“We need to smile and have all of our documents in order at the checkpoint. If the Chinese guards don’t like someone’s attitude, they can just take them out back and beat them. It happens all the time.”
Hello Tibet.
All around me are plateaus and craggy peaks framed by an
electric blue sky so crisp and bright I can hardly take my eyes off of it.
Rainbows of prayer flags streak their way across the horizon. Our single-lane road
winds its way up the surrounding peaks looking more like the path of a mountain
goat than a highway. There is no sign of civilization - save us, the road, and
the occasional nomadic yak herder. We are four – Tibetan guide, Tibetan driver,
and two travelers reuniting in this strange place after one year apart. We have
5 days, two backpacks, a few snickers bars, and an aging Land Cruiser that will
carry us to the boarder of Tibet and Nepal.
During these 5 days I will come to understand that I am in
one of the most beautiful places on Earth surrounded by a beautiful people. I
will come to understand that neither these people nor this place is free. I
will understand what foreign occupation looks like. I will also understand what
severe altitude sickness looks like.
Days 1 & 2
Arrival in Lhasa. The air is cool, clean and dry. After the
absurd smog of Beijing, it is like breathing for the first time. We meet
Kaelsang, our Tibetan guide. 22 years old. Speaks Tibetan, Mandarin, Hindi and
English with incredible skill. Has never received formal higher education. Is a
Thangka artist during the off-season (what is Thangka? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thangka).
Over a rooftop dinner of spicy potatoes and yak curry soup, Kaelsang points out
the major landmarks of Lhasa as well as Chinese soldiers monitoring the city
from rooftop lookouts and a number of check-points that starting springing up
throughout the city in 2008. This is around the same time that the government
took his passport as well as the passports of most other Tibetans. How can he
so freely speak about this? He shouldn’t, but it hasn’t stopped him yet.
We visit Potala Palace and Jokhang Temple. These UNESCO
sites are certainly filled with foreign tourists, such as ourselves, but there
are also crowds of Tibetan Buddhists who count their prayer beads, spin prayer
wheels, and pilgrims who prostrate themselves upon the ground. There is
devotion here unlike anything I have ever witnessed in a church or cathedral.
There are just a handful of monks within these walls, some sitting and
studying, others working and speaking with visitors. Kaelsang explains that the
Chinese have put extreme limits on the number of Tibetans who can become monks
and nuns. These places, which once were filled with them, now have small, aging
populations. Not only is this devastating both culturally and religiously, but
also because these monks hold immense knowledge (many know up to 8 languages –
what?!)
Day 3
Out of the city and into the mountains. We pass a holy
mountain where the Tibetans practice sky burial. Since the Chinese have banned
sky burial, Tibetan people have taken to painting images of the sky burial
pylons on the mountain. Near the top, there is a small shrine draped with
prayer flags. We hike out to it and find a Tibetan man with a beautifully
adorned baby goat being bottle-fed. He is delighted by our unexpected presence
as we are by his. Our drive takes us past emerald glacier lakes, snowy peaks,
and fields of bright yellow flowers to the Kumbum Stupa and the Pelkor Chode
Monastery - famous for its 100,000 Buddhas. The town is quiet and the tourists
are few. We climb the stupa clockwise, ducking into the many shrines to see
images of Buddha, each representative of a different aspect of Buddha. At
dinner we watch our driver take on the restaurant owner in a game of finger
billiards. They shout, whistle, sprinkle flour upon the board, and laugh most
of all. The driver is undefeated by the end of the night. Kaelsang toasts to
international friendship. We are sharing our cultures and trying to learn more
about one another. It is good karma.
Day 4
After an early morning visit to the Tashilhunpo Monastery,
seat of the Panchen Lama and home to the world’s largest bronze statue – a 30
meter bronze Buddha whose hands are large enough to hold a full grown adult, we
are back on the road with much ground to cover. Rather than fill the rural
highways with policemen to monitor driving speeds, the Chinese have established
check-points. At each check-point you are given a slip of paper that states the
approximate time you should reach the next check-point. If you show up any
earlier than the listed time you will be fined per minute. But rather than
follow the recommended speed, we drive how we want, only two stop a mile or so
before the check-point for ten minutes. While a bizarre process, we get the
opportunity to walk in fields with Yaks, share absurd amounts of watermelon
with old Tibetan men, tour samba mills, and use some extremely questionable
bathrooms.
Including driving check-points, we pass through one of many
passport control check-points. Stationed in the middle of nowhere (although
most of Tibet could be considered the middle of nowhere), but conveniently
close to the Everest Base camp entrance, Kaelsang tells us “We need to smile
and have all of our documents in order at the checkpoint. If the Chinese guards
don’t like someone’s attitude, they can just take them out back and beat them.
It happens all the time here.” With nerves high and unconvincing smiles, we
file into the check-point. A Tibetan guide with a group of Chinese tourists
we’d been caravanning with is denied passage through the checkpoint due to
document issues. We show our paperwork. Hope for the best. We are allowed
through. There is a general sigh of relief and about a mile from the
check-point, near the entrance to the Everest Base Camp road, we stop the Land
Cruiser to take a few deep breaths. The last check-point before Nepal. Home
stretch.
Day 5
We are at 5250 meters. A full 100 meters higher than Everest
Base Camp. It is early morning and we are covering the last stretch before the
Nepal border. Lauren isn’t handling the altitude well – headache and nausea is an
understatement of her symptoms. I have to stop laughing at her jokes because I
can’t seem to catch my breath afterwards. The air is thin up here. There is a
sense of sadness that this is our last day of our flyby tour of Tibet. We have
become good friends with our driver and guide and feel like there is still so
much to do and see in this country. Lauren sleeps off her nausea. Our guide and
driver sing Tibetan tunes. I stare out the window constantly gasping at the
beauty of these pristine mountains, valleys, villages and nomadic settlements.
Suddenly, we’ve stopped. Kaelsang asks if we would like to visit the meditation
cave of Yogi Milarepa (the only man to reach enlightenment without having
studied as a monk). It isn’t a place they bring tourists to, but he has a
feeling we will like this place. Clearly we go.
The small village is perched on the edge of cliffs that
descend into a green valley dotted with patches of yellow flowers and groups of
yak. The cave is no bigger than a closet and about half the height. Milarepa
spent six years in this cave meditating. He ate nettles. Wrote poetry. Studied.
My back hurts after about 5 minutes in the cave. I cannot even imagine. We walk
clockwise around the temple. The crisp morning air blows down into the valley
rustling through nettle bushes and lines of prayer flags. Children run out of
their homes and take our hands leading us back to the Land Cruiser.
Farewell Tibet.
