Tea kettles in Lhundrub

By Alison Bate

Watching Brad Pitt in “Seven Years in Tibet” the other week, I idly wondered how any movie about Tibet could be so boring.

Tibet’s so striking, and there are so many surprises around every corner, that making a boring movie about the country should be impossible. But it did trigger a couple of my favorite memories while biking with my sister around Tibet in 2006.

Early one morning, we were in the small town of Lhundrub (Chinese name: Linzhou), east of Lhasa. We watched in bafflement as a local Tibetan woman carefully placed large kettles of water on what looked like makeshift satellite dishes. Continue reading →