Tashi deli everyone,
“Lhasa is all fucked up.”, said Bernard turning his nose up at all the Internet cafes, the PLA (Army) led Chinese tour groups, the Lonely Planet toting Westerners and the cheesecake and pizza selling Tibetan restaurants. I imagined him thinking; “I mean really, cheesecake in China! Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
Then I remembered that he wasn’t English, and besides no one talks like this anymore.
Unconsciously paraphrasing “The Beach”, a sort of backpacker’s bible around here, this Belgian had just spent four and a half weeks hitching, walking around landslides, disguising himself and hiding from the PSB (Police), in order to traverse the foreigner-banned North Sichuan highway between Chengdu and Lhasa.
“I haven’t seen another tourist for over a month”, he boasted proudly.
Had I four weeks to spare, and perhaps a few years less experience, I might have attempted this route.
Nonetheless his words did sting. What with Kathmandu and Lhasa, this
intrepid journey of mine has begun to resemble something of a loaf around Asia lately, far less anything adventurous. The journey up to Lhasa by Toyota Landcruiser took four days on a dusty road at times breathtaking, at times treacherous, entirely un-navigable after dark and never, never dull. If nothing else, one has to admire the tenacity of the Chinese road builders.
The road ascends from the Kodari border post at 1500m to it’s highest point at 5220m within two days. It passes through numerous tunnels, rivers and waterfalls and requires constant maintenance as a result. At 5000m there is half the amount of oxygen there is at sea level and altitude sickness is a real problem. Not one of our group was un-affected. Headaches and sleeplessness were common. Two of the group were retching after we had crossed the highest pass. By the time we had descended to Lhasa at 3800m, though comparatively underwater in Tibetan terms, everyone had recovered.
Unfortunately, due to the constant cloud cover we were denied 20 percent of the experience of this trip, in particular a sight of Mount Everest on the second day. Without the snowcapped peaks in the distance, the Tibetan landscape looks much like others: Long wide plains flanked on either side by gently sloping well-eroded mountains. The valleys are typically split by huge rivers. Tibet holds the headwaters of the Yangtse and the Mekong among others.
Outside the towns, the Tibetans are mostly peasant farmers and farm with rapeseed and wheat. Red-cheeked, cheerful, unwashed and draped in Turquoise they stand beside the road selling pieces of quartz and
fossils to passing tourists.
The border post at Kodari-Zhang Mu was a tame affair and surprisingly
no-one was searched. This was probably due to the fact that we were on a CITS (Chinese) Tour. Come to think of it, I could have been carrying a stack of Dali Lama photos and Soygal Rinpoche tapes and no one would have batted an eyelid.
The Tibetan monasteries were great fun; Tibetan gate keepers discussing
politics with all and sundry, just so long as there weren’t any Chinese within hearing distance; young Buddhist Monks taking you furtively aside, eyes looking this way and that: “Dalailamafoto?” Pissed-off looking Yaks being chased about the hillside by zoom lens cameras attached to tourists. Little boys bravely running up to you, feeling your hairy legs and then dashing for cover laughing hysterically.
