Here at the top of the world

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For our May vacation, the rest of the American exchange students and I are traveling Tibet. I'm currently at an internet bar in Lhasa.

This entry will probably have to take more than one entry, especially since I only have an hour here.

One of the highlights for me so far was spending the night at a monestery at the base of Mt. Everest (despite altitude sickness problems) in a room that a monk had to give up for us, due to lack of space in the guest hotel. The monks were extremely generous with their rooms-- one actually slept on the floor of his, so that two of my classmates could have the two beds. The rooms were beautiful, and we were all very grateful.

I'm going kind of out of order here, but another thing that had a lasting impression on me was when our bus pulled over one time, and a bunch of Tibetan schoolkids asked us for pens. I only had one pen with me, and I had been intending to use it for writing in my journal, but obviously this was a more worthy cause. I grabbed it out of my bag, and gave it to one of the girls. It was a pretty nice pen, and she held it like it was gold. She was more appreciative than I could have imagined. As our bus was pulling away, she gave me the most admiring look. I'm so glad to have been given the chance to contribute, even in such a small way, to this girl's education.

In general, the people here are incredibly friendly. As our bus was taking us on our long rides, we would pass small farming villages, and see people outside working, or resting. It was the kind of thing you'd see in a movie: a woman would be carrying water back to her house, and she'd hear the bus coming, and look up at us over her shoulder. I would usually make eye contact and wave, and then she (or he, or whoever) would break into a huge smile and wave back. One group of four or five Tibetan men even offered us food when we pulled over near their lunch spot.

Skipping back to the Everest part of our trip, our group got to take pony carts from the monestery where we were staying, up to the first base camp. The base camp turned out to be a series of tents, most of which were teahouses and small restaurants. We drank tea, and took pictures. I was pretty blown away by Mount Everest itself. It was a clear day, so we could see the top, which was really lucky.

So back at 3,000 meters, I feel like I'm drowning in air. On the whole, though, our group did surprisingly well in the high altitude (the monestary was at 5,000 meters). We've been splurging on cans of air, although we're still not sure if they actually help or not. If nothing else, they at least have a slight placebo effect, so that's something.

I'll try to update when I get back to Beijing, and have more time.

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Comments

[Katy]

AHHHHHHHH
um...can I just point out that you saw the top of Mount Everest? Can't wait to talk to you!