TravelStream™ news feed for member tofudan on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/tofudan en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 22 Dec 2007 12:22:13 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1195598040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1195598040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1195598040/tpod.html Sat, 22 Dec 2007 12:22:13 -0500 Beijing to Bombay...my slightly unexpected return to Asia.

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Kathmandu, Nepal

the neighbourhood of thamel is where the vast majority of travelers and backpackers who visit kathmandu stay and consequently spend a lot of their time. it's a very compact area that's a riot of signage, touts, and traffic. my uncle who lived in kathmandu for several years once said to me that he thought thamel was unlike any other backpacker quarter in the world. i obviously have no empirical way to verify that...but thamel has an intensity to it that is unlike anywhere else i've ever been and which is at first intoxicating but soon tiring. the lakeside in pokhara is a sort of miniature version of this with similar appeal and exhaustion. they are both extremely easy places to be with every sort of service imaginable...restaurants, hotels, shops (barbers, massage parlours, bars, clubs, bakeries, travel agents)...all with plentiful english and mostly cheap prices. i've spent the past ten days in these places...and it's all started to become a blur. not an unpleasant one, but i'm very much ready to move on. my ability to do that was somewhat in doubt these past few days as i've been waiting on a travel agent to sort out a ticketing error for a flight to calcutta. it look liked i would be stuck in kathmandu until the 26th but today, at the last minute, he managed to get me the seat on the flight tomorrow afternoon which i'd originally been promised. everyone and their dog will sell you tickets here but, as i learned in pokhara, it's mostly a waste of time. there are somewhere around 65 travel agents in lakeside alone but only a few do anything even approaching usefulness. while in pokhara i tried to buy a plane ticket from one of the more useless travel agents...first he called someone who called the airline to get availability. we waited. his contact called back to say the ticket i wanted was available. i said that i wanted to pay with a credit card. he said this would be no problem and then called another travel agent. we waited. soon a motorcycle pulled up and a man came in. he pulled an old style credit card swipe machine from his bag and proffered it as though it were a holy relic. i was asked for my passport, which i didn't have with me. i ran back to my hotel and returned to the travel agent 10 minutes later. both the motorcycle man and his blessed machine were gone. the travel agent offered me a embarrassed smile. i followed him out to the street where a moped was parked. he motioned toward it and soon we were cruising up the lakeside strip to another travel agent, the home of the motorcycle man. i entered to what seemed to be a scene from an absurdist play about travel agents: the owner of the credit card machine was on three phones at the same time and began processing my request without stopping any of his other conversations. it turned out that in the time since i went to get my passport all the seats had suddenly been taken (if they'd ever really been free to begin with) and, in any case, they wouldn't be able to get the ticket sent from kathmandu to pokhara before i was leaving to go back to kathmandu, leaving me to wonder why i would do anything but arrange it all myself and what possible use anyone might have for businesses with such a distinct lack of anything to offer...and how 65 of them manage to survive in such a concentrated space. the travel agent that i ended up dealing with in kathmandu (since things are designed in such a way as to make dealing with the airlines directly impossible) at least had a computer.tam and i spent a great deal of our time in pokhara with a woman named emily. she walked into the internet cafe that we were using to make a phone call back home. she's a student from san fransisco and on exchange in nepal for the semester. she'd become quite sick in the last few weeks and had to leave the village she was staying in to come to pokhara to see a doctor. she was feeling better but had become a bit homesick during her convalescence. during the course of her conversation with her mother, which tam and i couldn't help but eavesdrop on, she spoke of the state of her recent health in colourful detail and while she obviously realized that everyone could hear the fairly personal nature of it she didn't really care. there was something attractive about her openness in the presence of strangers and so about half an hour later when we saw her sitting in a fruit juice shop, acknowledging each other in that way that strangers who've run into each other multiple times often do, we went in to say hello. to be honest, if i hadn't been with tam i probably would have kept on walking after the little nod of slight familiarity, but tam's a master at meeting people and so i piggy-backed myself into the conversation. a pattern came to emerge of meals spent with emily while in between we whiled away our time being lazy as she worked on end of term school work in her hotel. in the almost three months since she'd came to nepal emily had become quite fluent in nepali. it was fascinating to watch her interact with the cast of characters that populated the lakeside strip: taxi drivers and drug dealers, homeless men and trinket sellers. even in the short time that she'd been there her language skills meant that everyone knew who she was, a state of affairs that she seemed to both revel in and despise. she seemed impulsive and free; delighting in the discovery that her cheap lighter's built-in flashlight shone a picture of a topless woman (and thereafter lighting up the side of cows and the backs of peoples' jackets with large, fake breasts); hugging our flighty and awkward nepali waiter who had endeared himself to her with his frantic uncomfortableness; torturing herself over how to deal with the sob stories of the many people scraping out a living from tourists. she smoked constantly and brazenly rolled joints full of stiff nepali hash in whatever restaurant we happened to be in. she had strangely frivolous tattoos and the convoluted journal of an aspiring artist. she was both enchanting and strangely frustrating. when we parted ways after dinner on our last night in town neither i, tam, nor emily made any attempt to exchange contact information, which seemed both reasonable and silly at the same time. when i think of pokhara i can't imagine it without her walking up and down the street, a displaced ghost forever haunting lakeside.on our return to kathmandu tam and i managed to reconnect with the american couple that we'd met in chengdu, greg and elizabeth. they had just finished their own tour through tibet and were in the company of many of the people that had shared their van to nepal. we arrived back in kathmandu on the evening of greg's 30th birthday and were happy to be able to join in the festivities. our time in kathmandu took on a familiar pace with evenings spent eating with friends and days spent exploring the city on our own. for a couple of nights we all chipped in and rented a tv and dvd player. it was comfortably strange to be in a room full of westerners watching hollywood films in what could have been someone's apartment. i've not been homesick at all so far, but i was grateful for the quiet familiarity. tam and i quickly had our fill of thamel and so spent our days exploring kathmandu's sights. we went to both of the important tibetan buddhist stupas, the monolithic white dome of boudhanath and the monkey infested hilltop of swayambunath. i found it interesting how the hindu majority make use of these sites religiously as well, often more robustly and more frequently than the displaced nepali tibetan community. perhaps the sacredness of the locations has a common root accessible to both faiths. we went to the old city of patan and wandered around the palace square, visiting the palace museum, nearby hindu temples, and the small but beautiful buddhist golden temple. the last place that we visited was pashupatinath, the most holy hindu site in nepal. the temple complex is built in a sprawling green space that's wrapped around a river, the centerpiece of which is the burning ghats where all nepali hindus aspire to be cremated and have their ashes poured into the river. i'd had a chance to witness this on a larger scale in india at varanasi and so i was aware that these types of ceremonies are devoid of the kind of privacy that they might require in the west. still, it's strange to be standing around at a public cremation watching a dead body being blessed and prepared for burning while the smoke and ash of other services is drifting through the air. anyone is welcome to watch as long as no photos are taken. in varanasi the cremations go on non-stop all day and all night every day of the year. i don't know if the nepali population is such that a similar pace is required, but it was very busy on the afternoon that we were there.i leave for india tomorrow and so my time spent traveling with tam is coming to an end. he's going to stay in nepal until the end of the month, spending some time in royal chitwan national park and rafting on one of the rivers north of kathmandu, after which he'll be flying to bangkok. it's been amazing traveling with him and a perfect example of the random fortuitousness that occurs when traveling with an open mind and heart. i'll miss him.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1193738400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1193738400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1193738400/tpod.html Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:22:58 -0500 Beijing to Bombay...my slightly unexpected return to Asia.

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Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal

[the following is from my personal journal and was written during the annapurna circuit trek that tam and i finished yesterday, november 10th.]day 3, nov. 1st - 3:20 pm: we've finished the first four days of the trek (as described in my lonely planet trekking guide) in three days. from here on out we'll follow the same schedule as the book as altitude gain becomes more important than horizontal distance. we're at about 2700 m, having climbed almost 2 km in three days while covering about 63 km of terrain. on our first day i pushed my body harder than i ever have in my whole life and scared the shit out of myself by almost collapsing only 500 m from our final destination. my heart rate just jumped suddenly and i felt woozy. i had to sit down and it took about 1/2 an hour for my heart rate to get back to normal for being at rest. at first i was scared that i was having a heart attack or a stroke or something major. there was a funny moment (in hindsight...) when tam gasped and pointed at my right side. my first thought was that my shirt was soaked with blood...i'm not sure how that would have been possible...bleeding out my nipples or armpits? tam was actually pointing at a beautiful caterpillar that was crawling on the tree right beside me...! when i finally felt good enough to stand (after eating chocolate and emergency salt replacement powder (blackcurrant flavour!) mixed in with my water, both provided by tam)we walked into jagat, tam kindly carrying my pack. i felt weak all night and part of the next morning. by lunch i felt much better and today i feel back to normal. tam took a picture of me while i was sitting down trying to recover...it might seem rude, but i'm glad he did. it gives me a quick visual reminder of the danger in going too far. we hadn't planned on having such a hardcore day. we got to what my guide said was the end of day one at 11 am (having left besi sahar at 6 am), had lunch, and then decided to continue on. jagat seemed like areasonable spot to aim for on the map...but i guess not. we gained a strange kind of respect from the porters and guides we talked to at our hotel about where we'd come from that morning, carrying our own packs...but it was easy not to let it go to my head considering what i felt like. i was worried that part of my collapse was related to the water purification tablets i'm using because of a gurgling or fizzing sensation that rose up from the middle of my belly just before my heart freaked out. i was paranoid about it all day yesterday. but it's become clear today that the tablets aren't to be suspected and that really i just hit a wall in a way i've never done before with physical activity. obviously, i've been careful with myself the last two days and will continue to be. i don't even know where to start in describing theterrain...it seems almost impossible to get it right. it's beautiful and awe inspiring and magical and peaceful all at the same time. i'm too tired to attempt to describe it any further tonight...i've been taking lots of photos though. i had planned to write more and morefrequently...but it's hard not to just eat dinner and go to bed after a long day of hiking.day 6, nov. 4th - 11:50 am: today was a short day because of the high altitude...we gained about 400 m over 7 km taking us to about 4500 m. both tam and i feel very good and have no signs of altitude sickness. this is fairly remarkable as we've taken no rest days so far to acclimatize...we simply haven't needed to. the only way i can explain this is that we spent about a week in tibet at 3700 m+ and did all of our hard acclimatizing in lhasa. we left tibet about a week and a half ago and spent the minimum amount of time possible before leaving for the trek so as not to get used to oxygen rich air...! we've also been careful to gain altitude at a reasonable rate. we're now sitting at the bottom of the high pass that we're going toattempt to go over tomorrow (assuming that we sleep well enough at this altitude tonight). it's a bit nerve wracking to think about our day tomorrow...we climb straight up about 900 m to 5416 m (the highest i will have ever been in my life) and then go down 1600 m to muktinath.the descent will be great for the heart and lungs but hard on the joints. i know that the climb is going to be long and hard and i'm trying not to dwell on it. tam and i have both agreed that if we run into trouble we'll retreat to the high camp at 4800 m and see how we feel. there will be snow tomorrow in the pass but there are so many people doing the trek that i'm not worried about it...and i'm well equipped. when i was in the annapurna conservation area six years ago there was already snow at 2700 m...but that was in february at ghorepani on the other side. there's no snow in thorung phedi at 4500 m.let me make another attempt at describing some of the scenery. we started out in fields of terraced ride paddies and semi-tropical forests. the colours are all bright greens, yellows, and oranges. the trail usually runs along ridges above various river valleys. the rivers themselvesare basically tumbling out of the mountains and are almost continually rapids. the water is a light, milky blue, almost like liquid silver. waterfalls are everywhere (some small, some massive) falling from cliff tops or springing from cliff sides. there were moments in the lowlands where it all looked like paradise. as we went up things started to become more familiar to my canadian eyes...pine forests and the coloured leaves of autumn. the colours here are all dark greens, and muted oranges and reds. slowly as we climbed higher and higher the trees gave way to scrub brush. it becomes quite dry at around 3500 m, the trail all dusty and the landscape more uniform, everything all brown, beige, and grey. tam and i agreed that by the time we got to the village of manang we felt like we were back in tibet, but without all the hassle. this feeling came from both the landscape and the culture...northern nepal is full of tibetans. prayers wheels and prayer flags are everywhere. eventually even the scrub brush starts to give way to rock and scree slopes. vegetation stops being able to grow and a kind of beautiful bleakness starts to take over. throughout all of this are various glimpses of the annapurna range...sharp peaks and brilliantly white snow. soon i'll be close enough to them to see the spine they form across nepal separating south asia from the aridplateau of tibet.1:50 pm: i forgot to write about something interesting that happened on our second day. thinking back, it feels like the second day was one of the hardest, that the climbs were moredifficult and often wasted...which is to say, climbing over things instead of up things. at the foot of the longest, hardest climb (just before reaching the village of tal) a group of maoists had set up a table. the maoists have been active in nepal for a long time as an armed guerrilla movement, but apparently recently they've entered into some sort of ceasefire power brokering agreement with the government. politics in nepal are complicated in that it's technically a theocracy, the king of nepal supposedly being an incarnation of the hindu godvishnu. for a while now there's been an active pro-democracy movement with which the maoists have played a game of simultaneously supporting and criticizing as not going for enough. there was a bombing in kathmandu in august perpetrated by a previously unknown maoist splinter group, probably upset at their former brethren for selling out and getting too cozy with the government. my aunt linda had told me the story of how she had encountered a couple of maoist 'fundraisers' on a trek several years ago when they were still an active guerrilla group occasionally attacking police stations and bombing rural airport runways. there were two men, one who spoke very good english, was extremely polite, and who asked for a 1000 rupee 'donation'. the other man stood quietly in the background holding an AK-47. naturally, they provided a receipt in case my aunt should come across any other'fundraisers'. there were no assault rifles on display at the table the maoists had set up near tal. it would have very much contravened whatever agreement they have with the government. we were told they were collecting a trekking tax and asked us how far we were going...we answered honestly that we were doing the circuit and were told the tax would be 2000 rupees each. after some arguing, the man doing the talking, with excellent english and a polite manner, brought it down to 1500 each. we paid grudgingly. it wasn't apparent what they would do if we refused to pay...probably nothing, their hands tied by their newfound stature. we paid anyway just wanting to avoid a confrontation and get on with the trek. after talking to other trekkers later we learned that the tax is actually 100 rupees per day. this hadn't been explained to us, but the 2000 and 1500 amounts now made more sense: atfirst the maoist considered the annapurna circuit to be a 20 day trek and then conceded that maybe we could do it in 15. some people told us that they lied and said they were only going as far as jomsom (9-11 days) and so paid less and one man told us he just walked throughwithout paying. he said that he told them that he would pay under threat of force, if, as he put it, they showed themselves to be terrorists. in absence of the threat of violence he refused to pay. his attitude is perhaps understandable but might have the effect of confirming to the maoists that they'll never get anything done without violence. it was strange for me to be face to face with left wing revolutionaries in an antagonistic sort of way considering my ownpolitics. i wanted to sit down and have a chat with them about why they chose perhaps the most twisted of left revolutionary schools of thought as their intellectual underpinnings...but it just would have been condescending and self-serving. in my opinion maoism is post-stalinistand anti-marxist. mao openly admired stalin (before china's falling out with russia) and accepted some of stalin perversions of marxist thought, like the idea that it's possible to have 'socialism in one country', an obvious rationalization of the ultimate failure of the russian revolution and stalin's counterrevolutionary power grab and subsequent purges. maoism is anti-marxist in that if marxism's greatest strength lies in its analysis of the forces behind social and historical change (historical materialism) and its criticism of the development of capitalism, maoism spends a great deal of time trying to rationalize away the problem of a semi-feudal countryside jumping straight past capitalism to industrial communism. china suffered horribly under maoism and mismanaged collectivized agriculture until deng xiaoping essentially threw it out and introduced capitalism. chinese people suffer still...but more and more in the same way that rest of the world does under capitalism. i can understand why leftist movements in rural areas might find maoism appealing...but it's a theoretical boondoggle that provides too simple answers to very complex problems, not to mention its tendency to dissolve into self-destructive violence, murdering 'intellectuals' and anyone else deemed culturally inappropriate. a trekking guide told us that there's another maoistcheckpoint in ghorepani now collecting from people coming down from jomsom. those trekkers that lied about the duration of the their trek may find their receipts to be useless in ghorepani. ours should get us through without argument, although tam and i agreed that we're not giving them anymore money regardless.day 9, nov. 7 - 4:45 pm: it was two days ago now that we crossed the thorung la but it stillresonates through every moment since then. it's hard to describe just how emotional it was to be standing at the top after an evening and morning wondering whether i could actually do it. tam and i both had moments on the way up where we felt doubt creeping in, where we weren't sure that we could handle the altitude or the effort required to get us to the pass. it's funny to think that the pass is actually the lowest point between the mountains! crossing the pass is something that hundreds of people do every day during the height of the trekkingseason (oct-nov), but somehow knowing that doesn't lessen the sense of accomplishment. i don't know that i've ever done anything else as physically and mentally challenging in my entire life. i won't go so far to as to call it 'spiritual' but as i stood at the pass, my eyestearing up, i ruffled some of the nearby prayer flags and tried to let go of everything that i've been holding in or holding on to.it's a strange sight to see dozens of people scattered across a barren landscape of rock and snow all slowly shuffling along the same faint trail, putting one foot in front of the other with such deliberate, painstaking effort. it looks like everyone's trying to make their way through a sea of molasses when actually it's the thinness of the air that makes it so difficult to move quickly. there simply isn't enough oxygen to do anything other than plod along with an oxen's gait. it becomes a kind of meditation...finding the point at which heart, lungs, mind, and body all work together given the environmental conditions. to go too slow is to lose to ability to carry on; to go too quickly is to overload the heart and risk exhaustion and collapse. finding the place where it all works and then putting one foot it front of the other over and over and over again is the only way forward. it results in a certain emptiness of the mind that meditation often strives for.we went up about 1 km over about 3 km in 3 1/2 hours to get to the pass...but i only know this in retrospect...i lost all sense of time while climbing. the descent from the pass to the village of muktinath is shockingly steep, dropping about 1600 m over a few kilometres. itwas delightfully easy on the heart and lungs, but extremely hard on the muscles and joints of the legs. muktinath is at an altitude of 3800 m, which is quite high...but after two nights of sleeping over 4000 m and climbing up to 5416 m it seemed like an oxygen rich paradise. what made it even better was that we stayed at hotel bob marley complete with rasta rock breakfast, rasta tea, and bob cake. naturally, the same reggae cd was played over and over while we were there. other amenities included gas heated shower, pool table, and charcoal brazier under the dinner table to keep the legs warm. i don't know how anyone could stayanywhere else in muktinath. since then we've hiked to kagbeni which is the furthest anyone can go into the dry tibet-like region of upper mustang without special permits. the near desert extended all the way down to jomsom, the administrative headquarters of the region (complete with airport and banks). so far the trek on this side of the pass (and it's hard not to put everything in terms of before and after the thorung la) has been less impressive. thanks to jomsom, much of the trail so far has been expanded into a road, meaning that we have todeal with trucks and motorcycles while hiking. as well, the river valley that we follow down this side (the deepest in the world apparently) is a giant wind tunnel, the wind blowing up...it becomes tiring to fight against it very quickly. the valley has narrowed here at kalopani and so hopefully the wind will cease to be such an annoyance. the landscape had moved from desert to pine and cedar forests...and will continue to become more lush as we descend. it'shard for me to gauge how much being past the pass has affected my mindset, whether being past what we spent a week building up to has made this side of the trek a bit anti-climactic. maybe it really just is more developed and less remote...but i remember from six years agohow beautiful it is at poon hill. i'm still happy to be here and to still be doing this...there are still things to look forward to on thetrek...like dinner...i'm starving.[that's all that i wrotewhile i was actually on the trek. i think it might possibly be the mostamazing thing i've ever done. it's already starting to blur together a bit, although there are moments that i will remember vividly forever. there's something about the mountains in nepal...i'll have to come back again sometime, maybe trek in langtang in spring when the flowers are in bloom. on our way down from jomsom we heard about two french peoplewho died climbing the pass a few days before we did (although the details are sketchy and we heard nothing about it in thorung phedi). tam and i had a hard time understanding how they could have let it happen...either they were being cowboys or they were totally out oftouch with their own bodies. i figure they must have been suffering heavily from altitude sickness in thorung phedi and decided to try the pass anyway. maybe there are details that i'm unaware of, but tam and i always held in our minds that it was ok to turn back at any moment, with any sense of danger...and we supported each other in that knowledge. it's strange to think of the euphoria of reaching the pass and to then think of it as a place of dying...but i guess they're not the first...or the last.for interest's sake here's a breakdown of our trek by day...you can follow along using this map: http://www.guyshachar.com/eastories/anapurna.jpgthe distances in kilometres are very rough estimates made by me using my fingers to measure distances on my map.day 1 (oct 30th): besi sahar (820m) to jagat (1370m) - 30 kmday 2 (oct 31st): jagat (1370m) to dharapani (1960m) - 18 kmday 3 (nov 1st): dharapani (1960m) to chame (2710m) - 15 kmday 4 (nov 2nd): chame (2710m) to humde (3420m) - 20 kmday 5 (nov 3rd): humde (3420m) to yak kharka (4110m) - 16 kmday 6 (nov 4th): yak kharka (4110m) to thorung phedi (4420m) - 7 kmday 7 (nov 5th): thorung phedi (4420m) to muktinath (3800m) via thorung la (5416m) - 10 kmday 8 (nov 6th): muktinath (3800m) to jomsom (2760m) - 20 kmday 9 (nov 7th): jomsom (2760m) to kalopani (2530m) - 22 kmday 10 (nov 8th): kalopani (2530m) to tatopani (1190m) - 25 kmday 11 (nov 9th): tatopani (1190m) to ghorepani (2750m) - 10 kmday 12 (nov 10th): ghorepani (2750m) to nayapul (1070m) via poon hill (3210m) - 17 km12 days is quite fast to do the circuit. it's not a race or anything, but it was hard not to feel a bit proud when guides that we talked to were visibly impressed. keep in mind that we took no rest days to acclimatize and so our schedule was a bit more compact.]
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1193601660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1193601660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1193601660/tpod.html Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:13:25 -0500 Beijing to Bombay...my slightly unexpected return to Asia.

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Kathmandu, Nepal

it was only about a week ago that tam and i arrived in tibet but it feels like everything before that was another life. we made it through to the nepali border, unmolested and relatively intact...in love with tibet and exhausted by it. we woke up promptly at 7:30, checked out of our hotel in shigatse and just before 8 am asked the woman at the desk to call the man who was supposed to drive us to shegar as he didn't speak much english. she told us that his mobile phone was turned off. i had a brief moment of total frustration before tam and i set out, in the early morning darkness as had become our custom, to the bus station to see if our ride was hanging around as he usually did. he was nowhere to be found, but there was a gaggle of transportation touts that caught whiff of us very quickly. we explained that we wanted to go to tingri (hoping that one of these guys would be brave enough to take us past the shegar checkpoint) and they directed us to the bus ticket office, which we knew wouldn't sell us any tickets. one of the men went up to the ticket window, and i briefly wondered if it would all be as simple as having a tibetan man buy the ticket for us...but then the bus official looked over at us and shook his head. the man came back and told us that he would take us to shegar for 200 yuan each...the same price that the other man had agreed to the day before. i suspected that our new driver had been hanging around then and knew exactly how much we had agreed to the day before. seeing no other options, we agreed, although tam convinced him to accept half up front and half when we made it safely to tingri. strangely the man led us through the bus station...to a bus. we put our bags in the large trunk and sat where we were instructed to sit, all the way at the back. the man disappeared and other people started getting on the bus as well. i had a moment of panic where i began to suspect that the man we had just given 200 yuan to had nothing to do with the bus and we had been taken for a ride (no pun intended)...but eventually he came back and sat in the driver's seat, confirming that he was the driver. we learned from a chinese woman who taught english in tingri (the degree to which china is desperate for english teachers made clear by her halting english) that the tickets actually cost about 65 yuan...so we had been overcharged slightly more than three times over. we weren't actually allowed to be on the bus though, so there wasn't really much to complain about. the bus filled up entirely but no one accused us of being in their seats, so i assume that the bus driver bought two tickets for 130 yuan and would pocket the rest of our 400. it must have been incredibly obvious to the officials at the bus station what was going on, but as long as none of it could implicate them they didn't seem to care. tam and i both got really nervous when 3 chinese soldiers got on the bus...but then we remembered that the army has little to do with enforcing permit restrictions, and the 'not my jurisdiction, not my problem' attitude came to our rescue again. we left shigatse at around 8:30 am headed for tingri.our first test came at the checkpoint just past lhatse, about half way to tingri. as we approached i slid the curtain across our section of the window as tam and i both assumed positions that we hoped were diminutive but inconspicuous. it didn't really matter as a police officer came right onto the bus and asked us for our passports. he checked everyone else's documentation as well, and even pulled a tibetan man with no papers off the bus. we sat nervously for about 10 minutes before being asked to leave the bus as well and enter the little police shack beside the barricade. as we got off the bus, the dread-locked australian man's bus past us and he gave us a quiet, despairing wave. the driver was already in the shack having handed out cigarettes to all the officials. we were asked where we were going, to which we responded emphatically that we were headed straight to the border. tam's chinese visa only had five days left on it and we had been told that if tam were to be sent back causing him to overstay his visa the officer who had made the decision would be held responsible. tam played up the fact that he had to leave right away, hoping that the guard would be unwilling to risk censure for causing a tourist to stay longer than allowed. it opened up the possibility that tam would be let through and i would be sent back (as my visa doesn't expire until the 15 of november) but we had talked about it earlier and decided it was our best strategy. for my part i tried to make it clear that we were traveling together, hoping that the benefit of tam's soon-to-be expiring visa would help me as well. after a period of seemingly endless contemplation, during which i imagined the policeman weighing the consequences of action vs inaction very heavily, our passport information was taken down and we were allowed to continue on the bus. we embraced our luckiness and hoped that it would carry us through the next three checkpoints as well.we made an unfortunate discovery when the bus stopped at the turnoff to shegar about an hour and a half later. the bus seemed to be pointed up the road to shegar and not down the highway to tingri. as we tried to figure out what was going on a little bell started ringing in my brain and i opened up my guide book to read the shegar entry. it was then that i remembered that shegar is also called 'new tingri' and that the place we wanted to go (and which we thought we had purchased some 'tickets' to) was 'old tingri'. our bus was really a bus to shegar, and so we got out having made it halfway distance-wise but only through one checkpoint. we paid the remaining 200 yuan to the driver as they hadn't directed lied to us, we had just misunderstood. we grudgingly started discussing our plans to wait until nightfall and hike around the next checkpoint (about 5-6 km down the road) as we walked to a nearby restaurant to get something to eat. our luck was holding up however as before we could even make it to the restaurant a tibetan man approached us from the gas station across the street. there was a land cruiser refueling there and the man presented himself as a tour guide and asked us where we were headed. we told him the nepali border, hoping (praying) that he was headed there as well. he was...and he had two free seats in the land cruiser. i waited to hear the crushing blow of the cost of such a ride...and was stunned when he asked for only 150 yuan each. considering how much a whole land cruiser costs he was being incredibly generous. we accepted quickly and hopped into the truck filled with intense relief that our ridiculous plan to sneak past the checkpoint under the cover of darkness had proved entirely unnecessary. when we made it to the shegar checkpoint i was surprised to see that the checkpoint was under the authority of the military and not the police. the reluctance of the men in shigatse to drive us past it become more clear. the shegar checkpoint is a big deal mostly because it's where all the permits to enter the mount everest wilderness preserve are checked...permits that are a large source of tourist income for the government. the land cruiser that we were on had permits to carry tourists, and it didn't even matter that our names appeared on no documents related to the 'tour'. first the driver and the guide had their information taken down, and then my and tam's passport information was taken down...and that was it. we were sent on our way. the rest of the trip was stress free...and it became apparent why land cruiser tours are the most popular way to deal with the permit hassles. it's a very comfortable way to travel through tibet. well...about as comfortable as tibet can get seeing that the paved part of the highway ends at tingri and the remainder of it is rough gravel road.the landscapes in tibet are absolutely astounding. it's very dry and there are a surprising number of sand dunes strewn about the countryside. from (old) tingri the views of the himalayan mountains are stunning and it's possible to do a three day trek to everest base camp from there. we were floored by the views from the top of the two high passes on the way to the border from tingri...a sea of rolling, scrubby foothills with a line of pristine snow-capped peaks floating on top. as the road descends to the border it falls into a lush river valley with sharp cliffs and a gorgeous river cascading below. it made the three gorges look like bumps along a thin pool of muddy water. our last surprise was that the road between nyalam and the nepali border, a stretch of about 30 km, is being completely rebuilt...and so the final piece of our ride to the border was like being inside of an old, slightly off-kilter paint mixer. i can't imagine the ride that the australian and his nine charges must have had in a bus. there were moments where our land cruiser was centimetres away from a sharp drop hundreds of metres below to the rushing water and large rocks of the deep valley. all this while insane construction was going on all around...the chinese seem to love engineering projects that everyone else thinks are impossible. the final two checkpoints had been temporarily removed due to the road work...but we wouldn't have had a problem with them anyway thanks to our land cruiser. all told is cost us 420 yuan to make it to the border...far less than most people pay. i suppose we were charged more in stress and uncertainty than money...but being ultimately successful it's easy to let that fade away into the background and think fondly of our tibetan adventure. tam and i both agree that tibet is a staggeringly beautiful place...and that we both want to come back at some point now that we're better prepared to deal with all it's bureaucratic hardships. all throughout our journey we were awed by the warmth and friendliness of the tibetan people who, by all rights, have every reason to be angry and despondent. we found aid in so many unexpected places and felt welcomed in a land where even the inhabitants are no longer totally at home. whatever i might think about the superstitions and customs of tibet's intensely spiritual people, i hope the chinese occupation comes to an end, although i suspect that it might be a long time coming.i'm in kathmandu now and i'm leaving to do the annapurna circuit trek tomorrow morning. i should be back from the trek by about mid-november and until then i will have no access to the internet. i'm sure that i'll have a lot to write about by the time i get back. i have to admit that as much as i enjoyed china, i felt myself smiling wide as i walked in thamel, the bustling, wonderfully crowded backpacker quarter of kathmandu. i'm really happy to be back in south asia...something about it suits me better than china to the east. we have run into a number of people here that we met in tibet, all of whom arrived here in more conventional ways. whenever we tell the story of how we got here the reaction is always one of quiet astonishment...and tam and i can't help but to be a little bit proud of our journey across tibet, even as we know that it was mostly pure, dumb luck.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/india_2002/1017748800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/india_2002/1017748800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/india_2002/1017748800/tpod.html Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:03:23 -0500 India and Nepal...my first ever trip outside of North America.

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Jaisalmer, India

[written apr. 6, 2002]"daniel is running through the desert. he is being chased by a hundred girls, a thousand girls. but he runs and runs and runs. finally, a few girls (the fast ones) catch up to daniel. daniel stops and asks, 'what is it? what do you what?' the girls ask, 'where's asu?'"meet asu, my camel safari guide, camel driver, and joke teller extraordinaire who would sing his favourite hindi pop songs as loud as he could, or just make songs up. he also enjoyed a mangled, severely out of tune version of 'country roads' that was awe inspiring in its audacity. and then there was the joke about being overly fond of a camel that i will leave to your imaginations.anyway, my three day camel safari in the thar desert near jaisalmer, rajasthan, was great...although it wasn't a uniform experience. there were times where my sore ass, greatly traumatized by being forced to reacquaint itself with the saddle every time the camel took a step, combined with the extreme heat made the journey less than magical. but sleeping under the stars amidst sand dunes tended to make up for it. and asu doing all the cooking while i floundered in exhaustion didn't hurt either. i booked the camel safari through the hotel i was staying at...everyone and their dog's brother will book a safari for you in jaisalmer so it's really hard to know who to choose. my laziness payed off in the form of luck, and the safari was great (so was the hotel). i ended up being my myself (just me and asu) which i wasn't expecting...but the onslaught of tourists is starting to slacken off due to the increasing temperatures and some people stay away because jaisalmer's relatively close to the pakistan border (it's about 80 km away from town, 60 km from where most safaris start) although there's never been any kind of border skirmishes here...at least not since partition in 1947. there is a massive army/air force base here though...on the train from jodhpur most of the passengers were soldiers. another one of asu's jokes was to say 'cha lo pakistan' (off to pakistan' or 'let's go to pakistan') whenever we got back on the camels after a rest. and resting is the generally accepted way of beating the heat...get up early, travel for about three or four hours, find a tree, nap through the hottest part of the day, and then travel another couple of hours before stopping around sunset. but it was still really hot for me...the hottest it's been in india since i've been here. on the third day asu brought me to his village and to his family home. i met his mother and younger sister...he has two older sisters that are married and no longer live at home. his mother made some wonderful food for lunch (and best tea i think i've ever had) and it was wonderful just to catch a glimpse of rajasthani home life...those sorts of uncontrived things are generally hard for tourists to see. the house was very interesting...it's basically a courtyard with a few enclosed rooms off of it...both sides of the courtyard are covered and the middle is open. pretty much everything happens out in the open...there's some space for storage and for the kitchen, but everyone sleeps out in the courtyard and spends most of their time there. during the heat of midday people shift to whichever covered part of the courtyard provides the best shelter from the sun and wind.the camel that i was riding was called raju...he was borrowed from a friend because asu only has one camel, named papu. last year he had four camels but three of them died in close succession. asu presented his rather huge loss of wealth as the inevitable course of things...sometimes you have lots of healthy camels, sometimes they die. but asu takes things rather stoically in general...when papu run away on day two while we were both napping after lunch it took asu a couple of hours to find him (in the hottest part of the day) and bring him back. asu just commented that god never gives him time to rest. and that was that. i tried to offer my help in packing the camels, cooking, cleaning up...and at first asu was grateful, but his competence in desert life far exceeds mine (obviously) and after a while it was obvious that he would rather just fly through things on his own than be slowed down by my assistance. and he's also used to the dichotomy of guide/tourist...tourists paying paying for the safari and expecting service. but somehow, for me, the fact that there was just the two of us made it difficult to accept my tourist role...although i must admit that caving in, guiltily, to letting asu do everything after a long day's worth of camel and sun wasn't all that difficult. after three days i had a basic understanding of how to get a camel to do what i wanted it to. or i guess i should say 'raju', the camel i was riding, because they have quite different personalities. raju, for example, would never run far away, and never complained the way papu did when asu started putting all the gear back on them. i imagine that i would have had a much harder time getting papu to listen to me. camels are steered by using ropes that are attached to pegs that are inserted into their noses when they're one year old. tugging hard on the ropes is painful for the camels, hence the incentive to listen to you. but most of the time a gentle tug is all that's needed to change directions. i was mildly successful in getting raju to kneel down and get back up...camels have amazing joints and padded areas in all the right places on their bodies to make kneeling the way they do functional and mostly comfortable. it's enough to make one doubt the camels could have ever evolved into what they are. but i guess it's the same with all animals that are highly specialized to live in one type of environment. one thing about rahu was that he never stopped eating...at night and in the morning when asu would give them the feed that we brought along, raju would continue to eat long after papu had stopped. and on the trail raju would, having a marked disrespect for my authority, stop all of a sudden to munch on a bush or some grass, or whatever looked tasty i guess. he's quite a pig of a camel, but i like him anyway.as well as the camel safari, being in jaisalmer has meant that i've been able to enjoy the amazing jaisalmer fort, which is the only fort in india in which people still live...several thousand i believe. the fort is unbelievable, out of arabian nights story, or a middle-eastern fairy-tale. the hotel i was staying in is inside the fort and so the view from my room looked out over the city (the fort is on the highest point of land) and the roof-top restaurant gives you a view of the entire city and the fort itself. there's a series of about 3 or 4 gates that you have to walk through to get into the fort, beautiful stone carvings everywhere, jain and hindu temples, people's houses, and merchants and restaurants (and travel agencies, and internet places...the accoutrements of tourism, as usual...but the fort's still wonderful even with all that). and, as with everywhere in india, there's a whole herd of cattle that wander the fort and call it home.since i last wrote i also spent a few days in udaipur...city of the lake palace hotel, made famous by the james bond movie 'octopussy', part of which was filmed in udaipur. udaipur is gorgeous, at least the old city is. the largest palace of the raj is in udaipur and was very interesting to wander through...such opulence in the midst of squalor. it's no wonder that at the time of the formation of the indian state rajasthan was one of the most illiterate and poor regions in india. but rajasthan as a whole seems to be an amazing place to come and visit...it's packed with wonderful cities, colourful and friendly people, and palaces and forts that are fantastic, in the true sense of the word. i still have jodhpur and jaipur to see...and then it's all over and i return to canada. in less than a week. weird. bye for now.daniel.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/india_2002/1017158400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/india_2002/1017158400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/india_2002/1017158400/tpod.html Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:50:38 -0500 India and Nepal...my first ever trip outside of North America.

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Mumbai (Bombay), India

[written mar. 28, 2002]hello everyone...!so it seems that the pace of my traveling has slowed down a bit...although i'm sure it's still a bit quicker than most people would enjoy. it is starting to wear on me...but i only have two weeks left so weariness is easily pushed aside and forgotten. i've only been to two new places since i last wrote...hampi and mumbai, both of them quite phenomenal. but maybe first a bit about gokarna. the town of gokarna (apparently it translates as 'cow's ear') is a holy hindu pilgrimage site, but there's also a series of four beaches just to the south that attracts a lot of backpackers and what remains of the hippies that once staged their occupation of goa. it makes for an interesting mix. finding the first of the four beaches was a bit difficult though. i arrived in gokarna after an overnight train directly followed by two different bus rides...i was a bit dazed, tired, and hungry. i set out from the bus station and proceeded to get completely lost...i asked people for directions and slowly made my way to the first beach, kudle beach, but only after walking an extra kilometre or two, up stairs i didn't have to climb, in the searing heat, with no water, carrying somewhere between 15 and 20 kilos on my back. in jeans and a black t-shirt. i'se a smart boy. i was planning on staying at the second of the four beaches, om beach...so named because its shape is vaguely reminiscent of the om symbol, which is another kilometre or two past kudle beach, which itself is a kilometre long. needless to say, i almost passed out on the way...but i made it, looking like i had stopped for a dip in the ocean fully clothed, but still conscious at least. one litre of water later, i felt somewhat better. om beach was actually quite wonderful...relatively big and clean. i spent an afternoon exploring the two other, and even more remote beaches, each a 20-30 minute hike further south...the first one south of om beach is half-moon beach, which is very poorly named considering it's the least shaped like a half-moon of any of the four beaches. perhaps it was just foreshadowing what was to come, because the next and last beach, paradise beach, was a dump. plastic water bottles everywhere, garbage of all sorts, rocks, and fish nets. such is paradise. at first it seems a bit odd that the most difficult beach to get to should be the most spoiled...but the mentality of backpackers is such that everyone wants to have unique experiences, find solitude and beauty in the overpacked and heavily touristed land of india...so everyone rushes for the most isolated beach and ruins it (and probably ends up being disappointed at discovering how many people had the opportunity to spoil it before they did). i discovered that i'm not overly fond of backpacker beach culture in india (and probably any developing country that has 'paradises' for westerners to run away to)...it's far too self-involved and careless. poverty becomes simply a good exchange rate allowing one to live in 'paradise' that much longer. it all involves a certain amount of putting the blinders on for the sake of a nice suntan and a hammock in the palm trees. and of course, my time in india is entirely selfish as well, my impact largely negative, both psychologically and environmentally. but i feel that at least i'm aware of it, that i try to minimize that impact, and that i intend on returning in an entirely different capacity at some point in the hopefully nearish future. i don't get that sense from a lot of people.the next place i went to was hampi...the ruins of the capital of the hindu empire of vijayanagar. getting there involved a ten hour bus ride that should have completely destroyed my will to live, but the rapidly changing and fascinating landscape was enough to keep my mind off the crowded bus and the terrible, overloaded roads. leaving gokarna involves climbing up what's left of the western ghats in the north of the state of karnataka, gorgeous hills full of thick deciduous trees. at the top there's a huge plateau that quickly starts to feel like flat sea-level ground and the climb up through the hills recedes into memory quite quickly, like it never happened. the plateau seems semi-arrid, like what i imagine savannah to be like...dry red earth, somehow still used as farmland, and little shrubs and scrub brush everywhere. there was even the occasional cactus-looking plant. the further east the bus went the more the landscape began to get quite rocky, and slowly the terrain that makes hampi so amazing began to emerge: hills made entirely out of large boulders as though some giant had left large piles of rock lying around. and at hampi these boulder mounds are littered with magnificent ruins of what was once a very large city. it's quite difficult for me to explain what the ruins are like...even if i knew the technical jargon for the type of architecture it is and exactly when it was built and by whom specifically it wouldn't begin to explain what it feels like to wander through it all. perhaps what i'll do is wait for the pictures to be developed and then i can scan and e-mail some of them...it would be better than me trying to describe them right now.and now i'm in mumbai (after another 4 hour bus ride + overnight train)...i've been here for three days. mumbai is a city with a bit of an identity crisis. it's a city where rich men drive mercedes-benzs beside mutilated children driving rickety-wheeled carts. it's a city where young men and women wear clothes that are only a little but behind western fashion (and for those with a bit more money and who care, right with the times) while fearless little girls and women in dirty saris holding children ask you to buy them rice or milk powder so they can go and sell it back to the store for cash. it's a city where the university campus looks like something out of 19th century england, but where a security guard whistles and chases you off if you try to take pictures, as though the clock tower architecture unlocks state secrets. it's a city where westernized teenagers sit in knock-off american franchise restaurants playing with their cell-phones, speaking english 90% of the time, and singing along to the enrique iglesias song that was popular in the west three months ago, while a few kilometres away millions of people live in a seemingly endless slum, the residents lured in by mumbai's promise of prosperity, and finding only squalor. it's a city where even people with good jobs sleep in the street because rent is so high and space so incredibly limited. it's a city where the automated mannequin outside the air-conditioned upmarket clothing store continually sends out namastes to all the passers-by. which provokes an interesting philosophical question...is it possible for a machine to greet the god in me? there have been moments in mumbai when i've forgotten that i'm in india...but never for long. the university campus is too close to the chaos of mumbai's streets; the american style restaurant has about one waiter per table; the westernized teenagers who seem so much to be my economic equals more than likely live in apartments that would form a shocking contrast to their appearance and mannerisms...only the supremely rich can afford anything resembling western comfort in their homes in mumbai. but for all that i've been enjoying my time here. which shouldn't be very surprising, i guess, since i have money (mumbai is still relatively inexpensive by western standards in everything except property and rent, although it gives you the opportunity to spend just as much on food and clothing should you want to) and since i spend the majority of my time in the neighbourhood of colaba in south mumbai, far from the slums in the north. colaba is where most of the travelers come and stay seeing as there's the greatest choice of relatively inexpensive hotels (for mumbai) and it's pretty relaxed (for mumbai). the one obviously negative aspect of having so many tourists in colaba is that it's been invaded by hawkers and touts selling all manner of things, from hash to money changing services to giant balloons to uninspired trinkets. which is nothing new for india, but the concentration of demands for your attention is startling. one mumbai specific scheme is to entice you with bollywood, india's movie industry which is centered in mumbai. i had one guy ask me if i wanted to watch a film shoot (Rs. 500, includes lunch) and i had one guy ask me if i wanted to be in a movie (no sum mentioned, but i don't trust strange men who grab my arm and call me 'friend' on the street). i met a british guy named rob on the train and we ended up spending some time together wandering around mumbai. both of us had been approached by women and girls asking us to buy rice or milk powder for their baby/sister/brother. while i had declined, rob told me that he had decided to go ahead and buy some rice. the girl took him to a store and he picked out a bag of rice, Rs. 30. the girl, not much older than 8 or 9, picked a different, much more expensive bag of rice and asked him to buy that one instead. rob said no, bought the rice he selected, and precipitated a huge argument between himself and the girl. in the end she took the rice but told him that if he ever came back to mumbai he would be killed. an empty threat, but she obviously knew of mumbai's reputation of being run by gangsters. rob and i ran into the same girl as we were walking near the gateway of india. she recognized rob and demanded that he still buy her the rice she wanted. we ignored her and moved on. there's not really much else you can do.i'm leaving mumbai tonight by train for ahmedabad...probably not the safest place in the world right now, but certainly not the most dangerous either. i'm going to be there for less than a day all told and i won't be staying the night...i'm really only changing trains as i head from mumbai to udaipur in rajasthan. it's unfortunate that it's my only stop in gujarat...i would like to spend some time exploring that state...but time is one thing i'm short of, and with the earthquake last year and the recent violence, gujarat is not really a great place for tourists right now, both because of loss of infrastructure and potential dangers. but hopefully i'll have time later in life, and i'm excited about spending the remainder of my time in rajasthan...there is much to see and do there. bye for now. i'll be sure to write again before i leave india.daniel.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/india_2002/1016511120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/india_2002/1016511120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/india_2002/1016511120/tpod.html Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:37:24 -0500 India and Nepal...my first ever trip outside of North America.

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Gokarna, India

[written mar. 18, 2002]hello everyone...!i guess it's been a while since i paused to chuck words at the void...since arriving in chennai (and south india) two different things started happening at the same time: i was both starting to really get into traveling and getting travel weary. it might sound contradictory, but i think it takes several weeks before the type of lifestyle involved in backpacking feels normal...but it can start to weigh as well. anyway, in the ensuing metaphysical chaos, i forgot to write. a little while ago though, the weariness started to fade as i realized how my slightly-less-than-a-month-left would disappear rather quickly...the knowledge that i'll be finding myself back on a plane before i know it is both comforting and distressing, but it leaves little time for being tired. in general, the most remarkable things in south india are the food and the landscapes. so far there have been less places where i'm thoroughly amazed at what's before me, but the region as a whole leaves a much more marked impression than north india (or the parts of north india that i've seen). and i could eat the food forever...masala dosa for breakfast (lentil crepe with curried potatoes inside), the seemingly infinite varieties of thali (or meal, often served on banana leaves and involving a lot of rice, various vegetable dishes, and pappads, which are delicious lentil chips sometimes also made with tapioca...everything mixed together and eaten by hand, something that i've become much more proficient at) for lunch or dinner. and fresh juice and fruit...mango season has only just started, which i'll be sure to take advantage of, but i've discovered mosembi (i've seen it spelled a variety of different ways in english) in the meantime...it's sweet lime and it looks like a greenish orange. it has a similar taste too, but better, like a hug is better than a slap in the face. i've been to so many places since i last wrote so maybe i'll just try to describe things piece by piece.mamallapuram: about a two hour bus ride south of chennai...the bus ride itself was great because the road runs right along the coast of the bay of bengal...lots of palm trees but also lots of sand dunes with small shrubs edging the ocean. i think that there are more tourists at any one time in mamallapuram than indians...it's very popular and has suffered slightly environmentally as a result...as do most heavily touristed areas. there are tons of ruins here, the most famous being the shore temple which is small but beautiful and right on the ocean. there's a fence around the complex and they charge a ridiculous amount of money to get in, but you can get close enough to enjoy it without going into the temple area. there's a beach here too that lots of tourists seemed to think was great...but it's mostly used by the fishermen and there's garbage everywhere. it gets better the further away from town you go...the beach looks like it stretches all the way to chennai...and it probably does.pondicherry: i was disappointed by 'pondy' as the locals call it. i don't know what i was expecting really...maybe i put too much stock in its frenchness. because it's not very french at all, apart from being able to find baguettes. and while some areas are quaint, it's pretty dull. it's right on the water but the entire water front is a large rock wall to protect the nearby road. it wasn't bad or anything, just unremarkable.madurai: the town itself is a busy indian town...i don't know how to describe that concept really...but after a while you start to get a sense of the similar current that runs through busy indian cities...the noise, the pollution, the chaos. there's a sameness in large towns throughout india in that sense. but the sri meenakshi temple (spelled various ways in english, that being one of them) is a wondrous place. it's a huge hindu temple compound with 12 gopurams (towers) the largest being at the north, east, south, and west entrances...around 50m high. the towers are completely covered in thousands and thousands of painted statues of hindu gods, it's hard to take in all at once. the temple complex itself is a maze of halls and passageways where it's easy to get temporarily lost...there are thousands of carved pillars throughout the halls and there's a large water tank in the middle. it's easily the most amazing temple i've been to so far.kanyakumari: the most southern point in india (about 7 degrees above the equator)...the bay of bengal, the indian ocean, and the arabian sea all meet here. but if the town itself were anywhere but on that point of land it would be relatively uninteresting. still, it was great to watch the sunset over all three oceans with hundreds of indian tourists and pilgrims (and some other western tourists too).trivandrum (actually it's now called thiruvananthapuram): the capital of kerala...not the most exciting place, a bit chaotic, but i still managed to enjoy myself and i ended up spending three days here. i think what happened was that i really liked my hotel and i needed a bit of a break from moving around so much. i met a brit named jim in my hotel who taught me the rudiments of cricket (finally!!!) and some new card games. he also repeatedly demolished me in chess. i find cricket more interesting than baseball, which i can't help but compare it to, but i think that that's possibly because it's so new to me. but now when someone says that the score is 156 for 3 after 17 overs i sort of know what they're talking about.varkala: a beach and accompanying red stone cliff just north of trivandrum. when i first arrived i was a bit dismayed at the amount of development...the entire cliff is covered in all manner of hotels, shops, travel agencies, internet cafes, restaurants...it just stretches on and on. the beach is nice and the waves are quite high, so playing in the water was fun. but varkala really shines at night with the sunset from the cliff followed by all the restaurants lighting the tables (which are all open air and facing the ocean) with candles. the atmosphere changes quite drastically. and i realized that i kept seeing the same people over and over again...so there were less people there than i thought. i liked it much more by the time i left than when i arrived.keralan backwaters: there are many salt water lakes and rivers in kerala (due to the types of landforms on the ocean shore) as well as fresh water ones...there are actually locks to keep the two separated. keralan forests, at least in the southern half, are almost entirely various kinds of palm trees...and the backwaters are extremely lush. i took a boat cruise from kollam to alappuzha, an 8 1/2 hour trip, the first half in salt water, the second half in fresh water. i liked the fresh water better for the vegetation, but the salt water had more interesting animal life (jellyfish, so many jellyfish, and normal fish that dance across the top of the water on their tails!) the cruise i took is the most popular for tourists...it's possible to explore less traveled backwaters and even rent a houseboat that's built to look like a traditional rice barge...but it can be quite expensive.kochi: an interesting mix of bustling, westernized indian town and old portuguese, dutch, and jewish settlements. the different areas in kochi are on different points of land and islands...there are regular ferries that go between them all. ernakulam is the main city and is a seemingly wealthy place for india...the main strip has clothes stores that are almost indistinguishable from upmarket western versions of the same thing. fort kochi is where all the interesting stuff is...it's such a change to go there from ernakulam...it's so much more laid back and quiet. unfortunately, tourism is yet again making a mess of things by slowly turning this historic charming place into a traveler's den. but it's still really interesting. the mixture of portuguese, dutch, and indian architecture makes for some strange sights...maybe not strange exactly...just out of place somehow. i visited jewtown as well...an old jewish community that came from (or more likely fled) europe with (i think) the portuguese colonizers. the famous pardesi synagogue was closed (my luck to be there on a saturday) but the area was still fascinating with all its spice shops (that's why the portuguese, quickly followed by the dutch, came in the first place...pepper!)and now, after a long arduous journey (15 hours on an overnight train, followed by three hours on two separate buses) i'm 750 km further north in gokarna...a series of beaches near a town in the north of the state of karnataka, just south of goa. it's quite lovely, but maybe i'll leave it to write about some other time.daniel.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/india_2002/1014210000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/india_2002/1014210000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/india_2002/1014210000/tpod.html Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:55:53 -0500 India and Nepal...my first ever trip outside of North America.

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Kolkata (Calcutta), India

[written feb. 20, 2002]hello everyone!!!i'm now in kolkata (calcutta de-britished)...i arrived, rather groggy, this morning on an overnight train from new jalpaiguri, which is the closest major train station to darjeeling. perhaps it was my grogginess, but my first impression of kolkata on the autorickshaw ride from the train station to my hotel was that it looks a lot like toronto. maybe it was because of the street cars (trams) or the stairs leading down to the subway, or maybe it was that the city hadn't fully woken up yet, and so wasn't as chaotic as it is for most of the day. but there was something about the feel of the streets and the construction of the buildings that made it feel like a run-down indian downtown toronto. i haven't been here that long, but i'll let you know if that feeling holds up after having explored some more in a more awakened state.let's see...since leaving nepal i've been to bodh gaya, patna, and darjeeling (and now kolkata). i can't help but feel that the time i spent in bihar was largely wasted. bodh gaya wasn't as interesting as i thought it would be...i'm not overly interested in meditation or practicing buddhism, and so much of bodh gaya's appeal was lost to me. the mahabodhi temple and the descendant of the bodhi tree under which buddha found enlightenment were a bit fascinating...but it's a small place...and the lotus pond at the back is just sort of a dull square full of dirty water and gigantic catfish (due to the fact that people feed them all day every day). and then for some reason i went to patna...oh yeah, i remember why...because it was more convenient than gaya for catching a train up to darjeeling. but that convenience cost me a day and a half (plus 4 hour bus ride and thieves) in a truly wretched city. the thieving involved me having my flashlight stolen and my first aid kit riffled through (but nothing taken) while my bag was underneath the bus in the luggage compartment...these were the things in the only easily accessible pocket of my bag...because i might need to access them easily. if the only thing that i lose on this trip is a flashlight, i'm laughing. take, for example, the experience of an australian named tim that i met on the train to darjeeling...while he was asleep he had his pants cut open (to get access to a pouch full of important things) and all his money stolen except for one hundred rupees, presumably out of kindness...which is a pretty good presumption as it turns out because the thief had to take out tim's passport to get at the money and then put it back!!! so time woke up with his passport, 100 rupees, and a hole in his pants. i guess the one useful experience derived from being in patna was that i spent my day and a half without seeing one other tourist...no one goes to patna, with good reason as i've already mentioned. but it was the first time that i felt completely and totally isolated. and people in patna, being much less used to tourists, stared at me much more openly and with more vigour than in touristed parts. and if ever i stopped anywhere and sat down i would be surrounded by a group of people in no time, soon to be pestered incessantly. i found myself getting, in turn, very uncomfortable, frustrated, and angry. it's probably something that every white person should go through at least once.but than i managed to make it to darjeeling and things got much better. getting to darjeeling was sort of an arduous task, however. after a long overnight train ride, i had to ride in a share jeep (which involves a vehicle built for 5 or 6 people having twice that number in it) for three hours up the side of an extremely large hill on a very spotty road...almost everyone was feeling ill and several people acted on that feeling...excluding myself, but i did manage to get splattered a bit thanks to a small child in close proximity. darjeeling is about 2700 metres above sea level, and so i was definitely back in the mountains...the views were amazing and the entire hillside is covered in tea plantations...the tea in darjeeling was correspondingly excellent. i stayed in this silly place that's leftover from the raj...it's still technically a club with a president and secretary...there's a whole layer of indian society that really bought the idea that the british are culturally superior and still act on that basis. so my room had a fireplace (darjeeling's quite cool this time of year) and i had hot water bottles (two!) in my bed at night, and there was a snooker table in the 'club'...anyway, it's all normally very expensive but because it was the low season i managed to negotiate a 50% discount which made it affordable. one of the fun things that i did while in darjeeling was to take a ride on india's first ropeway...it involves riding in a cable car across a valley for 1.2 km...it was less sketchy than i thought it would be and turned out to be a very pleasant ride through the valley over tea plantations on extremely steep hills. on the way there i could hear hindi (or nepali) music very clearly and i thought that maybe there was a speaker on the cable car somewhere...but it turned out that someone was blasting music from one of the villages in the valley that could be heard throughout the whole ride...but on the way back it was blasting shania twain!!!!! the irony of traveling so far to be confronted with nasty country music unleashed on the world by someone spawned in my own home town is not lost on me. the next day, while taking a jeep back down to the train station in new jalpaiguri, it started hailing...well, raining ice cubes would be more accurate. i naturally assumed that some of the more influential hindu gods had decided to punish us in a manner befitting evil originating in timmins, ontario. anyway, darjeeling is great, but it's essentially an urban environment and doesn't really compare to the remoteness of some of the other places in the himalayas. it's definitely a vacation town...but probably a better one.that's probably enough out of me for a while...i'll write again soon. it's off to the andaman islands in a few days!!! i'm rather excited about that.daniel.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1197653760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1197653760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1197653760/tpod.html Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:49:59 -0500 Beijing to Bombay...my slightly unexpected return to Asia.

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Mumbai (Bombay), India

how to say goodbye? i think maybe that's what i've been trying to figure out these last three months. it's easy to let the routines of the everyday obscure the truth of the way we live our lives. it's easy to close our eyes to that which we cling to, what we let hold us back and drag us down. traveling is a total disconnection from the rigours of the daily grind, an energetic idleness. and in that wandering leisure there is the potential for self-knowledge. detached from the quotidian and the customary it's easier to see the chains and feel the weight...and so maybe easier to break free. i have been holding on to the past in various ways through many aspects of my life. i have contented myself with treading water. what looks like a lot of motion up close can be seen, from a distance, to be the mindless stirring of stagnant waters. and maybe i've done the best that i could given the circumstances. but i need to move on...and i need to let go.and so i say goodbye (in this small way that might be a reflection of something larger) with someone else's words, jacob bannon of converge:'i need you to be the strength of widows and sole survivorsi need you to be as fearless as new mothers and new fathersi need you to be the hope of hearts who lost true lovei need you to be the might of their first kissi need a purpose and i need a reasoni need to know that there is trophy and meaningto all we lose and all we fight forto all our loves and our warskeep breathingkeep livingkeep searchingkeep pushing onkeep bleedingkeep healingkeep fadingkeep shining onthis is for the hearts still beating'
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1197575280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1197575280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1197575280/tpod.html Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:28:31 -0500 Beijing to Bombay...my slightly unexpected return to Asia.

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Mumbai (Bombay), India

the relatively short amount of time that i'm spending in india hasn't really been an issue because i've been covering ground that i've already gone over (for the most part) and so i'd already sifted through the multiplicity of destinations available previously, now returning to those that i had really enjoyed. on entering gujarat, however, the small amount of time i had to spend exploring a totally new place became somewhat frustrating. gujarat can be a time consuming place to move around in. i have a habit of taking overnight trains to maximize the amount of time that i have during the day wherever it is that i end up...but in gujarat the railway lines all radiate out from ahmedabad like fingers, making it easy to get to and from ahmedabad by train but difficult to get between cities that aren't on the same 'finger'. the alternative is to take buses...but gujarat is more wild than i was expecting with bumpy, ragged roads and there are very few sleeper bus options. the long bus rides quickly eat up days. my first stop was diu, a small island just barely separated from gujarat's southern shore. like goa, it was a portuguese colony right up until the 1960s when portugal had the dubious honour of being the last colonial power to leave india (they also win the award for the first to arrive...) apparently diu is the most touristed spot in all of gujarat...although technically it's not actually part of the state. along with another old portuguese colony called daman, diu is governed directly from delhi. gujarat is a dry state (as in no alcohol) whereas diu is not. the result is that on weekends there tends to be a fair number of drunk gujaratis (mostly young men) hanging around certain beaches. i imagine that most people come to diu looking for a little piece of the beach scene found further south on india's west coast...but diu isn't quite a beach bum's paradise. it's a strange place with beaches that are nice but somehow unspectacular...and diu city proper is a pleasant enough indian town with portuguese influence (churches, a fort) that's almost charming (but not quite). i stayed at a 'resort' on one of the nicer beaches ('resort' = a ramshackle collection of corrugated iron blocks with a certain budgety appeal)...i was there for three days and i enjoyed it...but if i was really wanting some serious beach time there are some amazing places that make diu look like the bumpkin that it is only a day's train ride away to the south. although, the one thing diu has going for it is that there are waaaaaay less people in its shadow of paradise than there are in the real thing. my next stop was the town of jamnagar, a medium sized town that's interesting for no particular reason but that's generally funky in a dilapidated kind of way. it's famous for textile work called bandhani which is intricate tie-dying that dates back as far as anything else in indian culture...supposedly something like 5000 years, although i'm not sure how anyone really knows that. assuming that the figure is correct, somewhere around year 4962 or so the hippies stole the idea...as they do. after jamnagar i went to bhuj, the epicenter of the earthquake that killed 10% of the city's 150,000 people in 2001, half the earthquake's total death toll in one town. i can't imagine picking up and starting over after something like that...or what the effects of that kind of catastrophe are on a community's psychology. even six years later the scars of the earthquake are everywhere. piles of rubble are still lying around and a lot of buildings have yet to be renovated in any way. the town isn't very wealthy and even with government help money is a huge concern...although 'help' seems to frequently involve tax breaks for out-of-state companies to set up industrial sites that are of questionable benefit to the local economy. in the old town the palace lies in ruin, being too expensive to rebuild. there's a fund that's been set up...but i have no idea if they have anywhere close to enough money. bhuj is often used as a base for exploring the nearby coastline and the interior's border-area villages. gujarat is largely divided into two separate regions. there's the southern bulb of saurashtra, a mostly flat and fairly arid area with the occasional pocket of palm treed lushness that hints at nearby south india. the northern bulb is called kutch and bhuj is sort of plopped right in the middle of it. kutch is remarkable in that during the monsoon season an area running along the pakistani border (the great rann of kutch) and looping down to the gulf of kutch (the little rann) floods, effectively turning kutch into an island. the sea water backs up into the soaked areas so that when the water recedes at the end of the monsoon salt deposits are left behind. the salt flats of kutch are desolate and barren, but the bits i saw as i made my way to bhuj from jamnagar by bus were bleakly beautiful. in the end, my time in gujarat showed me that what i really want to do is explore the strange landscapes of the ranns and the almost timeless villages. of course, it took all the time that i had to figure that out...but should i ever come back to india i'll definitely come back to kutch.there's a daily train from bhuj that goes to mumbai leaving at 8 pm and arriving at noon the next day. i had been having pretty good luck with buying train tickets only a few days before the departure. the train to mumbai was the only ticket that i decided to buy well in advance (two weeks) and so (naturally) it was already booked out. i was number five on the waiting list and everyone at the booking office kept telling me in their official capacity that i would definitely get a berth. i checked on my ticket a few days later and i'd moved up to number three on the waiting list. when i checked the morning of the train itself i'd gone from being wait listed in the third spot to the enigmatic 'R.A.C. 88'. after intense questioning i learned that R.A.C. stands for reservation against cancellation and that i was 88th on this new, more confusing list. apparently there are seats that are reserved for doctors and other professionals and if they aren't taken then the overbooked passengers get them first-ticketed, first-served. the wait list is actually a rung lower than R.A.C. on the train ticket ladder. the R.A.C. tickets are only resolved a few hours before the train leaves...and i managed to get a seat. sort of. in the sleeper class train cars there are nine sections per car, all open to each other along a corridor, and eight berths per section. six of these berths are arranged in stacks of three perpendicular to the train car. the other two are stacked parallel to the side of the train on the opposite side of the corridor from the other six. the bottom side berth is the worst of the eight because it is made by folding two seat-backs together which never fit perfectly leaving an uncomfortable bump. every other berth is a solid bench. the R.A.C. tickets are always the two side berths...but what i didn't know is that they assign them to more than two people if the demand for the train is high enough. for the first few hours i was the only person at the side berths for my section. i decided to go to sleep in the upper, more comfortable berth, even though it wasn't mine. about an hour later the man who it did belong to boarded the train and kicked me out. i resigned myself to sleeping on the bumpy bottom berth. just after midnight a woman got on the train and came over to me and shook me awake. she accused me of being in her spot and told me to leave. i told her she was wrong and proceeded to ignore her, trying to fall back asleep. she found a train official who informed us that we were both R.A.C. tickets and would have to share the one berth. being newly awoken and tired, i took the news poorly and got really grumpy. i scrunched up into a sitting ball of annoyed fury and glared at the woman who had just usurped half my space. a quick glance down the corridor confirmed for me what i already knew in my heart: no one else in the car had to share their berth...just me. it didn't help that the woman now beside me was obviously going to be able to fall asleep in the small amount of space she had, whereas i would undoubtedly be awake for the remaining 12 hours of the train ride. when she got close to sleep her breathing became that of darth vader's, an evil wheeze. i sat in my corner, in a huff, and did my best to feel hard-done by and mistreated. it was then that i realized that i explicitly expected this not to happen to 'me'. i'd gotten used to the special treatment that tourists get, i'd let the multitude of times that i'd been served first or given space that no local was allowed to have become a blur...and i had started to expect such treatment without even realizing. i was a bit shocked to discover this sense of entitlement lurking just underneath the surface. i suddenly felt ashamed of my anger that i'd internally directly at this woman who bore no responsibility for the situation we were in. and just as i was thinking that maybe it was about time for my privileges to be revoked...the train conductor came over and showed me to the berth at the other end of the car that he'd arranged for me to sleep in. i suppose the three crying children who wailed away into the wee hours were the universe's way of making a point.india has a reputation for being a difficult place to travel. i've met people who are about to travel here made nervous by the 'horror stories' they've heard (i've heard a few myself...), and i've talked to people who hated the time they spent traveling here. you have to be on your toes to avoid getting taken advantage of, it's true. and while serious threat is rare (i've heard stories of attempted muggings in taxis and middle-of-the-night pickpockets on trains, but i've never felt threatened personally), you do have to be very careful with your stuff. i've had my bag stolen from on both of my trips here...negligible losses both times thankfully. last time it was a flashlight stolen in gaya, this time it was some prayer flags that i bought in nepal stolen in chandigarh. both times the culprit was the luggage-wallah working for the bus company. the flashlight was understandable i guess...it was a novel design and expensive looking. but the prayer flags just pissed me off. i can understand someone's impulse to steal from me based on our respective economic and social standing, i can rationalize that...but the prayer flags cost next to nothing even in asia! it was stealing for the sake of stealing...and it was strangely frustrating because of it. and now i'm in bombay...and i'd forgotten that for all the city's wonders, here hustling has been elevated to an art form. every financial interaction is an ordeal, and you're constantly at a disadvantage. taxi drivers start bargaining at 500 rupees just to drive you across town, armed with bullshit meter schedules and made-up times and distances. budget hotels make you fight for your room, even though they're the most expensive in india. walking down the street there's a constant stream of demands and requests, invitations and offers. after having read 'shantaram' i can't quite stop thinking about the bombay underworld that may (or may not...) have its hands in everything behind the scenes, turning all the small jarring street interactions into massive hoards of wealth. you just have to flow with it, i guess. if you find yourself screaming at a taxi driver over a few rupees, perhaps you've taken a wrong turn. if you distrust every smile that you see, maybe you've gotten lost. it's a steep learning curve for sure and i'm glad to be finishing in bombay rather than starting...but all the same, that hustle's going to corner you at some point and you just have to learn to deal with it.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1192930560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1192930560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tofudan/china_2007/1192930560/tpod.html Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:09:54 -0500 Beijing to Bombay...my slightly unexpected return to Asia.

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Lhasa, China

the line on the map going from chengdu to lhasa is completely unrepresentative of the actual train journey that tam and i have so recently completed. if you were to imagine pinching the red line between chengdu and lhasa at about the mid-point and dragging it upward to create an inverted 'V' with the tip level with beijing you would get a much more accurate representation of our route. the reason that i've entered the map points the way they are is because i have this map related rule of only entering places where i've stayed the night...day trips and passing through don't count. the map would get too messy if i created an entry for every single place i've physically moved through on my trip. my initial reading of the tibet permit situation was correct, as tam and i strolled right through the lhasa train station. it also seems that most of the places we plan on visiting outside of lhasa may be accessible without permits as well...the only tricky part may be getting to the nepali border. it's easy to do if you're willing to shell out several hundred dollars to take a jeep the whole way (and that amount goes up if the jeep isn't full) but neither tam nor i want to spend that much money, and i have a feeling that we'll find a way there in a manner more suited to our budgets. lhasa is at 3700m and even though the train broke 5000m there was oxygen being pumped into the train cars so the full effect of the altitude was limited. it wasn't anything like an airplane cabin being pressurized and i did feel it a little bit when trying to go to sleep on the trip (the second night) but to go from nothing (chengdu is at 127m) to over 5000m in less than two days would have floored us without the extra oxygen. we had to fill out a health disclaimer when we boarded the second, high-altitude train...i imagine that in the year or so that it's been operating there have probably been some serious medical situations on the train. tam and i definitely felt the 3700m as we shouldered our packs on the lhasa train platform. in the 24 hours since then i've felt pretty good...but we've been taking it very easy. it's harder for me to catch my breath and i get short, slight headaches if i climb stairs too quickly (or similar exertions) but overall i've been pleased with my body's reaction to the rather sudden change in altitude (i can't imagine stepping off a plane into this atmosphere). this is the highest i've ever been without mechanical aid (last time in nepal i went up to 3300m) and i think how i feel right now bodes well for going higher. we plan to stay in lhasa for about four days, taking in the sights in a leisurely manner. tam is having a harder time than i am...he was ok this morning but has developed a bad headache over the course of the day. we'll see how he feels tomorrow and act accordingly.we spent the morning exploring the jokhang, probably the most important monastery and temple in tibet. it's hard to describe the somewhat insane mixture of tibetan pilgrims circumambulating (always clockwise) the structure and prostrating all along the way, the tourists snapping away with their cameras, and the plethora of merchants lining the entire circuit. the smell of incense and yak butter candles (better smelling than i expected) hangs over everything. the actual building is quite small...it was pretty pricey to get in (70 yuan) but the inner sanctum had a definite spiritual aura even with all the tours groups congregating throughout. it was great to be able to go up on the roof as well and get amazing views of the surrounding chaos, lhasa, and the mountain vista that encircles it all. i think that tibetans are definitely in the running for most beautiful people on the planet...the monks in their red robes, pilgrims with their beautifully decorated hair and large vests with many folds that their arms frequently disappear into. all the clothing is so colourful and exquisite. we came across a group of men, not monks, wearing long robes and the bellowing vests, but also wearing dark sunglasses and hats that were reminiscent of fedoras...tam called them the tibetan mafia. the other main attraction in lhasa is the potala palace, the traditional home of the dalai lama...obviously unoccupied presently. the building is a wonderful mix of red and white with sharp boxy angles, quite unlike any other architecture i've ever seen. it sits atop a rock outcropping that juts up in the middle of lhasa creating a commanding presence that can be seen from all over the city. there are only so many tickets sold to tourists every day (tam and i walked by at around 10 am and they were already sold out for the day) but you can buy tickets in advance. the tickets are very expensive at 100 yuan...thankfully tibetans only have to pay 5. as the potala sits high up on a hill there are lots of stairs to climb. tam and i agreed that we would maybe buy tickets tomorrow for the next day, hoping that by then we will be able to handle the stairs without too much difficulty.as for the political situation here, it's very, very messy. the more i learn about the history of tibet the more i realize how complicated it all is. i think that both the chinese government and the 'free tibet' activists are being disingenuous. the chinese are without a doubt occupying and the hysteria of the cultural revolution resulted in inexcusable damage to tibetan cultural property. but pretending that tibet was somehow an idyllic paradise before chinese intervention is a dangerous fantasy and there seems to be a tendency to ignore history when arguing for tibetan independence. to be clear, i believe in the right to self-determination of any group that has a shared ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identity, and which lives in a relatively contiguous physical location. tibetans clearly should have their own state in some form, the relationship with the chinese taking on any number of possibilities. but tibetan culture has been far from progressive historically, feudal theocracy hardly being an 'enlightened' form of social order. i'm entering into territory where i have limited knowledge so maybe i'll cut this a bit short and let the lonely planet's introduction to tibet speak for me for now: 'there simply seems no middle ground on the dilemma of china and tibet - one must either believe that the opportunistic han are 'ruining' shangri-la, or that they wrested literally millions of slaves from feudal serfdom. the truth, as always, lies somewhere in between.' what has become increasingly apparent to me are the failings of the lamaist reincarnation scheme. since its inception in the 11th century the search for reincarnated leadership has always been manipulated politically. it's no surprise that the chinese have vigorously taken to the same interference. i find the whole concept problematic and spiritually bankrupt, much as i view the election of the pope. it's all politics. the search for the major reincarnated lamas (dalai lama, panchen lama) has always been sexist as girls are not even considered...this when buddhism provides ample reason to view gender as superficial and trivial. the current dalai lama has said that if he dies in exile (and he's getting up there) the next dalai lama will be reincarnated outside of tibet. how can this be anything but political maneuvering? the chinese government, for its part, will immediately name its own patsy the 'true' dalai lama and the ensuing battle for legitimacy will be of no help to anyone. the particular way in which the tibetans choose their spiritual (and therefore, in the tibetan context, political) leaders seems bound to cause this kind of chaos, and has previously. it seems so unlike the rest of what i know of buddhism to me that i can't help but find the whole process distasteful. but i think that a lot of what i find strange in tibetan buddhism has much to do with the degree to which the older bon religion that was displaced has been incorporated into tibetan buddhist practice.when tam and i were boarding our train to lhasa in chengdu we both agreed that we felt like we were leaving china. that feeling has subsided somewhat in the face of the degree to which chinese culture has reshaped lhasa...but still, i have a sense that the first, chinese, part of my trip is over. it's caused me to reflect on my experience of the chinese people, the confusing mix of casual disregard and endearing friendliness and compassion. i can think of so many moments of intense frustration at the seemingly endless selfishness of the people around me...but just as many of gratefulness and warmth when i was helped and sheltered when i least expected it. the contrast was sharp and often disconcerting in hindsight. the only way i've come to understand it is as a question of responsibility. to go from being a faceless stranger, an obstacle in the way, to a friend and near family member only takes a shift in perception, to be seen as having become a responsibility of the chinese person in question. whether it be finding the right bus connection or hostel, or making sure that i'm not being taken advantage of in some way, as soon as my well being is sensed as being directly linked to the actions and considerations of the person in question, i am welcomed. this is especially true in the context of being a guest in china, as my opinion of my experience and chinese hospitality matters greatly to most people. china desperately wants to be seen as a member of the international community in good standing, and in some small way this has filtered through my time here.
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