Seven Days in Tibet
Or "How I learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Communists".
Well, not quite.
Tibet used to be an independent country from the end of the Chinese Emperors in 1911 until 1950 when the Chinese invaded. Come to Nepal and peruse any bookshop and you will see countless volumes devoted to this and the Tibetan Government in Exile currently in Dharamasala in India. This is where the Dalai Lama currently lives. There are also a lot of native Tibetans in Nepal waiting for the time that they can go home in freedom. But that's not going to happen soon.
Tibet it currently the TAR ("Tibetan Autonomous Region") in a similar though less liberal way as Hong Kong currently is. “One country - two systems,” is what the Commies tout though this is of course bollocks. Until very recently all forms of Tibetan culture were enthusiastically repressed by the Chinese army who still man massive military bases on the plateau. These days the Tibetans can practise Buddhism and other cultural artefacts like their national colours (red, blue, and yellow) and dress are deemed okay. However if, as a tourist, you were caught with a picture of the Dalai Lama or the old Tibetan flag you would probably be forced to sign a confession of some sort and then deported. You would not get a Chinese visa again ("Fine! Don't want one anyway!"). If you were a Tibetan or Chinese caught in the same way you would probably be sent away for a hefty dose of re-education.
I was only planning to spend a few days in Tibet as an excursion from Chengdu. We flew from Chengdu into Lhasa, the principle City here, and almost as soon as I touched the tarmac I knew that I wanted to stay a bit longer. Everywhere you look this time of year are mountains, big brown ones. The journey from the airport into the City itself passes through many villages made from low flat mud brick houses decorated in white and the Tibetan colours.
It sounds corny, because it is, though I was spellbound by the place as soon as I arrived. The air was clear, the scenery stirring, and the Tibetans were open and friendly. Their curiosity in us white men is tempered by their sense of humour. In short it is a world away from what China was becoming to me. The Tibetans also speak very good English. Walking down one of the main drags in Lhasa (it was as mod road when I was there), I was approached by an old man and his granddaughter. The child then asked if she could speak to me in English. We spoke and though her vocabulary was small she was only about 5 and her accent was spot-on. I was impressed. That set the tone for the stay.
There are a lot of things to see in Lhasa, and Tibet really, and those things are the Temples and Monasteries. There used to be about 6000 of them across the country though since the Chinese Cultural revolution in the 1960’s many of them have been smashed or simply abandoned. The Chinese Government, to their credit, have started to restore many of them and to replace looted Tibetans relics back to their rightful places so some of the monasteries that you see look as good as new.
I’m not a very spiritual person, so after I’d seen my tenth monastery I began to tire of them. They do all have the same basic structure, like churches, though the walls are richly decorated with hand painted murals done floor to ceiling and some of them date back hundreds of years. There are a few temples too with gold Buddhas standing almost 30 yards tall. These are impressive. The devotion of the momaks and the pilgrims is also impressive. A Buddhist pilgrim carries a paryer-wheel. This is simple a brass wheel attached to a wand they they spin on its axle. Inside the wheel is a long strip of paper with a prayer on it. Each spin of the wheel equals one recitation of the prayer. This keeps them out of purgatory for a while. Others prostrate on the floor as they move, that is they kneel and touch the floor with their noses. I guess doing this instead of just using the handheld wheel means that their prayers count for more, like frequent flyer miles. I got some good pictures of prostrating pilgrims. They all smile and say hello too, which I thought was good mannered.
The one thing that I will remember from the monasteries is the smell. They burn many candles and oil lamps in them and the fat they use comes exclusively from Yaks. This tallow gives off a very pungent smell when burned and it made me feel quite ill! Pilgrims too often bring with them lumps or thermos flasks full of this stuff with them so that they can add to the lamps thus keeping them out of purgatory for another day or so. Some pilgrims take no chances, spinning as many wheels as they can carry and canting their prayers. Some of the older monks in the monasteries would chant in their beautiful deep voices, sometimes many in unison. This set the hairs on the back of my neck on end and was something to behold.
Yak seems to form the backbone of the Tibetan society. They eat its meat; they burn its fat for lamps; they burn its poo for fuel (it’s smokeless and does not smell); and they use its skin for clothing. Not much of the yak is wasted. I enjoyed a Yak steak while I was there and it tasted very nice. It does not taste like beef though; it has its own flavour.
The only problem for me in all of Tibet is the lunchtime dust storm. Tibet is mainly desert and in the afternoon when the mountains warm up from the intense sunshine it causes strong winds. This blows the dust up and always sends it my way. But there are no shortage of cafes and restaurants here to shelter in and the local beer is always cold. It was in one of these places where Matt and I met up with some other travellers, which was good because it meant that I could make plans to travel further into the Tibetan countryside.
On the way into Lhasa I met up with a Belgian bloke called Stijn who was going to go on a trek through Tibet. With him I met another guy called Mike who happened to be writing for the Lonely Planet guide book and was trying to get a group of people together for a trip to the Yarlung Valley as he needed to update that section. I jumped at the chance because this was quite a remote area and to get to any of these places you need to either walk (yeah right) or charter a Toyota Landcruiser. The more people you have the cheaper it is. So Mike managed to get a couple of other chaps in the form of Dave, a Brit, and Carl, a native of Cincinnati, onto the trip.
I was looking forward to this as I had been in Lhasa for a few days and wanted to see more having acclimatised to the altitude (at 3400 metres this was higher than most places in Europe). I had seen the Landcruisers around the City, all new models with air-con and tinted windows. I couldn’t wait to see ours and meet our guide and driver.
It turned out ours was an ’87 Landcruiser with a spare tyre and finished in hearing-aid beige. Oh well, 7 guys in the back of one of these things making our way across Tibet without a plan (well, Mike had a plan but I didn’t). What could possibly happen?
Well, not quite.
Tibet used to be an independent country from the end of the Chinese Emperors in 1911 until 1950 when the Chinese invaded. Come to Nepal and peruse any bookshop and you will see countless volumes devoted to this and the Tibetan Government in Exile currently in Dharamasala in India. This is where the Dalai Lama currently lives. There are also a lot of native Tibetans in Nepal waiting for the time that they can go home in freedom. But that's not going to happen soon.
Tibet it currently the TAR ("Tibetan Autonomous Region") in a similar though less liberal way as Hong Kong currently is. “One country - two systems,” is what the Commies tout though this is of course bollocks. Until very recently all forms of Tibetan culture were enthusiastically repressed by the Chinese army who still man massive military bases on the plateau. These days the Tibetans can practise Buddhism and other cultural artefacts like their national colours (red, blue, and yellow) and dress are deemed okay. However if, as a tourist, you were caught with a picture of the Dalai Lama or the old Tibetan flag you would probably be forced to sign a confession of some sort and then deported. You would not get a Chinese visa again ("Fine! Don't want one anyway!"). If you were a Tibetan or Chinese caught in the same way you would probably be sent away for a hefty dose of re-education.
I was only planning to spend a few days in Tibet as an excursion from Chengdu. We flew from Chengdu into Lhasa, the principle City here, and almost as soon as I touched the tarmac I knew that I wanted to stay a bit longer. Everywhere you look this time of year are mountains, big brown ones. The journey from the airport into the City itself passes through many villages made from low flat mud brick houses decorated in white and the Tibetan colours.
It sounds corny, because it is, though I was spellbound by the place as soon as I arrived. The air was clear, the scenery stirring, and the Tibetans were open and friendly. Their curiosity in us white men is tempered by their sense of humour. In short it is a world away from what China was becoming to me. The Tibetans also speak very good English. Walking down one of the main drags in Lhasa (it was as mod road when I was there), I was approached by an old man and his granddaughter. The child then asked if she could speak to me in English. We spoke and though her vocabulary was small she was only about 5 and her accent was spot-on. I was impressed. That set the tone for the stay.
There are a lot of things to see in Lhasa, and Tibet really, and those things are the Temples and Monasteries. There used to be about 6000 of them across the country though since the Chinese Cultural revolution in the 1960’s many of them have been smashed or simply abandoned. The Chinese Government, to their credit, have started to restore many of them and to replace looted Tibetans relics back to their rightful places so some of the monasteries that you see look as good as new.
I’m not a very spiritual person, so after I’d seen my tenth monastery I began to tire of them. They do all have the same basic structure, like churches, though the walls are richly decorated with hand painted murals done floor to ceiling and some of them date back hundreds of years. There are a few temples too with gold Buddhas standing almost 30 yards tall. These are impressive. The devotion of the momaks and the pilgrims is also impressive. A Buddhist pilgrim carries a paryer-wheel. This is simple a brass wheel attached to a wand they they spin on its axle. Inside the wheel is a long strip of paper with a prayer on it. Each spin of the wheel equals one recitation of the prayer. This keeps them out of purgatory for a while. Others prostrate on the floor as they move, that is they kneel and touch the floor with their noses. I guess doing this instead of just using the handheld wheel means that their prayers count for more, like frequent flyer miles. I got some good pictures of prostrating pilgrims. They all smile and say hello too, which I thought was good mannered.
The one thing that I will remember from the monasteries is the smell. They burn many candles and oil lamps in them and the fat they use comes exclusively from Yaks. This tallow gives off a very pungent smell when burned and it made me feel quite ill! Pilgrims too often bring with them lumps or thermos flasks full of this stuff with them so that they can add to the lamps thus keeping them out of purgatory for another day or so. Some pilgrims take no chances, spinning as many wheels as they can carry and canting their prayers. Some of the older monks in the monasteries would chant in their beautiful deep voices, sometimes many in unison. This set the hairs on the back of my neck on end and was something to behold.
Yak seems to form the backbone of the Tibetan society. They eat its meat; they burn its fat for lamps; they burn its poo for fuel (it’s smokeless and does not smell); and they use its skin for clothing. Not much of the yak is wasted. I enjoyed a Yak steak while I was there and it tasted very nice. It does not taste like beef though; it has its own flavour.
The only problem for me in all of Tibet is the lunchtime dust storm. Tibet is mainly desert and in the afternoon when the mountains warm up from the intense sunshine it causes strong winds. This blows the dust up and always sends it my way. But there are no shortage of cafes and restaurants here to shelter in and the local beer is always cold. It was in one of these places where Matt and I met up with some other travellers, which was good because it meant that I could make plans to travel further into the Tibetan countryside.
On the way into Lhasa I met up with a Belgian bloke called Stijn who was going to go on a trek through Tibet. With him I met another guy called Mike who happened to be writing for the Lonely Planet guide book and was trying to get a group of people together for a trip to the Yarlung Valley as he needed to update that section. I jumped at the chance because this was quite a remote area and to get to any of these places you need to either walk (yeah right) or charter a Toyota Landcruiser. The more people you have the cheaper it is. So Mike managed to get a couple of other chaps in the form of Dave, a Brit, and Carl, a native of Cincinnati, onto the trip.
I was looking forward to this as I had been in Lhasa for a few days and wanted to see more having acclimatised to the altitude (at 3400 metres this was higher than most places in Europe). I had seen the Landcruisers around the City, all new models with air-con and tinted windows. I couldn’t wait to see ours and meet our guide and driver.
It turned out ours was an ’87 Landcruiser with a spare tyre and finished in hearing-aid beige. Oh well, 7 guys in the back of one of these things making our way across Tibet without a plan (well, Mike had a plan but I didn’t). What could possibly happen?