Factoid: "May the breeze bring you the tenderness and warmth from me, far from each other we may be, yet still you are here, at the bottom of my heart". Taken from the wrapper of "Pie", fondant filled cakes G is esp. fond of and earned him the nickname Pieman!
Abstract: Left Deqin in the rain crossing into Tibet en route to Chamdo in Eastern Kham State for a local festival. Had a brush with the law, met some great people and G was on local TV. Travelled on westward through Kham (eastern Tibet) which was surprisingly verdant and fertile, visited two picturesque lakes, schools, monestries, 5000m passes and met lots of friendly tibetans and yaks... shame our driver was so moody... Arrived in Lhasa, shaken but definately stirred by all the scenery...
Nitty Gritty: Left Deqin in the pouring rain, with no view of Mt Meili, still the Lavatory of Environmental Protection (a log cabin of toilets) raised a chuckle - didn't stop to investigate, but they probably dumped all the sewage under the building like all the others...think the Chinese are confused about the word 'environmental'as cutting down trees to bulid a toilet seems to have missed the point...Our driver stopped to make an offering of juniper branches to the mountain buddha for a safe journey..Ooo errr.. and we continued towards the Tibetan border, along the side of very steep gorges forested with yellow and purple trees.
This day was to be a long one as we had to cross a new bridge in the process of being built (hairy as v.muddy and driver wouldn't use 4WD.....) that was only open for 2 hours each day. The Tibetan border was a bit disappointing and we didn't even get our permits checked but we posed for a rainy photo.
The high pastures we crossed were dotted with Nomadic tents of the yak herders. These were made of black/brown skins with a hole in the top to allow smoke from the fire to escape. The hardy nomads take their cattle to the high pastures during the summer months, returning to the valleys and their villages in the winter. The beautiful villages consisted of houses with flat rooves covered with haystacks and elabourately painted windowframes.
The plain to Chamdo in Eastern Kham state was particularly scenic and it was there that we encountered groups of people erecting electricity cables by hand (can you imagine us doing that in the west? Hauling the cables up the pilons - very hard work), lots of donkeys and baby donkeys and young men prostrating along mountain roads - the ultimate Buddhist devotion.Each took a few steps before raising their hands in the air with palms together, bending their knees and lying flat on the floor, touching their foreheads to the road, scraping their prostration boards (protecting their hands)along the road above their head and starting the process again once stood up. They will do this all the way to Lhasa with only a cart full of supplies wheeled ahead of them by a support person.
On arrival in Chamdo we were intercepted by the PSB (Police of the section of aliens exit - entry administration of public security division of Chamdo district)who instructed us which hotel to stay in and that we were not to take photos anywhere except of the festival we had come to see.At least our permits were finally checked!
Continuing the theme of ridiculous English messages on confectionary, Lucy found some (horrible) sweet and sour plumbs promising "100% enjoyment, SOCK OF FAMILY, exquisite embodyment of elegant life" ermmm...
The festival we'd expected to be horseriding and archery had been hijacked by the Chinese (as only they can) and moved from the fields to a town square with a stage and was not exactly the spectical we'd expected, but the traditional dancing was enjoyable enough. The people of Chamdo were fabulously friendly and we were viewed like zoo animals wherever we went and within minutes we'd been invited to the home of a girl who befriended us - we declined for fear of the PSB, a force not to be messed with.
R was nearly reincarnated in true Buddhist style as a lamb kebab after discovering Mr Ali & his firey kebabs from northern China which were pure heaven although her final one had so much chilli that it nearly finished her off - that'll teach her to walk around a monastery in the wrong direction! The local TV crew thought we were very amusing and followed us around one evening and G even got on local TV eating an Ali kebab and murdering the chinese language.
Chamdo Monastery was wonderful and when we visited the monks were chanting and it was very atmospheric and their woollen boots with upturned toes were photogenically pilled up outside the chanting hall. Locals were prostrating themselves outside the hall and in the kitchen sampa (barley gruel) was being prepared for the monks b'fast. Old women were gossiping whilst spinning a huge prayer wheel and villagers were walking the morning kora around the monastery - we were invited to join a friendly elderly couple who were concerned about bad karma as we were walking in the wrong direction.
The dancing at the festival was pretty good - sort of cosac like, but people watching was far better - hilltribe women with very long hair plaited in very thin plaits in intricate designs and bedecked with turquoise and coral adornments and the men, also with long hair that was wound around their heads and secured with ornate pins and red or black wool wound around their heads. To see above the heads of the large crowd we bought some plastic stools which we shared with the locals which was fun.
We were sad to leave Chamdo as festival aside it had been a highlight as so few tourists visit it. Retracing our steps to the Yunnan - Lhasa highway, we encountered a donkey stood in the middle of the road advertising his family jewels and earning the expression "Hung like a donkey!". A little further along a herd of yaks were crossing a glacial stream and the babies who were cute with wooley foreheads were getting washed down stream by the current. As we were willing the babies to safety, two horsemen came clattering down the road towards us whooping, an amazing sight and sound. They looked really cold, the nomadic lifestyle is a hardy one, so we gave them a packet of biscuits which delighted them and they clattered off whooping and hollering.
Mountain passes were another highlight of the journey, mainly over 4000m, but some 5000m.Luckily none of us were suffering from altitude sickness, an advantage of travelling overland. However, the weather wasn't kind to us (bad karma somewhere along the way)and most were shrouded in mist. A few mad Japanese mountainbikers passed us slogging their way up to the passes as we descended (apparantly it's easier to cycle from Lhasa to Yunnan, but in either direction it would be pretty hardcore).Unlike the rest of China, the Tibetans don't seem to eat birds so many birds of prey including vultures were visible from the car.
The village of Pasho was a definite highlight as it was there that we met Natalie, a Tibetan english teacher, who we met outside the school, had dinner with and at the end of the evening she sang us a song of friendship. Natalie gave us a guided tour of the school where we caused a near riot as many of the pupils were from the hills and had not been exposed to foreigners. Lessons start at 8.30am and finish at 7.45pm with many of the pupils boarding at the school along with the teachers (5 to a room) and with one small staff room for all 65 teachers. It was really interesting to get an insight into their school system, however it was depressing to hear that although they are taught Tibetan (as a foreign language), they are taught in Manderin and have 'political instruction'. Hmmmmm. Like many Tibetans, Natalie hopes to make the pilgrimage to Lhasa once in her life and until she does, we sent her a picture book of the holy city.
Pasho had a lovely monastery that we were showed around by the resident dwarf monk who was really friendly. The inside smelt of yak butter candles and in the corners of some of the rooms were sacks of grain for the forthcoming winter, giving it a really lived in feel. Outside in addition to prayer flags were piles of manni stones (stones carved with pilgrims prayers/wishes) topped with yak sculls with huge horns. We hitched a lift back to the village on the back of a truck together with many locals, the driver wouldn't accept payment, instead his wife gave us each a handful of walnuts which were delicious and could be easily cracked with your heal.
Rowok Tso is one of many holy glacial lakes on the road to Lhasa and would have looked wonderful in the sun, but another overcast day resulted in misty views of the lake and the autumnal colours of the surrounding trees - it didn't stop us going for a walk or rather a scramble up a few hills surrounding the lake. That is after a battle with the driver to take us there in thew first place and after he'd refused to stop at a remote monastery we'd wanted to visit. We did however manage to take some photos of a particularly scenic part of the lake complete with yaks on the 'beach'.
Back on the road we had to negotiate a huge rock, one of the largest landslides we encountered and it looked like something Wiley Coyote had levered off the mountain above onto the unsuspecting Roadrunner below - needless to say there wouldn't have been much of us left had we been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
By the time we reached Pomi (or Bomi depending on which map you look on)it was pouring with rain, but our 5 bed dorm (we looked like part of the 7 dwarfs in our row of beds) was cosy as we had electric blankets and the hotel had the best showers we'd had, I mean the only showers, we'd had in days, and each cubicle had heat lamps. Shame about the toilets..... The only downside was natural aircon. provided by a broken window and the sound of the pouring rain made it feel as if we were sleeping behind a waterfall. We did find a great place to eat though. The owner, an old man in a Chairman Mao suit, was fascinated by the TV. Somehow our pointing technique to ordering dinner went a bit awol as we ended up with spam soup.....!
Pushing further towards Lhasa, we encountered a group of Swedes who had lost the wheel off one of their vehicles resulting in a huge traffic jam so to take advantage of the good weather we walked up the road for nearly 2 hours before the driver picked us up.Todays stretch of road wound along the side of the Brahmaputra river. The river was a long way below, the road was very narrow, muddy and was peppered with roadworks requiring frequent stops/ delays and yes, you've guessed it, the driver wouldn't engage 4WD and we had visions of the end of the Italian Job. The banks of the river were thick with forest (The Chinese will no doubt chop that down to make disposable chop sticks)and the water a raging torrent.
Stopping at a monatery on an island in the middle of the river, we encountered a friendly piglet who hunkered down when approached so you could stroke her - it took a lot of will power not to bundle her into the car. A pig has been added to our virtual menagerie.
Unfortunately the mountain of the ritual dagger was clouded over when we reached it, but the weather didn't stop us frollicking in the snow on the 5000m pass just outside Bayi and visiting 2000year old cyprus trees decked with prayer flags as it got dark. (the driver started swearing at us when we requested to visit the latter). Bayi wasn't quite what we expected of a Tibetan town....it is a huge Chinese town with hundreds of prostitutes in shops with red lights or lanterns outside and felt really seady. We later discovered 2 huge militery bases outside which accounts for all the prostitution. It was dark and had been a very long day by the time we reached Bayi and we struggled to find a cheap hotel that would take foreigners and that you could have for the night, not for the hour. We did find a great Muslim rest. with incredibly generous hosts who served delicious beef noodles and insisted that we sit at the entertaining table upstairs in a room of its own. The food was great but difficult to finish at 10pm.
Pasum Tso, another holy lake was to be a highlight of our final full day of the trip, so we were pleased that the driver wanted to leave Bayi at 7.30am. What we didn't expect was a)that the driver would drive right past the turn off to the lake and intended to drive to Lhasa some 400km away b)that we would have an arguement with the driver (he spoke no english) who refused to take us back to the lake c)that we would have to borrow the drivers phone to call the chap we'd booked the trip with d)that we would have to sit by the side of the road for nearly 2 hours whilst the problem was resolved and finally the driver begrudgingly turned around.
The weather wasn't that good, but we managed to visit the monastery on an island in the middle of the lake, complete with its phalic woodern sculptures and raft on a pully system to reach it and have a brief walk. At Korngpo Gyamda we booked into the "Boudoir Hotel" so named by us as the entire hotel walls and ceilings were covered with dark red velvet material and the lighting was dim. The town had many Muslim businesses and outside one we watched 2 men expertly skin a goat and lay all the inerds on the fleece including a huge stomach.
Our last supper was a delicious affair of spicy tofu, spinach and tomato and rice and it was whilst eating this that we discovered Lhasa beer complete with it's label stating 'beer from the roof of the world'. G got propositioned by a prostitue whilst we were eating much to the amusement of our hosts. The Boudoir turned out to be really noisy as the Karioke bar opposite was in full swing until a local pulled the plug mid song about 3am.
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