We met Ross in our hotel lobby at 9:20 this morning before hopping in a taxi on our way to the Potola Palace. The Potola Palace, built on Lhasa's highest point, is a monumental structure with over 2,000 rooms. It was also once home to the Dalai Lama, who now resides in India, and was the center for spiritual and temporal power. We were immediately struck by the beauty and size of the palace, which consists of a white palace (once used for governmental affairs) and a red palace

          We exited the plane in disbelief that we had finally made it to Tibet despite the numerous obstacles we encountered, due to the current political climate,  throughout the past few months. We were surrounded by quite an eclectic crowd: Chinese men and women, Tibetans, a few Buddhist monks, and several soldiers from China's People's Liberation Army. After collecting our luggage, we ventured out into the cool, dry air of Tibet, a welcome change from Chengdu's humidity, to meet our tour guide, Ross. Ross is a young Tibetan (probably in his twentiess) who attended a university in Beijing to learn the English language, and then he returned home to lead tours for foreigners. Ross will be our guide, and he will remain with us throughout our journey in Tibet since foreign travelerss are currently not allowed in the autonomous region unless accompanied by a tour guide working for the Chinese government.

          After being draped in white scarves, to bring us good luck, we began the hour-long drive to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, to find our hotel. Along the ride, Ross pointed our some elementss of traditional Tibetal architecture. The homes and buildings are traditionally painted white, but they have brightly colored doorways and windows. The doors and windows are often small in size, making it difficult for evil spirits to enter into the home. We also passed by several yaks, which provide numerous products vital for the Tibetan way of life, and fields of barley, the only crop that grows well in this barren land.

         We arrived at our Tibetan hotel, in the outskirts of Lhasa, where we were told to rest for the remainder of the day so that our bodies can acclimate to the 13,000 ft elevation. The thought of sitting inside a hotel room when I was in Tibet seemed absolutely preposterous, but since Ross had left for the day and Jason was already experiencing altitude sickness, off to the room we went. Since we had been up since 4 a.m. and Jason had a severe altitude headache, we reluctantly fell asleep for a few hours.

          At around 6 p.m., I was itching to leave to hotel, so I told Jason that I was going to go out and explore Lhasa. Since he didn't like the idea of me wandering around the unknown streets alone, he reluctantly agreed to join me. Jason was unsure about whether or not we were allowed to be out of the hotel without our tour guide or Tibetan permit, so I assured him that it was perfectly fine, and off we went.

          The view outside of our hotel was stunning. We walked along the Lhasa River, one of Tibet's holy riverss, which was lined by colorful prayer flags and flanked by majestic mountainss. We pased many Tibetan women, draped in long and colorful cloths, who reverently spun prayer wheels in a clockwise direction, releasing the prayers, written on paper inside of the wheel,  to the heavens with each spin. They also held prayer beads, which they skillfully manipulated in their other hand. Everywhere we walked, we were greeted by the friendly Tibetans with cheerful "hello's," the one English word they seemed to know. After walking through some of the busy streets, we entered a market to buy some snacks that would later serve as our dinner. At nearly every street corner stood four or five soldiers in the People's Liberation Army, keeping a close eye on their surroundings. The sweet smells of a bakery soon caught our attention, so we decided to purchase a muffin and a pastry. The baker's young daughter stood by, fascinated by us. She was all smiles and giggles and seemed to find it funny that these two strangers were buying pastries from her mother.

          Our bodies stil adjusting to the new climate, we walked back to our hotel and were in bed by nine o'clock.

As the railway is open, travellers to Tibet increase.

A daily average of 4,400 tourists have travelled to Tibet by train since July 1 when the history-making Qinghai-Tibet Railway went into operation, said a local tourism official.

Tibet had a total of 301,000 stay-over tourists in the first 20 days of the month, a rise of 50 per cent on the same period last year, announced Zhanuo, deputy head of Tibet Autonomous Regional Tourism Bureau.

And we have been to our dak located at Tibet. Check the photos then.

Dunya is a bar and restaurant in Lhasa that is being run by a management that is partially Dutch, partially American and partially Tibetan. The result is a splendid establishment with great ambiance, safe food and that feeling of being home while far away. The Tibetan staff are nice The restaurant serves both western and Tibetan food and you really should try the Yak steak. It's much more tender than the look of these hairy beast would make you think. From what I remember, prices are a bit higher than in the average restaurant, but you'll get value for money and the certainty that you won't wake up the next morning with an explosive diarrhoea. If you visit Lhasa, make sure you have dinner at Dunya at least one night. And if you get the chance, go there before it gets busy so you can have a chat with Fred in the bar. He's got some wonderful stories to tell you about his life in Tibet.

6/21/07

New Video - this is a really short video of the amazing horse riding competition that we stumbled on en-route to Tingri before heading up to Everest Base Camp. Scroll to the bottom of the photo section to view it...

After a terrible breakfast in Shigatze of bad instant coffee (I know that all instant coffee is bad, but after three months here, you are desperate for any kind of caffeine) hard boiled eggs and giant pieces of soggy toast, we tried to wander around town looking for some munchies and eventually found some fruit to tide us over till lunch. We hopped in the Toyota and headed off towards Tingri which is our new destination since the road to Shegar is closed for repairs by the Chinese who are trying to spiffy everything up in time for the Olympics.

We made a pit-stop at the Tropu-la pass where you can see Cindy offering a prayer flag to the huge display of flags fluttering in the wind. This is considered auspicious and a good way to “blow away” bad luck and omens at the top of a pass. It is also a convenient and much cleaner place to pee than at rest-stops J . The views from the top of the pass of the stark but gorgeous landscape are really great too.

After winding down the pass, the road opens onto a vast plain and riverbed with ominous, dusty mountains in the distance and sheep, goats, horses and donkeys grazing everywhere. We stopped to indulge Tenzin’s nicotine habit and sat with a local shepherd for a bit, the only traffic to speak of being the kid and the man on the horse cart in the picture. The feeling is the same as being in the wilderness of Wyoming or Montana - the sky looks absolutely huge and deep blue and it is nice to be away from all the noises and craziness of the city.

After winding through the valley on the way to Tingri, we finally turned a corner and were provided our first, distant view of Mt. Everest, known here as Chomolungma

Tibetan Joke Interlude: This is one of several Tibetan jokes that Tenzin told us. It might lose something in translation but gives you an idea of how the Tibetans feel about their invaders. Three men, one American, one Tibetan and one Chinese, are on a small airplane that is loosing altitude and the pilot tells them they each must throw something out the window to save themselves. The American says “I have plenty of money so I will throw all of my dollar bills out the window.” The Chinese man says “I have plenty of immitation things so I will throw those out the window.” The Tibetan man thinks for a moment and says “I have too many Chinese people” and throws the Chinese man out the window. Ha! Ha! Ha!

We drove through Shegar which as Tenzin had said is not much of anything, nor has views of the mountains and proceeded on to Tingri. Just a mile or so out of the very small town off on the left side of the road was some big commotion and lots of horse carts, scooters and 4WD vehicles were heading over to a wide open field. I mentioned it to Tenzin and he looked and said “Oh! You are very lucky! This is a Tibetan horse competition.” So we went to check it out.

We bounced across the field and through the river and parked, walking into a pretty large crowd of Tibetan revelers lining both sides of the competition field. Thirty or forty contestants were competeing, mostly young to young adult men and a few women dressed in traditional costume with colorful red hats and the typical coral and turquoise ear jewelry. The horses are also very decorated and covered in traditional Tibetan carpet (which seems to be used for everything from motorcycle seat covers to chair covers to bedding to actual carpets here). Six guys not competing would run out onto the field after a contestant finished and place about a dozen white prayer scarves weighted down with what turned out to be cigarettes (one of the winner’s prizes probably along with a healthy serving of chang which is Tibetan home-brewed barley beer). The rider would then fly down the field holding on tightly with the right hand while leaning way the hell over and trying to grab the scarf with their left. Some were very graceful and did pretty well - others looked in danger of falling off (which some did) or having the horse refuse to keep running with someone hanging off his side.

We watched this for quite a while until all of the contestants on this side were finished and at the other end closer to the view of Everest and Cho Oyu in the distance. Cindy, Tenzin and Jayang walked across the field to get a view from the other side but I hung out to take some photos of some of the incredible jewelry covering the woman. After a few minutes, an older man beckoned me over to sit with he and his extended family. There were a bunch of little kids who were of course totally enamored with my camera, all of them wanting to look at pictures and look through the lens. I sat with the man and his friends and family and the next thing you know, out comes a rather large glass of Chang the Tibetan home brew mentioned earlier poured out of the oldest looking gas can you have ever seen into a grimy glass. Being ever polite and kind of liking Chang anyways, I was in no position to refuse and was chastised for not finishing it in one gulp. Have another! We attempted to have a conversation but all I really got was that he was 58 (he showed me on a calculator) and that, unless my camera was a Polaroid and I could give him a picture, he didn’t want his taken. Six or seven shots later, he was trying to tell me something and finally I waved Tenzin over who translated and thankfully explained to the man that we live at sea level, not over 16,000 feet and that any more Chang might result in me not feeling to well. We hung out with the family and the kids a bit longer (Cindy has a kind of funny picture of them piling on me to look at their pics on my camera) and then headed off to find a place to stay in Tingri.

As you can see from the look on Cindy’s face, the guest house was less than special - actually kind of a small little jail cell-like room (although relatively nicely painted) with two little cots, no electricity and definitely no attached bathroom. Good thing we bought silk sleeping bag liners in Kathmandu! Rooms that looked like something out of a Mexican situated horror flick like “Dusk till Dawn” surrounded a dusty courtyard. I won’t scare you all out of coming to Tibet by sharing gross details but let’s just say that, unless there are dire circumstances, not using the facilities seemed to be a good idea.

We ended up having a veggie dinner in the little restaurant which was none to special (Yak meat and no refrigeration makes for a bad belly) but had a nice conversation with three funny Aussie guys in their 60’s who had just returned from Everest Base Camp. One of them is a travel agent and he and his buddies go off on an adventure each year that he later tries to package and sell as a tour. They had a good time at Base Camp and stayed at the Rongbuk Monastery up there (which is where we thought we were staying but it ends up that we are going to stay in tents). They had great weather but, similar to Tingri, said the bathroom facilities were somewhere south of horrific.

Since China only has one time zone in the entire gigantic country, it gets dark late here so we decided to walk about thirty minutes up to a viewpoint that has distant views of Everest and the surrounding mountains. It was actually quite a little walk up, mostly due to the altitude, but Cindy was happy that she found a little secluded spot where she could pee in relative cleanliness with a view of Everest (covered in clouds today). It was really windy but I figured we better go all the way because who knows when you are gonna be in Tingri again so we pushed on to the top where there is a monument of sorts and a viewing area. I ducked into the viewing area and there was a couple huddled against the low wall hiding from the wind drinking a bottle of Chinese Dynasty red wine. We talked to them for a bit and found out later that they are Russian and wanted to hopefully see Everest and the stars so were going to hang out until late. Considering that I only had on sandals and that we are going to Base Camp tomorrow, we headed back after a bit and bid them farewell. The sunset never really materialized and the clouds rolled in so you could only see parts of Everest but later that night, it looked clear out so hopefully they got their view and we will at Base Camp tomorrow.

6/19/07

New Video - the gorgeous landscapes of Gyantse, Tibet - scroll to the bottom of the photos to view...

Today we left Lhasa and followed the course of the river up to the bridge crossing the Tsangpo River, reputed to be the highest river in the world. There we briefly stopped at a prayer flag strewn rock formation overlooking the river that is one of the many Sky Burial sites that I mentioned yesterday. Bizarrely enough, there was a vendor there selling Tibetan trinkets and a woman trying to get money for photos of her yak. After a hairpin turned ascent up the Khampa-la pass (over 16,000 ft altitude), we made it to the summit where there is a gorgeous view of the turquoise color Yamdrok-tzo lake which you can see in the panorama shot (which hopefully looks a little better at home on our widescreen TV). The Chinese are rebuilding the road over the pass so you can only reach the summit before turning around for an alternative route to Gyantse. The top of the pass was pretty crazy with huge tour buses being literally attacked with Tibetan vendors - pretty hilarious. We walked around a bit in the cold and wind looking at the lake and trying to politely ignore the vendors but it was all to much so we hopped in the SUV and headed back down the switchbacks to the valley to continue on to Gyantse.

We followed the river again eventually stopping at the equivalent of a Tibetan truck stop for a marginal lunch of oily fried rice. We met a French couple who were on our same route but eventually heading up to Shanghai where there son works. The woman, who spoke just a little English, came back from the bathroom and Cindy asked how bad it was. She grimaced and shook her hand back and forth, kind of a Tibetan “come si, come sa” thing. Cindy decided to wait.

We took another break in the middle of nowhere in the middle of an incredible panorama of stark, sandy mountains, deep blue skies with puffy white clouds and the winding river. We pulled off the road and walked through a kind of bizarre swampy grassland filled with goats and sheep and some horses. Tenzin and Jayang sat down with a local Tibetan Sheppard for a cigarette break while we marveled at the beautiful but desolate surroundings. A bit further on down the road, we lost the pavement and moved onto the dirt on a bumpy and dusty road. Good thing we have four wheel drive! Again the scenery was awesome as you can see in the shot of the sand dune with the cloudy, blue skies. Off in the distance, we saw what we assumed was the outskirts of Gyantse which ended up being a small little village. As we slowly drove through, we looked around for any signs of a hotel or guesthouse and things looked pretty grim. Luckily, that ended up just being a village and we continued on. And on. And on. We kept thinking that off in the distance we could see Gyantse but each time it ended up being some other little place. Finally, we crossed a bridge and returned to a paved road - yay, no more bouncing around in a dusty car. Well that ended up being the road that goes left to Gyantse and right to Shigatse where we are off to tomorrow. After another 45 minutes, a closed bridge and a bumpy, unpaved river crossing, we pulled into Gyantse.

The hotel was reasonably nice and fairly clean, always a plus, and we ended up going out for dinner and beers on our own. Tenzin sent us to a typical restaurant that caters to people like us who can’t read Tibetan and it was filled with foreigners including the French couple from earlier today. The food wasn’t bad and we ended up watching a movie on the laptop that night for western entertainment.

6/20/07
After breakfast, we headed off to see the Pelkor Chode monastery which was founded in 1418 and houses the world’s largest tiered stupa which is a very impressive building. The shot of the man’s back and boots walking into the monastery we really like just because all over our Buddhist monastery journeys including Bhutan, Sikkim and here in Tibet, the local dress is really cool and not something you really see in the west. How they manage in the winter when it snows, we don’t know…

Inside the main temple of Pelkor is a beautiful, four headed “Sakyamuni” Buddha towering over a room filled with other Buddha, Guru Rimpoche and various other statues, thankas and, most impressively, the really exotic looking books that you see in a couple of the pictures. These books are incredible, written often in Tibetan if translated or Sanskrit if original. The “books” have covers of carved wood and inside very wide and short pages that are beautifully inscribed with the exotic looking alphabets mentioned. Often they are illustrated as well and also have gold leaf painted on top of the characters. Many of these of course were destroyed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and various other wars and incursions, but many survive or at least the original wood-blocks that printed them do. In general, the monasteries have monks who meticulously repair and repaint the tomes and then wrap them in silk brocade and store them safely. The picture of the ones stacked in cases and covered in yellow silk with red and blue ornamentation are a very typical scene in all of the monasteries. The picture of the old prayer books gives an idea of how antique and large they are (they actually come in a variety of sizes, some small and some huge.)

After the monastery, we walked out into the courtyard to visit the massive, tiered and gold topped Kumbum Stupa. As I mentioned before, this is supposed to be the world’s largest stupa and is really incredible. On each of the tiers, there are small temples covering all four sides of the walls, a total of seventy-seven temples in all (not all of which we visited ;-) Steep, wooden ladder steps lead up to each successively smaller level and you can actually walk all the way up on top of the circular part (not the gold top) where there are four sets of Buddha eyes staring out over the valley. If you read the Bhutan blog and saw those photos, you can see how similar the architecture of the roofs and doors are. Looking out into the valley, you can see the ruins of the old fort (dzong) in the distance which you can actually see in the shot of the small neighborhood. The one shot of the statue and paintings from inside of one of the seventy-seven temples gives an idea of what they are like inside. Some are really richly detailed with paintings and mandalas on the wall and others are a simple statue, all with offerings of scarves and money. A quick stroll through the neighborhood next to the monastery provided some nice views of typical Tibetan village housing. As you can see from the one picture, cow dung is one of the preferred cooking fuels and is abundantly spread on any available wall to dry into a flammable chip. When you live on the Tibetan plateau, there isn’t much in the way of wood…

On the drive to Shigatze, we stopped by a small business that makes Tsampa which is the basic staple of the Tibetan diet and consists of ground barley wheat mixed with water and usually a bit of butter, fat or something to make it a little more palatable. The picture is of a typical, non-electric mill that is driven by water running under the building. Huge circular grindstones are spun by paddles under the building and toasted barley berries are ground into flour which covers everything in side with a fine powder (including my camera!). The proprietor, a funny little portly man, gave us toasted barley to eat (which is actually pretty good as a snack but I wouldn’t want to live on it) and, after we donated some money for our tour, he gave us a bag of Tsampa as a gift. We are not sure what we are going to do with it but Tenzin assured us that there is no better Tsampa than Tibetan Tsampa. Afterwards, the man deftly showed us how to pour some of the barley flour in a bowl, mix in a bit of water and fat and then stir (only with your index finger) before rolling the mush around the bowl (only with your thumb) and turning it into a little, round dough ball which he immediately popped into his mouth for lunch. Pretty fun!

Next stop, Shigatse, home of the Panchan Lama’s Monastery (he is the second “in command” if you can call it that, next to the Dalai Lama.

6/16/07

New Video - scroll down to the photo section to see a video of the monks feverishly debating at the Sera Monastery while the foreigners gawk and take their pictures...

This morning after breakfast we hopped in the Toyota and started the three hour drive to Lhasa. The road is better than anything else we have been on in Asia and the scenery is desolate, arid and spectacular. Often, if you close your eyes for a second and forget where you are, you can open them and imagine that you are driving up highway 395 to Mammoth Mountain where we ski in California which is pretty surreal when you are actually in Tibet. As we approached Lhasa, we came to a large, new tunnel which Tenzin told us was recently finished. This new tunnel cuts off an hour or so of driving to get to the airport outside of Lhasa and cuts right through a massive mountain.

We pulled off the side of the road at one of many little watermelon stands and sat on tiny little plastic chairs eating fresh watermelon, trying not to get it all over our faces. Neither of us was quite as adept or noisy as Tenzin and Jayang but we all enjoyed the sweet melon. Afterwards, we stopped at a small outdoor temple of sorts where there were some giant Buddha images carved into the mountainside. The carvings are supposed to be very old but recently painted in bright, primary colors. There were a ton of Tibetan pilgrims milling about spinning prayer wheels. Several different men were taking white silk prayer scarves from all the Tibetans, tying a rock to one end, then swinging them and flinging them way up onto the cliffs where they would snag and flutter in the wind. They all looked like they were having a good time, especially when one of the men would miss and the scarf would come flying back down.

We made it to Lhasa and checked in with a little bit of trepidation to the Flora Hotel. Razzu had warned us that the accommodations were leaning on the “budget” side so we weren’t expecting much but were pleasantly surprised when we checked in and had a reasonably clean and nice room. No three star place but a lot better than we expected and anything it lacked in cleanliness or charm it made up for in terms of its great location, a ten minute walk to the Jokhang and Barkhor Square. Tenzin took off quickly saying he would meet us in the morning, no doubt anxious to go see his girlfriend since he is back home in Lhasa.

After settling in, we took a walk through Barkhor Square which is a huge shopping area surrounding the Jokhang, the most revered religious building in Tibet. The square is an amazing site filled with Tibetan pilgrims praying, walking the streets fingering their prayer beads and spinning their prayer wheels and shopping for everything from coral and turquoise jewelry to thankas to cowboy hats to monks robes. This area is Tibet’s most famous and popular kora or pilgrim circuit where the devout come to walk around the huge square in a clockwise direction, spinning prayer wheels and often prostrating themselves on the ground in front of the Jokhang. There are literally thousands of shops and stalls lining the streets - even the Chinese have got in on the act, realizing there is more profit in selling these trinkets than in trying to completely destroy the Tibetan culture. Tenzin later told us that many if not most of the vendors are either Nepali or Chinese but of course they all claim to be Tibetan, some even changing their names to Tibetan ones. There are also lots of pilgrims, monks and sadhus begging for small change or small bills. Everyone walks clockwise around the huge square eventually making it to the large open courtyard in front of the Jokhang (more on that tomorrow after we visit).

We wandered around the alleyways off of the Barkhor and eventually stumbled our way into the Tashi 2 Restaurant - a place we had read about, for a lunch of momos (Tibetan dumplings) and Bobi which was kind of like a tortilla that you stuff with curried vegetables and a cream cheese mixture. Pretty tasty food and our first taste of another Tibetan beer called Snow Lion that was nice and cold. Not long after we sat down, a large Dutch group came in and we started talking with them about Tibet and travel. They were very nice and had specifically come back to this restaurant a second time so we figured it was good luck to have stumbled in…

After a bit of a rest at the hotel (the altitude, about 12,000 feet, does tend to knock you out, even if neither of us has a bad headache…) we walked back out to snap some pictures around Barkhor Square and the Jokhang before having a nice dinner at the Namtso Restaurant which had been recommended. Cold Lhasa Beer, tasty Tibetan soup for me and a “Chicken Sizzler” for Cindy all of which made us pleasantly full and happy. Tenzin is going to pick us up tomorrow and either visit the Potala or the Jokhang.

6/17/07
Tenzin picked us up and said that the Potala was sold out today (they limit the amount of visitors) and we would go tomorrow which is fine with us as we have read that there are lots more Tibetans on Monday’s. We started off with a visit to Lhasa’s Tibetan Medicine Hospital. This time I didn’t get my knees steamed or receive any “deer shit pills” as I did in Bhutan. Instead, a very well spoken Tibetan doctor gave us a very detailed overview of Tibetan Medicine including explaining all about some of the really interesting medical thankas (paintings embroidered in silk). There were a dozen or so of them hanging on the walls, each with a specific function including the depiction of physiology and pathology, diagnosing illnesses and treating illnesses. There was another group of Americans with us and everybody was very interested but wrinkled their noses a bit at the point that he was describing urine analysis and that, perhaps and hopefully only in the olden days, the doctor would examine, smell and even taste the patient’s urine. No wonder doctors make so much money! hahaha

Next stop, the Jokhang temple, the most revered and visited Buddhist temple in all of Tibet. It is located in the center of the ancient city of Lhasa, and was originally built in the seventh century A.D. by King Songtsan Gampo to house the statues of Buddha that were brought here by his Nepalese wife and concubine, Princess Bhrikuti as part of her dowry. Later, the most famous Buddha image in Tibet, the Sakyamuni, was brought to the Jokhang and to this day remains there. Princess Wencheng, the Chinese bride of King Songsten Gampo (when you are King you get as many wives as you want in the old days…), told him that a huge demoness lay across all of the Tibetan plains and that he had to build temples all over Tibet to subdue her. Using Chinese astrology and geomantic calculations, she determined that the heart of the demoness lay beneath the center of Lhasa in Lake Wothang and insisted that the King fill in the lake with sand and build the Jokhang there effectively piercing the demoness‘s heart. Goats carried tons of sand in to bury the lake and the Jokhang was built over it. There are many other temples throughout Tibet that represent the taming of the demoness’s limbs and other organs designed in concentric circles around the Jokhang including Trandruk Monastery which we visited outside of Tsedang. This subduing of the demoness paved the way for the success of Buddhism over the shamanistic Bon religion in Tibet.

The Jokhang is a massive two story building, jam packed with a large assembly hall surrounded by smaller temples dedicated to the various and many manifestations of the Buddha. The insides are dimly lit, mostly via the light of small and giant butter lamps which the pilgrims all add to either from a bottle or a bag of hardened butter. In the old days, this was yak butter, but now it is mostly oil and plain butter which is a lot cheaper. No pictures are allowed inside, but you get a fantastic view from the rooftop of the Barkhor, and of the large courtyard in front of the building filled with monks and pilgrims as well as the Potala on the hill in the distance. The rooftop is covered in golden sculptures, some of them fairly massive, including the Wheel of Law in the picture which represents the eight parts of the Noble Eightfold Path to Buddhist enlightenment. The brightly painted carved wooden details of the rooftop and all of the finials and protective lions are particularly cool.

We had lunch at a typical Tibetan restaurant overlooking the Potala, the massive former palace of the Dalai Lama situated on a hill overlooking the valley. On the way to visit the Norbulingka, the summer palace of the Dalai Lamas, I tried using my Indian cell to text page our friend Dave and it actually worked. He and his family were at his daughter (my god-daughter) Lauren’s high school graduation party and she managed to call my cell for a few minutes. Other than the brief delay in talking, it is pretty impressive that I can use my American phone with and Indian SIM and talk to the US from Tibet. Technology is cool, at least when it works and isn’t conspiring against you!

Norbulingka, literally “Jewel Park” is the summer palace of the Dalai Lamas and was built in 1755 by the seventh Dalai Lama and then added to over the years by the following Dalai Lamas. It is a huge, wooded garden that is in pretty poor shape with a number of different palace buildings and a man made lake. This is the site where the current (fourteenth) Dalai Lama escaped the Chinese disguised as a Tibetan soldier and fled to Dharamsala India in 1959. After the relatively boring visit to Norbulingka, we walked through our neighborhood (interestingly enough in the Muslim quarter) to a local Internet café that was actually kind of a cool little place with free wireless (as long as you bought overpriced drinks) where we managed to check email and update the blog. We had a nice dinner that night at Makye Amye which is an open-air, rooftop restaurant situated right on the corner of Barkhor Square with great views of the pilgrim kura circuit below. We met two nice, young Chinese couples, both of whom attempted to have conversations with us to varying degrees of success. The one couple were really nice and insisted on sharing their Tibetan sweet tea (“only 18 yuan!”) and Tibetan Naan with us. It must be very strange for the Tibetan’s to host such a huge number of Chinese tourists who seem eager to see the sites of Lhasa when it is their parents and grandparents who were so eager to destroy it. Times change…

6/18/07
The Potala is the massive and now empty palace of the Dalai Lamas and is thought to have originally been built in the seventh century by King Songsten Gampo high up on Marpo Ri or “Red Hill” overlooking Lhasa and next to a cave where he meditated. The current dual palace (there is a “Red Palace” and a “White Palace”) was built by the fifth Dalai Lama in the mid 1600’s and served as the Winter Palace of the Dalai Lamas until 1959 when the fourteenth Dalai Lama fled the Chinese invaders and fled to India.

We drove over to the Potala looming high up on the hill and stopped at Tenzin’s travel agency to pick up our tickets. When he got back in the SUV, he handed them to us and said “Is this you?” and the names were not even close and somebody else’s. He assured us that it wouldn’t be a problem and we went to the first of three checkpoints at the Potala where he shmoozed the girl taking the tickets into letting us in even though they didn’t match our passports. Luckily the Chinese military guys standing around and smoking were clueless and not paying attention. We started the steep climb up the stone walkways that zig-zag up the Potala (you can see them on the left hand side of the picture with the deep blue sky). There were large groups of young Chinese tourists, huffing and puffing their way up (they seem really out of shape and I thought a couple of the women were going to faint from hyperventilating). Just before you enter the building, you can get a pretty spectacular view of the Lhasa valley lying below. You can see from the picture that it is pretty built up and modern, probably a lot different than it was 50 years ago.

You enter the Potala through typical massive red doors ornately adorned with huge, brass knockers with woven silk pulls and intricate and colorful carvings and walk through some fairly plain and empty rooms and up many stairs, eventually exiting onto a rooftop with several surrounding buildings. Since you can’t take pictures once inside, we opted to buy a book and have snapped pics of a few of the pictures in the book to give an idea of what the insides of the Potala looks like. I think the Chinese have little room to complain about copyright infringement - ask anyone who has traveled in Asia about the wide availability of books (especially Lonely Planet) and movies available for 1/10th of the price they would be at home. Hell in Pokhara we walked past a bar showing Pirates of the Caribbean Three not more than three days after it was released!

The first picture is the doorway of the White Palace and typical of the many palaces in the Potala with seven lions up top representing the seven royal emblems, an inscripted tablet above the lions describing the purpose of the room and then all the intricately carved doorframes, columns and beams topped with engravings of tigers, lions, garudas and dragons. The second picture is the old audience hall of the White Palace where all celebrations and religious services were held since the Fifth Dalai Lama moved into the Potala in 1650. The gold characters above the throne read “The blessing of abundance illumine in all directions”. The third picture displays typical statuary of the many temples inside the Potala and is an image of Tsongkha-pa Lobsang Drakpa who was a great master of the Gyelupka Buddhist sect. Usually these chapels have a main statue as in this picture with smaller statues surrounding him, butter lamps and holy water bowls or sometimes butter sculptures in front and thankas hanging from the beams. It is all very rich and ornate and there are usually piles of money in front of the statues and often prayer shawls donated and covering the images. The last photo is one of the many tombs of the Dalai Lamas which easily give the Vatican a run for the money in terms of sheer opulence, indulgence and insane wealth. We stopped at the tombs of the sixth, seventh and eighth Dalai Lamas and were amazed at the incredible amount of jewels and gold and I remember estimating just the cost of the gold of one at well over $10,000,000. When we walked downstairs and saw the tomb of the Fifth Dalai Lama the previous ones paled in comparison. This one is in a huge room surrounded by other gold and precious jewel encrusted stupas with the main tomb in the center of the hall standing over twelve meters tall and 8 meters wide. Just the gold used on the tomb is worth in the neighborhood of eighty million dollars. Truly amazing.

After the Potala visit, we walked through Barkhor Square and had lunch at a Tibetan restaurant where it ended up we were the only foreigners. They did manage to find a menu in English and we sat down initially sharing a table with two Tibetan men, one younger and one older who actually offered us snuff which we politely refused. We ordered Cheese Momos and some fried vegetables too afraid to order some of the more interesting sounding dishes like Auspicious Insect with Yak Tongue or Fried Sheep Lung. All of the Tibetans were staring at us as we patiently awaited our order, not sure that the girl understood us at all. The men left and we were joined by a group of two men and one woman decked out in traditional Tibetan clothes and jewelry (lots of silver, coral and turquoise) who were really friendly and insisted on sharing their thermos of Tibetan Butter Tea which is more of a salty, soupy kind of thing and certainly not high on Cindy’s list. I don’t mind it as much now that they don’t always use Yak butter which is pretty gamey. It is hard to refuse and remain polite so I drank mine. Cindy took a few small sips, the problem being that tradition in Tibet and much of Asia says that if your guest’s cup isn’t full, you need to fill it up. This is especially true of alcoholic drinks (if you read the entry of our Bumthang trek in Bhutan you will recall the couple that kept pouring and pouring Ara for us). The momos eventually arrived and were interesting dumplings filled with what tasted somewhat like old, moldy parmesan cheese but was actually aged Yak cheese - yummy.

After lunch, we headed to the Sera Monastery which ended up being a pretty cool place. The main temple had a huge, multi-story Buddha surrounded by the usual accoutrements of thankas, statuary, wood carvings, butter carvings and offerings (but I was to cheap to pay for a picture inside - something un-Buddhist about constantly having to pay monks to take a picture). The cool part of the monastery is that around 3:00pm, the monks all come out into a large gravel courtyard lined with trees and they debate, heatedly, completely ignoring the throng of camera flashing tourists (ourselves included but hopefully more polite than most). Obviously our Tibetan is a little bit weak (we can say Hello, T hank you and Good! which hilariously enough is Yabadoo! making any American who grew up in the 60’s think of Fred Flintstone…) so we couldn’t understand what they were debating about. One monk would stand and argue his point with one or more seated monks, at the end of his diatribe looking like he is going to perform some kind of Kung Fu feat, standing on one leg and rubbing/slapping his hands together which Tenzin told us is basically demanding a response to his oratory. It was very cool to watch - we thought that the one guy in the close up shot looks a lot like a Tibetan version of Quentin Tarrentino.

After watching the debates for quite a while, we walked up towards the hill where there are some stupas and another small nunnery high up on the ridge. This is one of the many locations in Tibet where they perform “Sky Burials”. These are the somewhat gruesome sounding to a westerner Tibetan ritual for the dead. Unlike Hindus who are cremated, the Tibetans have a special monk who takes the body to a sky burial location, completely dismembers it and then leaves it to feed the birds and carnivores. They feel that the soul has moved on and the body no longer necessary and that they are giving something back to nature and helping the chain of life. It is now illegal for non-Tibetans to attend Sky Burials as in the past, tourists would disrespect the mourners, merrily flashing their cameras away. Needless to say, we didn’t witness this.

That night, we went to what we figured would be a fairly lame Tibetan Dance/Buffet Dinner thing and, unlike the one in Kathmandu, this time we were correct. The room was packed with Chinese tourists, nearly all of them crowding in front of the stage flashing their cameras. I don’t think we saw one dance other than the finale when they tried to drag us up on stage. This time I was successful in avoiding the dance. We met a UK Couple who were on a China/Tibet vacation and talked to them a bit. This time they were on a short vacation but hope to take an extended holiday next year so we talked about that quite a bit. Their guide was Chinese, not Tibetan and he got very nervous when Tenzin and Jayang sat down with us. Tenzin made a point of loudly telling Cindy that it was 35 Yuan each (about $5) per person for dinner and the dance. The other guide sort of rushed the UK couple out as Tenzin told us that the guide charged the couple 100 Yuan each, pocketing the other 130 for himself. The Tibetans are generally very honest people. You can go into any temple in Tibet and see piles of money in front of almost every statue. The locals often make their own change, throwing a 20 Yuan note into the pile and grabbing all the small bills for change to donate at the next statue - the monks would never even worry about the devout being dishonest.

Tomorrow we are off to Gyantse to visit the Khampa-la pass, Yamdrak-dzo lake and the large, golden stupa.

The rest of this blog is in memory of our dear, lifelong friend Pat Jong, the nicest and most compassionate person I have ever known. Wherever you are now and whatever you are doing, I know there is a smile on your face…

6/14/2007
Tsetang, Tibet
The flight from Kathmandu to Lhasa was short but did provide some nice views of the Himalayas as we crossed from mountainous Nepal into the high plateau of Tibet. Immigration was a pretty serious affair as the Chinese are very uptight about foreign travel to Tibet and apparently just recently, a couple of American journalists were thrown out when they were caught up to no good. I was momentarily concerned as Cindy’s bag showed up and mine was noticeably missing - shades of Italy. I really didn’t want to travel for two weeks in Tibet with only the clothes on my back, but after a bit, it did show up and we went through customs without a hitch. As we were walking out, we were met by a young kid who looks like a Tibetan rock star who introduced himself as Tensing, our guide. He seemed friendly enough and his English was at least OK so that was a good start. We walked out to the parking lot and, just as advertised, a Toyota Land Cruiser was waiting for us with Jao Yan our driver (who doesn’t speak English at all).

We headed out on amazingly good roads for the two and a half hour drive to Tsetang, the birthplace of the Tibetan people and our first stop. It was an easy drive through beautiful but arid and desolate scenery with huge sand dunes in front of small mountains and some nice snowy ones in the background. The route follows the Yarlung River as it meanders through Tibet. The altitude didn’t seem to be bothering either of us but it did kind of make us doze a bit on the way. We got to Tsedang which appears to more of a typical modern Chinese city than Tibetan and were pleasantly surprised when we pulled up in front of what looked like a very nice hotel, the Tibet Yulong Holiday Hotel (three stars no less!) We thought this was the “budget” trip and will no doubt pay for this later in the week. We rested a bit and then went out to an ATM and got some Yuan out (Chinese currency) - quite a change from 1983 when I was here before and you changed all your money on the black market! Tensing and Ji Yan took us to a local Tibetan restaurant called the Tashi that was pretty good. Cindy, being smart, listened to what Razzu told us and had the vegetarian curry set menu. Being a bit more adventurous, I opted for the Yak curry set menu and a Lhasa beer (how could I pass that up?). The food was good and hopefully I won’t be paying for that choice later.

We were talking with Tensing, asking him how old he is and he told us 22. He asked if we had been in Tibet before and we said no but that I had been in China. He asked when and when I told him 1983, he said “I wasn’t born yet!“ He started telling us stories about his guiding adventures in the past and brought up an incident out West by Mt. Kailash where an Indian woman who refused to listen to him about her altitude illness and go to lower elevation ended up dying. This did not exactly inspire our confidence but we assured him that we would listen to him if he thought we were sick. On a positive note, he said that the rest of her group felt that Mt. Kailash, Tibet was an auspicious place to die.

6/15/07
Breakfast at the Tibet Yulong Holiday Hotel was a buffet with mostly strange looking things that we didn’t eat but they did have Bao and pickled cucumbers that were tasty. We were sitting at a large table by ourselves when an older foreign woman walked over and asked if we spoke English. We said that it is the only thing we speak and she sat down and, in a strong Israeli accent, asked if we had a good guide. It ends up that she is originally from Berlin but left for Israel when she was young and her husband, a Holocaust survivor who joined us a few minutes later is from France originally, then Israel. They now live in Scottsdale, AZ but have worked and lived in Asia a lot over the years and are in Tibet celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary. They were really nice and unfortunately having a terrible time with their guide. They set their Tibet trip up in Beijing and the guide has been less then friendly or helpful and they have been paying for hotels and entrance fees in addition to paying the guide. We had been warned of this too and instructed in how to “suck up” to the guides so that we get good service - luckily our’s is not a problem.

After breakfast, we headed off for a drive over the Yarlung River and a small pass en route to the Samye Monastery. We were on a dirt and gravel road and Cindy asked me “Aren’t we driving a bit to fast?” right as we started to spin. Luckily it had rained last night so the dust wasn’t too bad but the road was a bit bumpy (or “bampy” as our friend and guide MinMin from Burma would say…) We made it to the pass and stopped to admire the view (the first picture with the prayer flags and river in the distance) where Tensing said “Take your time - make pictures…” We did as instructed watching the locals burning incense and herbs in a small stupa. We really like the Tibetan motorcycle - there were a bunch of them up there, most with at least two adults and a child, some with a boom box attached blasting Tibetan rap/pop/bubblegum - not great stuff. Notice the cool seat which is a Tibetan carpet. After a bit, we walked over to our car, now with the hood raised and realized why Tensing told us to take our time. There was steam pouring out of the radiator which had a hole in it that Jao Yan was attempting to fix. It seems that he has just returned from Mt. Kailash and the road was so bumpy that the battery bashed a small hole in the radiator which he previously repaired. We watched as he deftly scraped off the old glue, then mixed epoxy with which he affixed a piece of aluminum from an old Coke can. This will have to suffice until we make it to Lhasa. Guess like China, capitalism rules in Tibet too - the best of American products and Tibetan ingenuity.

After the repairs, we continued the rest of the way on the bumpy, dirt road to Samye Monastery. The picture of the sand dunes gives you an idea of what the geography looks like here. There are beautiful, untouched dunes backed by mountains all the way to the monastery (thankfully no ATV’s ripping around on them…). Ok, a bit of history and information about Samye - if you are not interested in Tibetan monastery stuff, feel free to skip ahead or just look at the pretty pictures J

Samye Monastery was Tibet’s first monastery, founded by King Trisong Detsen sometime around 780 A.D. This roughly corresponded to Guru Rimpoche’s (of fame from our Bhutan blog as founder of the Tiger’s Nest Monastery and widely revered throughout the Buddhist world) defeat of demons at Hepo Ri, just east of Samye which helped pave the way for Buddhism’s triumph over the local, humanistic Bon religion. Initially, seven monks were ordained at Samye and both Indian and Chinese scholars were invited to help translate Sanskrit texts into Tibetan. This helps explain why the three story building has the first story built in Tibetan style, the second in Chinese and the third in Indian. Samye is designed based on the principle of the Mandalic representation of the universe where the central temple represents Mt. Meru, home of the gods, and the temples built in concentric circles around it represent the oceans and continents of earth. The Utse temple is at the center of Samye and is where all of the “inside” pictures here were shot. Surrounding the Utse are four large chortens of different colors representing the elements: Red, Black, Green and White. Much of Samye has been rebuilt as it was destroyed numerous times, especially during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Supposedly, there were originally 108 buildings surrounding the Utse and 1008 chortens on the walls surrounding Samye.

The inside of the Utse is dark and filled with the scent of burning butter lamps which are everywhere. All of the pilgrims come with containers of oil or bags of what looks like half butter, half lard and offer it along with small bills at each and every statue. Tensing did his best to explain things to us but at some point we realized that, as far as Buddhism is concerned, our knowledge level is somewhat like my mom’s knowledge of rock music. For her, an educated guess is always one of Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Deep Purple or Joe Jackson. After seeing literally thousands of Buddhist and Hindu statues, we still have trouble figuring out who it is. Generally, if the statue looks a bit angry with bulging eyes and has a mustache, we guess Guru Rimpoche. Buddha we can usually get (but this gets tricky here too as there is the past present and future Buddha and various manifestations, aspects, consorts, etc.) As far as the old Tibetan kings, we are so far at a loss and still can’t say Avalokiteshvara who is the most famous Bodhisattva, the Bhodisattva of Compassion. This is the guy that all of the Dalai Lama’s are reincarnations of.

After walking through the Utse, we walked the perimeter of the monastery walls which are circled with prayer wheels and chorten and tons of pilgrims dressed in traditional Tibetan garb with prayer wheels, chanting and walking. We stopped in a few of the perimeter temples but didn’t want to get in the way of the devout (let alone slip on the butter covered floors). We ended up having lunch at the monastery at a small little restaurant, mostly filled with Tibetan ladies, many of whom giggled and said “Hello!” shyly. Tensing did actually get harassed by the Chinese Police out front who wanted to see our visas and permits.

We started back towards Tsedang on the same wonderful road we headed in on and after about twenty minutes of bouncing, I was becoming a bit uncomfortable. Was it the Yak curry from yesterday or just the bouncy road? Well I wasn’t sure but figured all I had to do was make it back to the bridge over the Yarlung River and then we were back onto paved road and close to the hotel. Things were getting worse the more we bounced - maybe I shouldn’t have had all that water at lunch. It’s ok to concentrate on holding one thing in but two at once on a bumpy road isn’t so great and wrought with potential peril. Looking around there was nothing but sand dunes, dirt road and some sheep (one of whom was racing down the hill and stopped to pee just to torture me). Finally I saw the bridge and, almost sweating, thought “I can make it!” As we were crossing the bridge, I said something to Tensing about stopping at the hotel and he said sure, only fifteen more minutes. Panic time. There was no way in hell I was making it another fifteen minutes. Cindy knew by the look on my face and we convinced Tensing to stop whereupon Cindy headed off to take the awesome picture of the river. I was busy elsewhere…Thank god for drainage ditches!

After a brief stop at the hotel, we headed out to see the Yumbulagan Monastery which is claimed to be the oldest building in Tibet, at least the original foundation, as it like many others was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. It is up on a hill that we walked up but that, according to Tensing, all of the Chinese tourists ride up on the ponies, yaks or the one ratty looking camel down at the base. Originally it is thought to have been a fortress, but is now just a temple. Tensing told us of the famous monk who lived to be 120 years old and spent his time in a secret room (Cindy thought he said “cigarette room“ as sometimes, his English is a bit difficult to understand) with tiny windows that no one knows how to get to translating Sanskrit texts into Tibetan. The temple has hundreds of holy Buddhist texts known at the “Awesome Secret” that are reported to have “fallen from the heavens” in the fifth century. They line the walls in wooden cases and the locals all crawl under them as this is thought to cure illnesses. In case you have never seen one, these don’t look like modern books but rather, long carved wooden “bindings” maybe 3” wide by 16” long filled with sheaves of beautifully inscribed Sanskrit or Tibetan text and often with gold leaf - I will try to take a picture…We walked around each floor of the temple which is a precarious thing to do with slippery floors from the butter lamps and devout Tibetan’s pushing behind you. Afterwards we hiked up a bit above the temple for a great view of the Yarlung Valley and the temple itself. It is amazing the contrast in color and texture from the fertile valley floor fed by the river up to the desolate mountains. On the way back down, one of the local tourists with a cell phone insisted on taking a picture with me - hopefully I don’t end up as the front man for some bad Chinese advertising…

After Yumbulagan we made a stop at Trandruk Monastery which is one of the “demoness subduing” monasteries that I will probably write about in the Lhasa entry later. This monastery was very badly damaged during the Cultural Revolution by Mao’s Red Guard and they are still restoring it now. On the perimeter, all of the monk’s quarters are still rubble. It is a very important pilgrimage spot for Tibetan’s and there are lots and lots of older, prayer wheel spinning locals hanging out here. The temple is quite small and, perhaps since it is on flat land and not on a peak like Yumbulagan, not as special. Since they charged a hefty 75 Yuan ($11) photo fee, we opted out.

We ended up having dinner at the Tashi restaurant again and had a nice walk home through the new and very Chinese part of Tsedang. On the way, we stopped off at a grocery store (and really, I mean a western style grocery store - China has brought some positive things to Tibet too) to buy bottled water. We ended up seeing beers in a small refrigerator next to the check out stand and tried to ask for them, eventually just pointing until they grabbed the right thing. The girls at the checkout cackled when we tried to say thank you in Tibetan which is something like “too-chi-chey”. Tomorrow we drive back to Lhasa and spend several days there.

We used Geographic Expeditions (www.geoex.com), a company in San Francisco. They have the most beautiful catalogues to many exotic places (they don't arrange tours to Europe, for example). Their prices are reasonable, not the cheapest, but definitely not unreasonable. If the itinerary in the catalogue or web site don't fit your fancy, they can arrange a private tour according to your ideas, and you can form your own small tour group that way. That's what we did, a small group of 6 people, going from Lhasa to Kathmandu on land (I have a blog about it). They have local operators they work with in Tibet, and we had the most wonderful guide and drivers. Our guide does not work with GeoEx all the time, and the company he works for in Tibet is called Tibet Wind Horse Adventures (NOT other similar names, wind horse seems to be a popular name), and they take people rafting in Tibet! among other things. http://www.windhorsetibet.com/main2.htm I would highly recommend checking GeoEx out if you are from the US, and if you are elsewhere, check with Wind Horse Adventures directly.

Lhasa...is just magical. And nothing like anything we expected. Actually, we didn't really know what to expect but it is really something out of the ordinary.

This little city located in the middle of the Himalayas at 3800 meters above sea level is just the greatest place ever and we're sad we only had time to spend two days here. The main street, Beijing Road, is full to the rim with fancy shops of every kind and you'll find basically anything you need here..except deodorant, rumour has it. And even though the population in Lhasa is 70 % chinese and only 30 % tibetan, the tibetan culture and traditions are very visible and can make you just stare forever at everything around you.  Perhaps the greatest thing about this city is that no matter what direction you look your eyes will be met by surrounding mountains and tibetan wilderness like nothing else. And the tibetans....in their traditional costumes and hair styles and accesories are just mindblowing and so beautiful.

At the hostel we room with a Swedish girl, Eva, who's been here for 2 weeks now (but one on the road to the nepalese border and Mt Everest Base Camp) and is showing us around and giving us great tips for bargaining at the market that surrounds Jokhang Temple. She also informed us of the fact that it's a good idea to go clockwise around the temple because all day tibetans walk around it in this direction, praying. So not to crash into all of them we go with the flow and look at the yak wool this and yak wool that and tibetan jewellry and all sorts of gadgets and weird stuff. And buying some too...

Originally we only planned on staying one day and rent a jeep and driver on tuesday 12th but Mark, our other room mate, was going with 2 others on Wednesday. And 3000 yuan/kr is better divided on 6 than 3 so an extra day we stayed. Which was a great idea anyway,  cause then we had one day to look around at everything and another to know where to go to get the good stuff. Oh! And the goggles! Impossible to describe, but if you want a sneak peek, check out Miriam Rygh at Facebook. Priceless.......

So, Got a jeep and said good by to lhasa early Wednesday morning14/11 squeezed into a jeep: 9 people! We were 6 and then two women were suddenly going to drive with us to the next city, Shigatse, which is usually 4 hours away but due to manymany check points because there was an accident somewhere along that road recently, it took 6 hours.  Had a little break and lunch in Shigatse but had to stay an hour and a half or something because the jeep had to get some repairs done. When we booked the tour  we were told it would take 15 - 18 hours, but beware: we spent a solid 24 hours in the backseat of that jeep, driving forever on bumpy scary roads and trying not to look at what seemed like an infinite abyss inches away from our car. It was a very interesting journey, I'd say and hmmm, difficult to say or explain more... But definitely had all the time in the world to get to know the guys: gavin and mark from England and Honza from the....Tsjekkia. Arrived in the border town early morning and figured we'd just have something to eat and freshen up and then just cross over. But that turned out to be easier said than done! It was  8 am and not one person was up and about, exept us of course. the guys went of on their own and we were invited in to the back of a shop and it turned out to be the family's home, so nice of them. Took some pictures of them and goofed around with miriams digital camera before we had to go to customs, fill out some forms, change whatever money we had left and get crossing :)

You have to get a taxi through no man's land, which really shouldn't be called no man's land because it really isn't. lots of people live there and Anette was very disappointed about this because she'd planned to take over no man's land and call it Anetteland. Maybe next time.. Then we walked over the friendship bridge and stepped into a different world completely.... 

We took a wlk into the town of Tingri today. Tingri is situated on a rather large plain, larger than any flat area we had traveled on this trip. It's still at an high altitude, about 14500 ft. We basically circled the town, up the hill where there was a mounment for the nature preserve we were in, and the ruins of an old fort. As we walked, we would see many dogs roaming the countryside in a pack, not chasing the goats though. A little girl (maybe 7 or 8 years old) herder saw us and came over, hmm, she asked for money! That's not a good thing to have learned from tourists. We had a good view from the top of the hill, however, Cho Oyo always had some clouds over its top and Everest would also play hide and seek today. We could see the mountains, but not always the peaks.

After lunch we loaded up the cars and headed to the border. We would have one more high mountain pass today. On the way, we began to see trucks from other parts of China. We had to honk the horns to pass them and then since we stopped for scenery, we would have to pass them again later. Tashi's car was having problem with a stuck horn, so they stopped from time to time to "unstuck" it. We drove up this high mountain plateau area where we could see some of the Himalayans, but most of the time, the very top of them would have some clouds. We should have been able to see Shishapangma but never got a clear view. This high plateau was interesting in that there was a "road", but there were also "shortcuts", since the plateau was shaped in a rolling form, cars would take shortcuts instead of taking the wider turn of the road. It's easy in the 4WD and kind of fun. We stopped at the final pass, where there were lots of prayer flags as usual, and some wind-powered prayer wheels! It was very windy. From now on it was all downhill. We've started to leave the roof of the world behind.

We arrived at the town of Nyalam about 4:30pm, and lined up our cars on the road going south. There were perhaps a dozen 4WD's waiting. The road was rumored to open tonight at 7pm. We had to find a way to kill some time. First we went to a tea house, where we had some tea, coke (for Kristin, who was able to find coke at all places we stopped). We chatted around, and watched a little of the TV which was on. They had electricity here, and obviously TV reception.  Frodo was being attacked by the giant spider monster on TV in the Lord of the Rings triology.

After sitting and talking for a while, we decided to walk around the town to see if there was anything interesting. We walked around, and there wasn't much of real interest. It was just a normal town, with shops (none had the furry dog collar we saw at Khampa La), schools, kids playing on the sidewalk. There were many restaurants, obviously due to the road closure, people had to find some place to sit around and eat.

The road actually opened at 6:30pm, and we were on the way, not knowing what was to come. Let me try to set the scene for you:

Imagine a river born in the glaciers of the Himalayans cutting through the tallest mountains on earth on its way to join other rivers going to the Indian Ocean. As the river winds south, more waterfalls from the mountains join it so the river gets more water, goes faster, cuts deeper into the mountains. As the river cuts lower into the mountains, trees start to appear on its banks and the mountainside.

Because the mounutains were so tall, when people started to go along the river to the south, the road they carved out of the mountainside was narrow. Because of the steepness, they had to make switchbacks to go down the mountainside. The waterfalls come from high up and bring with them falling rocks, the road was frequently blocked by the rocks, and the waterfall would either go above the road if the road was carved into the mountain in a half tunnel, or the waterfall would just go on the road before plunging further down toward the river below. Cars and people had to wade through the water, maybe only 1-2 feet deep at today, bump over rocks, and duck under waterfalls (under which the cars would stop and get a free carwash! It's so cool!) The road was frequently many hundreds of feet or more above the river, there was nothing but the good skills of the drivers to prevent one from falling down and never be found again.  Along the way, there would be tents set beside the road or overhanging a bit, these would be workers tents. The road was being fixed and paved, and hundreds of workers, most of them from interior of China, lived in these tents to work on the road. There were kitchen tents, and bathroom enclosures (which could be identified by how they were hanging over the cliff), It was dinner time for most workers, and they would be sitting or squatting by the tent, rice bowel in hand. The kitchen tents would have some smoke coming out of the chimney pipe. It's all very very basic and rustic. Ah, and the place was very wet for the most part from all the waterfallss so at least water supply was not an issue. Some workers would be women, and I even saw a kid or 2, and some dogs. Maybe a year or so later, the road would be paved. We wondered how the maintenance would be carried out, since it probably would need constant repair from landslides and potholes from water.

We all agreed this was a very exciting E-ticket ride (assuming you had been to Disneyland, e-ticket was the ticket for the best rides). The 30km distance between Naylam and Zham took about 1.5 hours. It could take a lot longer, so we were very lucky, since we had the daylight to see the scenery.

The road was narrow but it was the only road between Tibet and Kathmandu for hundreds of years. Now with cars and trucks making this journey in addition to foot traffic by Nepalese people who came to Tibet to buy hundreds of goats for their special festival, they had to herd all these goats back on foot! And (crazy) westerners bicycling. The trucks were allowed to go after all the 4WD's at a later time. It became a 1-way southbound road in the evening, and reverses at about 1am to become a northbound 1-way road.

Imagine you were coming from Kathmandu, you had to wait til 1am before being allowed to go north. It's dark, and you couldn't see anything. Maybe that's good so you don't get scared, but you would be missing out on one of the most spectacular roads on earth. Besides, going from Zhangmu to Tingri was going to 15000 ft in one day, and you wouldn't get to acclimatize as well because it would be REAL hard to find something to do in Tingri for 4 days! If you went to Everest base camp, you would be going to 17000 ft in a hurry, not a good way to avoid getting altitude sickness. This is why I would strongly advice anyone who wants to take this trip to go from Lhasa to Kathmandu, not the other way around.

Zhangmu is a hill town, the road leading to it winds down in switchbacks, the narrow road was half taken by numerous trucks, some from China, some from Nepal. Merchandise going to Nepal need to be unloaded here and put on Nepalese trucks, and vice versa. It's not like there was any parking lot in this town, so all these were taking place on the narrow streets. Porters would carry the goods between trucks. It's amazing anything can be done in this manner. As we went into town, it was a big traffic jam, so it took a while to go down to our hotel. The town had lots of waterfalls going through it, and we had the sound of the waterfall outside the window. This was a pretty nice hotel, a big step up from TIngri. They had electricity and lots of running hot water. However, the shower hose was defective just like the one in Tingri, so must be a bad design or cheap material.

For dinner, we walked down another switchback or so, and the first restaurant we went to called "base camp" had a lot of people and way too loud music, and what looked like climbers dancing to the music. So I suppose it could be the right restaurant for some people, but we went across the street to the "Himalayan Restaurant", which was quiet and turned out to have really good food too.

This is definitely not a fancy hotel. Tingri had no electricity other than solar, so the hotel had electricity only for a few hours in the evening. Hot water was also heated by solar, so not real hot. The hotel had a big sign outside advertising hot showers, but it's not that great. The bathroom was pretty dingy looking and dark, with not many working light bulbs. The shower hose was broken, even though the fixture looked new, I think it must be defective product. We had dinner and breakfast at the hotel restaurant, which had Tibetan seating, the ceiling had pretty painted decorations, and there was a TV. The lock on the door was hard to work with. The hotel was just outside of town, even with all its faults, we were assured this was the best hotel in Tingri. Scenery around Tingri and the rest of Tibet is worth the small discomforts. So, go!

This was one of the newest hotels in Zham (Zhangmu) at the border of Tibet and Nepal. The room was above our expectations (which was set to "rustic"), they had electricity, lots of running hot water, very nice sound of waterfalls outside the window. The shower hose was new looking but broken in our bathroom, so it was a challenge to shower. But since this was our first stop since Tingri, we appreciated the electricity and hot water. The room looked pretty good too. There was Lots of lights in the room, a big step up from Tingri. I think they tried to be a good hotel, and other than the broken shower hose, they have succeed at being a 3-star hotel.

Xegar is not exactly a big town, and selection of lodging was limited. There was a big window in the stairwell which was blocked by a wall on the outside, interesting why they even had a window there. The carpet in the room looked old and worn, and the internet bar in the hotel was not working. Hotel restaurant did not have a lot of light and was somewhat dark. For dinner, you would not think to order French Fries (strips of potatoes, fried) here, but actually they were surprisingly good, probably because they were hand cut and fried. We had private baths in the room, the hot water took a while also to start, but at least we had working plumbing!