mountain, and on the way, Pasang told us that his man, Tashi Dorjee, was living in the nearest house because his legs were not very convenient. But there is no phone in Dagadoma village, so Basang had not contacted Tashi Dorjee before he arrived, and he did not know if he was at home now.

From the foot of the mountain to Gadoma Village, it is only about two or three hundred meters, and the slope is not very steep, but because it is in the plateau area, as long as we walk a little faster, there will be a feeling that it is difficult to catch the breath, so we can only slow down the pace and walk slowly up the mountain.

Two or three hundred meters away, we walked for more than ten minutes, and when we reached about ten meters away from the entrance of the village, Basang, who was walking in the front, suddenly stopped, and he muttered softly: "Hey, why is there no light at home?" ”

When we looked ahead, there were two adobe houses side by side at the entrance of the village, one of which was dimly lit and the other was dark.

Basang shouted at the black-lit adobe house several times: "Tashi Dorjee! Tashi Dorjee! ”

However, no one responded.

"Is it difficult that Tashi Dorjee is not at home? Where did you go on such a party? Basang muttered as he walked forward, he wanted to get closer to see what was going on, but before he had gone a few steps, suddenly a large black dog with thick fur sprang out from behind the brightly lit adobe house, and roared and pounced on us.

Everyone was startled and hurriedly put on a posture, and at this critical moment, a man came out of the adobe house and shouted at the big dog.

I took a closer look, and the big dog in front of me was not ordinarily big, standing there, more than a meter tall, covered with thick black hair, and looked like a lion.

"It's a Tibetan mastiff!" I blurted out.

"How can this Tibetan mastiff be so big!" Wen Qingshan was a little surprised. In fact, we have seen several Tibetan mastiffs along the way, but we have never seen such a big one in front of us.

The owner of the Tibetan mastiff is an old Tibetan man with gray hair and wrinkled face, he is dressed in typical Tibetan clothing, holding a long-barreled shotgun in one hand, and a Tibetan waist knife across his waist, his eyes are cold and sharp, although he is not very tall, but standing on a high place, it gives people a majestic momentum.

The old Tibetan man seemed to be afraid that the Tibetan mastiff would hurt us, so he shouted a few more words, and the Tibetan mastiff seemed to be able to understand the master's orders, raised his head and yelled at us a few times, and then reluctantly retreated to the dog's owner's side.

The old Tibetan man stood in front of the adobe house and said a few words of Tibetan to us. I couldn't understand what he was talking about, but luckily Basang was there, and he immediately took two steps forward and started talking in Tibetan with the old Tibetan.

The two of them didn't say a word, and the old Tibetan seemed to finally know who Basang was, and walked over to meet us, and Basang immediately walked towards him, and the two got together, and first came to a warm hug.

After greeting him in Tibetan, Pasang turned to us and said, "This is Uncle Qiangpa. ”

Uncle Jampa nodded at us, and we hurriedly greeted him in the Tibetan word "Tashi Delek" and bowed to him. Uncle Qiangpa said something to Pasang in Tibetan, and then turned and walked towards the adobe house.

Basang translated: "Uncle Qiangba said it was too cold outside, let's go to his house and sit down!" ”

We were all blown away by the dry mountain wind, and we were looking for a place to shelter from the wind, so we followed Uncle Qiangba to his house.

When I walked to the door of his house, I was surprised to find that the door of his house was not ordinary, alas, it was estimated to be one meter three or four meters high, and we had to bend down as much as possible to enter the house.

The cheap said very puzzled: "Why is this door frame so low?" ”

Professor Dong said in a low voice: "This is to prevent the weak man from breaking into the house, and the houses in this area are all designed with a low door with a low slope inside and a high outside. ”

"What is a weak man?" I asked curiously.

"According to the information we have so far, the weak man should be a kind of walking corpse! Because the weak man cannot bend down, as long as the door is designed to be short, the weak man cannot enter the house. ”

"What!?" I couldn't help but be surprised, I was not surprised that there were walking corpses in this place, but I was surprised that the residents in this area actually changed the design of the door in order to prevent the walking corpses.

Because I had just entered the door, although I was very curious, I didn't ask much, and after everyone entered the house, Uncle Qiangba hung the shotgun on the wall next to the door, turned his head and said something to everyone in Tibetan, then turned around and entered the inner room. After saying that, he raised his head again and asked Basang, "Brother Basan, am I right?" ”

Basang gave Professor Dong a thumbs up: "Very correct. ”

There were no chairs and stools in the room, and there were some dirty wool cushions on the floor, and there was a strange smell in the room, and I don't know if it had something to do with them. Basang unceremoniously sat cross-legged on a wool mat, following the customs, we had to sit down cross-legged, Dong Xiaodan thought the wool mat was too dirty, secretly took out a napkin and spread it out, and sat down on the mat.

There are no electric lights in the house, and an oil lamp is lit on a table in the center, which is dimly lit. Basang told us that the village of Dagadoma is located in a remote area and has not yet been connected to electricity, so we can only use the most primitive Tibetan lighting method, which is illuminated by butter lamps.

Dong Xiaodan asked curiously, "What is ghee?" ”

Professor Dong explained, "Ghee is a dairy product similar to butter, which is a fat extracted from cow's or goat's milk. The ghee in Tibet is mainly made from yaks. Yak ghee is the essence of Tibetan food, and plateau people cannot live without it. Not only is it used for lighting, but butter tea, which is processed from ghee and strong tea, is also a daily staple food. Butter tea not only retains the mellow aroma of tea, but also has the delicate sweetness of ghee, which is very delicious. And tsampa noodles with butter tea are definitely a delicacy. Speaking of this, Professor Dong couldn't help but swallow a mouthful of saliva.

"What is Tsamba again?" Dong Xiaodan continued to ask.

"Tsamba is a dough made from flour ground from highland barley flour, stir-fried, and then made with ghee as a binder. Like butter tea, it is one of the staple foods in Tibet. ”

After listening to what Professor Dong said, we can't help but have a trace of anticipation for the legendary butter tea and tsamba.

At this moment, Uncle Qiangba walked out of the back room with butter tea and tsampa noodles, and when the pale yellow butter tea was brought to me, I immediately smelled a very strong strange smell, that is, the smell that permeated the room before, but it was faint just now, but it was much stronger now, it turned out that this is the smell of ghee.

I couldn't help frowning, this smell was not good, there was really no way to associate it with the delicate and mellow fragrance described by Professor Dong, I turned my head to look at Cheap and Dong Xiaodan, their expressions were the same as mine, and they obviously couldn't adapt to the strange smell of ghee for a while.

Basang put the tsampa noodles into a bowl, poured some butter tea into it, and then stirred it directly in the bowl with his hands, looking at his big black hands, I couldn't help muttering in my heart: These hands should not have been washed for a long time, just stirring directly in the bowl, will it be reprocessed later?