The Himalayas of Tibet & Everest North Face
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2009
1
9
39
Trip End
Mar 20, 2010
Everest Region. Tibet,
Himalayan Region,
China
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
The monastery is the largest functioning institution in Tibet and might be why camera charges were exorbitant! There's chapels of Jampa where this 26m statue is the world's largest gilded one. The 9th PL ordered its making, taking 900 artists and labourers 4 years to complete, with more than 300 kg of gold coating and many precious stones. A thousand more gold paintings adorn the walls! It's the tombs that make you aghast. The resplendent chorten of the 10th PL (died 1989) is huge, gold-plated, has a Kalachaka mandala on the ceiling and there are gold Buddhas on the walls. Altho' the buildings escaped the Cultural Revolution, the tombs didn't and that of the 4th PL's 11m gold & silver chorten was the only one to escape damage.
The Kelsang Temple courtyard was pretty with Buddha paintings on the walls, but the assembly hall was really interesting, with its 15th century throne of PLs, long carpeted rows of cushioned low benches for monks' prayers, long, round silk-tie hangings and so many thangkas all hanging from the ceilings. An inner chapel accessed via stairs at the back, contains the statue of Sakyamuni and another nearby has Drolma (Tara) images. The Tomb of the 5th - 9th PLs was built by the 10th to house the remains recovered after the destruction of the originals. It was this completion that signaled his death, as he returned to Shigatse from Beijing in '89 to dedicate the tomb and died 3 days later. There were more chapels with tombs of the 1st and 3rd PLs and the 1st DL above the assembly hall. The opulence of these chortens can't be overstated - it's breathtaking.
We moved on to Sakya, just 25kms off the Friendship Highway, after seeing Tashilhunpo. The road was a dirt track, but the surrounding farming valley was very ordered with planted crops and female labourers. A high walled monastery, deemed 'The Great Wall of Tibet', sets this apart with Sakya playing an important part of Tibetan history. There's an immediate difference in its external colouring, with red ochre, white and grey stripes adorning the brickwork. This is home to the Sakyapa school of Buddhism and is an impressive sight. With one monastery on one side of the Trum-chu river, mainly in ruins, this was a much larger southern fortress established in 1268. Designed defensively, it has 4 huge watchtowers on each corner (with a high walkway all around).
We entered thro' an inner courtyard (noticing how Chinese lions had been positioned in front of the main assembly hall!) and found that in addition to the monks prayer cushions, butter lamps, stone floors, suspended thangkas, gilded statues and Buddhist prayer books, there's a large drum, huge pillars made from 4 whole tree trunks and gilded statues that act as reliquaries for the monastery's former abbots, with the largest Buddha in the centre containing the founder of the monastery! There was a Purkhang Chapel with statue of Sakyamuni and others, with wall hangings depicting various Buddhas, medicine Buddhas & Tantric deities (fundamental to Sakyapa Buddhism). We didn't see them as the chapel was locked, but had we been able to visit in the morning, we'd have seen 11 silver chortens of other Sakya abbots and a sand mandala, along with further chortens & murals. As opposed to a chosen position, the abbotship here was actually down to hereditary worthiness! High on the outer watch walls, I found a protector chapel of Pakspa Lhakang, with a very tiny room depicting hanging, bloody heads, limbs & organs, while stuffed wolves 'lay' in the next recess!!
Our visit to Sakya was brief, as we had a long journey to the north face of Everest the following morning. We made our way back to Lhatse, seeing the Xiqian Hot Springs on the way and then drove over our final pass - Gyatso-La at 5,100m. The views then became surreal. Back on the Friendship Highway, we passed Pula Ri on our right (6,404m) and Lhuko Kangi (6,457m). Then the mountains came again: Pang-la (5,120m) on our right and Geu-la (5,170m) on the left, while the Dzaka Valley continued on our left. The landscape was riveting, as we left behind the barren landscape to replace it with ever-increasing massifs! We'd earlier had to register our arrival at the Qomolangma Nature Reserve, 6kms west of Shegar, at the Chay checkpoint, showing our permit for permission to access the area. We'd had to line up in the order the permit had been granted and show our passports. It was at the north face that the lovely Americans raised the 'Free Tibet' flag in March '08 and caused the total stoppage of all independent travel in Tibet, so there's a very strong Chinese presence in the area.
After just passing Gyatso-La, the stunning Himalayan mountains started coming into view, from our left to right: Makalu (8,463m), Lhotse (8,511m), Everest/Qomalangma (8,848m) & Cho Oyu (8,153m), with an awful lot of smaller ones in between! Simply, stunningly gorgeous!! We were all so excited and arrived at Rongphu Monastery after an extremely basic meal at a homestay further north. We certainly weren't bothered about another monastery and it was 3.30pm before we arrived, so we were all keen to trek the 8kms as quick as we could. Unfortunately, altho' I'd felt I'd acclimatized well, with no AMS symptoms that day, a really gusting 40 mph wind completed winded me as I trekked and I just felt exhausted, so after 4kms I took a bus to the base camp point! It wasn't a scenic walk at all, as it's a lime-infested lane and area and as I'd already completed it before in a much nicer setting, I didn't mind in the least! The Chinese were there in force and were the nicest guys you could wish to meet! They were extremely friendly and told me the wind had got up 3 days ago, had never subsided, that they were freezing and would I like a lollipop?
I chatted briefly and then said I simply had to walk the last few hundred yards and see what I'd come for. I stepped outside and gasped as I saw it - the north face of Everest and a brilliant view at that! First used by the 1924 British Everest Expedition, there's a small hill festooned with prayer flags that we all climbed for brilliant views and simply none of us moved for a very long time! This was the very pinnacle of the tour and truly magnificent! I just knew that I'd never, ever feel the same way again about anything I ever saw. This was really my utopia!!
We returned to extremely basic accommodation, which wasn't surprising, considering how close we were to the mountain (you could see Everest from the digs), but nothing really mattered, given what we had just seen. Everyone left their gloopy, sticky rice meal, but this was a family-run place making the best of a few basic ingredients a long way from the nearest town, so no-one minded. A pretty good night's sleep followed in a very, very cold area of Tibet, but wow, what a way to end a trip!
We left the Everest region early the following morning, which was no hardship in terms of the descent, as everyone was keen to get to a lower altitude, but it was so difficult leaving the mountain and the stunning views! Again the unpredictability of AMS struck again, with me feeling very poorly and sleeping on the bus from 9.30am to 5.45pm!!
I watched as we snaked our way back to meet the Friendship Highway via a series of never-ending switchback roads that had originally taken us to Everest. Again, we passed La Lung-la (4,845m) on our right and Tong-la (4,950m) on our left, with the Gyu-chu river running thro' on our left. Mt Labchi (7,367m) reminded us of the higher peaks until our route gave us a final photo shoot of the Himalayas. Evidently, we had passed Tsamda Hot Springs and much of the terrain was brown and arid, with no vegetation at all.
We arrived at Nyalam (which was to have been our overnight stop), but the border road was only going to be open until 8am (due to extensive road works), so we continued on to Zhangmu. We were losing altitude fast and this was reflected in the beautiful countryside. After the arid plains, we travelled thro' 30 kms of lush, deep gorge with rivers, waterfalls (12 or more were over 200' long!) and evergreen forests. It was a sensation on the senses after barren scree slopes, stones and dust! Zhangmu was a very strange and grotty looking border town, which sat on the side of the hillside, with a great deal of Chinese influence.
We made an early start for the actual border and queued with many other vehicles while a great deal of construction work was going on all around us. In Tibet, all construction workers seem to live on the job, with basic tents and cooking facilities to survive. It sometimes seems as if their families are there too. So here we were on a dirt road with many lorries waiting to cross the border and tents all lining the precarious edge of roads that often dropped away to several hundred metres below! I was stopped at the border as my backpack clearly showed a number of books and they wanted to see what I was bringing out of Tibet. Then we walked over the Friendship Bridge to Kodari: a dirty, unkempt town with scruffy people and tatty transport.
I was almost immediately aware that within minutes of leaving Tibet, thick, dense and very poor visibility was everywhere. I was returning to a very different Nepal to the one I'd left. Although there were good views of the vegetation as we journeyed on to Kathmandu, the range of view was limited and everywhere looked scruffy, filthy and full of rubbish. Having visited Beijing before entering Tibet, I'd become used to a tidy landscape, where quiet, unassuming and friendly Tibetan people maintained a silent pride about their appearance, home and surroundings - something a number of Nepalese seemed to lack. Despite my nasty experience, Tibet had been a wonderful mix of incredible culture, spiritual dedication, amazing architecture, phenomenal landscapes and many reminders of a long, lost world of mysticism and community. Although the Chinese are playing a monumental role in the new direction of Tibet, with all the emotions that this evokes, I felt privileged to have witnessed a little of their souls.
It was good to be back in Kathmandu, as I loved the city and the Thamel area where most tourists stayed. It seemed strange that two weeks previously, I was with my Everest friends, enjoying the success of our trek, but I needed to focus on my next journey to Pokhara. Known as the city by the lake, the main tourist area is around Lakeside, with Phewa Tal (the 2nd largest lake in Nepal) by its side. It's reputed to be one of the best places to get close views of the Hiunchuli (6,441m), Annapurna I (8,091m), Machhappuchhare (known as 'Fish Tail') (6,997m), Annapurna II (7,555m), Annapurna IV (7,525m) and Annapurna II (7,937m) mountains. My book pointed out that there were few places in town where you couldn't see the mountains reflected in the lake, so that was what brought me off route, before India. But I hadn't considered the possibility that the same poor visibility in Kathmandu might also be in Pokhara. And it was! I saw absolutely nothing for the duration of my stay, which was a little disappointing as I'd hoped to claw back some of the views I'd lost of Nagarkot in northern Nepal. All it needed was a good downpour to clear the atmosphere, but it wasn't to be! So the Annapurna range remains elusive to me!!
The bus ride from Pokhara to Sunauli was disappointing. Everyone had been scammed, as seats had been double booked, many understandably angry customers complained, causing long delays and the tatty bus was not the tourist coach promised (not that they're brilliant but they don't stop at every village 4 times!). Squashed in and seated on broken wicker stools thro'out the aisle, with tourists on the top of the bus and locals in every nook and cranny, we arrived 3 hours late. The good news was that there'd been trouble on the borders and no-one was sure if the bus would travel the whole route or be forced to stop some distance before, but we were lucky. I was forced to pay more for a clean room in this border town, but it gave me the contact to arrange a visit to Lumbini that afternoon.
One of the most religious sites in the world, Lumbini is the birthplace of Lord Buddha (Guatama Siddhartha Buddha), May 563 BC. An extensive amount of land has been devoted to commemorate the area of his birth, where Queen Maya Devi (of Kap Javastu) delivered her baby under a sal tree. This huge complex (extending for miles) was designed by a Japanese architect and was known as the Lumbini Development Zone. It houses the Maya Devi Temple, where Buddha was born, with a sacred garden surrounding it, containing the ruins of ancient monasteries and stupas. There's also a huge tree, small lake and a recreation of Ashoka's Pillar (the Indian emperor visited the area in approx 249 BC and erected a sandstone pillar).
Cars for non-officials cannot be taken on site, so I had to use a cycle rickshaw to visit this expanse on rugged, hard going ground, with very long distances in between sights. Buddhist monasteries from nations all over the world have been built on the site, all deriving from the Mahayana & Theravade schools. Divided into 2 zones, the West (Mahayana) contains a memorial with the Eternal Flame, Panditarama International Vipassana Meditation Centre, Drubgyud Choling Tibetan-style Gompa built by Singapore & Nepal Buddhists, Manang Samaj Gompa (northern Nepal), Zhon Hua Chinese Buddhist Monastery (in a pagoda style), Korean Buddhist Temple, Vietnam Phat Quoc Tu Temple, the Austrian Genden International Foundation, Great Drigung Kagyudi Lotus Stupa (German), Tibetan style Sokyo Gompa (Japanese Sokyo Foundation) & Linh Son Monastery (French).
In the East Monastic Zone (Theravada) there is the Royal Thai Buddhist Monastery, Japanese /Indian Mahayana Vishwa Shanti Buddha Vihara, the Myanmar Golden Temple, the Burmese Lokamani Pula Pagoda, Gantami Nim's Temple for female pilgrims, Dhama Janami Vipassana Centre for Meditation, Sri Lankan Monastery and a ceremonial bell. It all sounds incredibly impressive and in some ways it is, but I was shocked by how unkempt the overall site was and many temples were closed (altho' advertised as open during daylight hours). The Maya Devi wasn't a typical temple of any type, but rather a building to house some earlier found remains (presumably deemed to be the home). The tree nearby was beautiful and a monk was meditating under it when I passed by. Baby grey-striped squirrels were running around it too.
The site was not immaculate and it didn't lend itself, to me, as a particularly spiritual place, whereas the nearby Peace Pagoda (a car ride away on an extended site) was stunning and looked amazing. Sadly anti-Buddhist extremists killed a Japanese monk as a protest against the building (built by the Japanese at a cost of US$1 million) and he's buried in the garden not too far from the pagoda. The drive back from the site to Sunauli was brilliant, as we'd lost light and were driving thro' a variety of villages. It was incredible how busy everyone is, despite no street lights at all, but many many people were on unlit bikes, cars, the odd truck and simply hundreds all out walking around, chatting with friends and having snacks at stalls. I saw folks dressed up as dancers (males) in red/white outfits & headdresses, which was probably a wedding celebration. It was the same scene in nearby Bhairawa, with hundreds out on the streets shopping!
And so my time in Nepal, then Tibet and now Nepal again, had come to an end and a new chapter was about to begin. An early start was about to take me to the start of my tour of India, in Varanasi.
