No Rest 'till Everest

I'm trying to stay calm after accidentally deleting the last three days of writing... But here goes...

If I didn't explain this before, one needs an "alien travel permit," many permits in fact, to travel here in the so-called Tibetan Autonomous Region. And a Chinese government approved guide. And to leave Lhasa of course you need a driver because you can't just hop on a bus alone. So after months of emailing and document mailing and money wiring we got things all arranged for said permits and guides and drivers, and allow me to introduce the characters: We have a tall grumpy driver named Tawa- who continually presses cheap Chinese cigarettes on us despite our protestations and "Jesse" a soft spoken guide who speaks a bit of English and and Mandarin but mostly of course Tibetan, which is a little frustrating. But hey, we really didn't pay much for this so...

So off we went in our van (that had a sticker on it that said "land cruiser") out of Lhasa p

refecture and into the countryside, first nosing our way through the insane traffic of Lhasa, past the Muslim butchers on the edge of town, standing proudly in frontof massive yak carcasses in their shops, and onward past soldiers at attention in bulletproof glass boxes looking like mannequins or like toy soldiers still in their plastic boxes. Finally we made it out onto the "friendship highway" (friendship between who and whom I wonder?) a charming two lane country road where the insane driving and honking began in earnest, and I began toget a flavor of hinges driving I've heard so much about. At regular intervals there were five cars passing each other at once, with ample use made of both shoulders. And the road itself was filled with all manner of machine and beast- dogs and cats, goats and yaks jostled for space with tractors, pilgrims, nomads, trucks and land cruisers (a

nd Buicks of course) and EVERY ONE of which Tawa, our driver honked at. Commencing the honk from a distance of about a half a mile from each object which meant of course more or less constant honking. It was like a child getting to play driver as if the best thing about driving was gleefully honking. Even in the countryside, without much around it seemed incessant- I swear Ben and I looked at each other once and asked each other if Tawa had just honked at a tree. Yet, somehow either Tawa's driving or the dashboard ornamented with Boddhistavas and Buddhas and prayer flags kept us safe.

No matter, there was a lot to see along the way out to the city of Shigatse, where we'd spend the night and then onward to Everest. We paused at a mountain where our guide pointed out ladders painted on the side and explained that the mountain was still used for sky burials. A sky burial is a traditional Tibetan funeral, in which the body and organs are chopped into pieces and left ona mountaintop to return to nature,and the skull harvested to make a drinking cup (yes, we saw them for sale in the market) and the human femur made into a flute (yep, them too!). These serve both as offerings to the natural world and reminders of life's impermanence.

Stopped briefly at the scenic and holy salt lake of Yamdrok-tso, the shores of which pilgrims ceremonially circumambulate for seven days and which busloads of Chinese and Korean tourists unceremoniously dump their candy wrappers and plastic water bottles. From there we stopped briefly in what looked like a dusty town straight out the American West (save the Chinese and Tibetan signs) to the amazing monastery of Gyantse where there was also an amazing hilltop fortress straight out of the Tibet of my imagination. Onward past more monasteries nestled in the mountains, bright red and gold against the brown mountains, past one with a female incarnate lama and the monastery famous for practicing mediations that superheat the body to survive for days outside in the Tibetan winters.

We drove onward through the Himalayas about 20 miles north of the Bhutanese and then Indian frontier and finally arrived in Shigatse, second largest city in Tibet a depressing town by any standard, and its most redeeming quality being that the feeling of occupation by the Chinese was less apparent than in Lhasa. Still, the crackdown a few years ago and subsequent steep decline in tourism meant almost no restaurants that cater to westerners (as I mentioned in an earlier post, there can't be more than a few hundred westerners in all of Tibet right now) so we found the one restaurant with an "English" menu, passed on the steamed yak tongue and fried sheep lung specialties and got some delish pork with chilis that we only hoped was pork and not the enormous rat we'd seen scurrying around that suspiciously disappeared after wed ordered. The spiciest thing I'd ever eaten, it was delicious, so spicy that the pungent garlic tasted almost sweet. And much better than the breakfast offered this morning- yak butter tea and barley flour. Yes, take a spoonful of barley powder and a sip of tea and make porridge in your mouth! God it was awful. And yak butter tea, the ubiquituous beverage of the Tibetans- imagine if you will hot rancid milk, but saltier and greasier, and that will give you some sense of yak butter tea, which is just yak butter melted into hot water. Ugh, just the smell of it now makes me nauseous.

Anyway, onward we went, over 16000 ft passes bedecked with prayer flags, through flourescent green barley fields, all the while mountains looming in the background and the clouds barely above us in the enormous sky. We passed valleys dotted with nomad encampments and wild yaks and goats, hilltop hermitages and temples ancient and crumbling and temples more recently restored, past smaller and smaller villages of traditional tibetan architecture- whitewashed walls and mud bricks drying in the sun. We passed a monastery with a female incarnate lama, and the monastery best known for the monks who practice meditations to superheat their bodies to meditate outside in the Tibetan winter. We even passed within a few miles of the cave of Milarepa- Tibet's most famous magician-saint. Multiple miltary stops (Checkpoint Charlie Chans?) where we waited around while barely pubescent People's Liberation Army soldiers triple checked our passports and "Alien Travel Permits." Finally we came to last village of any size where the only thing they sold was water, cigarettes and oxygen cannisters, (really, I could have used those more in Beijing!) bought our water and turned down a dirt piste for the last bone jarring five hours. Everest (Qomolongma to the locals) began to appear, revealing a bit of her shoulders or flanks from behind a cloud then disappearing again. We finally passed the photogenic Rongphu Monastery - highest in the world, and one of the places one can stay near the base camp. We pressed on a bit further to a small nomad tent village where we ultimately spent the night in the shadow of Everest. We were well fed by our nomad family- some soup with homemade noodles and unidentifiable yak parts floating in it, and dipped outside for a now fully clear view of the world's highest mountain as the setting sun lit it up. Then, to bed, where we slept on blankets and carpets, kept warm by a stove that burned yak dung. The mother of the family sat around knitting and tending the yak dung stove while her kids ran around in their crotchless pants (cheaper than diapers I suppose, and greener? maybe?)

Up early to drive and then clamber the rest of the way up to base camp. Don't really know how to describe it- it was amazing and inspiring to be standing on that mountain. Base camp wasnt much- a hut, another army post, Tibet's worst toilet, and a whole lot of prayer flags and yaks. But just incredible, indescribable to be standing on that mountain... And to be at 16000 feet and knowing that the mountain is another two miles up vertically. So I suppose can say I came within a few miles of the summit of Mt. Everest?

I wonder what will happen when the glaciers melt on these incredible peaks, it will make climbing different for one thing, but certainly impact all of the rivers across asia- the Yangtse, the Mekong, the Indus and the Ganges...

The ride back, though beautiful, was interminable, now that we were just heading back to Shigatse. But we got to see the impressive Tashilunpo Monastery, seat of the Panchen Lama, second highest lama in Tibet and who chooses the next Dalai Lama (thus the Chinese are trying to control the Panchen Lama, in an long story of intrigue I wont get into but you can read about at Tashilunpo.org or probably on wikipedia). Tashilunpo is in great condition, probably because, as rumor has it, the place is riddled with Chinese spies and monks who have collaborated with the communists. It is like a medieval walled village, the outer wall lined with prayer wheels, and then a kora or circuit for pilgrims to walk inside, and it was again packed with pilgrims carrying their yak butter in nescafe commuter mugs tucked into their silver and turquoise clasps and pushing us along on the tide through the various temples. There was Tibet's largest Buddha at 26m (sitting down!), and numerous gold and silver stupas towering above us,and outside just amazing little cobblestone alleyways to wander around.

And from there, it was another five hours back to Lhasa. Uneventful with the exception of an amazing Szechuan lunch with a menu completely in Chinese. Our guide, who's English is limited and Mandarin apparently even more limited, unhelpfully pointed out everything on the menu and explained it as "meat with vegetable." Yes Jesse, but what meat, with what vegetable. We ultimately resorted to "menu dipping" pointing at random to two items on the menu. At least we knew the chicken and eggs would be fresh, local and free range as they were wandering aroud the front yard. And what we got was incredible- spicey chicken with ginger and squash and an amazing sliced potato with pork belly stirfry. Wow. Much better than the yak burger I had later (which incidentally, tastes just like a veggie burger. So my vegetarian friends, if you are thinking of eating meat- start with a yak burger).

Well, that was a long entry. Now, in a few hours we depart Lhasa and fly to Shangri-La. Yes kids, there is a Shangri-La, or at least a town the Chinese government decided to rename Shangri-La to boost tourism!

(Pictures: Ben & I at Everest, Yak, Gyanstse, Jesse & Tawa in the Nomad Tent, Map of Everest,)