Aftera quick peek to make sure the offending fire was truly out, I locked my roomand headed downstairs towards the fresh, thin mountain air of Lhasa, Tibet.
At3686m above sea level, Lhasa is one of the highest cities in the world. I spent fivedays walking around this pilgrim’s destination, soaking up the atmosphere. Ivisited the imposing Potala Palace, the summer retreat of the Dali Lama untilhe was exiled to India. I sat quietly in the back of the temple listening tothe monotone chanting of the robe-clad monks as smoke from the yak buttercandles formed snake-like wisps swirling up shafts of light. I learnt a little about Buddhism, a complicated religion, but that would be another story all together.
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| Potala Palace Afew days earlier, just before arriving in Lhasa, we were dropped off on theside of a quiet gravel road in the Tibetan hills. From there, a three hour hiketook us to our home stay in a remote village high up in the mountains. The roomwe slept in was adorned with beautiful carved wood paneling, Tibetan fabrics,yak skins and a little clay oven with a crackling fire to keep us warm. Whilewe ate our dinner of veggies, yak meat and noodles, the man of the house, Kalzan,entertained us with his stories of the nomads and the farmers. There was ajoking rivalry between Kalzan, a farmer and Atticia, our guide, a nomad. Theydebated about which occupation was more respected. It was quite amusing to sitand watch them argue in their broken English about whether feeding pigs orshoveling yak manure was the more honourable career. |
Atticiamesmerized us further by playing a traditional Tibetan flute. With the dreamymusic, smoky air and smell of green tea, I felt like I was transported to anomad tent in the middle of the Tibetan Grasslands.
 Kalzan's family  |
| Kalzan and Atticia joking around |
The next morning after handshakes, hugs and photos, we left our host family andhiked back down into the valley where we caught our bus off to our next Tibetanexperience.
Thiscame in the form of a trip to a particular monastery. Our mode oftransport was a boat - well if you could call it a boat. It was a long woodenbarge-type vessel with slightly raised sides to sit on. If you weren’t on theouter edges, you stood. We shared this floating contraption with about ahundred local Tibetans and monks.
Aftera grueling day of travelling on bumpy roads, crowded floating things andwalking two kilometers along a dusty path, we finally arrived at the monastery.
Nowyou may think there is something romantic about staying in a 900 year oldmonastery in the Tibetan countryside along a river, candles flickering with themonks’ chanting lulling you to sleep - um, no - there was just enough time towash our faces, brave the questionable long-drop toilets and change into warmerclothes before the electricity got turned off. We sat by torchlight munching on some dry biscuits before wecollapsed into our sleeping bags from utter exhaustion.
5amand the monks were up and about, noisily clearing their throats and noses aftertheir night’s sleep.
Theromantic chanting of monks to slowly awake you from your sleep? I don’t thinkso. An authentic Tibetan experience – yes.
Next stop, Lhasa. Afteracclimatizing for a few days here, we were back on the road again. Actuallythere was no road. We were driving through a moonscape. Desolate and dry, with the odd horse and cart sharing the non-existant road. We could see our guesthouse in thedistance, a dot on the horizon, the only object higher than a meter in thisbarren valley.
Wedrove into the courtyard and were told to quickly move our backpacks into ourrooms as there was a dust storm on the way and they wanted us to get showeredbefore it blasted the place. I had a quick look around and noticed a giantcauldron on the roof of the guesthouse. Steam was billowing out the top whilean overly enthusiastic Tibetan added more wood to the fire, dancing around itlike a man possessed. “You wantshower?” he shouted down to us. “Alright.” I shouted back. “Where are the showers?” He hung precariouslyover the side of the roof and pointed to the door beneath him. “In there.”
Igrabbed my towel and soap and headed for the door. A bit of a shove with myshoulder dislodged it from its warped frame and I entered into a small concreteroom about four square meters in size. In the very middle of the ceiling was one small rusty showerhead. I hadbarely enough time to find a reasonably dry spot to put my clothes down thanwhen I heard a shout from outside, “OK, you ready!”
Awhoosh of boiling water came streaming out the showerhead. I jumped aside asthe scalding water splashed up against my feet. The next few minutes were spentquickly inserting my hand into the water, throwing it in the air to try andcool it down a bit and ducking into it as it fell back to the ground.
Needlessto say, I preferred leaving a bit of soap on myself rather than being boiledlike a potato.
Dressedin my thermals with my towel turban-wrapped around my head, I passed the nextunsuspecting person on the way to the shower. “I hope you like hot showers.” Isaid.
Thedust storm did arrive. It darkened the late afternoon sun until it felt likenight. We watched from our windows as the buildings on the other side of thecourtyard disappeared in a murky cloud.
Later,after the storm abated we headed to the kitchen where the mother of the houseproceeded to teach us how to make momos (dumplings stuffed with veggies and yakmeat).
Thetrick was to roll out the dough very thinly and then after a little blob offilling was placed in the middle of the disc, the momo was parceled up in aparticular way. Clockwise, twisting in a little bit of dough at a time, into apoint to finally seal the dumpling.
Wemade and steamed our own momos, so I opted out of the yak meat and chose justthe vegetables. Yak meat has a particular taste. If you’ve tasted really old,fatty mutton, that’s about what yak meat tastes like.
Anearly morning rise rewarded us with spectacular views of the mountains aroundthe far sides of the valley, hidden from us yesterday because of the dustyhaze.
Aswe pulled out of the guesthouse courtyard, an old man stood silhouetted againstthe morning sun while he lit his incense at the family shrine, waving thesmoking branches and chanting his morning prayers.
Drivingon through the day we came across a nomad camp and Atticia, our guide recognizedits inhabitants as some of his friends. He suggested we go and pay them a visitand explained to us to never refuse anything to eat or drink as it’s consideredvery rude.
Wegreeted a woman who had a big net spread out on the ground and was raking whatlooked like very dry chunky cottage cheese. “That’s yak cheese.” Atticiaexplained. “The tents are made from yak skin, the clothes are woven from yakwool, the yak bones are used to make tools and utensils, the yak hoofs areboiled for gelatin, yak meat is eaten, yak milk is drunk as well as made intobutter and tea.” Tea?
Yes,you heard right – tea. Yak buttertea. The nastiest stuff on the planet and we got offered this as we sat down inthe dimly lit tent.
“Thankyou.” I said politely, as I took the rather large cup of yak butter tea fromour host. He smiled back at me and only then did I notice he was sitting nextto a huge block of yak butter draped in newspaper. Atticia explained later thatits cold enough to store the butter just like that in the tent for extendedperiods of time. They don’t even seem to mind when it goes a bit rancid, whichis what my yak butter tea tasted like. Sipping very slowly I managed to letonly milliliters pass my lips in the hour that we sat there chatting with thehelp of Atticia’s translating.
Aswe got up to leave I stealthily hid the cup behind my cushion.
Backin the vehicle I frantically dug around in my pack for a mint of some sort,resorting finally to eating some toothpaste to rid my mouth of the vile taste.
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| Snowing at 5000m |
Hairraising and downright crazy best sums it up. We would pass big trucks onslippery roads with no barriers, where at times I would be staring out mywindow at a river thousands of feet below. A few heart-stopping hours later the weather cleared as wereached Gyatsola Pass at 5220m and soon after had our first glimpse of Mt.Everest. The Himalayan Mountain range looked as if it was floating in theheavens. As high as the clouds, it stood white and clear against a cobalt sky.
Laterin the day we arrived at Rongbuk Monastery. At 5100m this monastery is thehighest in the world and sits at the foot of the Rongbuk Glacier. Its only a fewhours walk from Everest Base Camp and with the elevation being so high, it wastough going just walking along a level path.
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| Yak grazing at the foot of Mt. Everest |
Finallywe arrived at the camp and made ourselves at home in one of the tents, thisparticular one called “Hotel California”.
Noodlesand green tea for dinner, some spectacular shots of Mt. Everest in the glow ofthe setting sun and it was time for bed.
Duringthe night I stepped outside for some fresh air as the tent became rather stuffywith smouldering dung fire smoke. I looked up at the diamond studded sky andimagined myself reaching out and grabbing a handful of stars, which would pour out through my fingers because there were so many.
Asthe morning shuffling started around me, I heaved myself onto my side,breathing as if I had just sprinted 100m due to the lack of oxygen in the air.
Ireached over to grab my water bottle only to discover it was frozen solid! Ifelt something warm shoved into my hand and looked up to the toothless grin ofour Tibetan tent lady. “Gleen Tea?” That warmed me up enough to get out of bed,walk outside into the fresh morning air and behold the spectacular view of Mt.Everest. The stream running by the camp was also frozen solid and I managed toget some interesting shots of the sun glinting through the thick shards ofbroken ice.
Idecided I would take the horse cart back down to the monastery, as my legs hadnot fully defrosted from the night before. Bouncing along the uneven track in anot particularly comfortable cart was bliss at this moment as I stared back atthe monolith of Everest, the highest mountain in the world, victory for some,tragedy for others, but at this moment a feeling of utter awe for me.
As we commenced our descent from the Himalayas,green vegetation started overtaking the barren landscape and by the time wewere half way down the white-knuckle ride of a pass, it felt like we were in asub-tropical climate.
The vehicle we were in was not allowed to crossthe border into Nepal, so we had to disembark and walk ourselves into Nepal andto our new transportation, a colourfully adorned bus complete with musicalhorn.
First we needed to pop into customs,which was no easy task as Nepal’s Dashain Festival was only a few days away andhundreds of goats were being herded through the streets. Dodging the head buttingsacrifices-to-be, we made it across the street and cleared customs. This took aconsiderable amount of time, allowing the goats to have made their way down thenarrow street by the time we emerged.
So the end of our Tibet trip had arrived. It is such a fascinating part of China. I canunderstand why they are so adamant to gain their independence. They truly are adifferent people to the Chinese; colourful, friendly and with a charm of theirown. We learnt to say hello (chew demo) in Tibetan and it warmed the heartto see how happy they were that we had learnt this word in their language.
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| Goats outside Kodari, Nepal Immigration office |
Tibet– a place where the bareness of the landscape is the canvas and the people arethe paint.
Together they are an amazing work of art.
Together they are an amazing work of art.
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| The Kora |
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| Monks in training |
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| Yak butter candle |
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| Yamdrok-Tso lake 4794m |
