Tibet Tour 3

When we arrived in Chiu Gompa, we heard the sad news that there were some problems in Darchen shortly after we left. Apparently the Chinese government, who had three months previously granted a permit to allow the erection of a huge statue of Buddha on hillside, had now decided that the statue must come down. The lama from the gompa that I had visited that morning, and who had sponsored the building of the statue, threatened to leave his monastery if the statue was removed. About 50 townspeople protested and the Chinese sent in 1000 troops in response. Shots were fired but fortunately nobody was hurt. Apparently the head of the statue was lopped off. All of this is unsubstantiated and came to us via the Tibetan grapevine. We have seen no news of it in the west, which isn't surprising given that the guesthouses were all locked down when the trouble began, so there weren't any witnesses who would take the news out of China. A couple of days later we were still meeting tour groups on the road who were not being allowed to go to Darchen ostensibly because there was some disease among the sheep that their vehicles were spreading. I guess we'll never know the true story of what happened there, but we missed it by inches. Had we finished the kora as planned, we would have walked back into town right into the middle of it, so I guess it was ultimately a good thing that we had to abort it.

The weather was clear in Chiu Gompa so I crossed the bridge and climbed the hill to the monastery. It sits up high, overlooking Lake Manasarovar and is really lovely. I followed a group of pilgrims through the various chapels and we had great fun photographing each other. Later that evening, it was Arnaud's birthday (Dutch guy) so we celebrated in the dining room of our guest house. All the staff joined us and it was a fun evening filled with singing and merriment. The Tibetans insisted that everyone sing a song specific to their country. If you didn't want to sing, you had to go around the room and have a drink with everyone there. I'm always stumped in these situations - I never want to sing "Frere Jacques" and can never come up with any other typically Canadian songs. I sang Bryan Adams' "Summer of 69" this time which was a good choice as the Aussies joined in and helped me out. I reciprocated when Kaye did "Waltzing Matilda".

The next day was pretty lazy as we were still using up the extra time from the kora. I did some laundry in a hot pool by the river, watched the others hang some prayer flags at the monastery and wandered around the lake shore. There was finally some clear weather over Mt. Kailash and we got great views of it from the gompa. I'm still disappointed that I didn't get the whole Kailash experience, but I really feel the universe had its reasons for keeping us away. We visited the bath house in the afternoon which was welcome after a few days without washing.

The next day was spent in the car with a short stop for lunch. We also stopped briefly in the town of Paryang, which is quite possibly the shittiest little town anywhere in the world. There is just no other word that can describe it. There is a garbage heap in the middle of town and the most disgusting pit toilet I have ever used in my life. I think it serves the whole town (e.g. it's not just for travellers passing through) and I just can't imagine living in those conditions. Another hour or two of driving later and we camped in the middle of nowhere.

Another day of driving and we camped near Saga where we had been before. We were able to go into town and take a shower and use the internet. This was followed by another day of driving through fairly tedious landscape. Towards the end we went through a beautiful valley, chock full of ruins and lovely untouched Tibetan villages. This area reminded me a lot of Mustang and it was nice to see a bit of Tibet that China hasn't managed to tarnish, which is surprising given that it's on a tourist route. Of course we just booted right through the valley without stopping to visit anything or take any photos. (This is why I like trekking so much - you have lots of time to explore at your leisure.) At the end of the valley we turned a corner and caught our first sighting of Everest and Cho Oyo. These mountains, which I had seen about five months ago from Nepal, are much closer and more dramatic from the Tibet side. We camped in a lovely field near the town of Lao Tingre with clear views of Everest and Cho Oyo from our campsite. Pretty amazing.

We got up early the next day and drove for several hours over crazy roads to reach Everest base camp. There is a five kilometer hike in from the parking lot, which is very easy going and follows a well maintained road. Those who don't want to walk can hire a pony cart to take them up and back. The first few hundred meters of the walk is lined with tents offering cheap souvenirs, lodging, food and other necessities. We enjoyed the walk and got some great photos and views of Everest on the path and at base camp. There were no expeditions there at this time of year, but the camp itself looked much more hospitable than the one on the Nepalese side. We hung some prayer flags, took our photos and headed down after an hour and a half or so.

We then visited Rombuk monastery, which will be a familiar name for anyone who's read anything about the history of climbing Everest. It's a lovely little monastery and is certainly in a fabulous setting, but I felt we were rushed through it a bit. It's the kind of place that warrants spending some time just for the atmosphere. It is interesting in that it is currently inhabited by both monks and nuns, which I hadn't seen before anywhere in the Buddhist world. After Rombuk we headed back to camp for dinner and a party with our staff, most of whom would be leaving our company the next day.

Another morning of driving with a stop at a magnificent pass with great views of the Himalayas. From the pass we could see Manaslu, Everest, Lhotse, Cho Oyo and Shishapangma (the only 8000 metre peak entirely in Tibet). We had lunch at a town called Nyalam where we had to wait for a few hours until the road opened up. They are doing roadworks on it, and given the steep, narrow and dangerous nature of the road they close it to traffic while they're working. We finally got back on the road at about 6:00 and made our way down to Zhamgmu at the Nepalese border. Traffic was clearly one-way and I'm not sure when people going in the other direction get their turn on the road. Despite the mess of the road and spine-tingling drop-offs, it was a beautiful drive through the hills. We were finally below the tree-line so it actually looked a lot like a more dramatic version of home, filled with forests, waterfalls and wild switch-backs.

Zhangmu is a crazy border town complete with all the vices that find their way into these environments. Vehicles are not allowed to cross the border between Tibet and Nepal, so there are 18-wheelers parked virtually everywhere on both sides of the border. The cargo is unloaded off the Nepalese trucks and reloaded onto the Chinese trucks (and vice versa) at the border. Like the road leading down to it, Zhangmu is built up the side of a hill. The roads are steep and narrow and even more frightening with 18-wheelers lining them all the way through town.

We arrived just in time for everything to be closed but finally found some dinner in a high-end hotel. The walk home at about 10:30 introduced us to the seedier side of town: every second building appeared to be a brothel disguised as a beauty parlour, disco or, well, brothel. I guess all those truck drivers need something to do while their loads are being rearranged. Our hotel was less than wonderful: the beds were lumpy and smelled of mould and cigarettes, many of the window panes were missing, the communal toilet hadn't been cleaned in years and right downstairs we had a - you guessed it - brothel. Fortunately the streets were fairly quiet at night (when the border crossing is closed there is nowhere else to go)but there were some dogs interrupting the silence of the night. Also interrupting the silence of the night was a knock-down, drag-out brawl in the hallway outside our rooms that went on for almost an hour. New voices seemed to come in and out of the fight as it progressed and what we think was a TV was smashed along the way. We woke to the resulting shattered glass throughout the hallway in the morning. Shortly after the fight ended at about 2:30, things really started heating up in the brothel downstairs and we were treated to the thumping base of the music there. Such a delightful place - I'd love to see their tourist brochures.

The next morning we managed to find some breakfast (this is clearly not a morning town)and get our yuan changed to rupees by the black marketeers in the street. Then the carnival began. Our drivers brought the cars and we loaded our gear and jumped in, hoping to get a spot in line at the Chinese immigration office at the bottom of town. We were immediately told to get out and walk to the immigration office. It turns out that the vehicles start lining up as soon as the gates close the night before so the whole lower part of the town is actually a queue of vehicles waiting to clear immigration. For some reason that is unknown to us, our drivers did not put their cars into the queue when we arrived the night before, so they were starting out several kilometres back from the gate. Given the narrowness of the streets, the queue of cars and the other vehicles parked on the side of the road, the street through town is jam packed with all manner of vehicles. It was hard to navigate around them on foot and I'm not sure what happens if a resident actually wants to go somewhere at this time.

We arrived at the immigration office and Sonam immediately managed to move us to the front of the pedestrian queue (which went almost as far up the street through town as the vehicle one did). The gates finally opened at 10:00 (we had been told 9:30) and we cleared quickly and easily. We came out the other side and now had to wait for our cars to clear. Given that they were dead last in the queue, this was quite a wait. As the cars came through the gate, they would look for their passengers who were clearing immigration on foot. If the passengers hadn't made it through yet, the car would just stop and wait for them, holding up the queue of vehicles behind it. (Remember the narrow streets only allow one-way traffic with no possibility of passing. Again I'm not sure what happens when someone actually comes towards Tibet from Nepal - maybe there are specific time slots for each direction.) This has to be the most poorly-conceived system of anything that I've ever seen in my life. There was no attempt to coordinate the movement of the cars with their passengers - it wsa just total mayhem. Anyway, there we sat like orphans on the side of the road looking desperately for our vehicles, while other passengers and vehicles came and went, matching up cars with cargo. Needless to say, there was no toilet here or anything else of any kind that might have provided comfort. Our cars finally arrived and we gratefully jumped in and started down the hill.

The road between Chinese immigration and the "Friendship Bridge" which marks the border is seven kilometres long. It is a series of switch-backs down a very steep hill - probably a distance of less than a few hundred metres as the crow flies and about one kilometre as the stone drops. At the village near the bridge we said our goodbyes to Sonam and the drivers and walked across the bridge on foot, accompanied by our new Nepalese guide. Once on the Nepalese side, I immediately felt at home and the weight of China was lifted from my shoulders. Interesting that I had never noticed it until it was gone. We cleared Nepalese customs easily and climbed aboard a bus to drive us the few hours to Kathmandu.

I'm not sure if I was influenced by the joy of being "home", but the drive from the border to the Kathmandu valley was one of the prettiest I've seen here. When I come back, I'd really like to visit that part of the country again. We were treated to a constant barrage of waterfalls, rivers, gorges, forests, terraced fields, pretty towns and beautiful people.

Most of my tour-mates chose to get off the bus at a town about 1.5 hours outside Kathmandu to spend a few days in the "countryside", but I was anxious to get back. We met up again a few days later when they got to town and we said our goodbyes then. I am now on my own in Kathmandu and the clock is ticking on my visa. I am very busy trying to make travel arrangements and generally get my life together, which is why it has taken me so long to get these posts published (and why they're so poorly written). I'll blog again shortly with all the Kathmandu details.

My photos are all posted at www.flickr.com/photos/feelitturn. Please note that many of them were taken through the window of a moving car, or in fact by me hanging out the open window of a moving car, so you'll have to excuse the quality.

Stay tuned for news of what's coming up next....