My first days in Domkhok were like diving into deep water. Everyone in the family was up and about well before sunrise. As soon as the alarm clock rang, Tsering Drölma would run to milk the female yaks (dris). When the herd left to graze, she collected dung for fuel. Tendor made a fire in the stove. After having a bowl of tea and a few bites of old bread, we set off for the mountains. The path led along a small stream, which in May was still covered with ice. It took me some time to get used to climbing at over 4000 m altitude and running across fields of sleet covering the slopes. I made even slower progress in digging caterpillar fungus. Caterpillar fungus is buried in the ground, only its ‘head’ (go) or ‘horn’ (ra), which Tibetans say to refer to its stroma, sticks out, but it has the same brown colour as everything else covering the pastures. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. All around me, I heard cries of joy. People waved their hands to show what they had found, but I had hardly got anything. I must have overlooked many fungi, because just a few metres to the left and right people found dozens. My companions scanned the ground with enviable efficacy. No fungus could escape their attention. Then they made two moves of a hoe to dig it out of the ground with a lump of soil covering it: a quick move of the hand to break the soil and extract the fungus; another move to put the soil back into the hole. The fungus goes in their pocket and the digger moves on.

It was May, but at this altitude in the highlands the first signs of spring are shy. Patches of snow lie in shady parts of the valley and snowstorms are common. High on the mountain range, wind blows the hat off your head. Sun burns your skin during the day, but in the evening the temperatures fall below zero. The slopes are steep and you must be fit to reach all the places where caterpillar fungus grows. Spending whole days walking on all fours or bent over with your face close to the ground is exhausting, too.