TIBET

Saturday 12th October

I got up at 5.30 am when it was still dark outside, to get ready. We filled the taxi conveniently waiting at the corner with the rucksacks for the three of us. Luggage always seems to be bigger than it should in my world. My essentials pile up and seem not unreasonable until gathered together. Mum, dad and I climbed out of the taxi at Tribuvhan International Airport to see Carolyn and Richard emerging from a white taxi just in front of ours. The bags get x-rayed and security tagged to pass for checking in. The queue is not too long and I am relieved, as I am here early to make sure I get a left hand side window seat for the reputedly stunning views of the Himalayas. Our stress increases as tour groups arrive and form new lines. Our line is told that is has become obsolete so we move, only to have to move again. The fairness of who was there early is quickly getting muddled in the overall lack of organization though those of us there from the start know who should get in first. When we do finally get to the front we have to check all ten of us in together and the control freak check in man refuses to give us all left hand side seats. I am given 26A so am happy and relieved, and feeling slightly guilty about having made it so clear that I really wanted one. However when we get on the plane there are some empty seats and so fortunately everyone gets a good view anyway. If you ever fly from Kathmandu to Lhasa I would still recommend going in time to try to get a left hand side seat, even if it seems somewhat like a lucky dip.

We get a soft white roll and a two fingered kitkat with our drink, but it is distractedly consumed with one eye and a camera pointed out the window. We have a very cloudy day but through the misty wreaths of cloud, peaks of white jutted through thrusting upwards. A mysterious world of rock and ice and snow floating on a sea of cloud with suggestions of deep valleys lying in shadow and glimpses of glacial fed lakes and rivers bearing their way downwards. Crowning it to the left was Mount Everest rising to dwarf the clouds around it and draped in snow that the winds stirred into a plume off to the side. The Tibetan plateau appears as we reach thinner skimming clouds and see barren brown mountains and valleys rolling to the horizon like ripples on a vast ocean. Our shadow skims over rocky expanses of valley and glistening ribbons of river, past settlements of a dozen houses camouflaged in the shelter of a hillside and the irregular straight lines of cultivated land, as we head towards the flat airport that serves Lhasa. Standing on the tarmac waiting for the next bus to the terminal we are warmed in the thin atmosphere by an intense sun that bounces brilliantly off the white runway under a wide blue sky.

The queue bottlenecks in the waiting area as we are all slowly squeezed through the two check-ins to the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of China. It feels very Chinese at all entry points to the country and officialdom is infamous, as well as the Chinese love of military influenced uniforms. We have a nice man and a smiling girl checking our passports which seems like a good welcome to Tibet, as dad said during his whole trip to China he met one official who half smiled. And we all got our passports stamped. Having a group visa we were slightly worried we might not get the little red rubber stamp that records for posterity our arrival in Tibet.

We are greeted with white shiny kadas that are draped around our necks by the tour guide ‘Lada’ who meets us at the airport, and tells us that his name is the same as a Russian car. The scarves are a traditional Tibetan blessing and greeting and also very attractive, though they distinctly mark us out as tourists in a tour group. We have a leisurely one and a half hour bus ride to Lhasa with a driver that seems sensible and safe which is reassuring at the start of a week of travelling by bus. Our journey stops for us to see a man standing with his yak skin boat by a widening river. We pass another two yak skin boats floating down the current. We stop again at a large Buddha painted into the rockface of a cliff. It is not particularly beautiful but I go over to look anyway, while some of the others try to find a bush to hide in to relieve themselves. After they come back, Helen having stepped in something unpleasant they see the square white toilet block standing a minutes walk down the road. I take the first of many photos of prayer flags in front of the Buddha and another against the clear blue of the early afternoon sky.

We arrived in Lhasa and had our first excited glimpse of the Potala as we drove to the Tibet Hongqiao Hotel, number 161 Beijing Dong Road. It is not what we expected when we paid up for the budget tour. Mum and dad said it was the type of hotel they paid $50 a night for when they were in China. The large entrance area has some stuffed sofas and random mixtures of tourists sitting around on them at various times of day. We take the stairs slowly to the third floor. Altitude affects the energy of us all and we are grateful to the crowds of staff who carry our bags up the stairs to our rooms. Joanne and I settle into our room with a large bed each, individual reading lights over the bed and controls on the bedside table. We have a TV that has scores of channels, all but one in Chinese, and a bathroom stocked with three towels each, and two soaps, two shampoos, two bubble baths, two combs, two packets of cotton buds, two shower caps, two toothbrushes with minature toothpastes, two pairs of papery slippers and two shoe shine pads. In the room there are also two white mugs with lids and the requisite flask of hot water. There is also a mini snack bar on a shelf by the large dark brown cupboard that has coke and sprite, Chinese teabags, pot noodles and vacuum packed sausage sticks. The price list has a load of numbers and lots of Chinese words, which means for the illiterate tourist you have no idea how much anything is. Fortunately I had no desire to go nibbling on sausages at any point during our stay!

Dad and Joanne and I went to a nearby hotel to change some dollars into Yuan. It was hard to know how much to change as we needed to change money for the whole trip but weren’t sure how much we would be spending. A guessed transaction later we went to spend the first of our money and I bought a nice pair of sunglasses for 35 Yuan, mine having been left in my car in England when I was leaving it with my brother. We saw a scrabble for shoes on sale outside the department store; there was a man roasting chestnuts on a cart and another man writing a long piece of pavement art/graffiti with coloured chalk who had a hat on the ground for donations.

Meeting up with everyone we head around towards the Jokhang Monastery to find a nice place to eat. We tried the Tibet Lhasa Kitchen and were impressed with the foods and service. I made a little friend with a small Tibetan boy who kept saying hello and who gave me a blue cornflower which I was planning to press in my journal, except that he came and got it back before he left.

After dinner we walked round to the square in front of the Jokhang Monastery. There about 40 people were standing right in front of the entrance and prostrating themselves over and over again. They stand, bend and slide forward on their hands until they are lying with their forehead on the ground, some of them have cardboard or wooden shoes for their hands. They then push back up to their knees and stand up again repeating the movements for hours.

I go to bed that night eager for the next day.


Sunday 13th October

We had a leisurely start to the day meeting our guide at 9.15am by the reception desk. Breakfast was a buffet of Chinese vegetable options, fried and boiled eggs, watery porridge, toast and Tibetan steamed rolls. A warm start to a cold morning whose air was thick with precipitation. We were not charmed to be needing most of the clothes we had brought with us already. Lhasa was supposed to be warm.

We went around to the bank which our guide thought opened at 9.30. It turned out to be 10am on a Sunday and when the rest of the group made it in with their travelers cheques they had to wait for half an hour while the first two Czech girls held up the queue with thousands of dollars in TCs and a strange story. Outside we waited and watched the older Tibetan ladies and men pass by with their warm clothes on and turning their individual prayer wheels. Some of them seem to keep these turning all day as they walk. Their devotion is clear. The ladies were wrapped up warmly and some of them wore white cotton masks across their faces. I don’t know if they were as much for pollution as in Kathmandu, as for warmth; actually Tibet is notoriously dusty and I would imagine that is why they sell the masks. It was fascinating seeing the line of people walking past and the beauty of the incredibly worn and weathered faces of the people living in this harsh environment. We were also swarmed by a group of small kids who wanted some money. Apart from not liking the idea of encouraging begging we had no small change. Fortunately Joanne had some sweeties in her pocket that we were able to give them as an acceptable alternative. I also let them look through my little camera at each other and they even took a picture. This was very popular and one of the boys came back a while later (we were still waiting) with another friend to see the camera. This time there were no requests for sweets.

The Potala Palace is an impressive building, not having any less impact for being the most photographed landmark in Lhasa. It rises up on a small hill that gives it a prominent panoramic view over the weekly expanding city. The palace is the official residence of the Dalai Lama and comprises of two parts, the red and the white palace.

We started in the red palace and walked through many rooms that housed buddhas of all sizes and descriptions. Some were small, some large, many were covered in gold and other metals. There were also statues of the various dalai lamas and some of them housed their bodies. We were not to walk though all thousand of the rooms in the Potala! The rooms we went through were lit by butter lamps that were topped up by the offerings of faithful pilgrims who all carried either a yellow packet of cheaper Nepali shortening and a spoon, or some had a flask of pre-melted butter that they just poured into the large bowls that held the burning wicks. This gave a distinctive, though not unpleasant, smell to the visit. We saw occasional monks sitting meditating in the corner of a room, counting some of the money left as offerings by the pilgrims, or reading by a window where a weak stream of sunlight was warming their small part of the room.

We got out on to the roof of the red palace at the high point of the building. It was well worth the extra 10 yuan (1 pound) to get up here. By this time the clouds had lifted and the sun was warm and bright. The blue sky had only a few wispy swirling white clouds, and we could see over the freshly snow laden hills that surrounded Lhasa. It was a stunning vista that swept 360 degrees around the golden topped and fabric bedecked roofs of the Potala.

We crossed a roof and entered the white palace. Here we entered a room that was completely full of pilgrims doing their circuits and bowing at an empty wall. This made sense when our guide quietly informed us that this was the room of the current Dalai Lama, but they are not even allowed to have his photograph up. A moment to ponder the sad situation of the Tibetan people. There was a dragon like statue at the edge of the roof here that had a moveable tongue. There was a lot of money being placed in here or even just touching the tongue and several dads were lifting up their children to touch the dragons mouth. We came down some rickety stairs into a courtyards with a neck craning perspective on the white palace. A group of monks wearing all red walked across the foreground of a photo.

As we continued on out and down the many steps that lead up to the Potala from this side we passed a constant stream of pilgrims making their way up the long steps to the Palace. There were so many faces and traditional costumes. I took quite a few photos of some very striking faces. We got down to the bottom where our bus was waiting. We had a quick look at the Potala from the square across the road and then mum, dad, Joanne and I walked from our hotel to the Post Office to get stamps for our postcards. We then had a delicious lunch in a little Chinese roadside restaurant.

In the afternoon we went to the Jokhang monastery. It was just about 10 minutes walk from our hotel. There were even more pilgrims here doing a circuit around the courtyard and through an inner room. It was a good day to have come as there were visiting yellow hat monks who were sitting and playing music for their meditations. There were drums and small horns and then two really long horns that made a deep sound which could be felt around the monastery when they played them. On the roof there were lines of dancers that had long sticks with flat round discs on the bottom of them. They were singing and stamping the sticks in definite lines and formations. At the time it was just fascinating, but I later found out that they were actually working and this was how they were putting on new roofing. Incredible. From the roof there were good views of the surrounding hills and a great view of the Potala, especially when the late afternoon sun decided to warm the front of the building. There was also a good view over the older more Tibetan part of Lhasas. The courtyard in front of the Jokhang was full of pilgrims and the traders plied their wares from here all the way around the Barkhor circuit that runs around the perimeters of the Jokhang monastery.

Joanne and I walked around the Barkhor Circuit. We were more tourists than pilgrims, more observers than proper shopping tourists. However I did buy a ring and bracelet; my souvenir from Lhasa and my small (though probably larger than it should have been) contribution towards the livelihood of a couple of the traders whose stalls lined the whole way around the Barkhor. There were some pilgrims prostrating themselves the whole way around the circuit. We found them fascinating and inspiring and sad. Evidence of such physical devotion and commitment, yet completely lacking in any concept of grace. There was one particular boy who was very cute and interested in all going on around him. He would stand up and have a good look around, and then he would dive with his hands in wooden shoes and slide as far as he could. The speed way of prostrating himself round the circuit.

Monday 14th October

We left Lhasa at 8.15am. The sun was rising as we left and casting shadows from the warm highlights where it lightly touched the dusty barren folding hills that spread out across the horizon. We started to climb quite early in the day and passed small Tibetan settlements where clusters of small squares houses stood together; whitewashed walls painted back to sandy earth colour by the dust on the wind. All of the houses have prayer flags on sticks stuck in the corner of each house. They look like someone just jammed a handful in the roof and they all splayed out like flowers in the neck of a wide vase. The blue represents the sky, white the clouds, green the water, red fire and yellow or orange the earth. They flutter against the clear blue sky.

We passed some yaks plowing fields with farmers guiding them by the roadside. In patches of water the stunning landscape was reflected clearly; an alter-reality, a liquid story. The snowline was low on the mountains reflected in the water as it had snowed the night before last. We climbed a good conditioned dusty gravel road that weaved it way up the mountainside. Little settlements nestled, camouflaged into the hillside. Cultivated patches of vibrant yellow mustard plants stood out amidst arid land and patchy scrub. The browny beige slopes were dotted with black yaks and by the roadside walked herds of sheep with orange, red and brown dyed patches or with pink and orange ribbons tied onto tufts of their wool.

We reached our first high pass by late morning. The Kambala Pass reaches 4794m and like all high passes has a plethora of prayer flags and small piles of stone chortens built by passing pilgrims. The prayer flags fluttered against a grey sky and some snow flakes started swirling around us as we stood at the top overlooking a subdued but still striking turquoise lake below. There were yaks and their owners waiting for passing tourists and dad and I felt obliged to sit on one of the yaks to have our photos taken for 5 yuan. These were real yaks, not the crossed dzos that many of the ones you see around the countryside are. My fudge was popular among some of the children who were gathered around the door of the bus.

Approaching the second pass of the day we saw a stunning glacier just past an amazing pointed peak, too small to have a name. Just over the Karola Pass we stopped to see the Nojin Kangtsang glacier (7191m) on top of the mountain that backed on to the requisite yaks and their owners waiting for a photo for 5 yuan. Further down the road we had lunch at a little place called Nangantse. Joanne and I went for a short walk afterwards to take photos and saw a lovely old lady carrying a cute smiling baby on her back. A while along the road we came upon two vehicles that had been on a head on collision coming around a corner. There were four Dutch tourists who had been in one of the vehicles so we gave them a lift in our bus. They had been waiting by the road for over two hours already.

At the third (and final) pass of the day we were above a dam for a hydro electric project. Ironically it was much more beautiful than the Turquoise Lake we had passed as the sun caused it to actually shine a liquid turquoise that matched all our expectations for the lake. There was a flooded hill in the middle of the dam where we could see the remnants of a dzong (old fort) and the plethora of dots that were grazing sheep. We called a loud greeting across to the shepherds we could hear across the valley.

We drove on the Gyantse where we were to stay the night. We passed the old dzong on the hillside and visited the Gyantse Kumbum (stupa), which apparently means 10,000 images. There was a monastery where we saw some young novices making tsampa offerings (from roasted grain) and dipping them into red dye and then placing them on a row of shelves. These offerings are later eaten or passed out to pilgrims. There was a group of pilgrims who were passing through. They had left their village in the north and were on a months pilgrimage around many of the important sites in Tibet. Beside the monastery was the stupa that had seven layers, though you could only walk up to the sixth. We had a good view back down to the courtyard where the boys were playing that had swarmed me and enjoyed looking through my camera!

We stayed in a nice Tibetan owned hotel. Our last night to have warm showers apparently. The hotel was quite new and the concrete was still to completely dry out I reckon as it absorbed any heat there was in the place. There was a noticeable increase in temperature when you stepped outside. I put on enough layers though and slept well.


Tuesday 15th October

We had nice Tibetan bread for breakfast and headed off without our Dutch passengers. They had a vehicle on its way from Lhasa apparently. We stopped a little way along the road to have a view back over the dzong and kumbum. The sun was soft and warm but in the wrong place for good photos. We had a smooth drive on a straight sealed road to Shigatse (3900m). While our guide went to get our permit for Everest we were dropped off at the Shigatse market and had fun wandering through the stalls. There were some interesting stalls with slabs of raw meat hanging up, as well as stalls selling jewellery, prayer flags, clothes, yak cheese, butter and colourfully painted tin trunks.

The Tashilhunpo Monastery is in Shigatse and is the seat of the controversial Panchen Lama. There is a Chinese appointed Panchen Lama who is in Beijing I think, but there is also a Panchen Lama In exile who the Tibetans see as the true reincarnation. There are currently about 800 monks at this monastery, but there is a high level of Chinese control here and you never know which monks are Chinese sympathizers/spies. Tibetans still come here on pilgrimage but you can sometimes feel a little more tension here.

We climbed up to the first building, the chapel of the Maitreya. This has a thousand paintings of the Buddha on a gold background and a 26 metre high ‘future buddha’ made out of gold. We then went across into the tomb of the 10th Panchen Lama which was built in 1989. The third building was the tomb of the fourth Panchen Lama. The fourth building we went into was the tomb of the 5th –9th Panchen Lamas and it was rebuilt after the Cultural Revolution when it had been destroyed. There were a group of young monks here carrying large water jars to refill the emptied water offering bowls. We also passed through the assembly hall which was built on an old sky burial site of which a rock was left. Apparently the astrologers decide the form a funeral is to take for any person who has died.

From Shigatse we drove straight to Lhatse along a good road. We passed farmers harvesting their barley the whole way along the road. It was quite a fertile valley in what appeared to be a very barren landscape. There were tractors in most of the fields that were running large fans that were being used to separate the chaff from the grain. Quite ingenious appropriate technology.

In Lhatse we stayed in a nice hotel with very cute rooms. They were small and cosy and the rooms as well as the furniture in the rooms were painted bright colours with traditional designs of flowers and patterns. Mum went straight to bed with a load of layers on as she had thrown up on the bus and was feeling the effects of altitude sickness. Everyone else was okay so far.

A few of us went for a walk and saw some men painting the windows of a new building. They spend time on such detail it is really beautiful. They were singing as they worked. We met some children and dad talked to a couple of girls in English and asked them questions from their English books they had with them. It was interesting to see that there were questions in their book that were to do with their TV being broken. We then walked down to the fields and saw people threshing their grain in the glow of the evening sun. Light is a really big part of the beauty of Tibet. It is striking in its contrasts.


Wednesday 16th October

Our road the next morning led out through a steep sided valley where the early morning sun had yet to kiss the frozen earth and bring her to life. Our toes curled in pain inside our thin socks and I wrapped my warm shawl around my legs. The lower valley sides were covered in loose slate shale and the slopes were solid exposed bare rock with occasional scatterings of scrub. The valley was painted in the muted sleeping colours of shadow. Looking up we caught fleeting glimpses of higher peaks and ridges little by little being brought to life, awakened by the first kiss of the rising sun. The bright warmth of the bathing earth wrapped in the clear blue of a cloudless sky.

In the armpit of a mountain a small tent nestles almost invisible against the protective cliff face. A man and his herd of sheep; still, almost camouflaged against a vast swathe of abundant emptiness. A small stream sat frozen along the valley floor with a trickle still flowing through the ice. There are yaks and dzos with different coloured squares of fabric tied on to their hair to differentiate owners. There are nomads living in tents at 5000m by a hillside with diamond shaped markings. Further along we pass nomads filling a kettle by an icy stream. They wave back.

The snows ahead are lit up brightly and seeing our road enter the sun we eagerly anticipate its colour and warmth. We go over Gyatso-La Pass at 5220m and see stunning views of white topped mountains through wind whipped prayer flags. None of the peaks however seem to be important enough to name. They only get a name over 7000m our guide told us. We come around a corner and the bus stops before an undisputable mountain range. There it is. Everest.

A rock face full of metals is reflected in the river; yellow, green and bright rust orange. We climbed the meandering road that has just been completed a month. It winds up the side of the hillside at a fairly constant gradient. The old road would not have been passable in a bus. An awesome view spreads out before us. This is a vast, vast landscape. A myriad of browns – folds and ridges and shadows and rocks. Then above it all a stark white peak appears – quite magnificent. The higher rocky ridges have dustings of snow creating patterns along the folds that are reminiscent of sand in a desert. The thicker snow patterns softening in the sunshine look like icing on a cake. Up here in real wilderness we see a blue-haired sheep standing proud on a rocky outcrop, silhouetted against the blue sky.

We make it to Rongbuk where the view of Everest is quite spectacular and the monastery to the left of the road sits in the avenue of the mountain. We were trying to find a way to get up there by trying to hire someone else’s jeep or something, when someone just back from base camp told our guide that the bus could make it up to the base camp. We have the proud claim to being on the first bus ever to Everest base camp!

The day was incredibly clear. There were no clouds in the sky or over the mountain and there wasn’t even the usual snow plume blowing off the peak of Everest. Our guide stressed hoow fortunate we were to have such an amazing day. He said people can wait 3 or 4 days and never see the mountain. We climbed a little hill by the basecamp where prayer flags fluttered above the stone chortens, before the ultimate mountain. We could see the edge of the glacier less than a kilometer away and stood amazed by the fact that we were standing in front of Everest.

The group had decided that we would not stay at Rongbuk for the night as mum and others were feeling a little the effects of the high altitude (5000m-ish). I agreed that it was best for the group but was disappointed not to see sunset. When we made it back to Rongbuk we met a friend who was doing a similar trip but their group were in 2 landrovers and he offered that a couple of us could stay and travel down with them the next day to catch up with our group. I only hesitated for a split second. Joanne joined me. It was good some of the others went down though as they felt the effects even lower down that night. I had a fragile head and went to bed with a cocktail of diamox, paracetamol and decongestant and woke up in the middle of the night feeling fine.

Sunset was beautiful. The sky remained clear the whole day and the bright glow turned orange and red and then finally purple before the stark white shone beneath the blue dusk sky and the moon hung glowing overhead. We got up to go to the toilet at three am and though it was –9 degrees we were so glad to have had to get up for our pee with a view. The sky was encrusted with a plethora of stars, the moonlight was bright and there was Everest; silent, glowing and numinous. It is my most vivid memory of the trip.


Thursday 17th October

We got up for sunrise which fortunately doesn’t come too early at the roof of the world. We waited from just before 9am and but though we were given a tantalizing glimpse of the sun starting to glow on the peak, clouds we couldn’t see behind the mountains blocked the suns ascent and sunrise never amounted to much. Our hands and feet were in pain however from the cold seeping in to our joints as we faithfully sat for 40 minutes hoping for our sunrise.

Our drive to Tingri turned off the main road soon after our departure from Rongbuk and we soon realized that we were traveling the older and rougher road. It was a fun experience that required 4-wheel drive on a number of occasions while driving through rivers, along bumpy roads and over medium sized boulders.

The scenery was stunning. We drove through wide barren valleys and past hills and dramatic mountains of rocky beauty. The landscape is vast and seems to spread out for an immeasurable distance. However when looking on the map of Tibet we were just in the small south east part of the country. Being there inspired a feeling of being a tiny being midst a infinite cosmos.

We saw a fox like animal, a group of three deer with black and white markings that darted away as we passes. There were Himalayan Mouse Hares darting in and out of their multiple holes across the valley floor. We also saw a Gorak, which is a large Himalayan bird.

After driving for an hour and seeing no one we passed a man walking. Where from? Where to? It inspired a most peculiar feeling to see people living in this magnificent harshness. We also passed some nomads with a herd of stunningly adorned yaks with bright red head dresses. I regretted not asking to stop for a photo. It felt like a scene for the movie Himalaya.

We arrived at Tingri about 5 minutes before the bus which was remarkably good timing. The 5 we traveled with were having lunch and heading on but we were staying in Tingri and so had an afternoon to sit and relax. We booked a shower that took about an hour and a half to heat up. I sat and wrote my postcards. That evening we all sat in the cosy restaurant with the wood stove in the middle and ate, chatted and read.


Friday 18th October

There was a burning orange sunrise over Everest. We walked out about 10 minutes along the road from our hotel and had an excellent panoramic view of the Everest range. The foreground was riverbed and a low flow river with chunks of ice floating downstream. A little village made a nice foreground to the scene, as long as you missed out the Chinese army barracks that was in front of it. A scene to breath in deeply.

As we walked back across the bridge the army were out jogging. Dad and Richard were ahead of us and took a picture of the soldiers. I managed to rescue dad’s film from the soldier who came to remove it from dad’s camera. What a twit!! He knew how stupid it was after we told him – repeatedly!!

We stopped some way out of Tingri for our last view back over Everest. Our drive took us over two passes and through rocky valleys along a very dusty road. Unfortunately Marianne lost her passport at some point along the road, probably at a photo/toilet stop. While there were some large trucks thundering past, there were still some awesome views. We stopped at our last pass and nearly had our heads blown off. The prayer flags blew horizontally in the wind in a biting wind that brought with it the snowy chill of the mountains we were contemplating quickly through our camera lenses. Plenty of time to contemplate longer from the shelter of the bus.

We arrived in Nyalam by lunchtime, which is where we had been meant to stay. It was dirty, windy, nasty and starting to snow. We decided to continue to the next town called Zhangmou. This was right at the border and so we ready to just cross in the morning. We were also able to get some stuff sorted for Marianne’s passport. Zhangmou is a really strange town, built with a series of hairpin bends into an impossibly steep hillside. It is the main trading point for all goods between China and Nepal and there are lines of trucks loading and off-loading goods. However there can only be one place in the whole town where it is possible for vehicles to turn around. Quite bizarre.

We had a pleasant night there though our meal was better after we just changed our yuan and got rid of the money changers, also the disco across the road played cheesy karaoke music way too late.


Saturday 19th October

Queuing at the checkpoint we amused ourselves watching the young Chinese soldiers. One was on duty standing guard by the gate, but really was not able to stand still. What do you have to do to get send here for your posting we wondered to each other? We got across the border with Marianne and without hassles. Our guide and driver were able to drive us down to the Friendship Bridge. We said our fond farewells. They really both had helped to make our trip very pleasant indeed.

There is a fading red line that marks the bridge where China ends and Nepal begins. I had a very unoriginal photo taken with one foot on either side of the line. Had to be done. Back in Nepal the visa counter was as unlike the ordered lines of Chinese officialdom as possible. A chaotic pile of passports on a table with lots of people pushing around was the order of the day. The guide from the Nepali side took our passports so we sat and had chia (Nepali tea) and oranges in the sun. It was good to be back in Nepal. The atmosphere was different, even the climate was different we noticed as we stripped off the layers.

We had a pleasant uneventful bus ride back to Kathmandu and were able to give Lisa a lift. She was a New Zealand girl we had kept meeting along the way from Shigatse onwards. The fields were full of ripe grain, the hills were green, the landscape was so different from Tibet. Still beautiful, but in a very different and less starkly dramatic way. It was good to get home to bed and shower, but I would have gone back the next day and done it all over again too.


A week or so later I wrote a bit in my journal …….

‘How to ponder and make a coherent description of the beauty of Tibet? A lunar oceanscape of rock mountains; a smearing of high altitude lichens, green and russet red; a spaciousness that needed more time to absorb it. Our bus was great and the craic was fine indeed, but while altitude would have affected my walking, what I really would like is a week or two, or even a few days – not going and seeing and recording but rather being and listening. An attempt to touch the essence of place. A spiritual ear and touch for the memories of rock and stone – a story of legendary magnitude. Whispers of ocean depths and seasonal currents. A story of creational birth of epic proportions, continents colliding, pangs of labour and mountains forming that crown the landmass of the green and blue planet. The stories stones could tell - if only we could listen. Stillness and an ear bent to the wisdoms of creation are hard to cultivate today, maybe always. If the people hadn’t praised the very stones would cry out. If we really are, can we walk on water? even fly?

The spirituality of the high passes flutters in the winds carrying the fresh smell of snow. Am I blind to some of the darkness? My inclination is to want to push through heaviness to lightness and inspiration. Am I cluttering?

Prayer flags and white kadas adorn each pass. A blessing to the spirits of the mountains? I see the creativity in the writing of prayers on fabric and hanging htem to go forth in the breath of the wind. Prayer in creation; prayer and creation. The chortens stand balanced in the classic shape of a piled altar. Markers of journeys. Pilgrims offerings. It’s the stones again. They stand like a crowd of miniatures, knee-high, dotted through snow and silhouetted against a blue sky with a white peaked horizon.

Seeing Mt Everest on a perfect day was awesome and as good as could be. A part of me however was unable to absorb the depth of the beauty. A fragment untouched, detached, removed. I don’t like that but maybe it’s back to expectations; but more significantly to being prepared in myself and having time. Not the instant sensation, instant fix, sated appetites and overly gratified imaginations of culture I often see and experience. I choose to be open. Choices however need also to be action words. I am too often theoretical in my beliefs. I would like deepened reality, integrity and experience.’


Tibet is an awesome place. Wild, rough, beautiful, broken and resilient. I would recommend that anyone who has a taste for such places to visit Tibet if you ever get a chance.