Here boy, here boy, yeeees.... fetch the grenade.

For the last few days I've been doing all sorts of shopping and preparation for going to Tibet on Thursday. It's the first time I've ventured out somewhere where I actually need a backpack ("damn these mountains, why has nobody paved them yet!" I hear myself saying in a parallel dimension in which I took my stuff to Tibet in a wheelie bag) .

Wandering around outdoor shops has been very interesting... albeit a wallet-bleedingly expensive affair. I'm utterly resolved to travel as light as possible and have made sure I only bought a backpack big enough for what I really need. And yet going around these shops always entices you to buy things you hadn't thought of... like a large, filtered straw which allows you to drink water out of a pond or lake, should you find yourself stranded. It even comes with a purifying powder you can add to the water in a cup (assuming you have a cup) should it be particularly dirty. I felt it would be a useful, compact and light thing to have if things somehow go awry. The straw's packaging does remind you however, that the filter cannot purify water which fish are unable to live in or which contains industrial waste. Duh.

But being a Japanese product of course, this life-or-death situation has to be made cute. See the little angel, sucking the pond water out of a glass.



The picture tells you that even though you're so dehydrated and desperate as to suck water out of a high-altitude pond, you'll still look like an angel doing it. Awww. Or else that you're so far gone you'll be hallucinating that winged angels have come to save you when in fact it's the vultures that are gathering to finish you off.

Meanwhile, not so cute are the highly aggressive, rabid dogs that all five of my guidebooks (yes, five, no less) tell me I will encounter. At first I thought I could just carry rocks and throw them hard whenever an unfriendly dog gets too close, but upon buying guidebook number five yesterday (but it surpasses the other four in so many ways!) I read that even rocks don't deter them.

So this week I've been thinking at length about how to deter mad dogs. Fireworks? A chain I could tie around my waist and then pull out and swing at them if attacked? A bag of hot spices to throw in their faces? Coincidentally, a couple of regions of China have been doing mass culls of their dog populations because of some children getting rabies from dog bites. Basically that means the authorities have been clubbing them all to death unless their owners find a better way first. I love animals, but was a bit disappointed to hear Tibet wasn't culling its dogs. But I guess getting the Buddhist heartland to start killing things is going to be a bit hard.

So, the ideal solution would be an electronic dog repeller, which you can buy on the internet, although it's too late for that now. I've been trying to ask around at pet stores but the staff all look at me incredulously when I say I want to repel dogs, as if to say "Why would you want to repel dogs, dogs are kawaiiiiiii" and then I explain that I'm not talking namby-pamby Japanese rat-dogs that get carried around in Louis Vuitton cases, but hard core Chinese motherfuckers. Then they understand. However, the best they can offer is some weak spray that humans find okay but which dogs find repellent... but it's more the kind of thing designed to spray on a sofa so the family mutt doesn't sit on it.

I have managed to find a dog-whistle designed for "training" your dog, but I'm not sure if that means the sound it produces is unpleasant to the dog or just attracts it. As you can imagine, that detail matters quite a lot. While looking at torches, which I need so as to see the interior decor of unlit monasteries, I was considering buying a full-size metal Maglite, weighing it in my hands, knowing it could have dual use as a club.

But, don't get me wrong, I really do like animals. I saw a picture of a yak for the first time today and I'm sincerely looking forward to meeting one and exchanging pleasantries.