Our most memorable meal

Our most memorable meal happened about three weeks ago. As most of our stories begin... it was getting late and it was time to start looking for a place to sleep that night. We knew we were approaching a city and thought it would be nice to stay in a hotel for a night. We arrived to the town at dusk and our initial investigations revealed the town had no hotel. Just as we sat in the middle of the road pondering our next move, a mini-van screeched to a halt besides us. Out jumps a jovial man completely besides himself for running into foreigners on his road. After gingerly shaking our hands, he asks us to follow him to his tent where we could spend the night if we wanted. Noticing his son smiling in the front seat, we decided to follow him to his tent and check it out. His tent was at the edge of the town. We had passed them on the way in and waved hello to the women who were starting to milk the yaks. We felt instanly at home and decided to stay. Now comes the good part. Six men sit with us in the tent drinking tea and watch as the wife tosses giant (Fred Flintstone sized) hunks of meat into a pot of boiling water. Hmmm our stomachs grumble and we begin to salivate at the sight. When the meat is done, the man reaches into the pot with his hand and hands us the entire bone and accompanying meat(leg bone, rib bone, shoulder blade) and two knives which we are to share with all of the guests. We each sit around the iron stove with both hands on our chunk, bitting, cutting, chewing and spitting until our bones are clean. The wife does not eat but makes sure everyones has had at least one chunk. We go through two pots of lamb body parts and then comes the noodles which are eaten out of small bows with no chopsticks, and the bows are licked clean. It was a little bit surreal. Once we were finished, the woman cooked her piece in a separate pot and ate it while the men digested. That's one meal I will never forget.