Yak Butter & Black Tea: A Journey into Tibet [Paperback]

Wade Brackenbury (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 3, 1998

Wade Brackenbury wanted an adventure, and he got the journey of a lifetime. Along with a charismatic photographer named Pascal, Wade went seeking the Drung people, a dwindling minority in the vast empire of China, said to live in an obsure valley in Southern Tibet. No Westerner had been to the Drung valley in over a century. Yak Butter & Black Tea is a story of daring and adventure, offering a fascinating glimpse into a hidden corner of contemporary China. And it is the account of a young man, driven by a compulsion he doesn't understand, as he tests himself in this dangerous, exotic land. "A remarkable account of exploration and adventure in forbidden lands. Travel writing of the old school at its best."--Joe Simpson, author of Dark Shadows Falling and Touch of the Void.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Drung are an elusive people, forging an existence in the inhospitable Himalayan landscape of Tibet, a region intermittently opened and closed to travelers according to the whim of the Chinese government. For Wade Brackenbury, an American chiropractor and adventurer, meeting the Drung had been a lifelong ambition. In Yak Butter & Black Tea, Brackenbury recounts how he, a freelance photographer and a Chinese interpreter battled everyone from the Chinese Government to local tribes people to Mother Nature to meet the Drung; and how it wasn't until he set off on a dangerous solo expedition of his own that he achieved his goal. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Before settling down to the relatively unadventurous life of a chiropractor, 29-year-old Brackenbury wanted a last fling. During his Utah boyhood, he'd become a skilled mountain climber, so it was serendipitous when, in a cafe, he met a French photographer who was looking for a mountaineer to join his expedition to photograph the Drung people. The Drung, an ethnic Chinese minority, live in a valley accessible only over 20,000-foot-high Tibetan mountains?a territory forbidden to foreigners by the Chinese authorities. With a young Chinese-speaking Frenchwoman as their translator, the trio set out from Chengdu on the Tibetan border. For two months, they climbed into the interior, often for 15 hours a day, always fearful of being stopped by police. Brackenbury's chiropractic skills won gratitude and hospitality from ailing yak herders and villagers. In the end, only 20 miles from their destination, they were apprehended by police and forced to abort their expedition. The author's account lacks insight into the people he met, but the hardships, terrain, the surfaces of Tibetan lives and his own daring are vividly depicted.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; 1st Pbk. Ed edition (January 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565122011
• ISBN-13: 978-1565122017
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,523,152 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Honest examination of the need for "adventure", May 20, 2000

By 

Stephen O. Murray "Stephen O. Murray" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Yak Butter & Black Tea: A Journey into Tibet (Paperback)

This book is a VERY visceral account of a Western American's journey into his own machismo and through minority areas within the Chinese Empire. There is disappointingly little information about the Dulong/Drung people, and it is very easy to question the ethics of how two Western men bent on being the first Westerners to get into the Drung Valley treated people--especially Tibetans whose hospitality they could be viewed as exploiting, but even petty Chinese bureaucrats. Brackenbury is self-critical and seems to come to realize the indefensible aspects of his conduct. At the same time, he clearly endeavored to ease suffering through his medical and chiropractic skills and to minimize the negative impact on those he encountered. His indisputable physical courage is complemented by the courage to present material that is used by some amazon reviewers to indict him.

Although the book is mostly about him and what he put himself through on a very difficult trek, I think that it provides insight into the brittle relations between the indigenous leaders (who generally accepted, aided, and even defended him) and the colonial Chinese officials who do not learn the language and are the active agents of ethnocide. Battling provincial bureaucrats is a major part of the travel literature genre, and Brackenbury seems to me to be fair in showing some virtues as well as vices of the Chinese officials.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I enjoyed it so much i wished it were longer!, July 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Yak Butter & Black Tea: A Journey into Tibet (Paperback)

I loved this book for its fantastic insight into the perils of such a journey. The personal contributions really make this book work!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent modern adventure, November 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Yak Butter & Black Tea: A Journey into Tibet (Paperback)

So many travel writers today are over concerned with politically correctness and, touchy feely encounters with the inhabitants of the places they go. Indeed, nowadays it is increasingly more difficult to find real adventure off the beaten track. Wades memoirs bring to live travel writing of the old school, where real physical obstacles half to be over come, along with a true quest into the unknown. Some of the readers have condemned Wade for his political incorrectness, but I believe this reflects a lack of understanding for all that happened and the circumstances of the adventure. I think the author handled himself well under the circumstances he found himself in, those circumstances not being what he had anticipated. and he does portray the tale with brilliant and brutal honesty. What an unforgettable story! Yak butter and Black tea is one of the best modern day adventure travel books I have read this year. I give it two thumbs up.