Synopsis
Wade Brackenbury's wanderlust led him to China, where he climbed mountains and deliberately lost himself in an alien culture. When he met a French photojournalist in a restaurant, he accompanied him on a quest for the Drung people, a dwindling tribe in an obscure valley in Tibet, accessible only when the snow melted for a brief period each year making passage over the mountains possible--and forbidden to foreigners by the Chinese government. It took the two men three years to travel the few hundred miles to the land of the Drung. This is the story of their journey, and what they found at the end of it.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-02-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 224 pages | | Height: | 9.0 in | | Width: | 5.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 12.8 oz |
Publisher's Note
Wade Brackenbury never meant to get into trouble. He'd been raised to respect the law. But he was born with a hankering for adventure. He'd come to China to climb mountains, to lose himself in the strangeness of a different culture, to try something extraordinary before returning to the U.S. to settle down. Then, in a restaurant in an out-of-the-way corner of southwestern China, Wade met a charismatic French photo-journalist named Pascal. Pascal needed a skilled climber. Wade was hoping for an adventure. The next day the two of them set out on what would become the journey of a lifetime. Pascal was searching for the Drung people, a dwindling minority said to live in an obscure valley in southern Tibet near the Burma border. Cut off from the rest of China by 20,000-foot mountains, accessible only when the snow in the high passes melted, forbidden to foreigners by a suspicious Chinese government, no Westerner had been there in over a century. The valley was only a few hundred miles from the parts of China open to tourists. Getting there would take them three years. Wade Brackenbury's Yak Butter & Black Tea is a story of daring and adventure. It also offers a fascinating glimpse into a little-known corner of contemporary China. Through it all, however, is the engaging account of a young man, driven by a compulsion he doesn't fully understand, testing himself against unforgiving authority and discovering the dark parts of his own heart.
Industry Reviews
"Wade Brackenbury, a chiropractic student from Idaho, tells...of his repeated efforts to find what he believed were the elusive Drung people....What makes him so appealing is his willingness to put his spine-aligning skills to use (Indiana Jones as chiropractor) and his flickers of doubt about the worth of the entire adventure..."
New York Times Book Review - David Willis McCullough (12/08/1996)
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