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Published: October 15th 2005
WARNING: THIS IS A LOOONG ONE 13 days ago Omar and I left Shanghai decided to have a different vacation; a vacation where we will have to wake up early in the morning to jump into a dusty 4X4, drive for hours only to find a tiny village once in a while where we would have lunch (usually rice and some sort of curry), feel cold even under layers and layers of t-shirts and sweaters, walk and hike, have headaches because of the altitude sickness and sleep in rooms crowded with people we did not even know.
While in China, we had decided not to miss this once in a lifetime adventure of driving from Lhasa to Kathmandu, we would stop at the Everest Case Camp to spend one night, hike for hours, drive for more than 40 hours, visit monasteries, cross China and arrive in Nepal on October 10th.
Packing for Tibet is no simple matter; no pictures or books of the Dalai Lama, clothes for the 4 seasons, chocolate and foods rich in carbs (to help cope with Altitute Sickness) and we are suppose to travel light! Oh well, we decided to go "Rambo" and wear
the same stuff for most of the trip.
How can I start? I have to say that I learned (and remembered) so many things in this trip. From learning that unusual circumstances facilitate friendship between otherwise different people to remembering the time when we, as childrens, were not afraid of strangers and smiled and said "hi" everytime someone smiled at us.
Tibet, although recognized by the world as part of China, is SO-NOT CHINA. After the invasion of Tibet by Chinese people, the only country in the world that condemned the action was El Salvador (Good for you, Martha).
Tibetan people believe strongly in religion, in fact, it is impossible to understand Tibet without understanding Buddhism and how Tibetan people center their lives around the monasteries and their commandments. Not that is good or bad (although I personally believe is more good than bad), but is just so different.
The history of Tibet is full of conflicts and invasions; Tibet closed its borders twice, first trying to stay away from the British Empire and its expansionist intents and later, after the Chinese "liberated" Tibet (from its own government).
We first arrived to Chengdu (China) where
we had to spend one night at a nasty hotel next to the airport. The following morning, we took a flight to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. As soon as we arrived to Lhasa; we were greeted by PEMA or PAMA (we never knew) our Tibetan guide and a sky so blue and clear that hurt the eyes.
Pema gave each one of us in our group (12) a white silk scarf for good luck. I would not take out this scarf for the rest of our trip.
We soon gave names to the members of our group:
-The Party Animals (never smiled, took 4 suitcases when all of us traveled with one backpack and were always complaining... Oh! yes, they never went out)
-The Serial Killer (weird guy that took pictures of me and Omar all the time)
-The Big Father (big belly, always hungry but nice face)
-The Sheep (really looked like a sheep and acted like one)
-Greg, the Indiana Jones Kid (his name was Grant but we never seemed to remember. He did look like that kid)
-The Annoying Old Woman (VERY ANNOYING, talking all the time)
-The Japanese (a Japanese guy that
did not speak English or Chinese)
-Frankenstein (poor guy)
The air was clean and cold, a nice surprise for us, already used to the contaminated and always warm air from Shanghai. We decided to take it easy once we confirmed we were at 3,600 meters above sea level.
1.5 hours later we arrived to Lhasa and checked in our very nice hotel. After lunch we went for a walk amazed at how different the people looked here. Not that they had 3 eyes and 4 ears but THEY WERE SMILING AT US!!! and most of them had their typical dress on and they all kept turning their praying wheels (picture). They were all pilgrims, undertaking the huge task and expense of traveling from their places of origin to the Jokang Temple, the center of Tibetan Buddhism.
After lunch, we decided to walk around the Barkor circuit (around the Jokang Temple) where we joined the hundreds of people walking clockwise around the temple and praying while stopping to buy a Buddhist rosary, some beads, or a scarf.
The following day we went to the fabulous Potala Palace, former seat of the Dalai Lama and sadly, almost
empty now. Here I would like to note that 50 years ago, the palace, a Holy Place, was surrounded by houses, the palace was a sort of "White House" where the Tibetan leader lived and the building was the center of the town. Today, after the Chinese "liberation" the houses are gone and a huge and VERY Chinese square (think Tianamen) with a fountain commemorating the "liberation" of Tibet takes place in front of the empty palace. Omar noted how ironic/sad it is that we can visit the Dalai Lama's home but he himself can't come back.
We took off the next day to Gyanse, home of the astonishing Sera Monastery. We also went to visit a Nunnery and the Tibetan Museum. Inside most of the Monasteries there is a fee for taking pictures, at the beginning I got a bit upset thinking that we have already paid our entrance fee but then, after realizing that most of the money goes to the government (Chinese) and only the money from the pictures goes to the monks and monasteries, we decided to pay.
For pilgrim monks; it is usual to ask for money, so in all the monasteries we
would find hundreds of monks praying, working on "Mandalas" and begging for money.
After 4 more hours on the road, we got to Shigatse, my favorite city, so far. The city is full of life and intrigues from an Umberto Eco (or Dan Brown) book. On our way to the city, Omar and I read the history of the Tashilunpo Monastery we were about to visit.
The Tashilunpo Monastery is home of the Panchen Lama (second only to the Dalai Lama) and current spiritual leader "in-house" (the Dalai Lama has its government in exile in India). This is how the story goes:
"The 9th Panchen Lama spent his last days with the Chinese attempting to use them as leverage to solve a dispute with the 13th Dalai Lama. After his dead, his reincarnation grew up in the control of China and after he was enthroned and co-chaired the committee for drafting and approving the "Tibetan Autonomous Region" was regarded with suspicion.
The 10th Panchen Lama, however, had a change of heart after experiencing the 1960 famine in Tibet, voiced that Tibet should one day regain its independence and drafted a 70,000 character document detailing the abuses committed by the Chinese. That got him 10 years in prison.
By this time, the Tibetan had started regarding him with admiration and love. After his dead, the abbot of the monastery and the Dalai Lama identified and ratified a 6 years old boy as the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama. Within a month, the Chinese authorities took the boy and his family under "protection" and were taken to an undisclosed location and they have not been seen since then.
The Chinese government, asked to abbot to come up with a new Chinese-approved choice and he refused, so he spent 4 years in jail for "splitting the country". Eventually, a new choice was enthroned as Panchen Lama, the son of a Communist Party Officer. This kid lives in Beijing and has come to Tibet only twice.
Until today, nobody knows what happened with the "first" Panchen Lama, in 1996 after a UN formal document asking for his whereabouts, the Chinese government recognized to have him "in custody". In 1999, some underground Chinese media groups reported that the kid had died and after some incisive questioning from the UK, the Chinese government reported that the boy
was "unharmed" and did not want to be interviewed.
After repeated attempts to locate and visit the boy, not one international agency or human rights organization has been allowed to meet with the Panchen Lama or his family, and their condition remains uncertain.
The trick is that once the 14th Dalai Lama (now in exile) dies, this kid, the new Panchen Lama will be in charge of identifying the Dalai Lama reincarnation and therefore, decide whom the Tibetans would regard as their leader. (Any doubt it will be a Chinese? If this happens, this Dalai Lama would be the last in his role and the Tibetan culture, now, endangered would disappear)
More info here:
www.panchenlama.info
www.tibet-society.org.uk
www.tibet.ca/panchenlama/
Tahilunpo is also home to the World's biggest In-house Buddha, measuring 26.2 meters high. Really impressive, although US$10 to take a picture seems like too much...
After Shigatse, we stopped in a couple of small villages where children and adults ran towards us asking for (yes) money, but also for books, pens and food. We had brought crayons, chocolates, cookies and coloring books so we did what we could.
The night before arriving to the Everest region,
we spent the night at a guest house where we were suppose to share the room with 4 other people, but Pama, our great guide gave to all the couples a private room. Ours was next to the bathroom (which I though you would like to know was just a hole that went all the way to the first floor to a room next to the kitchen/restaurant).
I do not think is nice to give you all the details but I just want to say that we woke up several times during the night because of some strange noises....
Early in the morning we took off to the Everest. After 2 hours, the group split in 3:
-Some were taking the horse car to the Everest Base Camp and staying there
-Some were hiking (2.5 hours) to the camp and going back to the Guest House to spend the night
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3 guys and us (yes, I was the only girl) hiked for 2.5 hours to get to the camp and stayed there on a tent. On our way up (5,300 meters above the sea) we had to stop several times to catch our breath since at
that altitude the atmospheric pressure is half of next to the sea and you get tired easily.
Once we got there, the sky was clear and we had an awesome/imposing view of Mount Everest. We decided to stay at "Hotel California" (a tent) and while Omar played cards with the rest of the group and some visitors from other tents, I talked, and talked, and talked (I guess you are not surprised) with other people from a different group.
At the end of the night, we realized how wonderful it was to have shared an evening at the base of the Everest with people from Finland, Iceland, Israel, USA, France, Germany, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Tibet and Italy in the same room.
Before going to sleep, we went out to contemplate the stars. It was the most beautiful sky I have ever seen. So clear, not even one cloud and millions of stars. Truly magical. Omar even saw 3 shooting stars and a "moving" star that I insist was a UFO.
The next morning we woke up at 6am to start walking back (and down) to the civilization in total darkness (that sounded kind of philosophical, didn't
it?).
After meeting the rest of the group and 6 hours of driving, the scenery changed dramatically, from the driest mountains and dustiest road to a rainforest with hundreds of waterfalls like I have never seen.
We cross the bridge between Tibet and Nepal and we head to Baktapur.
Baktapur is now one of my favorite places in the world with Lucca in Italy and Cuzco in Peru. Baktapur is a medieval city that was the stage for a couple of Bertolucci films. The combination of Buddhist and Hinduism Temples with Muslims walking on the streets was just fascinating.
Kathmandu is not what it used to be; the mecca for the hippies in the 70's. Is a big city now with yes, many attractions but does not have the charm of Baktapur or the religious fervor or Lhasa. Still we had fun (because we stayed at a 5 star hotel 😊
In our whole trip, we only saw 2 pictures of the Dalai Lama and not one of them was in Tibet, they were both in stores in Nepal.
The next day we flew back to Shanghai.
Yes, everything we expected happened; we
slept in uncomfortable places, we felt cold, dizzy, had headaches, went hungry, our legs hurt, our faces were covered with dust, we saw REALLY poor kids covered in dust and despair, we saw road workers living in tents under terrible conditions for $2 a day, we learned that when the winter is cold, it takes up to 20 days for the snow to melt and that means fun for us but dead for Tibetan nomad people and their animals, we learned that in rural Tibet people only eat barley and yak butter in the winter because there is nothing else to eat; we drank yak butter tea and eat yak steak and burger, we ate more eggs than never before (most likely the only source of protein in poor places) but we have also seen the stars at the highest place possible in the whole world, we met wonderful people that traveled weeks only to get to a temple and pray, we met kids that ran towards us because we had pens which they could use to go to schools, , we met girls that smiled at us only because they had probably never seen their faces in a picture,
we met children that ALWAYS smiled and say hello, even if we had nothing to give them, we met Pama, our knowledgeable guide and heard his prayers every morning, we saw the Chinese squares and monuments ALWAYS in front of a Tibetan holy place; we wore the same underwear for 3 days and we chewed gum instead of brushing our teeth.... Some people may call it difficult, some people may not understand it, some people may call it madness; we call it a blessing.
Some facts about Tibet: Area: 12.284 million square kilometers
Population: 2.62 million (the 2000 population census)
Health facilities: For every 10,000 persons there were 17.62 hospital beds and 20.94 doctors.
Life expectancy: 59.64 years
Average annual rural income: 1,300 yuan (US$150)
Chinese stats:
http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/database/chinadata/tibet.htm
http://www.un.org/jsummit/html/documents/letters_mtgoutcomes/pc2doc19.pdf
Finally, if any of you want to go to Tibet (which we highly reccommend), do not forget to take snacks, books and pens for kids and hire a Tibetan guide, not sure about what a Chinese guide knows about Tibetan customs, reality and religion. We have the contact for Pama if anyone is interested and if you do not like curry or spicy food, bring lots of food.
People actually live here...
Stop complaining about your homes...For more pictures from Johnny, our friend, click here:
http://spaces.msn.com/members/ianshieh/PersonalSpace.aspx?_c01_blogpart=myspace&_c02_owner=1&_c=blogpart
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Maritza
non-member comment
Amazing
Gigi, Fascinating and enlightening. This is like watching a documentary without a TV. The pictures are incredible and your commentary is very insightful. Have enjoyed all your travelblogs.