To Lhasa, Tibet
After flying from Ventiene, Laos to Siem Reap, Cambodia I decided I would avoid flying to a new place, if at all possible. In the spirit of adventurers seeking Lhasa from days gone by I hopped in a fake Toyota Forerunner called a Safe, with an Australian guy, Dan, and 2 British women who I had only met online. Unlike the mostly men and a few women who sought to sneak into the mysterious and spiritual capital of Tibet, Lhasa, disguised as migrant pilgrims, our group was armed with expensive permits, a Tibetan driver, De Zhu, who spoke maybe ten words of English, and too much sugar, Snickers and Dove bars. (It turns out mini-Dove bars double as good poker chips.) At least we figured we were in for a rough go of it, long days in the jeep, rough roads, primitive lodging, no showers. Hah! The Chinese blazed the trail to Lhasa long ago and left in their wake electricity, hotels with plumbing, mobile phone service, and mostly paved roads. Since Tibet is enormous the Chinese have missed a few spots and certainly there are some dirt roads and some toilets that are, well, disgusting is putting is nicely. But generally there wasn't much roughin' it on this trip.
For all the hoopla about the special permits (they take 5 days to get) there is not even a check point when our jeep zooms under a wooden arch and into Tibet from Yunnan Province. (In fact, on the entire trip our permits were never checked once, though that didn't stop De Zhu from being completely paranoid of any Chinese military that we passed, and they are everywhere.)
De Zhu, though lacking in English skills, is not new to carting westerners around and he could beat anyone at charades. He is quite a bit older than us, often sports a red baseball cap on his naturally black spikey hair, and and in the afternoons he throws on a pair of thick, wide driving glasses. De Zhu pounds through the kilometers fueled by Red Bull (he supplied) and the Dove bars (we supplied). We learned early on to give him the chocolate after lunch because the day we gave it to him before he never stopped. Fortunately, he was extremely good-natured with a contagious laugh that seeped out whenever we almost ran over a yak, required yet another photo stop, or the time we drove over an active landslide. Yes, the land was moving (!) and De Zhu, without inspecting the situation, drives past a line of waiting 4WDs and trucks, starts chanting some Tibetan Buddhist prayers and miraculously takes our brandless Safe over the moving landslide that sports a 800' drop off on one side of the car. Laughing, he indicates that the road will be closed for the next several days. Dumbfounded, I can only wonder if there really is something practical to this mysterious Tibetan religion.
Entering Tibet, a few things stand out. One is the brilliant blue skies, occasionally punctuated by puffy, perfectly shaped clouds. Another is that there are no longer large cities or even small towns ever 3 hours or so. We pass very small Tibetan villages, with a dozen or more houses huddled together in the midst of vast, treeless panoramas. These villages are Tibetan because of the slightly inward slanting walls and colorful accents around the windows. Tibet is unbelievably unpopulated, between villages we drive for miles and miles seeing few people. Occasionally we see people far from a village, maybe herding yaks or goats, maybe not and wonder where they are going and where they sleep. And, of course, many of these Tibetan villages contain Chinese construction, fake Tibetan architecture, and always some military base or at least a Chinese police station. In the places where we slept we were often awoken at 7 am from blaring Chinese music (likely propaganda) that comes from these military outposts. Another Chinese contribution to Tibet are the billiard tables that line many of the streets in the small towns where we stay. Dan and I challenged two Tibetans to a game and despite a late comeback, led by me of course, we lost by one ball. The young woman turned out to be a pool shark! In these towns we always stay in Chinese hotels as there aren't any owned by Tibetans and we survive at restaurants by walking into the kitchen, usually Chinese, and pointing to various food items such as a slab of beef, some exotic-looking mushrooms, and potatoes. Twenty minutes later out comes three interesting dishes fortunately with the chili sauce on the side. When we do happen upon a Tibetan place, a tea house, it always marked by a white felt door covering with a blue celtic-looking symbol that means happiness. Here we have two choices: noodle soup with yak meet or sha momo, yak dumplings. The sha momo are my favorite, made to order and only $1 they are like a homemade ravioli.
At night it is often very cold, I don't think we ever go below 10,000' and I"m very thankful I picked up a fake North Face down jacket in Lijiang. (Yes, cold is relative, but for my L.A. blood it's freezing.) Another noticeable thing upon entering Tibet are all the communist Chinese flags. I swear there are more Chinese flags in Tibet than in all the rest of China combined. Often they are directly in front of the perfect photo opportunity of say, the Potala Palace. There are so many Chinese because the government has encouraged the Han Chinese to emigrate to Tibet with incentives such as interest free loans and business tax incentives. Despite the Chinese majority there are some symbols of Tibet that the Chinese can't take - yaks, prayer flags that are spewn everywhere and the Tibetan's desire to hold only their culture. They almost never inter-marry.
The landscape is unbelievably varied and always beautiful. We pass through high plateaus with greenish brown splotches to sub-tropical forest like the Olympics in Washington, and over snow-covered passes above the tree-line with jagged peaks in the distance. The top of every pass is covered with prayer flags and sometimes a stupa, and De Zhu always mutter a chant as we pass.
Without a doubt, this route to Lhasa is certainly a bit off the beaten track. After the first day we never saw another western tourist and it is very normal for a small girl to whisk her friend around and point at us. In Tibetan cafes several people stare at us the entire meal and mostly when I say I'm American I get a thumbs up and a mention of Yao Ming. It is also very easy to photograph people here thanks to the digital camera, as they strike a pose and then run to see the result.
Our last stop before Lhasa was at the Ganden Monastery. (I had expected our trip to be an A to B operation, but we made some wonderful stops at monasteries, lakes and a salt flat.) De Zhu pulled off the main road with the monastery nowhere in sight. After 30 minutes of switchbacks it came into view, atop a rocky mountain peak. Why they chose to build it here and how they got the material up, I have no idea. It's at 15,000'. After much ado about whether my shoes should be on or off, I walked into the main hall, always clockwise, and found 300 monks reading in a chanting rhythm from these ancient-looking books, rocking back and forth in the lotus meditation position. Some monks looked bored, some slept, but most were in an intense, trance-like state. I was spellbound. I felt I had stepped into another world that certainly I did not understand, but I couldn't help feeling really moved. Inexplicably, it was intensely spiritual and shivers ran down my spine. Of course, though, in the way of the Chinese this monastery now also houses a police station.
I do have to say that after this 7-day trip, arriving in Lhasa was a bit anti-climatic. There was no West Gate to enter, as the old adventurers had to pass through. Our relatively easy journey ended as we glided up a wide boulevard, Beijing Dong Lu avenue to the Yak Hotel.
For photos of this journey, click here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39463330@N00/sets/72157594171309829/
For all the hoopla about the special permits (they take 5 days to get) there is not even a check point when our jeep zooms under a wooden arch and into Tibet from Yunnan Province. (In fact, on the entire trip our permits were never checked once, though that didn't stop De Zhu from being completely paranoid of any Chinese military that we passed, and they are everywhere.)
De Zhu, though lacking in English skills, is not new to carting westerners around and he could beat anyone at charades. He is quite a bit older than us, often sports a red baseball cap on his naturally black spikey hair, and and in the afternoons he throws on a pair of thick, wide driving glasses. De Zhu pounds through the kilometers fueled by Red Bull (he supplied) and the Dove bars (we supplied). We learned early on to give him the chocolate after lunch because the day we gave it to him before he never stopped. Fortunately, he was extremely good-natured with a contagious laugh that seeped out whenever we almost ran over a yak, required yet another photo stop, or the time we drove over an active landslide. Yes, the land was moving (!) and De Zhu, without inspecting the situation, drives past a line of waiting 4WDs and trucks, starts chanting some Tibetan Buddhist prayers and miraculously takes our brandless Safe over the moving landslide that sports a 800' drop off on one side of the car. Laughing, he indicates that the road will be closed for the next several days. Dumbfounded, I can only wonder if there really is something practical to this mysterious Tibetan religion.
Entering Tibet, a few things stand out. One is the brilliant blue skies, occasionally punctuated by puffy, perfectly shaped clouds. Another is that there are no longer large cities or even small towns ever 3 hours or so. We pass very small Tibetan villages, with a dozen or more houses huddled together in the midst of vast, treeless panoramas. These villages are Tibetan because of the slightly inward slanting walls and colorful accents around the windows. Tibet is unbelievably unpopulated, between villages we drive for miles and miles seeing few people. Occasionally we see people far from a village, maybe herding yaks or goats, maybe not and wonder where they are going and where they sleep. And, of course, many of these Tibetan villages contain Chinese construction, fake Tibetan architecture, and always some military base or at least a Chinese police station. In the places where we slept we were often awoken at 7 am from blaring Chinese music (likely propaganda) that comes from these military outposts. Another Chinese contribution to Tibet are the billiard tables that line many of the streets in the small towns where we stay. Dan and I challenged two Tibetans to a game and despite a late comeback, led by me of course, we lost by one ball. The young woman turned out to be a pool shark! In these towns we always stay in Chinese hotels as there aren't any owned by Tibetans and we survive at restaurants by walking into the kitchen, usually Chinese, and pointing to various food items such as a slab of beef, some exotic-looking mushrooms, and potatoes. Twenty minutes later out comes three interesting dishes fortunately with the chili sauce on the side. When we do happen upon a Tibetan place, a tea house, it always marked by a white felt door covering with a blue celtic-looking symbol that means happiness. Here we have two choices: noodle soup with yak meet or sha momo, yak dumplings. The sha momo are my favorite, made to order and only $1 they are like a homemade ravioli.
At night it is often very cold, I don't think we ever go below 10,000' and I"m very thankful I picked up a fake North Face down jacket in Lijiang. (Yes, cold is relative, but for my L.A. blood it's freezing.) Another noticeable thing upon entering Tibet are all the communist Chinese flags. I swear there are more Chinese flags in Tibet than in all the rest of China combined. Often they are directly in front of the perfect photo opportunity of say, the Potala Palace. There are so many Chinese because the government has encouraged the Han Chinese to emigrate to Tibet with incentives such as interest free loans and business tax incentives. Despite the Chinese majority there are some symbols of Tibet that the Chinese can't take - yaks, prayer flags that are spewn everywhere and the Tibetan's desire to hold only their culture. They almost never inter-marry.
The landscape is unbelievably varied and always beautiful. We pass through high plateaus with greenish brown splotches to sub-tropical forest like the Olympics in Washington, and over snow-covered passes above the tree-line with jagged peaks in the distance. The top of every pass is covered with prayer flags and sometimes a stupa, and De Zhu always mutter a chant as we pass.
Without a doubt, this route to Lhasa is certainly a bit off the beaten track. After the first day we never saw another western tourist and it is very normal for a small girl to whisk her friend around and point at us. In Tibetan cafes several people stare at us the entire meal and mostly when I say I'm American I get a thumbs up and a mention of Yao Ming. It is also very easy to photograph people here thanks to the digital camera, as they strike a pose and then run to see the result.
Our last stop before Lhasa was at the Ganden Monastery. (I had expected our trip to be an A to B operation, but we made some wonderful stops at monasteries, lakes and a salt flat.) De Zhu pulled off the main road with the monastery nowhere in sight. After 30 minutes of switchbacks it came into view, atop a rocky mountain peak. Why they chose to build it here and how they got the material up, I have no idea. It's at 15,000'. After much ado about whether my shoes should be on or off, I walked into the main hall, always clockwise, and found 300 monks reading in a chanting rhythm from these ancient-looking books, rocking back and forth in the lotus meditation position. Some monks looked bored, some slept, but most were in an intense, trance-like state. I was spellbound. I felt I had stepped into another world that certainly I did not understand, but I couldn't help feeling really moved. Inexplicably, it was intensely spiritual and shivers ran down my spine. Of course, though, in the way of the Chinese this monastery now also houses a police station.
I do have to say that after this 7-day trip, arriving in Lhasa was a bit anti-climatic. There was no West Gate to enter, as the old adventurers had to pass through. Our relatively easy journey ended as we glided up a wide boulevard, Beijing Dong Lu avenue to the Yak Hotel.
For photos of this journey, click here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39463330@N00/sets/72157594171309829/
posted by Deb Shea | 11:21 AM
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