Tibet Tour 1

Well let me start by saying that my fantasy about galloping off into the sunset with a Tibetan horseman was not realised. Fortunately, many other dreams were realised and it was generally a wonderful trip.

We spent a lot of time on the road without seeing much except the scenery passing by, so I won't launch into a day-by-day account of the trip. Rather, I'll just touch on the highlights and impressions I had of the region.

The cast of characters included five Australians, a Dutch couple, a woman from California and me. The Dutch couple were in their mid-thirties and made it clear from the beginning that they wanted little to do with the rest of us and that their priorities clearly lay with themselves. They were about as un-Buddhist as you could get, and as much as we joked about it, their behaviour was irritating at times. They went to great pains to beat us to the best hotel rooms, camping spots, food and photo ops, and to hell with the rest of us. Jane, the woman from California, also proved to be a bit of an enigma. She is apparently highly educated, holds a high-level administrative position at UCI and spent much of her time on the trip reading books that Einstein would have struggled with. However, she also drove us all nuts because she seemed incapable of making a decision on the simplest things, like what to order for lunch, without polling the crowd and asking everyone's opinion first. She also asked the same questions repeatedly, many of which were totally inane to begin with. It was hard to understand how she could possibly have achieved what she had when she seemed unable to process or retain even the most basic information.

The Aussies, I'm happy to report, were all delightful. Four of them were traveling together, two of this group were Buddhists and two were members of the Australian Tibet Council. They provided a wealth of knowledge about the relevant politics and religious issues, as well as great company and lots of laughs.

We were accompanied by four drivers and a guide as well as a cook and his assistant. All were Tibetan and generally did their jobs well. Our entourage was rounded out by Catherine, an Australian woman who works in the office of the tour company in Lhasa. She decided to accompany us with the excuse of getting out of the office for awhile, but we quickly discovered that a hidden agenda involved a romantic relationship with one of the drivers, Pubu. At some times it was really useful to have her with us as she knew the area very well and communicated with us much more explicitly than the Tibetans could. However, her presence did upset the balance of power among the staff to some degree (as did her relationship with Pubu), and I think the guide, Sonam, never really knew what his role was with her present. In addition, her political views were clearly aligned with the Chinese in Tibet, which tended to rankle us to some degree, as our sympathies clearly lie with the Tibetans.

So that pretty much covers all the gossip, now on with the journey.

We started out with a few days in Lhasa, and did the typical tourist route there. We visited Drepung and Sera Monasteries on one day, as I had done five years ago. The latter is home to the debating monks, which is always a treat to watch. They are all assembled in a courtyard and are paired off or sometimes gathered in small groups. A standing monk will pose a question to his partner sitting on the ground who must then answer it. There is much ritual and fanfare around the whole thing: prayer beads are being flung, hands slapped and voices raised. Hand gestures indicate whether an answer is considered correct or not. With a hundred or more of these individual interactions going on simultaneously, it raises quite a cacophony which can be heard well down the road.

The next day we got up early and traveled to Ganden Monastery a couple of hours from Lhasa. This monastery was of particular interest as it was considered enough of a threat during the cultural revolution that the Chinese actually bombed it from the air rather than just attacking with guns from the ground they way they tended to do elsewhere. The monks kept returning and the Chinese were relentless in their torture and devastation at this site. They have rebuilt the monastery and it is once again active. We arrived quite early and did a kora around the monastery before we had our visit. (A kora is a pilgrimage in a clockwise direction around a sacred structure or landmark - most notably Mt. Kailash.) It was lovely to be there and to be free of Chinese tourists for a while. Lhasa is full of Chinese tourists - apparently Tibet is the current trendy destination for Chinese travellers - and they aren't exactly notable for their courtesy and charm.

Later that afternoon we visited the Potala Palace. There are so many tourists going through the Potala now that you have to book a time slot days in advance. We opted to go without our guide as regulations limit guided tours to one hour, which just isn't enough. It was lovely to be there again, but access was much more limited this time than it was five years ago and we got to see a much smaller portion of the building and grounds than I had seen before. Photos are now forbidden inside the building but I have lots of shots from the outside and courtyards.

The following day we visited the Jokhang Temple in the morning. It was much as I remembered it - full of pilgrims in traditional dress worshipping in their various styles. One major difference was the absence of butter lamps in the hands of the pilgrims, as they all now carry thermoses of ghee. The pilgrims add the liquid ghee to the lamps burning inside the temple as a form of offering and it means the lamps are never extinguished. Last time I was here, they all carried burning lamps and just poured a few drops of ghee from their own lamps into the lamps on the altars. I'm assuming that someone wised up to the risk factor involved when hundreds of people carrying open flames are packed into a 1300-year-old building. It's a smart move but it does reduce the romance factor a bit. (I was also happy to see the presence of fire extinguishers is all the monasteries we visited. As you may remember from my blogs about Bhutan, virtually every monastery there has burned down at least once during its lifetime, taking all the written history of the country with it.)

After our visit to the Jokhang we set out onto the open road to start our journey westward. Tibet has very few roads and as much as the Chinese are working hard to make everything look fabulous to the outside world in time for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, there are far more roadworks to contend with than actual finished roads. Virtually all roads are unpaved, pitted with potholes and ruts, dusty beyond belief and frequently under water at river crossings. Needless to say, the going was agonizingly slow. Since we travelled at about 40 kph and covered a couple of thousand kilometers under these circumstances, it made for many hours bumping along in the back of the jeeps inhaling lungfuls of dust. We travelled in a convoy of three Land Cruisers and a big "China Post" cube van which carried our camping gear, food and cooks.

We had a fairly easy drive the first day and arrived at Gyantse by dinner time. The next day we visited the Gyantse monastery as well as the dzong sitting high on a hill overlooking the town. The monastery is home to the largest chorten in Tibet. There are 77 chapels within the chorten spread out over five or more levels. Each chapel is a small room accessed from the outdoor hallway and contained a statue or two. It was interesting but somewhat repetitive for me. The climb between storeys on the interior stairways was frightening at times with crowds pushing you up or down the pitch-black ladder-ways. This was definitely not an activity for the claustrophobic.

The dzong was a fascinating building constructed on many levels over the hilltop. It is largely in ruins but we were able to scramble around to see much of the old room and different views of the town and surrounding countryside. There are some very primitive exhibits in some of the intact rooms depicting the activities that were carried out there. I really enjoyed our visit here, despite whacking my head so hard into a low door frame that the entire hill shook.

After our visit to the dzong, we at lunch and drove a few hours to the city of Shigatse. There was a lot of activity going on here...buskers in the park, an opera on the grounds of the monastery and a general party atmosphere. Nobody was able to explain to us if this was a special occasion or if it was a usual Sunday afternoon. I decided to take some time for myself and did a kora of the monastery in the late afternoon. This is a walk of over an hour and the path is lined with prayer wheels the whole way. I had a wonderful time spinning the wheels, chanting my prayers and enjoying stellar views of the merriment below from the hillside. There weren't many other pilgrims doing the kora with me, but I shared a few lovely interactions with picnicking families and other Tibetans along the path.

The next morning we had our official visit of the monastery. This is the seat of the Panchen Lama who is second only to the Dalai Lama in the Gelugpa sect of Buddhism. The fifth to tenth Panchen Lamas are interred at this monastery. The latest reincarnation of the Panchen Lama was arrested by the Chinese government at the age of six in 1995 and continues to live under Chinese custody in an unknown location. The Chinese have declared a different (Chinese of course) Panchen Lama who lives in freedom in China. The Panchen Lama is of particular importance as he is largely responsible for identifying the new incarnation of the Dalai Lama. Anyway...enough politics. Suffice it to say that this is a very significant monastery. We sat in on a opera on the monastery grounds - discovered I am no more a fan of Tibetan opera than Wagner.

The next day we visited Sakya monastery. The main hall was closed for renovations but we visited some other chapels and got blessed by a Lama with a conch shell - a first for me a supposedly very special. We were able to walk on top of the walls surrounding the monastery, which allowed us to watch the day-to-day workings inside the monastery as well as to see some great views of the surrounding village and valley. From this vantage point we were able to watch some more debating in a monastery courtyard and to see the monks bringing provisions (including a case of beer!) into their quarters.

Apart from the visit to Sakya monastery, this day was spent entirely in the car. We had our first night of camping and learned that campsites were established wherever we wanted them and could find water. Given the amount of open space in this country, the options are endless. The following three days were all travel days with little to break up the monotony. Some highlights:

- We encountered roadworks which required that we sit by the road for hours waiting to get through
- We then had to sit in a dinky little town on the other side of the roadworks waiting for the cook truck to catch up to us. Fortunately we found beer there.
- Catherine lost my water bottle which is a problem as water is kind of a necessity. The fact that she didn't apologize didn't help matters. Fortunately Kaye and Ross (Aussies) came to the rescue and donated one of theirs.
- We had to sit in the middle of roadworks on the dustiest stretch of road in the world waiting for permits to be prepared in Darchen.

You get the picture...it was long and not terribly fun. We did get a quick glimpse of Mt. Kailash through the clouds as well as our first look at Lake Manasarovar which is both sacred and beautiful. We camped for a couple of days on a large plain near the hot springs at Tithapuri. On that note, I'll publish this post and start on a new one.