Under construction... roadworks on the Friendship Highway!!

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Travel in Tibet is challenging, in that once you get out of Lhasa you need permits galore to get almost anywhere... a nice way of forcing all the foreigners onto expensive land cruiser tours where the pain of getting permits is taken away... either that or you hitch and dodge the checkpoints, which isn't really my thing. So I hooked up with a Canadian guy and two French girls and embarked on a 6 day tour. Well, of course things are never quite that simple! We turned up at 6pm the day before we were due to go to meet our driver and inspect our vehicle... driver didn't speak English of course but seemed OK, the vehicle however had no suspension and four completely bald tires... and the state of the spare? don't even go there! We knew most of the roads we would travel were of the dirt, bumpy, unsealed variety so we said no no no... the best they would do though was to replace two of the tyres. We asked if there was another vehicle and were told to come back later. ... at around 8pm we were shown another vehicle that had only two bald tyres... the driver of this car seemed like a comical guy, but again no english, and figuring this was the best we'd get we agreed to take it.

Day 1

At 8am the next morning we left Lhasa heading south 100km down to our first stop at Yamdrok-tso (4441m). After a few hours of driving we stopped at Khamba La pass (4794m), along with a mini convoy of other coaches and land cruisers, for our first views of the lake which was a brilliant turquoise colour and surrounded by mountains. Yamdrok-tso is a holy lake for Tibetans, who believe that its water can make the old young, grant the middle-aged a longer life and make children smarter. I'm not sure it had any of those effects on me but it was beautiful... although that hasn't stopped the Chinese putting a hydroelectric station in. The lake is huge - we were driving along it's bank for a good few hours before we hit our first problem of the day... a land slide blocking the road. Fortunately we arrived just as it was being cleared so weren't delayed long. An hour along the road our luck ran out and we got stuck for 4 hours whilst the debris was cleared. Aghhhh. On the positive side there were worse places to be held up...... we had a fab view of the blue lake snaking out in front of us, it was a stunning sunny day and we weren't the only ones.. there must have been 10 or so land cruisers held up with us, plus a load of lorries. It all turned into a bit of a social event with everyone just wandering round, chatting to people from other vehicles, playing cards, our driver gave us some lessons in Tibetan and we even had a few tunes from some car stereos.. all we needed was a BBQ and some beers and it would have been a regular party! Finally at about 8pm the rocks were cleared and we started off again. By now the sun was setting.... another advantage of being stuck sooo long was that we had this surreal drive in a land cruiser convoy, with dust from the dirt road filling the air and the sun setting in front of us. The dusk and dust combination made it so difficult to see our driver was steering with his head stuck out the window... although given that our planned 7 hour journey was now turning into an epic I'm not sure if that was to help him see or keep him awake! One car got a flat and another grounded itself on a steep bank so it was almost vertical... in both cases other vehicles stopped to help. I guess the drivers ply the same route every week so know each other well, but it was nice to see people stopping to help others out rather than just driving past. At around 10pm we finally reached Gyantse and time for some zzzzzzzzzzzzzz's.

Day 2

The next morning we had a few hours to look around Gyantse - if we'd arrived on time yesterday I would have been able to explore the old town and fort, but as it was I used my time to visit the monastery. The Palkhor Monastery (ca. 1418) is unusual in that there are three classes of Tibetan Buddhism (Sakys, Gedang and Gelugpa) here. It has two key features, the main assembly hall and a huge 42m high, 9 storey "Bodhi stupa" (called "Kumbum" in Tibetan), the latter having over a hundred chapels painted with images of various icons. The first five floors of the stupa are four-sided, while the upper floors are circular, forming a huge three-dimensional mandala. On the top level, above the 4 doors facing each of the cardinal directions, are a pair of eyes... the all seeing eyes of Buddha.

At 10am we were back in the car and on our way to Lhatse, home for the night. Originally we were supposed to be going to Sakya, site of another monastery, but we discovered during the day that the road was closed so we ended up in Lhatse instead. It seems that the Chinese are rebuilding the Friendship Highway.... all of it, all at the same time!! Infact we barely drove on any concrete roads for the entire trip! And they don't exactly advertise when road building will stop or start... it seems to be a bit of a turn up on the day and see method. So after another 6 hours bouncing along unsealed roads, past more stunning scenery, we arrived at Lhatse. It's a bit of a transit stop really, and like most towns I saw in Tibet seemed to have a traditional Tibetan part and a new Chinese part. Wondering around the old part gave me a good chance to have a closer look at the traditional houses we'd been whizzing past all day - white washed buildings with flat roofs but the most ornate windows in terms of colours and patterns surrounding them. There were also people making bricks.... almost every village we drove through either had someone building a new house or making bricks which they'd line up in rows to bake in the sun. I also got accosted by a group of young Tibetan girls who insisted I take their photo! I saw a variety of Tibetan outfits whilst I was away but these girls were wearing the most common one.... they had long pin stripped skirts or aprons, and had their long hair in two plats which they'd tie together at the end and then wrap around the crown of their head. Often they'd braid coloured thread, most commonly red into their hair.

Day 3

The next day was an early start... we needed to be on the road for 6am as the first part was only open till 7am... more roadworks of course! The upside was that we got to see the most amazing sun rise as we drove along the valley. Today was another longgg drive, maybe 8 hours.... but it was also the day that we first saw Mt Everest!!! After an hour or so of winding uphill zig zags we finaly reached a pass from which we had our first view of the mountain range.... unfortunately at that point Everest, or Mt Qomolangma as it's called in China, was nicely hidden behind some clouds..... it took us a little while to work out which one it was! But we got out of out land cruiser, took a zillion photo's each, bought some prayer flags to hang up and got back in the jeep for a few more hours on the road before we finally reached Rongbuk Monastry... and the start of the trail to Base Camp.....

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Photos

The Kumbum at Gyantse....
....was built in 1412 and completed 10 years later. It has multiple levels, each containing many many small chapels with statues or icons painted on the walls.

Comments

[Megan Barnes]

Wow
Wendy - I have been reading your journals each time they come through. I am soooo insanely jealous. You are an awesome photographer and I love to read about your adventures. Serah and I reckon we wanna jump on the next flight over!!!!! Keep safe. Keep having fun. And keep the journals coming. Love M

[Delis]

Your photos are incredible!
Hi Wendy Sorry its taken so long to get back to you but thanks so much for sendingme through your travel blogs - I love getting them and they brighten up my day at my desk every time. Hope all is well with you and look forward to the next blog!