Exploring Ten Terak

We've been touring Ten Terak the last few days, with the Datomenkaps as our guides.

On thursday, we vistied the old palace, which is built like a fortification.

Yesterday we visited a small art gallery and took a day trip up to the "tombs of ancients" on the outside of the north side of the town. The Tomb of the ancients is a large mosoleum built during the first reign of the kings, built soimetime around 3000 KG, used up until the great scattering of the salthan people. Then when the salthans came out of hiding and returned to their home country, Doasesal (302-246 KG) and Karnasela I (266-214 KG) were buried here before the capital was moved to Naska in 212 KG, and no more kings were burried there since.

In a few days we're going to move on to Lupa, though it will be hard to say goodbye to the Datomenkap family, after being so kind to us and opening their home to us.

Entering a new world

Today we arived in Ten Tarak, a major city on the east side of the country. We took a bus from home, and crossed over the borders in to a vast expance of baren deserts. There were no salthans on the bus, since salthans seldomly travel outside their country. Though I've had heard about salthans, I had never seen one, so stepping out of the bus in Ten Terak was like stepping in to a whole new world!

If you live in a reagon far away enough, you may not even beleive my discription of them! They basicly look like a cross between humans and lizards. They stand upright like humans, but are cold blooded, are covered in scales and have a tail. Salthans also unlike lizards give live births. There are three kinds of races in Saltha, the greens, the reds and the sands (who are obvously named for their skin color). Though there have been some short inter-racal wars in the past, the salthans have a strong unified racial unity ideal and so for the most part they live in harmony.

Most of the very young children were wearing wearing very little or no clothing at all. I could understand, it was very hot! Many children wore a loin cloth (Called a Uta), and the girls wore a simular peice across their chest called a Añak as wel. Adults wore a two peice robe with a shirt with long sleeves and a long sleeveless robe over that called a Skata.

The family who we contacted beforehand for us to stay with met us at the bus station. Odala Datomenkap is a leather smith, and has a wife, Sai and 9 year old son, Lail. Sai used to teach english.

They greeted us warmly, and after introductions they called a Kes cab, a large lumbering lizard creature used for city transport. The Datomenkap house was like the others that I saw in the city, a two story brick square structure, with a bacony on one side. [Edit: the image seems to have disapeared. I'll try to get it back. Sorry.]

Inside the house was a kitchen/dining room area with a stove, sink and table. Mrs. datomenkap told me I could bath upstairs while the children bathed together in the downstairs bathroom. Saltha bathing traditon is not unlike the japaneese way of bathing, washing first at a spigot and then getting in to the hot tub.

After the relaxing hot bath, a delicous meal was ready for us of steamed vegitables and a bread stuffed with fish. After dinner, we talked a litle about the sites around the city that we might visit tommarow. It was a long day, so I better get to bed.Today was a pretty busy day.