Let the Buyer Beware

By Edwin Tucker

The harsh open vastness of the Tibetan steppe is largely devoid of life; even oxygen is scarce. The sun blazes as if I have climbed closer to it than my present four kilometers above sea level. Below me, a grey ribbon of gravel, the unpaved road, lies across the yawning barren desert plains of southwest Tibet. Even without the effects of altitude, the scenery around me is breathtaking. The richly coloured ochre and graphite outcrops of the Himalayas shore up a navy-blue sky as if a deep sea has been turned into the heavens.

Spring is usually associated with the colour green, but not here. Not where the altitude and cold have squeezed the water out of the air to a humidity level of 10 percent -- twice as dry as the Sahara desert. There is nothing green here in April: no trees, no bushes. Wispy yellow straws of grass are the only vegetation.

Despite its desolation, I am not alone in riding my bicycle across this seemingly empty landscape. Also bumping along the Freedom Highway - the road from Kathmandu, Nepal, to Lhasa, Tibet - are two companions, Matt and Scott. Matt, from Australia, is cycling home from Scotland; Scott is an American, and like me he is riding his bicycle around the world. We have banded together to form our own tour group, birds of a feather on otherwise different migration routes. Staunchly independent and bloody-minded to the point of extreme (how many others would ride a bicycle across the "Roof of the World" to prove a point?), we will not let authority or the world's highest mountain range stop trans-continental progress under our own steam.

We ride more or less together, but the huge scale of Tibet spaces us out and into our own worlds. Matt stops to try to capture the wonder of it all on film. Further on Scott puts down his bike and attends to the only colourful flora around, flourishing and messy stowaway bacteria, gut flora from the waters of Nepal. I ride on, stopping a mile upwind for my own contemplation of the sublime surrounds.

As luck would have it, I have chosen to take a breather within calling distance of the only local I have seen beyond the few small Tibetan villages we have cycled through in the past week. A shepherd, parting a way through his sparse flock of sheep, saunters over. Dressed in dusty black trousers and an earthy sweater, he looks to be in his late twenties, though his face is haggard from the effects of his harsh life and environment. As with most rural Tibetan men, his long black hair is held in a braid beneath a traditional red headband. He presents a proud figure, as tough as the resolve needed to survive out here.

I give a small wave and say, "Tashi delek" - Tibetan for hello. He addresses me with, "Hello. Pen."

Someone somewhere is no doubt basking in self-deification with the thought that they have done the world a great favour by handing out pens to children in countries of need. Though this may have originally seemed like a benevolent gesture, a generation of travellers has suffered from those best intentions. Hands outstretched in welcome are now offered palm up in a pandemic bumming of pens across all of Asia. Even here, at 4,000 metres, the interaction between a Tibetan and a New Zealander -- the only two people in sight on this vast plain -- begins with the local greeting to any Westerner, "Hello. Pen."

Ironically, the Tibetan has struck -- albeit too late -- the mother lode of pens. I had bought a hundred snazzy souvenir pens in Iran as gifts to hand out to the friendly people I would meet on my journey to thank them for their hospitality. As one might be nervous when carrying excess cash in their wallet, I had been anxious crossing the pen-hustling continent with a coveted cargo of writing instruments stashed in my panniers. Yet across so many miles of cycling, I had met so many worthy people that I had flitted away my supply and was now down to my very last personalised pen. This single pen was tremendously important to me; it was a connection with the ninety-nine other brethren in possession of my "Around the World By Bicycle" pens.

Just in case I don't understand English, the Tibetan shepherd resorts to that age-old hurdler of the language barrier: he repeats himself. "Hello. Pen."

Now, as keeper of the sole remaining souvenir pen at my disposal, I have become the pen miser. How can I try to educate the world's most populous continent that tourists are not all walking pencil cases? A stand must be taken. I decide to educate anyone who asks -- starting now, with this man. I do not have a pen to give away. I have a valuable pen. This pen is of such great importance to me that I would not trade it for anything less than a life.

"Tashi delek. Sheep," I reply. I don't know the local word for his charges, so I point towards his collection of thin cream-fleeced animals as I attempt to teach him a lesson.

Puzzled, he swivels around to look where I'm pointing. Dismissing my nonsensical reference to his two-dozen ewes, some with spring lambs, he returns to what he knows of dealing with foreigners. "Hello. Pen," he entreats.

After acting like the stereotype of a New Zealander, pointing enthusiastically towards his sheep, I try a different tack. I produce the pen from my handlebar bag. I baa like a sheep and point to the flock with one hand, then toggle the pen forward with the other, mimicking an exchange. With missionary zeal I am going to extremes to save my fellow travelers from this ubiquitous greeting/pleading. Obviously, I think, it would be a cold day in hell before a shepherd would give up a precious spring lamb for a twenty-cent pen. This may be Tibet, but as a nation, China produces twenty-nine billion pens annually - more than twenty for each and every one of its men, women and children.

By now Scott and Matt have come upon the scene of a cycle tourist baaing, pointing to some sheep, and holding a pen, all the while being watched by a perplexed Tibetan. The shepherd turns to them imploringly, already sharing with them an affinity regarding my mental state. Though we foreigners share the same mother tongue, even they are struggling to make sense of my one-man crusade to translate value. "I'm trying to teach him that pens don't grow on trees," I call over my shoulder.

After more miming from me, the shepherd finally understands. Astounded by my proposal, he throws his arms in the air and walks off. Either he is genuinely appalled at my gall to liken the value of one of his sheep to my pen or he is trying to negotiate a better price. Regardless, he gets my point: in my mind, my pen is equal to his sheep. His understanding is further illustrated when he returns to try and redress the balance of trade. He says his third word in English: "Money."

Feigning shock, I continue the ruse that my pen is every bit as valuable as one of his sheep. Having none of it, he strides away to his flock and stoops. Then he comes back with the nearest lamb, turning it under my nose while explaining its value and merits in Tibetan.

Docile and meek as only a spring lamb could be, this cute little animal in a wool tuxedo murmurs a pitiable bleat as it hangs draped across the shepherd's palm.

My heart softens, as does my resolve, at seeing the innocent lamb. However, the haggling gauntlet has been thrown down. I noisily click the pen a few times, make a show of impressing myself by writing on my palm, and theatrically place the pen in my shirt pocket, ooing and ahhing while presenting it as a real prize.

The shepherd harrumphs and nods as he makes a grab for the pen. Uh-uh! I'm not going to fall for that one. This will be an exchange. Not believing that he'll actually go through with it, I call his bluff and hold out my palm while clasping the pen tightly in the other. The lamb is placed in my empty palm and I let go of the pen into his fist. Done. He has his pen. I have me a lamb.

I have me a lamb! Is this for real? As disbelieving as my cycling companions, I make to ride off, wondering if this is some kind of Tibetan joke. The shepherd, admiring his shiny new blue plastic pen, has already walked away, apparently happy.

It's not easy to ride a fully loaded touring bicycle on an unpaved road while holding a live lamb in one hand. Wobbling on the bike, I continue on the road to Lhasa, glancing back at my trading partner -- who watches me leave with no obvious concern. Riding beside me, Scott and Matt ask me what I have just asked myself, "What are you going to do with the lamb?"

I may come from New Zealand, where sheep famously outnumber people ten to one, but I'm also a vegetarian riding a bicycle around the world. The irony weighs heavy. In trying to teach a Tibetan about value, I have just bought a white elephant in sheep's clothing.

"It could be our mascot," offers Scott. "Or lunch," he adds.

As the shepherd with his flock starts to diminish in the distance, the lamb starts to baa piteously for its mother.

If I am not going to slaughter and eat this month-old lamb, then I feel I should return it. The fun is over. I turn the bike around. The lamb, seeing the flock now getting closer, becomes more and more animated, making me place it on the ground before it causes an accident.

I get off the bike and approach the shepherd. The lamb scrambles back to the flock. "Hello. Pen," I call to him. I have given back his lamb and I want my pen back.

But he seems to feel that all transactions are final and no refunds or negotiations will be considered. At least that's what I think he means when he pulls out his knife.

"Whoa! Hey, buddy, that's going a bit far, isn't it?" I say as I stop in my tracks. Literally drawing a line in the sand, the Tibetan doesn't threaten me physically with his steel but stabs the dagger into the ground between us.

I see that I have gambled and lost. He called me on my bluff. As much as I liked the pen, so does he. He's keeping it.

Well, I think, since he's going to be like that, I'll just collect my lamb and be on my way. I wade into the flock, and the sheep scatter as I grope for a lamb, any lamb. The shepherd starts shouting and shows genuine anger. Leaving his dagger in the dirt, he produces a sling, the same simple device the shepherd David used to fell Goliath. This is getting serious.

He picks up a stone, places it in the crook of the sling, and sets it spinning, his fiery eyes fixed on me, screaming his incredulity that I would dare reject his lamb and go for another. Dread rises, along with the hairs on the back of my neck.

I stand stock still as the stone is released. It hums through the air at a safe distance from my head. I'm glad I'm still wearing my bicycle helmet. I give up wanting to leave with a lamb, apologise and ask for my pen back. "Hello. Pen."

But the Tibetan doesn't want to give up his pen. Scott and Matt are ready to jump to my defence as the sling is loaded with another stone and set in orbit above the shepherd's head. Now a screaming maniac, he is definitely more than I'd bargained for. I walk back to the bicycle with my hands up in the air; I am a man in defeat. Punctuating that point, another supersonic crack splits the air and the stone sings past my ear.

Back at my bicycle, Scott and Matt are already doubled over in laughter and having a hard time holding on to their bikes. I start to laugh too. We soon find that hilarity is an aerobic exercise. There's not enough oxygen to sustain laughter at this intensity, yet gasping to catch our breaths causes us to laugh even more. A lack of air, a ridiculous situation and a dumb lesson have us intoxicated.

This was supposed to be a simple lesson in intercultural exchange. In a position of power, I was the tourist lording privilege over a humble shepherd. Now humiliated, I think: how can I tell this story back home? It should have been a steal for any self-respecting New Zealander, but I couldn't trade a lamb for a pen. My hands are empty, like my head and the air.