Ok, ok.... Now I know in my last blog I mentioned some of the many awesome things I was planning to do during my winter vacation. Well guess what? I did them all! I apologize for the tardiness in this blog post. It takes me quite an effort to access this blog due to the fact that blogs are blocked in this country, and that due to the recent events in Tibet, their web security and sites that have been blocked have increased nearly ten-fold. Anyways on with the show!
As you may recall during my last post, I was heading to Tibet in a few days. Well we got there! We being myself and Nick, a friend who teaches in Zhong Shan; which is about an hour boat ride from Hong Kong. The train we took to Tibet from Chengdu took around 50 hours. It went up and up on the Tibetan plateau, and it was fun to watch the altimeters located around the train go up and up the further we got to Lhasa, which is the Capital of Tibet. If I thought I received many stares from people in Xiamen. They paled in comparison to the stares Nick and I received on that train to Lhasa. For probably 20 hours of this trip, a man sat outside our cabin and just stared into our souls. It was a bit uncomfortable for the first hour or two, but after that we just got used to it. The tickets we received were for "hard-sleeper" cabins. Which meant that there were 6 beds, stacked, bunk bed style, in each cabin, with no doors on the cabin to seal it from the walk way outside the door. In this walk way is where our friend sat and watched us for those memorable hours, while Nick and I played chess, talked, and tried to fathom what we had gotten ourselves into.
Outside the windows of our cabin there was literally nothing but huge expanses of foothills, small rivers, and shepherds tending their yaks. It was incredible, and in stark contrast to the city-scape which I had become increasingly used to in my many months in Xiamen. Once we reached around 3000 meters they began handing out oxygen masks to people in the train. Neither Nick nor I felt as if we needed it so we simply put them away. This was the beginning of our current knowledge of altitude sickness. Once we arrived in Lhasa, which is only around 3500 meters we walked to the bus station and took a quick 10 minutes bus ride downtown. Lhasa was nothing like I expected, there were billboards, car dealerships, malls, and all the usual things one would expect to see in a large city. Not quite the remote Tibet I had pictured. Within 10 minutes of leaving the bus and walking around, I began to feel the altitude, it felt as if I was walking in cement boots. It was hard to breathe, and I felt a pounding in my head, Nick and I found a hostel and took a break for the rest of the day.
The following day, we visited the Potala Palace, the former home of the Dalai Llama. It was quite the undertaking to walk up the steps, and we stopped for air every few steps. The palace was beautiful, with thousands of old relics and other Sculptures of various Buddhist deities.
We then returned to the area around our hostel and sat down for some lunch of Yak meat with Yak butter tea. This tea is the traditional drink of Tibetans, it is full of fat and other calories which help Tibetans keep hydrated and warm throughout the day. Imagine drinking a melted stick of heavily salted butter, that is what this tea tastes like; and when it cools down it tastes much worse. Yak meat, on the other hand was actually quite delicious, the closest things I can think of in regards to its taste would probably be venison.
When we returned to the hostel we met a guy from Australia named Mark, we talked with him and found out that he wanted to see many of the places in Tibet that we did, and he spoke nearly fluent Mandarin. So the three of us ended up going to Shigatse the next day, to receive our permits for traveling in Tibet. You see, in Tibet you need to have permits to enter Lhasa, as well as to travel to other cities and regions. The bus ride we took to Shigatse left at 6 in the morning the next day we were told. Unfortunately we didn't realize that the bus we were going to take only started loading at 6, and all told we sat on that bus until 8:30 waiting for it to fill up. Once the bus filled up, we were off to Shigatse. However it seemed as it we had booked a "party bus" of sorts as immediately after moving, the TV in the front of the bus flipped on and began blaring 80's Nepalese music videos throughout the entire bus. Although, I lucked out because I happened to be sitting directly underneath a speaker, so about 15 minutes into the bus ride I became deaf and could no longer hear the music.
When the bus stopped to give everyone a break, it stopped in the middle of nowhere, and the three of us were left wondering where to go to the bathroom. We needn't have worried however because everyone simply got off the bus and went into the ditch to to their business, while the bus driver got off to buy some Budweiser. I guess he had become weary driving the large bus through the myriad of switchback turns our route to Shigatse had taken us on and needed an eye opener at 9:30 in the morning.
Eventually we arrived in Shigatse, only to have some issues with the permits. From there we negotiated terms with Taxi drivers to take us to Gyantse to see another amazing monastery. There is no public transportation within Tibet, which makes it extremely difficult to get around, thankfully many cab drivers speak mandarin and are more than willing to rip off foreigners for rides to various places.
We stayed a few nights in Gyantse, seeing some more monasteries, and acclimating ourselves to ever higher altitudes before our final push to see Qomalangma (Mt. Everest). Then we finally made our push to Tingri, a tiny town where we had to buy park permits and hire a driver in order to see Everest. After much deliberation with the driver, we finally decided on a price which worked for us and planned on leaving the following morning. So we left the offices to spend our night in Tingri, a town with no electricity, and even fewer inhabitants. Tingri was an interesting place, as there wasn't much to do, and one can walk the entire length of it in 5 minutes.
We spend the night in a small hotel, and it turned out to be one of the more worthwhile nights in Tibet. The family who owned the hotel slept in the only room with heat in it. So we did card tricks, and played cards with them for as long as possible to try and stay warm. In a traditional Tibetan home the living room is the same as the bedroom. In the morning the cushions are rearranged into a sitting room. This is done to create warmth for the family while sleeping. After we finished playing cards we went outside to the latrine, and I saw more stars than I've ever seen in my life, way more than I've ever seen in the boundary waters. In the morning we said our goodbyes and drove off to see Everest, in the dark, at 8 am. In China there is only one time zone, so in Tibet it generally became dark around 10-11 pm and light around 9. The trip to everest took around 3 hours of driving from Tingri, and it was constant switchbacks through the foothills. It was a beautiful drive, and awe-inspiring as I realized we were driving through the foothills of the Himalayas!
We reached everest! However, not base camp as I had hoped, we were stopped before reaching it by chinese military who were stationed there. They told us that they could not continue up there at the time due to the road being jammed with ice, and that a huge snowstorm had happened a few days before making the road even more impassable.
After staying near everest and drinking in as much as possible, we were told to leave by the military, and wish a sigh we complied. We then made our way back to Tingri, then Shigatse. Once we returned to Shigatse, we found a small van who took us back to Lhasa. This van was the scariest ride of my life, with most of the passengers smelling of Baijou, a Chinese alcohol that tastes like a mixture of gasoline, vodka, urine. The driver then asked Nick and I, who were sitting in the front seat if we knew any songs. So we had the van singing yellow submarine, and piano man, while this van was flying through hair raising turns and nearly flying into space off of many ledges quite a few times. To make matters even more interesting, Nick was sitting in the middle of the front set, with the manual shift on the floor between his legs. The driver would shift gears then rest his hand on Nick's leg, making the situation all the more hilarious for me, and more unnerving for Nick.
We eventually returned to Lhasa in one piece, spent the night, and found a flight to Chengdu the following morning. We were not about to take another 50 hour train ride. In Chengdu we parted ways with Mark and took a flight to Shen Zhen, then we took a bus to Hong Kong and spent the next few days there at Nicks' Aunt's apartment, who lives in beautiful Stanley Beach. There we went grocery shopping, and ate Western food to our hearts content, and watched the Super Bowl while eating an awesome breakfast. It was the perfect end to a trip to Tibet.
I returned back to Xiamen the next day and enjoyed the last week of my break relaxing. The new term started mid-February. The term has been going by really quickly so far. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I work 4 days a week now. I only have 2 day weekends which sucks, but it a good dose of reality for me. Lately it has been getting much more humid and today is it 90 degrees, not my kind of weather, but everyone I talk to tells me to get used to it as June and July will be much worse. It's amazing to think I only have about 3 and a half months left here, there are some things I will miss a lot, as I have decided not to return to this position for next year, but then again, there is no deep dish pizza here.
I hope that you are all doing well, it's been great receiving your emails with updates. They help to bite the home sick bug, which I still get occasionally although much less frequently now. I hope the weather wherever you are is as nice as it is here, although less humid. Until next time...which I assure you will not take nearly as long as last time.
