"Nobody makes me bleed my own blood.... nobody"

- Dodgeball

Ah.... life at high altitude. From one 4500m village to the other, we're finally experiencing rural China and some fine, fine living. And some awful food, obviously.

Litang is, to all extents and purposes, a Tibetan town. That is to say that it is full of Tibetan people speaking Tibetan and doing Tibetan things. It isn't actually in Tibet, but rather just over the border. A great alternative if you don't want the hassle of trying to enter the 'region' itself and getting visas and tours and then finding that there's more Chinese people there than there is in China.

The Tibetans are quite different to the other Chinese (known as Han Chinese). Darker skin, bigger smiles, worse teeth and an entire culture based around the Yak. And Buddhism, obviously.

We had wanted to go to a Sky Burial while we were here, but were unable to flirt our way to an invitation. It's not the sort of thing you just turn up to with your Kodak Fun Camera and big smiles. It's actually a very nice Buddhist tradition - when you die, you are taken to the top of a mountain where your body is hacked to pieces and crushed with hammers. Then the vultures, already circling above, swoop down and eat the hell out of your corpse. Sounds a little macarbe, but it's the Buddhist idea that your body is just a vessel, and when you pass to the next world you present your human shell as a gift to nature, and the cycle of life continues.... I like that.

Your average Tibetan meal consists of Yak. And we're not talking about a slice of Yak with some potatos and veg... No. We're talking boiled Yak meat, with Yak intestines and bones for added flavour, washed down with Yak Butter Tea - not the worst drink in the entire world but would certainly feature in the top ten. Oh, and Yak cheese, that tastes like someone has finally managed to blend the flavours of brown sugar and feet - and the world thanks them for it.

I've never been this high up before. It never ceases to amaze me that we have evolved to live in our exact conditions, and if you raise or lower the temperature, or the altitude, the effects on the body are considerable. We're pretty rubbish, as a species. The effects of being at high altitude are dehydration, headaches, getting drunk after two beers and having to wait 13 minutes for an egg to boil. And if you buy a jar of Nescafe that has been produced and sealed at sea level and then transported to a shop at 4500m, when you open it it will explode all over your room, as Vinny found out much to our shared hilarity.

The Tibetans are a fantastically friendly people though. Every single person in town said hello to us about thirty times each, which does get a little bit irritating but not so it's an issue. Even when they lift up our t-shirts to inspect our chest hair, or bite us on the shoes when we're eating dinner, it's all in good fun.

Not sure about the shoe thing though.