A Uyghyr woman with her child in Kashgar
I came into Tibet via Xinjiang province, another "autonomous" region of the Chinese Imperialistic State. I stayed quite some time in Kashgar, recovering from dysentery which I got in Pakistan. Dysentery is a great way of losing weight. I think I lost around 7 kilo in about 1,5 week. In Kashgar I went to the hospital, gladfully there was a retired man, who so bored out of his mind that he visits the hospital every day, who spoke some English, nobody else did. They gave me drips and medicine, but I think I got some other form of diarrhea as well because the symptoms didn't change much. From Kashgar I went to Kargilik, where in order to get into Tibet illegaly I had to hide for 2 days from the police. This sounds more exciting then it really is. (I went through all my Simpsons episodes on my mediaplayer in these 2 days. A personal record!)
Sheep especially breeded for the lonely sheppard
(check out their asses) on the market in Kashgar
The Xingjiang - Tibet highway is the highest "highway" in the world with several passes over 5000 meter. The high in highway has more to do with the altitude then with the state of the road, which is crap.
A good torture technic for people with a little bit of taste must be the continues playing of Chinese music. The traditional music sounds like the tape is funky (in case it's from cd you know it's the music), the rocksongs contain all the cliches imaginable including the ever crying guitar and the popsongs are so sweet it makes you a diabetic instantly. Then you have the Chinese techno which is to horrible to mention let alone listen to. And in Tibet I heard a crossover between traditional music and techno which was at least quite amusing. I even heard the Tibetan Tom Waits.
Anyway the busride Kargilik - Tibet took 49 hours (thank god the music wasn't played non stop). On the last day the bus first got stuck for a few hours. A bit later the the bus stopped suddenly, I looked out of the window and saw 2 tyres next to the bus. My first reaction was: "Who put these 2 tyres there?" (I hadn't slept much), next moment I realized what happened: the tyres had almost got off the axe so we where stuck for another few hours, nice! An army truck picked us up to get a flat tyre a bit later. We have diner and then some young suicidal/homicidal soldier drives us to the next town. The ride feels more like a 3 hour non stop rodeo ride but the view is amazing.
After having arrived in Ali I got to the PSB office to pay the fine for getting in Tibet illegaly. This after the advice of some people I met in Pakistan and went the same way before me. Because I want to do the Mount Kailash trek and they told me you need a permit from the PSB for that. In the PSB office the officer says that since 2 weeks they changed the rules and you don't need the permit anymore. But I do need to pay the 30 euro fine. AAUUWW!
One of the biggest crimes the Chinese commited in Tibet (apart from suppressing the Tibetans and killing a lot of them) is the construction of these ugly Chinese towns (what do they have with white bathroom tiles?). Ali is no exception so I'm happy to leave to do the Kailash kora. A kora is a budhist or Bonpo (with : on the first o) pilgrimage. Like all religions Tibetan Budhism is surrounded with superstition (isn't religion one big superstition?). The Tibetans believe it's good for their karma to walk around holy things (lakes, mountains, monasteries, whatever). The budhist do it clockwise, the bon followers (Bon is the pre-budhist shamanistic Tibetan religion from which Tibetan budhisme took a lot of rituals and believes) anti clockwise. Some do the kora 1 time, some do it 13 times and some 108 times. Some even do it prostrating themselves (no they don't sell their bodies on the way). Prostration means they lie down at full length with their arms stretched over their heads, then stand up, place their feet where their hands ended up and repeat the process. So the 50 km which the kora encompass will take up to 3 weeks this way. Well, if you have nothing to do anyway...
Being the most holy mountain of Asia (also to Indians who do the kora in Indian fashion: in a bus and on horseback) you would think the pilgrims thread it a bit different then the rest of their country. Unfortunatly empty instant noodle packages, plastic bottles and even wet cell batteries (what a morons) can be found lying everywhere. And it's not only uneducated people doing this like somebody told me, I see everybody littering. A very frustrating sight which I see in many countries I visited.
On one part of the kora people leave some clothing behind as symbole for starting a new life. I even saw some bra's left behind, that must have pleased the gods.
Pilgrims prostrating themselves, this way their
pilgrimage takes about 3 weeks instead of the usual 2 days
Since public transport, like showers and decent public toilets (the few there are can hardly be described as decent and are very "public"), is virtually non-existent in West Tibet I had to hitch hike my way out of there. I was very lucky to meet an Italian tour group which had a truck transporting all the matrasses, tents and food. Especially the matrasses came in very handy on the bumpy roads. After 3 days of doing little distance (approx. 200 km per day which actually is quite a lot having done other rides later) and sneaking through 2 police checkpoints (most people are not allowed to take foreigners in their vehicle, we could poison them with our decadent Western liberal mind or something) I could finally take a public bus (is cheaper then hitchhiking) to Shigatse, the second biggest town in Tibet and the site of the Tashilhunpo monastery, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama (the second biggest man in Tibetan budhisme after the Dalai Lama). The current Panchen Lama is under house arrest somewhere in China since his 6th year (the Chinese are such sweethearts) and the Chinese appointed a more suitable kid (the son of some Communist Party members).
The girl in the back has yak milk in a yak stomach
and by moving the stomach back and forward
all day the milk will turn into nice yak yoghurt
After having destroyed most of the monasteries during the Cultural Revolution the Chinese came to the insight that there is some money to be made out of them (I still don't understand how Communisme could have gotten root in China, I don't think I met more greedy and capitalist people then the Chinese). So monks are allowed to do their thing again and monaseries are getting build up again. In the case of the Tushilhunpo monastery it reaks like a spiritual sell out. If you want to take pictures inside you have to pay 75 yuan (7,5 euro) per hall and video even costs 1500 yuan. That pays them well, those handy cam idiots.
Woman doing a kora around a monastery
Leaving Shigatse proved to be more difficult then expected. While it was perfectly easy to get on the Lhatse - Shigatse bus, foreigners are not allowed to travel in the other way by bus (after a while you really start to like the authorities). So I tried to take the bus for 2 days and then finally decided to use my thumb again. After 3 hours I got a 1 hour drive in a landcruiser, after that I had to wait for 5 hours to travel the last 100 km in the very bumpy and hard back of a mini traktor which took 8,5 hours (so an average speed of a bit more then 10 km per hour). Arriving in Lhatse at 2 o'clock in the night, 2 hotels didn't want to take me in and another smelled of piss, the forth one was finally willing to take me in. The next day I walked past the checkpoint to hitchhike again (the mini traktor driver was going the same way but I didn't fancy going with him after the severe ride the day before in which I suffered some internal bleedings?). Unfortunatly this was not my lucky day and around 7 o'clock I gave up and went back to ugly Lhatse.
Next day I finally get picked up by a bus after waiting for 5 hours and starting to think about buying a bicycle to do the trip on a bike. Luckely I didn't: the road is totally shit. It had rained a lot and this has turned the already bad road in a total mudpool. Even landcruisers get stuck on some parts: 70 km in 7 to 8 hours, nice.
Man doing a kora around a monastery
My goal is to go to Mount Qomolangma base camp a.k.a. Mount Everest base camp. This must be the most easy accesible basecamp in the world. If you want you can get there without walking. I decide to walk the last 8 km which, because of the altitude, are harder then I imagined. Unfortunatly Qomolangma decided not to show herself that particular day and I decide to get drunk (using the altitude as a way to get extra drunk) and that Mount Everest is a bit of a overrated mountain.
Leaving Basecamp is also not easy, well the first part is: you use your ticket for the "Non-pollution" bus (on diesel) but after that its more difficult: only tourist landcruisers on the road and the locals know you have money and not much choice.
I do some more hitchhiking during which I perfect my stone throwing- and walkingstick-balancing-on-
The walking stick I originally bought to do the Kailash kora. Later on I used it succesfully agains Tibetan dogs, annoying children and cheating Internetshop owners. (I won't go into detail about the latter, but I did hear later from a fellow traveller that he was charged the right price a few days after I "renegotiated" the price I paid before).
"A man's best friend", better call the Tibetan dogs "hellhounds" because that's what most of them are: big, vicious and utterly annoying creatures who sleep during the day and roam the streets at night fighting each other and keeping you from your sleep with their constantly barking. They especially get agressive towards tourist whom smell differently then the Tibetans (thank god for that: the Tibetans are not known for their high standards of personal hygiene; some even have a "yearly bathing ceremony").
Two short rides with 5 minutes waiting time each bring me to Sakya monastery. A very fine monastery with nice monks who give me some candy out of a human skull. The Tibetans also use human bones for music instruments. And funerals are done in the following fashion: the corps is brought upon a hill or mountain. Then some funeral attendents start chopping away at the body ("whacking and hacking" as Gary Falkner would say) and the vultures do the rest. A very ecofriendly though a bit nasty way of dealing with the dead.
Besides sweets from a human skull, I also get treated
to some cacophonic music at Sakya monestary
After Sakya I finally went back to Shigatse where I am now. Having arrived here I couldn't help noticing the many little flags hanging everywhere in the street. But of course: it's the 40th anneversery of the TAR (Tibetan "Autonomous" Region). After being "liberated" of themselve in 1950 and in 1959 of that horrible man the Dalai Lama, 1965 saw the forming of the TAR. According to the Chinese "many happy Tibetans had problems fighting back tears of gratitude at becoming one with the grat motherland". If this all wasn't so sad you could problably laugh at the way the Chinese know how to formulate things. In what kind of reality live these people actually?
Anyway now every house in Shigatse sports the Chinese flag. If they don't the have to pay a fine. Sounds a bit like a forced "celebration" to me. If it already greatly annoyes me, how must the Tibetans then feel?
But Tibetans are high spirited people (and problably more used to all these Chinese nonsense).
Their apperance is much like that of the North American Indians. Not only the skin colour and facial features of some but also their long braided hair and their jewellery (although the Tibetans prefer to wear Cowboy hats). Even their singing (which they do often while travelling or working) is simular to that of the Native Americans so I'm told by an American tourist. They were and many still are a nomadic people so it's not so strange to make the conclusion that they went over and exchanged the yak for the bison a long time ago.
I have to admit that this is kind of a long email. But there were many things to tell, some with a bitter undertone. Even though the local authorities try to do much to annoy the individual budget traveller (they want you to go on expensive landcruiser tours, well maybe I will do that when I'm old and senile) Tibet is one of my favorite countries. But next time I will come back with bicycle and tent.
Kurt
P.s. I found one positive aspect of the Chinese occupation: the availability of delicious Chinese food. The Tibetan food is plain at best.
After Shigatse I went to Lhasa, which was a real disappointment after having heard so much about it. It definitely didn't live up to my expectations. Tibet is not the place where you should go for the cities unless you're interested in ugly architecture and dubious nightlife (karaoke and Chinese pop music).
On the way to Lhasa the driver played the same tape over and over again. Since that trip I'm a big fan of Tibetan techno. I had never heard Tibetan techno (or Yak techno) before so it was a real ear opener. The thing that makes Tibetan techno stand out are the long stretched female voices and the funny macho male vocals. Forget about Goa trance, urban, electro or drum 'n bass: Tibetan techno is the next big thing.
Chinese tourist posing with a calf on the background
In Lhasa I went to the Sega monastery. Here the monks have a daily debate corner. I don't know what they where debating (maybe they where discussing whose turn it was to do the dishes), but things got pretty lively. To stress their point the monks do a funny kind of hand clapping.
"You do the dishes tonight." "No, I won't, I already did them yesterday"
The Mekhong snaking it's way through the deep valleys of East TibetFrom Lhasa I got a 4 day ride through East Tibet. The scenery was again mesmerising: from arid, snowy passes to large forests. I don't think I saw so many tress in my life before as in those few days. In the last part of the trip we went over high mountains with steep valleys cut out by the Mekong river.. The only problem on this trip was that I didn't have a permit. Because of that I couldn't stay in any hotel. The 3th hotel I tried wanted to give me a room but then the guy at the reception made a phone call and gave me the receiver. The voice on the other end asked me where I was from and where I was going. He didn't answer me when I asked him who he was and told me to stay there. I kind of figured out that he was from the PSB (police) and didn't think twice: I quickly left the hotel. After that I got kind of paranoid: everywhere I saw police. When I walked back to the hotel where the drivers and the other tourists (who were Chinese and didn't need a permit) where staying I saw 2 police cars standing in front and at the back of the hotel. Now I really felt like a fugitive. Like in a movie it also started to rain. Luckily enough after a while the 2 cars left and I could sleep in the land cruiser.
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