The sun creeps over a mountain-filled horizon to reveal more than 1,000 horsemen lined up on their steeds on a dusty Serxu street. Dressed in knee-length fox-skin coats, with flintlock guns tucked conspicuously into the sides and stetson hats hanging stylishly over an ear, they wait, poised: proud and ready for war.
A whistle sounds and the horses shiver, frothing at the mouth as the horsemen's battle cry, 'Ki-hi-hi!' choruses though the streets and across open plains. Straddling small Tibetan ponies adorned with multi-coloured ribbons and silver-studded saddles, they gallop across the plains, carrying the flags of their ancestral clans towards the battlefield. There, in a dazzling, daring, sporting display, they will compete in Serxu's ancient triennial horse-racing festival.
At the same time, monks, dressed to depict deities, thunder into a tent-encircled arena, waging war on bad spirits before the carnival begins. Clad head to toe in brocade with fluorescent frills, hats crowning faces painted green, red or white, hands holding spears and swords tucked into belts, the monks dance and chant while behind them burning juniper purges the air of malignant ghosts. All around, thousands of captivated cavaliers look on.
An age-old custom, the Yaji, or Festival of Summer Pleasures, is one of many occurring simultaneously across Kham, a former Tibetan kingdom of towering mountain ranges and rolling grasslands in the far reaches of eastern Tibet. Large or small, flashy or plain, every village organises some sort of show in late May or early June. The carnivals are leftovers from the great clan gatherings, when the nomadic warrior tribes would meet to settle disagreements about land, leadership and who had the fastest horse. Forever locked in endless bloody feuds, sometimes handed down through generations, the festivals were designed as week-long armistices, taking, in theory, disputes off the battlefield and into the sporting arena.
Ponies, tassels suspended from forelocks, tails plaited with ribbon, saddlecloths embroidered with flaming dragons and saddles embossed with the Buddhist Wheel of Life, gallop along racetracks, while their riders shoot at paper targets with their antiquated rifles and snatch silk scarves from the ground. Others jump and twirl as they bring tribal dances to life - the men macho, the women delicate and poised, their sleeves flowing and their ankles ringed with bells.
THE SERXU FESTIVAL IS THE biggest and most authentic in Kham; last year's event attracted more than 10,000 nomads and villagers. A small town 4,200 metres above sea level and hidden in the heart of eastern Tibet's desert grasslands, Serxu typifies an outpost: dusty, remote and peopled by a procession of nomads stocking up on supplies. The journey to Serxu, requiring three days' driving on a treacherous road from the nearest airport at Chengdu, is not for the faint-hearted. Those with no alternative walk for weeks across mountain ranges and windswept plains to attend. They line the showground with their white festival tents and decorate themselves with their finest furs, silks and jewels, indulging in a riotous round of socialising, drinking, dancing and singing.