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Published: November 5th 2006
Well it's been a fair few weeks since my last blog update, having travelled to Tibet and back, I'm now in southern Yunnan, China where I'm spending a few days before heading south to Laos. In the meantime, I've travelled with a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, taken buses with Tibetan nomads through mountain passes to Shangri-La and trekked the Tiger Leaping Gorge - so it's been a busy time!
Trying to keep with my rules of no flights to Australia, I had to either take the train to Lhasa which takes 48 hours, or the bus which takes several days - so needless to say I opted for the brand new train from Chengdu, which I'd been told promised spectacular views across the Tibetan Plateau. I then had to sign a disclaimer, advising that I should be healthy enough to travel on the train due to the high altitude (5000m) that it travels at one point and I boarded the train along with hundreds of Chinese, a few backpackers and some Tibetan families. The Tibetans all seemed to be carrying huge loads that made my pack look small - old ladies hunched up under bags on their backs, men wrapped in
thick sheepskin coats and even the children with their red faces and running noses carried their own bags.
Once onboard I met the other people in my compartment (I was sleeping in hard-sleeper class, which means there are 6 people in a 2 x triple-bunked compartment) and I quickly realised how I'd really landed on my feet. I was sharing with a Buddhist monk and his translator/friend from Viet Nam, who were off to find a monk he'd met from a monastery in Tibet, and a couple who were former Peace Corps volunteers who had visited Tibet twice before and knew the area well. We all got along nicely (it is fairly cramped when there are 6 of you sharing a small space!) and we decided to travel together for a few days until we all went our seperate ways. In the end, we stayed together for the entire trip to Tibet.
We took the local bus into town from the train station, after cramming on board with what felt like most of the other train passengers and before long, I fulfilled a life-long ambition and saw the Potala Palace - albeit through someone's armpit as I was
squashed against them on the bus! The air felt a lot colder than in Chengdu and although the altitude didn't affect me initially, I developed the tell-tale headache and nausea associated with altitude sickness after a couple of days. However, as Lhasa is only 3700m above sea level, this soon subsided although I felt like I had a cold for the whole time I was in Tibet. The headache was only to return once I was at 4700m at Nam Tso Lake, if only for a limited time.
Once we arrived in Lhasa we made our way to a couple of hostels, having agreed to meet up the following day to follow pilgrims performing the Kora - a circuit around a temple or monastery where pilgrims spin their prayer wheels constantly, sending the prayer written on the outside of the wheel out on the wind. Most pilgrims walk the Kora, although some do it by prostrating for many miles - I later saw a group of 5 pilgrims on the road 100 kms from Lhasa, standing, putting their hands together above their heads, down to their chests, then out in front of them as they kneel and then slide
forward, laying completely on the ground. They then stand and do the same all over again.
We joined the Kora early the next morning and already the streets were full of pilgrims, some murmuring the Tibetan Buddhist Compassion mantra - Om Mani Pedme Hom but all of them spinning their prayer wheels. Everyone had a ready smile for us as we joined them on the walk and very soon I realised just how lucky I was to have met the group on the train. Several people approached the monk (called Xiun) and walked with him and we were invited to follow. An old lady gave him her prayer wheel to spin and she made sure we didn't get lost through the maze of streets as we followed along, eventually arriving at the main site of pilgrimage, not far from the Potala Palace. As we climbed a small hill, prayer flags brushed our faces as we passed small shrines carved into the rock. Pilgrims stopped to pray at points and as we got to the top of the hill, we looked down to see 30-40 pilgrims prostrating towards a large shrine. The only sound was the sliding of the leather
pads on their hands across the dirt on the ground and the gentle chanting of mantras. Behind them was a wooden building where hundreds of yak butter candles flickered in the gloom. The room felt very warm as I walked past - it was still early morning and the day hadn't warmed up yet. I stood and watched the pilgrims in awe - the devotion on their faces was moving and although I'd read a lot about these pilgrimages, nothing had prepared me for the different sounds of the mantras and the sickly-sweet smell of the yak butter candles, coupled with the sight of the people praying at the shrines.
As we moved on, the lady that had allowed us to follow her for so long finished her Kora but passed us on to her sister who then took us around the streets of Lhasa, pointing out different religious sites. We visited the Jokhang Temple, joining a heaving mass of pilgrims coming from all over Tibet, to visit the most important religious site in the country. Built 1300 years ago, it houses a pure gold statue of the Buddha and pilgrims push to get to the front of the
Monks Debating
Sera Monasteryqueue to pray and to offer money at the shrine. Whilst we were being pushed and josteled, an old lady next to us cried out as she realised someone had slashed her pocket to steal her money - it seems that even pilgrims in a temple are not immune to theft, although the thief was caught after the monks gave chase!
The next day we wandered around Barkhor Square - the main centre of Lhasa where locals (and tourists) buy goods not available in the countryside - jewellery, trinkets and thankas (silk paintings of the Buddha). I just stood and stared for what seemed ages at the constant stream of pilgrims walking past - they wore so many different types of clothes - from sheep-skin coats and the braided, coral-bearing hair of the Goloks (Tibetan nomads), to the ceremonial daggers and red-sashed hair of the Khambas from southern Tibet. Babies are carried in colourful, papoose-type rugs, strapped to their mother's backs, snug from the cold winter air. Occasionally juniper incense, burning in large white "ovens" would sting the back of your throat as it clouded the square, swirling around the 2 tall totems standing nearby (these totem poles were
almost identical to those I'd seen in Mongolia and on Olkhon Island, Russia).
We'd decided to go and visit a nearby monastery one afternoon - only 5 kms from Lhasa, Sera Monastery is known for it's afternoons of debating sessions - where monks discuss burning issues in the courtyard. I was expecting to see a quiet circle of monks talking in hushed tones about religious matters, so was surprised to find a group of about 100 monks dressed in their red robes, shouting and stamping their right foot and clapping their right hand to get their point across, to another monk who would be sitting facing them. It was all good-natured but the monks clearly felt passionately about their argument, whilst younger monks - some aged 12 would practise stamping and clapping at the same time, waiting their time to participate.
The next day we visited the Potala Palace - former seat of the Dalai Lama and perhaps the most recognised image of Lhasa, it stands proudly on a hill overlooking the capital. Built in 1645 and taking 50 years to complete, it houses hundreds of rooms connected by a rabbit-warren of dark corridors and alleyways. We managed
to avoid a big tour group being shown around and chatted to some of the monks who pray and look after the Palace. Every room seems to house golden Buddhas or the remains of long-past Dalai Lamas which gave you a sense of presence about the place. Buying the ticket had been a bit of a comical farce, having been told by the hostel that they would charge 150 Yuan commission (GBP10) which included the "foreigner's fee", we decided to queue up at the ticket office at 7.00am in the freezing cold. Once the doors opened 90 minutes late, we had a number written on our arms and told to come back at 11.30 to join another queue. Joining that queue meant we were given a permit to buy a ticket and a time to arrive the following day - to join another queue to buy said ticket! Anyway, it was worth it in the end.
In the meantime, we'd been planning our expedition to visit the monasteries that Xiun and Carl and Heather (the US Peace Corps volunteers) had wanted to visit. I had been toying with the idea of travelling by Land Cruiser to the monastery towns
of Shigatse, Gyantse and Everest Base Camp and asking around if any other travellers had wanted to join me. However, I'd got along so well with my new group of friends that I decided that if I was going to do one trip, it should be with them. Sometimes, opportunities so good present themselves that you can't pass them up and I'd already seen how much being with the monk would teach me about Buddhism and how Carl and Heather's knowledge about the area would help me understand what I was seeing, that I accepted their invitation to join them as quickly as I could.
In the next blog, I'll describe the trip to the monasteries outside of Lhasa and how we got to the beautiful and sacred Nam Tso Lake - the highest salt water lake in the world. I'm off to the border area with Laos in the next couple of days so I'm not sure when I'll be able to update the blog - hopefully soon. Keep the messages from home and the like, coming, please. It's always good to hear from you. Hope you like the pictures and narrative! Bye for now.
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The Old Man, no longer in shorts
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Excellent Blog
Just read your blog, so good I can almost smell the atmospere from your descriptions. Go for it! LD