From Lhasa I Write

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Hello All! Long Time no Computer! I made it to Lhasa last night after a long but beautiful 12 days. I have been traveling with an amazing Tibetan tour guide Jamphel Sonam. If you ever want to travel in the Tibetan areas of China you can contact him at [e-mail]. Now for a recap of my travels:

Day One:

It was a rainy day in Chengdu, which always causes traffic delays in China. We finally got the land cruiser loaded and set off on our epic adventure around 11am. After an hour of navigating city traffic we finally cleared Chengdu. Our driver, Mr. Wang, is Chinese, from Chongqing, and this was the first time for him and our guide to take the norther Sichuan-Tibet Friendship highway into Tibet. So understanding their conversation (sometimes speaking the language is a disadvantage) and fiddling with the GPS, along with our refusal to drive over 80 KM per hour made me a little nervous. But as we left the city scape for greener pastures I began to relax and look forward to 3 weeks in the wild.

We had a qick lunch in Ya'an, although we did not taste the famous Ya'an fish. Ya'an is the traditional border between Tibet and China, and marks the start of the Tea road into Tibet. It is where Chinese and Tibeatan traders used to meet to exchange goods, and how the Tibetan got their tea.

5 more hours of driving landed us in Kangding, a small city along a river, where we had a qick dinner of noodles and retired for the night at Zhilman's Hostel. If you ever go to Kangding, stay there. It is run as an example to Tibetans how to set up an authentic hostel, and is well done with clean beds, stone lined showers, Tibetan cultural accents and homemade apple pie.

Day Two:

After hearing that the road would be blocked for construction after 7am, we rose at 5am to make sure we would clear the pass before the backhoes arrived. Some false starts with needing to push the car and questions of direction again raised doubts in my mind. Culture conflict was raised over my preference for being informed about a problem, and the more Asian way of not stating anything unless necessary. So while we were sitting waiting for the car to warm up, my patience was being tested as I had no idea what was going on and it was 5am. Day 2 brought out the fact that patience is not yet one of my virtues.

Alas, eventually we were on the road along with a huge military caravan. I swear they were moving the entire army to Tibet. A little over 2 hours of driving brought us over the top of a pass ver 4000 m high whose name I have forgotten. When we drove into the valley at 9am we saw the most beautiful fields full of yaks and scattered Tibetan houses of wood and stone. My questions immediately flew from my mind and I started happily snapping pictures.

Another hour brought us to Tagong, and we visited our first monastery of the trip. We walked the kora around the monastery and were happily greeted by locals as the turned the prayer wheels. Jamphel is actively involved with several charity projects, and one is supporting a local orphanage started by one of the monks at Tagong. So we had the chance to visit the boys while they were learning to read, all out loud at the same time. I think the loudest recital won a prize. The had a lovely greenhouse/classroom and were happy to pose for photos. We had tea with their teacher and continued on to Bamei. Unfortunately we could not make it to Danba as the roads were too bad. But we stayed at a basic hotel with a wonderful Tibetan couple as proprietors. They told us that there was a festival at a monastery 10 kn away the next day, so we decided to stay and see it the next morning.

Day Three:

In the morning we visited the monastery behind our hotel and saw the morning Kora, and then drove over to Gangtze Monastery for the festival. We saw people in their holiday dress with head dresses and motorcycle cowboys, dressed to the nines thinking they were really cool. And the horse men rode in and everyone cheered.

In the afternoon we drove to Daofu and visited a house built by the local women's league to see traditional Tibetan architecture, albeit that of very rich people. They fed us lots of delicious apples. We drove for another hour or so to Luhou, an uncharming town to spend the night with drunks pounding on our door.

Day Four:

From Luhou we drove to the Donggu Monastery and saw relics and tapestries as old as 800 years. The local people had hidden them in their homes during the cultural revolution and saved a wealth of history. We drove on to Ganzi and were invited to see the monks debate philosophy in the monastery on the hill above the city. I have a video of this as photographs don't capture it. They slap their hands different ways to acquiesce a point or to acknowledge a superior idea. We then went to see the healing ceremony and prayers and the monks unexpectedly invited us to eat with them. They said if we concentrated we could absorb the healing energy of their prayers.

Day Five:

We drove from Ganzi to Yilhun La-tso Lake and saw a group of nomads carving 108 prayers into the rocks. We hiked around the lake and then they invited us to have tea and eat zamba with them. Zamba is barley flour and milk and butter rolled together into a ball. It is very filling and nutritious, but not very flavorful. We drove on over Trola Pass (4916 m high), which is the highest east of Lhasa, and on to Derge. Derge is where the printing press is, and one of the things I most looked forward to. We arrived there late because of the roads. Very few of the roads were paved up to this point in the trip, and most are like 4-wheel drive roads. We hurried into the monastery to see the printing press, but the workers had already left. We decided to come back the next morning.

Day Six:

This morning we got to see the printers work and even were allowed to film them. Some of the blocks are 800 years old, and include scriptures in both Sanskrit and Tibetan. It is the oldest monastic print house in Tibet. They brush ink onto the blocks and then brush the paper over them. They can make 17 copies in a minute. It is quite impressive to see.

After our return visit to the print house we quickly set off for Chamdo, which is the first place we would stay in Tibet proper (TAR). We had heard the road was bad, but we had no idea how bad. It took us 5 hours to go 100 km and at one point had to stop while the bulldozer smoothed rocks down so we could drive over them. I don't have a picture of this as the military is in charge of road construction and we cannot take pictures of that. After 5 hours of driving we reached Jamdo, the border town into the TAR. We had to pass our first document inspection (and we needed a pile of these including military permits). We almost didn't pass and supervisors were called. The town Jamdo was not specifically on the permit, even though we did not plan to stay there. After a friendly questioning 20 minutes we were allowed to go, and drove the last 230 km on paved roads to Chamdo in 4 hours, arriving after 9pm. A long exhausting day of driving.

Day Seven:

We set out in the morning for the part of the trip I most looked forward to - Riwoche Monastery. But after 2 hours of driving and not getting anywhere on the worst roads yet, we stopped to ask how long it would take us to get there. They said 7 hours as most of the road had been washed out and the new road was under construction. 7 hours to go 130 km. Alas, it was not possible. So we turned back to Chamdo, Tibet's second largest charmless city, and decided to push on to Bangda. After 6 hours of driving we reached this triangle of a town. It only existed as the crossroads between the norther and southern routes to Chengdu and Lhasa.

Day Eight:

We pushed on, determined to get a head of schedule by a day so we could spend more time in Lhasa and out of the car. By this time we all had cabin fever. Because we were driving so slow we were spending more time in the car than out, with quick bathroom and photography breaks. We left at 7am and drove to Pashou for breakfast, and then on to Rawok lake. We took a break for a few hours there, walking around and talking to a farmer about his winter wheat crops. It has been a really dry year this year, evident in all the lakes and rivers being really low. The natural direction of steams as irrigation in this village was ingenious and quite charming. After our nature break we drove on to Pomi for the evening, and had a lovely meal of duck.

Day Nine:

From Pomi we started driving through the most beautiful part of eastern Tibet; the subtropical valley along the Yarlung Tsangpo. The foilage really was amazing and I couldn't do it justice in my pictures. We stopped for a 2 hour hike over 2 suspension bridges along the river and even saw a lizard. Supposedly there are cobras and red pandas in this area, but it is one on the most unexplored regions of Tibet. In fact Americans are not allowed to make the hike we made according to the ticket seller. And just our luck there were police waiting when we returned, but they just looked at us and smiled and seemed more worried with inspecting the trucks passing through. From there we drove on to Lulang where we has the local specialty for a late lunch; stone pot chicken soup. And continued on to Bayi for the evening. We had gained a day by making it there.

Day Ten:

Not far outside of Bayi lies the Lamaling Monastery where we started our day. It was a really unique monastery, built in the shape of a Mandala with different sides painted different colors. The rest of the day saw us driving into the typical landscape of Tibet, dry mountains sometimes melting into sand. We stayed that night in the small town of Gyatse Xian, which is so small it is not mentioned in any guide books. We were now in the U province of Tibet (with an umlaut).

Day 11:

This day was a long day of driving to Samye Monastery through scenic landscapes. We reached the monastery around 4:30 pm and it quickly became obvious that the people at the guesthouse were friends of Jamphel, our guide. That still didn't get us any running water, however. We quickly went to tour the monastery as we were told the road out would be under construction from 8am the next morning. Samye is the oldest Buddhist monastery in Tibet and really speaks for itself rising out of the sand dunes. I hope my pictures do it justice. We had a tasty dinner of yak meat soup and bread, along with salty yak butter tea. Now I am not really a fan of the stuff, but I did have a glass for posterity's sake.

Day 12:

Another 6am morning, but with Lhasa and 4 days with a car in sight! We had the Tibetan version of panckaes for breakfast, which was like cake with apple and banana in the middle. From Samye we had a 2.5 hour drive to Jamphel's village. He was kind enough to invite us to his home. His mother and sister made us lunch and lots of yak butter tea. I was more partial to their version, but at 10am lunch made me start to wish I hadn't had those pancakes for breakfast. They had local weaver over to make a mattress while we were there and we got to see them start making the beginning of the mattress. We said goodbye at noon and headed for Lhasa. And that is where I am now

Well, I hope that this keeps you entertained for now. I will write more tomorrow with pictures.

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