Kangding butcher, 2004

meat2, originally uploaded by mutikonka1.

Well at least you know it's fresh. Just up the lane from the veggie market is the meat market where yak carcasses are laid out on trestle tables. It is gory stuff, not sight for vegetarians or the faint of stomach. There are bloody hunks of meat, bits of bone, yak hair and even complete severed yak heads [not pictured]. And yet this dainty lady has no qualms about asking for half a kilo of best sirloin. Most of the butchers seemed to be Tibetan, but they may have been Hui Muslims - it was hard to tell. Certainly there was a meat stall outside the mosque and Hui Muslims have traditionally been the butchers of Tibet - a job not deemed appropriate for people whose Buddhist beliefs are against harming any living thing.