- Good morning, hope you're having an amazing day. It's Mark Wiens, I'm in Tibet with Travel China Tibet, and today we're driving
form Lhasa to Yamdrok Lake, which is a high elevation,
it's a sacred lake in Tibet. And so we're gonna walk around the lake, we're gonna tour the lake, and then we'll be going to a village that's right near or surrounding the lake. We're gonna meet up with a host who is going to cook us and prepare for us the local
traditional Tibetan food of Yamdrok Lake. I'm very excited to learn about it, to learn about the culture and to see just the
magnificence of the lake and of Tibet and we are on our way. (upbeat energetic music) And the scenery, even within
Lhasa and surrounding Lhasa is breathtaking but I'm excited to get out of the city for the first time into the countryside of Tibet, just, yeah. I mean the views, the mountains, I know we're gonna do
a lot of switchbacks, weaving around the mountain passes, it's gonna be gorgeous. Yeah, too bad it's raining, not too hard, drizzling but it is cloudy today. Hopefully it will clear up, but we've just stopped at a viewpoint to overlook the Brahmaputra River, which is one of the most important rivers. It is massive, and it kind of just fills
this entire like plain. Just like, multiple channels of the river, look how huge it is. On the rocks now you can see tons of painted ladders or staircases, and that's a Bon religious
symbol of good luck, or going higher. Oh, man, those switchbacks
are pretty intense, but we are winding our way up to a mountain pass that's at 4,700 meters but stopping here for a view of the valley. Man, it is stunningly gorgeous, just in the clouds, the mountains surrounding, and there's a bit of a traffic jam here. They have this platform that you can walk out, but a lot of locals come here with their mastiffs, Tibetan mastiffs, they're beautiful dogs,
as well as huge, like, fully decorated yaks. They do things like put sunglasses
on the mastiffs as well. And here is the final viewpoint. The monument and then overlooking the entire, like, river,
valley, and villages below. And additionally, it's
kind of a pit stop, too. There's some street food stalls set up, you can get drinks, you can have a cup of tea, you can get noodles, and they're also doing
some fried potatoes, or french fries, Tibetan french fries. (metal clanking) (potatoes shaking) (speaking foreign language) I think it's that, like
Tibetan herb or something, and then she kind of like mixes them around in the plastic bag. They smells so good, nothing sounds better at this elevation in this like, thin air. And I'm also ordering some noodles. Oh, yeah, that's just full of seasoning. Hot and fresh out of the oil. Oh, that's tasty. (speaking in foreign language) Okay, so it's yak bone, there's noodle she adds and some chili, and that broth looks amazing with the yak bones and some
Szechuan pepper in there. Mmm. It's just like really simple noodles. But it tastes so good, I think
because of this elevation, because of this cool weather
and because it's hot. I think that's the reason
why it tastes so good. That was a great, necessary stop. I didn't realize how hungry I was going around those switchbacks. We're back on the road now, and we are on our way to the
mountain pass, to the sky. (energetic techno music) We just arrived at the mountain pass, at the view over Yamdrok lake. It is unbelievably stunning. You don't wanna walk too
fast, feel a little bit dizzy. But wow, the views of the
lake, just unbelievable. Wow, that view of the lake
and that color of the lake, it's just, it's otherworldly. And you can really feel that you are on the
rooftop of the world here. We are on the rooftop of the world, here. Oh, yeah, yeah. Do not walk too fast. - Yeah. - I feel a little bit dizzy, as well. Slightly tipsy, very tipsy. We're driving now down to the bottom of the lake, to the lake, then we'll be driving along the lake. We'll get another view of the lake, and that's where the village is. Somewhere along the lake, as well, where we're going to cook the local Yamdrok Tibetan food. (awe-inspiring music) And we are stopping at the
bottom of the lake, now. A little hike down to the water's edge. Lots more Tibetan mastiffs, and there might be some, oh, yeah, there's actually yaks you can take a photo in the water, riding a yak. And man, its colors, the lake is just stunning,
it's breathtaking. The color, the peacefulness of the water and just the calmness, the glassiness and the
crystal clarity of the water. Getting my first feel of the water. It's cold, but it's not that cold, but it's just crystal clear and yeah, this is one of four of the most sacred, of the
most holy lakes in Tibet. And there's something so magical, so peaceful, so calming about it. It is unbelievably spectacular, this place is special, wow. With a Tibetan mastiff, he's like a lion. Oh, that breath. Oh, they are beautiful. Okay, I'm gonna sit, I can sit here? Okay, ah, okay. Okay. Their manes, their manes, oh, they're so warm, oh, they're so warm. Their manes and their... (speaking in foreign language) Okay. Their manes, they're like lions. Okay. Okay, the fully Tibetan. Can you put them between your, it's okay? Like this? Wow, these are gorgeous. Gorgeous, gorgeous, dogs. Oh man, and you can just feel the warmth coming out of their fur, out of their bodies. Good-bye, my beautiful friend. Good-bye, my beautiful friend. Good-bye, my beautiful friend. Oh, man, that was spectacular. Okay. Thank you.
- Thank you. - Thank you very much. Okay, it's starting to
rain, we've gotta move. Man, that weather just rolls in so fast. And it was like, warm, and now it's getting cold again. Okay, that was just a five minute drive from where we were before. It's still raining, but this is a village literally right on the banks of Yamdrok lake. A beautiful Tibetan village, and what you notice immediately is all the dried, I believe,
mostly yak but maybe cow, and also cow mixed yak dung, which is often the fuel in these areas, because there's not much wood. And enter into the house, the
courtyard area, very cool. And then we've gotta go
up a flight of stairs, maybe the house is elevated. Hello. Wow, very nice. Amazing. Step up here and it's like a whole other world, a little courtyard, family courtyard, living areas. Wow, it's beautiful. The Tibetan style and design
is just, it's just gorgeous. - Baidi village.
- Baidi village. - And she's Diki. - Diki.
- Diki. - Very nice to meet you,
thank you, thank you so much for having us, yes. Thank you. Man, this place is absolutely beautiful. And this is the indoor living room. tHe coziness of these
Tibetan houses and homes, and it's all, like sheep
wool, yak wool blankets and pillows with huge Tibetan cabinets. The colors, the designs. - She serves a sweet tea. - Oh, okay. These are some of the best,
like, seating sections of anywhere ever. (soft sipping) Oh, that's a milk tea and you can taste the milkiness of that. We're gonna do the cooking in here? - Uh, first she's going
to ready the butter tea. - Oh, can I see that? - Yeah, yeah. - We were welcomed with sweet tea, but this, this is the
real Tibetan butter tea, this is the power tea. This is the good stuff. But she, yeah, she takes
some of the yak butter, puts it into the, and
now she uses a blender. Before, they kind of like churned it. With tea, with hot water,
with salt, I love it. That's yak butter, right? (blender whirring) The frothiness. Okay, so first dish that she's gonna make is a, it's a tsampa noodle. So roasted barley noodle with yak meat. And, what's the name of the dish again? - Tsam-thuk, tsam-thuk. - Tsam-thuk, okay. Oh, yak meat goes in. Okay, then on the other
side of the kitchen while the yak meat is boiling, she's also making another thing which is a type of momo, but it's like a bread,
not a dumpling momo. And so that's flour and she mixes it with the, it's like the juice that forms on the top of yogurt, so it should be a bit sour, and mixes that with some salt, and that's gonna be another Tibetan bread. And then another dish that she's making is a yak soup, maybe some
bones boiled in there, but she already had that going, that's already boiling away. And then she just put in
a bunch of sliced radish. Now, radish is one of the only vegetables that's grown in such
a hight elevation here in Tibetan food, and so radish is very common. But yeah, I mean, typical,
traditional Tibetan food does not really include vegetables at all because it's just so high in elevation, but radish, radish is available, it grows, and then some big spring onions, I guess they grow at this elevation too. And that's gonna boil it, that looks really hearty, really good. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) Now, for that bread, what she does is she makes them into, that dough she makes them into cone shapes and then kind of hollows it out, so it's like a hollow cone of dough. Jump back over to the yak that she put into the hot water, boiled, boiled that down, rendered
up the fat and the juices, and now, it's like a very
simple, unique type of noodle where she takes the tsampa, which is the roasted barely flour, and just sprinkles that
into the boiling soup, so those are like little
dough ball noodles, and even the entire soup just kind of turns like a slightly reddish brown color from that tsampa, and next she just added in some radish to that soup noodle yak. Okay, so for that bread, she heated up some oil in a
cast iron kind of skillet. (dough frying) And put them in with that cone shape down and then just gonna fry those up, and I think they're gonna be cooked a number of different ways. First, fried up like that, and then I think steamed. That is a unique bread, though. Black tea? (liquid sizzling) The bread even gets more interesting, this is a step I didn't
even know was gonna happen, but she poured in some hot water, some salt, I believe,
and then some black tea, condensed black tea, and then puts that into the fried bread with the oil and that just smokes up and then put the cover on, that's gonna steam now and fry, all at the same time. What a move! Oh, that bread as it's simmering away and steaming and boiling, it just smells so good now, that essence of the
tea, you can smell that and the bread is starting
to puff up a bit, and those breads, they are ready right out to the pan, still sizzling. And it gets like a brown, crunchy crust on the bottom, but then it's like steamed on the top. It smells so good. And they almost look, like, biscuit-ey. And then the final dish, that is the tsampa soup noodle with yak, and she's giving me a quick taste test. Mmm. Oh, it's wonderful, it's kind of sticky, gooey, because, yeah, it's kind of floury, because they're like dumplings. Mmm. And with the yak meat flavor
and the radish in there, that's delicious. Now, I think all the food is ready, it's being dished out. But we're having some butter tea before we get started. That is the power tea. That is the tea you can just feel, immediately your lips, glossy, the butter, the saltiness. That is, that's what you
need at this elevation. Thank you, fresh cheese. And along with everything else, there's also a fresh cheese. She went into the other room, kind of the store room, and reached out of the bucket for this fresh cheese, and they traditionally eat it with sugar, mix it with sugar so it's sweet. Mmm. Sweet and sour. Wow, that is like cottage cheese. That is juicy. All the food is ready. Oh, man, this is ultimate
warm, heartwarming food, and since it's already dished out, I'm gonna start with that
that I tasted in the kitchen right now, it's the
tsampa, the roasted barley. It is kind of like a porridge, but the little dumpling noodles in there, with the radish, with the yak
meat that she boiled down. Okay, so the correct way to eat this, is to just pick it up, and you can just drink it. (slurping) And you're supposed to slurp, as well, but that is chunky. The radish, it just melts in your mouth, I got a piece of the yak fat in that bite, and then the dumplings, or the noodles, which is the tsampa,
which is roasted barley. They're formed into little, like noodle dumplings, but at the same time that starch has kind of dissolved into the liquid, so it's thick. That is, that's what you wanna be eating at four thousand, seven hundred meters. Okay, next I'll try some of this bread. And you immediately, when you pick it up, it feels, it's heavy. But it's like spongey on the top and then really crispy hard on the bottom because of the way she
seared it and steamed it at the same time. Break it in half first, the different textures of it, yeah. Two totally, or even three
different totally textures. Let's see, you can take
a bite of the bread, oh, that bread. Oh, that bread is stunning. The fluffy gooey-ness of it, and then that crispy crunch on the bottom, and that like, salty tea flavor. That caramelized tea flavor. And then you can chase it with some of that porridge. Wow. That bread is amazing. There's some serious yak
fat in that porridge. But you need it. You need the fat, you need the yak, and you need the, the dough, the carbohydrates. That's what you survive on here, and that's what is essential to the diet. Okay, I finished my tsampa with yak and now it's time to move onto the soup with the radish and yak. And I really love radish, especially when it's cooked down and it kind of like, melts in your mouth. These are big, thick slices. Radish is amazing, like it just absorbs all of that broth. That yak bone broth. So juicy, it's a nugget of yak meat. Oh, yeah. That yak meat is actually really tender because I think she pressure cooked it, I think she cooked it for a long time. That's really solid yak! All of the food is simple, but this is local food, this is Tibetan food. Regional Tibetan food from this region of the lake. And it's simple, but it's hearty. It's definitely cooked with love, ingredients from right here. This is good food, really good. Mmm. (soft slurping) Okay, and the next bowl of food, is I'm going to go for some of the fresh yogurt. And again, this is not, like, after the meal yogurt, I just happened to eat it in this order, but it's part of the main meal, part of the main dish. Wow, that is good. I think it might be mixed with a little bit of sugar as well. It's a little bit sweet, nice and sour, but like milky yogurt, they kind of like,
milked it down, I think, and then the curds, it's
like cheesy, almost. That is definitely full of fat. Very, very heavy. Yeah, like the carbs, the animal products, they are heavy. And yeah, this might actually be one of the most high elevation
meals that I've ever had. I think the pass where we
saw the view of the lake was at 4,777 meters. I think this is at 4 thousand, maybe 4,400 to 4,500 or so meters. But yeah, my appetite is not quite what it should be at this elevation, I'm like, I'm getting full kind of fast, it could be also the
amount of yak in this meal. He can have some, right? Ooh. - They have different tastes, this one's a plain taste. - Because it is like a yogurt. This is like a yogurt too, right? Got lassi to finish off the meal. Wow, yes. That is all natural, that's for sure. It's sour, creamy, it's mostly
sour, yeah, wow, I like it. Okay, climbing up here, this is like an earthenware roof. And then there's just
like, yak dung, I believe, just kind of surrounding on this wall. But up here, on this little patio, whoa, the stair steps, I've got an amazing view of the lake. It's so turquoise, it's
so stunningly beautiful. I can see the rooftops of this village. I can smell the dung. And you know what, because
the sun is shining right now, I think maybe we'll just
go quickly take a walk down to the water's edge because it's just sparkling. That turquoise color's unbelievable. Let's go walk down there and it'll probably be the ending of this just, unbelievable day in Tibet. Breathtaking scenery, breathtaking culture and people, and a local meal that was from the land, that was the real food. Wow, just breathing in
as much air as possible, I've been getting excited. When you get excited here, you don't wanna get too excited here, or you will be out of breath. Absolutely stunning
because it's sunny now, the water's sparkling, it's so unbelievably turquoise. Just on the banks. The grass on the banks. This is one of those places where, like, it's so unbelievable,
otherworldly beautiful. And we're gonna walk back, or maybe drive to just go around the village a little bit to finish this day off. Okay so from here we are driving, again, paralleling the lake. But we're headed to this,
again, another mountain pass that's gonna be probably
the highest elevation I've ever been to. We're gonna go through that pass. Oh, yaks. And horses. And then after that, we will be going to a
glacier to see a glacier. Oh, oh, that is windy! Ooh, it's cold! We're at about 5,000 meters here. This is the highest I've ever been, but we stopped to look at a glacier. I hope this rain doesn't last too long. Oh, wow, this is otherworldly. Look at this glacier. Wow, that was just a burst of rain. It can change so fast and now it's sunny. Can you hear that? (foreign pop music playing)
Pop music in the background. That's really setting the mood for nature. Now there's a rainbow. (deep sighing) This is unbelievable. This is the highest
elevation I've been to. 5,000 meters. My eyes are burning, I'm slightly dizzy. I have a headache. But this is another world. Unbelievable. (tribal drumming) I'm shaking a little bit, I'm gonna make a circle around the stupa. (shivering) It is cold! And the glacier back here. Wow, you can just see the streams of water just pouring out of the glacier, and then the glacier
just going into the mist, into the clouds. (tribal drumming) It's just so peaceful here now. And we're now on the
backside of the glacier. Ah, but Doma actually told me that that mountain pass, we
were at 5,190 meters. So that's the highest elevation I've been. And man, do you feel it in your head. You can't totally think straight, but the gorgeous scenery is
breathtaking beyond belief. It's, we really are on
the rooftop of the world. That is the truth. And if you go down from her ein elevation, you get to Bangladesh, you get to India, you get to Bhutan, and these glaciers, these mountains, Tibet,
the richness of Tibet, is what feeds down all the way to that Indian sub-continent basin, fueling this entire, like continent, and Tibet is, yeah, what a stunning place, what a stunning culture. Today has been one of
the most spectacularly beautiful scenery days of my life. And then to pair that with visiting a local village at Yamdrok Lake, that was so cool to
experience the real food. I mean, it was simple food, it wasn't packed with flavors or spices, but that was food locally from here, from this region of Yamdrok lake. And it was an honor and a privilege to have that experience, I wanna say a massive thank you to Travel China Tibet tours for bringing me, for
organizing my trip to, for inviting me to Tibet, and for organizing such amazing, spectacular cultural activities. I'll have some links
in the description box that you can check out, and also be sure to
watch all of the videos in this Tibet series. Tibetan food, Tibetan culture. And I'm gonna say good-bye for right here, we're going down in elevation, to the next village where
we're gonna spend the night. I'm gonna end the video, I wanna say a big thank you for watching, please remember to give
this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, leave a comment below, I'd love to hear from you, and if you're not already subscribed, click subscribe now, and also click the little bell icon so you that you get notified of the next video that I publish. Good-bye from Tibet, and see you on the next video! (breathing deeply) Wow, doing that at five thousand meters, that was a workout! Wow! I'm a little tipsy, okay, let's go.
Skip to about halfway for the food part
Those dogs tho 😍