Tibet: The other Wild West. Surreal video and music

[Alp Arslan]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2dbclBO-M0[/youtube]

I drive a tractor trailer in the United States but I always wanted to drive a tractor trailer between Beijing and Lhasa through the Tibetan Highlands. The most beautiful and deadliest land in the world where the weather can kill an unprepared person in seconds.

One minute, clear blue sky. Another minute, violent blizzard. Mountains seem to sing in musical notes as razor sharp wind lashes between them. At night, massive electrical disturbances in the wind-wake at the tops of these mountains produce eerie, terrestrial auroras, as if the mountains are beacons guiding a lost traveler. Cold fires that neither warm nor soothe, but provide some supplement for headlights dimmed by ice and snow.

Throughout the year, the temperatures stay cold enough to freeze diesel fuel solid and render engines inoperable. Truckers on the Qingzang Road (China National Highway 1) have to keep their vehicles running or the engines will freeze. When freezing happens, the men are usually so far from help that life support systems in their vehicles fail before help reaches them. Ninety percent of trucker fatalities on the Qingzang Road are caused by weather. The rest are due to quicksands and avalanches.

Highland truck drivers are an elite breed of all truck drivers.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Heh! Alp;  I bet you love watching IRT

http://www.history.com/shows/ice-road-truckers/episodes

[Alp Arslan]

Heh! Alp;  I bet you love watching IRT

http://www.history.com/shows/ice-road-truckers/episodes

You guessed it! That is my FAVORITE show on TV, right next to Mail Call. Part education. Part history. ALL BADASSERY!

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[Trailrider]

If that music isn't from/by Yanni, he ought to consider using it at his next concert! 

[Alp Arslan]

If that music isn't from/by Yanni, he ought to consider using it at his next concert!  

Music is "Sister Drum" (Ah Jie Gu) by Tibetan singer Dadawa. Her father is Han Chinese and her mother is Tibetan. Song is about two orphaned children surviving alone in the Tibetan wilderness. It is like "True Grit" without the gunfight and the horse chases. Pretty sad song.

The song is part of Dadawa's larger album called Prairie Home (Cao Yuan Jia). It is mostly about life of Mongolian herdsmen in the high country.