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Published: September 5th 2009
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Old Tibet, new Tibet...
I loved the colors and wall hangings in this restaurant and then right in the middle is a computer... Mt. Everest Base Camp, Day 3 We ended up getting to our hotel late last night, about 10:30, after a decent meal in Shigatse, Tibet. Even though we didn't get to see Mt. Everest up close yesterday, on our way back to the closest town we did get to spend about forty minutes watching the top 1/3 of the mountain appear and then fade away, and then appear again as cloud formations slowly passed over the mountain range. She is a spectacular sight indeed.
This morning Jenny and I are up early, but groggy and grumpy, as we both ended up sleeping in our clothes. It was that kind of hotel. We got out and on the bus after skipping a Chinese breakfast and after the night we had I grabbed the long seat in the back of the bus slumped up against mounds of backpacks and suitcases. Both of us slept for a few hours as we continued on the all-day drive back to Lhasa from Shigatse.
The drive was uneventful except that we picked up an additional guide who just finished up providing a private one day tour for a guy who is now on our bus
for the ride back.
The guide was at one time a Mt. Everest Sherpa, which means he was trained in mountaineering and was working towards getting his certificate to guide people all the way up Everest as a team Sherpa. He told us about what changed his mind. As part of his training he was with a group but they were climbing up Everest slowly, stopping for a day, then heading up again, getting acclimated while learning skills at the same time. He was about 1/3 of the way up, feeling great, when he said he just felt like a bus was laying on his chest. He is from Tibet, lived here all his life, but his body simply could not acclimate to the height and he fought for several hours but in the end had to give up and crawl back to the highest base camp, Base Camp C, or he would have died. That was it for him, acute mountain sickness kicked his ass - years of training for naught, he never went back it shook him up that deeply. He told us the story while laughing and smoking a cigarette...he also laughed when we asked him
how much it costs to climb Everest. He said soberly, "They will pull you up to the top for about $70,000...not worth it, not worth it...
We laughed with our guides, looked over the albums of pictures of our adventure and tried to entertain ourselves as we rolled away the hours. We stopped often for a bathroom break, to slow down our time so we wouldn't get fined, or to look over random souvenir stalls on the side of the road. Eventually we stopped at a beautiful ranch that looked like it was under Montana big sky country. Just perfect blue sky, puffy clouds, trees everywhere, dogs barking and running around...it was a Yak ranch and they also raise the famous Tibetan Yak dogs. Don took care of the logistics and within about fifteen minutes they brought over a huge white Yak for those of us who have always wanted to ride one of these beasts. He moved pretty slow, but they can move quick if they want to and his horns reminded me vividly of running through the narrow streets of Pamplona back in 2006 when I ran with the bulls in San Fermin. We both hopped on
and had a great time because he was well-behaved and well-mannered and he smelled nothing like the Yak I encountered up at the Mt. Everest base camp...now that guy
smelled!
Finally made it back to Lhasa in the early evening and went to the hotel for less than 20 minutes and then we were herded back on the bus and whisked over to a local restaurant for a delicious buffet and floor show including authentic Tibetan dances. The food was awesome and the floor show was hilarious, especially a dance with the Yak's and a Shepard who trains them...that's in the video above...me and Jenny had such a great time they pulled her up on stage and got her to dance the last number with the performers. She acted a little shy but she really does love the spotlight!!
After dinner we rounded up most of the original Music Night group and headed out to another one of our favorite bars to say goodbye to everyone and wind down the entire adventure. We had some beers and talked but most of us were fairly quiet, as if we were all walking alone through the emotional quagmire we have
discovered called Tibet. We talked local politics, and global politics, but it didn't mean much. What had we learned about being on the rooftop of the world for eight days? The underlying current moving beneath each of us this evening is sadness. Sadness beyond words. We have traveled from all over the world to be right here this evening enjoying ourselves in the middle of a culture that is slowly being eradicated from the earth. We are drinking beers and chatting inside a living, breathing genocidal event. Our words are as nugatory as our ideas on what to do about the situation. The most we can do, we all agree, is be grateful and accept that it is enough sometimes just to be happy right here, right now. No epiphany, no solution, just empathy for these beautiful, peaceful, fundamentally spiritual people. We also agree that the invasion is complete and it was a success; all that is left is to strangle and suffocate the Tibetan leaders and people until they slowly whither away, leaving nothing except echoes in their monasteries, temples, palaces, all of which will continue bringing in money for her captors for decades and decades to come...
Jenny and I are in Lhasa for one more day because the trains leave only on odd/even days so tomorrow we are on a private tour with Don Drop all day. Our attitude about the Chinese has turned darker, we are both tinged with bitterness now after visiting Tibet. We tell each other we are going to have to get over this fiery streak in our hearts and guts because we have to teach English for five more months here...I smell the Juniper burning in the night air as I walk home under the stars and feel conflicted and confused; as if I've been given a gift but have no idea what to do with it...
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Dad
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Reality
I'm crying.