Showing posts with label Tibet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tibet. Show all posts
Monday, December 31, 2007
Friday, December 28, 2007
Tibet rocks!
People my age might find Tibetan pop music especially interesting--there’s an odd retro eighties feel to a lot if it. Tibetans, like other Asians, have a love for sublimely bad synth-pop. However, there’s a traditional Tibetan instrument that finds its way into many contemporary songs: it’s a banjo-like instrument played in a strange galloping tempo and a twang that sounds uncannily like "Love Vigilantes"-era New Order. Combine this banjo with a synth and drum kit, add some quirky rhythms and quasi-Asian melodies, and you have songs that seem to variously conjure up New Order, The Fall, Gang of Four, Modern English... I swear I even heard a song that sounds like Dexy’s Midnite Runners.
I don’t know where to even begin tracking any of this stuff down (the language barrier makes it difficult to research), but if I ever come across any good examples, I’ll try to post them.
I don’t know where to even begin tracking any of this stuff down (the language barrier makes it difficult to research), but if I ever come across any good examples, I’ll try to post them.
Tashilunphu monastery
Shigatse, Tibet’s "second city", was large enough to have two things we desperately needed: a pharmacy, and a heated hotel. At the pharmacy we stocked up on supplies for Jacqueline--codeine cough syrup, Contact, ibuprofen and cough drops.
The hotel’s common areas were bone chilling (the lobby, restaurant, and hallways were separated by those clear plastic hanging "flaps" one usually finds in meat lockers) but our room had a powerful heater that we put right to work. Jacqueline took her medicine and slept away the afternoon, recuperating in heated bliss; I went alone with our guide to a nearby Buddhist monastery. In a large adobe courtyard, we queued up with a large group of pilgrims waiting for the temple to reopen (Temples are required by law to keep the same official government hours as banks or bureaucratic offices; from 1 to 3pm they are closed for lunch). Once again I found myself thinking of the American southwest. In this high-desert setting in an adobe courtyard, I was surrounded by raven-haired women with long braids and silver bracelets, wearing robes of black and turquoise, carrying babies on their backs. Men in fur-lined boots draped themselves in wool blankets with diamond shapes and swastika motifs. I don’t even know how much of it is strange anthropological coincidence, or how much of this culture was preserved in the long migration over the Bering Strait…yet another thing to look up on wikipedia at some point.
In that courtyard I became the center of attention. Most everyone in the crowd was staring at me; some people found it difficult to turn away. Children wandered up tentatively to get a closer look.
My guide leaned in and said to me quietly: “They’re pilgrims to this temple; these people are from the northeast of Tibet. Very remote. They are nomads, they look after cattle. Many of them have never seen a white person before.”
I might as well have been a circus clown the way I appeared to them, with my tangled wind-blown mop of graying brown hair, my glasses and bright white ski-jacket. As the world gets smaller, I wonder how infrequent these moments will become. I slowly shuffled through the temple shoulder to shoulder with this crowd, choking on the thick and pungent yak-butter candle fumes. I was in a time-capsule, staring in awe at the massive 3-story tall Buddha, hearing the chants. It was inspiring glimpse into an alien mindset. For most of human history people have lived like this, as herders, hunters or subsistence farmers whose sense of the supernatural was essential to their daily habits and rituals.
Afterwards I walked to another small temple nearby; a group of small children who were perhaps more familiar with foreigners surrounded me. “Hello! Bye-bye! Hello! Bye-bye!” they laughed and yelled as they hugged my legs and tugged my hands.
The hotel’s common areas were bone chilling (the lobby, restaurant, and hallways were separated by those clear plastic hanging "flaps" one usually finds in meat lockers) but our room had a powerful heater that we put right to work. Jacqueline took her medicine and slept away the afternoon, recuperating in heated bliss; I went alone with our guide to a nearby Buddhist monastery. In a large adobe courtyard, we queued up with a large group of pilgrims waiting for the temple to reopen (Temples are required by law to keep the same official government hours as banks or bureaucratic offices; from 1 to 3pm they are closed for lunch). Once again I found myself thinking of the American southwest. In this high-desert setting in an adobe courtyard, I was surrounded by raven-haired women with long braids and silver bracelets, wearing robes of black and turquoise, carrying babies on their backs. Men in fur-lined boots draped themselves in wool blankets with diamond shapes and swastika motifs. I don’t even know how much of it is strange anthropological coincidence, or how much of this culture was preserved in the long migration over the Bering Strait…yet another thing to look up on wikipedia at some point.
In that courtyard I became the center of attention. Most everyone in the crowd was staring at me; some people found it difficult to turn away. Children wandered up tentatively to get a closer look.
My guide leaned in and said to me quietly: “They’re pilgrims to this temple; these people are from the northeast of Tibet. Very remote. They are nomads, they look after cattle. Many of them have never seen a white person before.”
I might as well have been a circus clown the way I appeared to them, with my tangled wind-blown mop of graying brown hair, my glasses and bright white ski-jacket. As the world gets smaller, I wonder how infrequent these moments will become. I slowly shuffled through the temple shoulder to shoulder with this crowd, choking on the thick and pungent yak-butter candle fumes. I was in a time-capsule, staring in awe at the massive 3-story tall Buddha, hearing the chants. It was inspiring glimpse into an alien mindset. For most of human history people have lived like this, as herders, hunters or subsistence farmers whose sense of the supernatural was essential to their daily habits and rituals.
Afterwards I walked to another small temple nearby; a group of small children who were perhaps more familiar with foreigners surrounded me. “Hello! Bye-bye! Hello! Bye-bye!” they laughed and yelled as they hugged my legs and tugged my hands.
No credit
At dinner one night I was offered yak-butter tea, the Tibetan staple. To my dismay, it tasted as foul as it sounded. I felt it was important to be polite, so I took a big sip. My cup was topped off almost immediately. I took two more big gulps, and each time it was topped off. I was feeling queasy, and I was convinced I would throw up right there at the table if I took a fourth sip. I had choked down almost an entire cup just to please my host, and yet my cup looked untouched.
"Don’t you want to try the tea?" I was asked.
"Don’t you want to try the tea?" I was asked.
Tibetan food
The food we ate was generally a bland assortment of Chinese-, Indian- and Nepali-influenced dishes. Chicken gristle, bok choy, tofu, naan and curried vegetables... We didn’t have too much that was explicitly Tibetan. There’s a staple Tibetan soup that’s pretty good; it was very similar to matzo ball soup. Beyond that, it was pretty much yak meat, yak meat, and more yak meat. Sometimes curried, always tough and gamey. Mmmmm.
Accommodations (part 2?)
In the town of Lhatse, we had slightly better luck with a hotel. It, too, lacked heat and insulation (and they also kept their doors wide open all night) but they had hot water nightly from 9pm to midnight. Perpetually cold and unable to shake the chill of the past two days, Jacqueline seemed to be getting worse. Her cold and cough were as bad as they’d ever been, and we were getting worried. She remained under the covers, in her winter jacket and boots. At 9pm sharp I put on the shower to its hottest setting and let the steam billow out into our room. The shower stayed on for two hours. The room never technically got "warm", but by 11pm when I went to bed, the steam had helped cut the chill a bit.
In the morning when we woke up, everything--windows, walls, mirrors, ceiling, bathtub--was covered in a thin coating of ice crystals. The steam condensation had frozen overnight.
In the morning when we woke up, everything--windows, walls, mirrors, ceiling, bathtub--was covered in a thin coating of ice crystals. The steam condensation had frozen overnight.
Crossing the border
Depending on weather and road conditions, it takes anywhere from 3-5 hours to drive from Kathmandu to the border town of Kodali. Though the weather was great, much of the road was unpaved, and as our little Kia 4x4 bounced, rattled and lurched its way through twisting mountain roads, I began wondering if my back would give out again. We climbed our way out of the Kathmandu valley and watched the landscape slowly change from lush greenery to a more arid mountainous terrain.
The Nepali town of Kodali and the Tibetan town of Zhangmou cling to opposite cliff-sides of a steep river gorge, and are connected by the no-man’s land of the Friendship Bridge (yes, that’s really what they call it). Long lines of semis and tankers queue up on either side. The border is closed from 5pm to 9am, and truckers who find themselves still stuck in line at 5 have to spend the night in their cabs.
About a year ago, a small group of westerners had come into Tibet and unfurled a giant Tibetan flag on a mountainside somewhere--the Chinese government was of course upset, the westerners were deported, and since then all tourists are required to have a guide/escort/sponsor to enter the "Tibet Autonomous Region". We officially left Nepal as we walked over the bridge, and our guide was to hand us over to his Tibetan counterpart once we got to Zhangmou.
Jacqueline and I were scrutinized by the soldiers at Chinese immigration, and they looked skeptically at our passports and visas. The three of us started walking to the large arch at bridge’s end, but we were met with waving arms and angry bursts of Mandarin. There was some tense back-and-forth between the soldiers and our guide (and since our guide barely spoke any Mandarin, I don’t think the discussion was very constructive). Everything seemed to be settled, and we starting walking again. More pointing, more angry exchanges. Our guide looked as baffled as we were, but he assumed they were suspicious of his credentials/paperwork.
We waited on the bridge for about an hour, looking at the mountains, and the river way below us. We were conspicuous, the only two white people anywhere in the area, and we drew many curious stares. We watched the lines of pedestrian and oxcart traffic moving back and forth--round Tibetan faces with impossibly pink cherubic cheeks; small men and women carrying huge loads, with hair and clothing that looked eerily similar to that of the Anastasi or Navajo. Replace the Red Guard with US Cavalry, and we could have been in the American southwest circa 1900.
The Chinese soldiers were young and swaggering, looking bored and frustrated to be stuck in such a remote post. They often treated the locals with impatience and annoyance: barking orders, pointing, taking pleasure in making people nervous. The soldiers spoke only Mandarin, and were mostly from rural areas far away from Tibet. We were told that it was largely intentional. The Chinese often rotated soldiers in and out of this post frequently: If anyone stayed here long enough to learn Nepali or Tibetan, there was a concern they might acquire some local attachments or sympathies.
Eventually our guide was able to talk his way past the sentries, somehow… he returned with our Tibetan guide who walked us through the arch... We were finally in-!!
Past the crowds, we climbed into the waiting land cruiser and proceeded up the steep, partially-paved switchbacks into Zhangmou. More bouncing and lurching. Jacqueline and I marveled at the 100+ semi trucks precariously lined on the narrow cliffside roads, waiting hours or days to enter Nepal. The weather that day was cold and clear, but often the roads are muddy from rain or iced over. I asked our guide “Aren’t there a lot of accidents? Do many trucks fall into the ravine?”
“Yes.”
It’s a priority of the Chinese government to build a safe modern highway from Lhasa to the Nepal border. They’re about two-thirds finished, but the last stretch (which includes the precarious cliff trail) isn’t set to be paved until the spring thaw.
All of China is on Beijing time, so by crossing over into Tibet we instantly jumped ahead about four hours. We settled for the evening in a ramshackle hotel in Zhangmou. Peeling pergo floors; exposed wires and rebar; a decade’s worth of cigarette burns on the sheets and drapes. The bathroom was perfect abattoir chic: chipped tile with a strange filmy coating and blackened grout. There was no actual 'shower stall' to speak of; the shower was a faucet in the wall by the toilet, a plastic bucket and a drain in the center of the bathroom. There are very few travelers or tourists in December, and only 2 or 3 rooms besides ours were occupied. The hot water had been turned off for the winter(!) but the hotel proprietor offered to arrange for us the use of a public bath down the road. We politely declined. Curiously there was neither a heater nor any form of insulation in the room. In fact the whole hotel had paper-thin walls, and the hotel was in the habit of leaving their front lobby door wide open, day and night. We both slept in our boots, scarves and winter jackets underneath the bed covers… we went to bed cold, woke up even colder, and were unable to shake the chill.
About 4 or 5 days earlier, Jacqueline and I had been luxuriating at the W-Walkerhill hotel in Seoul, drinking mojitos at the painfully hip hotel bar, enjoying our environs as much as possible, knowing that our accommodations throughout Tibet, Nepal and India were likely going to be rough.
The Nepali town of Kodali and the Tibetan town of Zhangmou cling to opposite cliff-sides of a steep river gorge, and are connected by the no-man’s land of the Friendship Bridge (yes, that’s really what they call it). Long lines of semis and tankers queue up on either side. The border is closed from 5pm to 9am, and truckers who find themselves still stuck in line at 5 have to spend the night in their cabs.
About a year ago, a small group of westerners had come into Tibet and unfurled a giant Tibetan flag on a mountainside somewhere--the Chinese government was of course upset, the westerners were deported, and since then all tourists are required to have a guide/escort/sponsor to enter the "Tibet Autonomous Region". We officially left Nepal as we walked over the bridge, and our guide was to hand us over to his Tibetan counterpart once we got to Zhangmou.
Jacqueline and I were scrutinized by the soldiers at Chinese immigration, and they looked skeptically at our passports and visas. The three of us started walking to the large arch at bridge’s end, but we were met with waving arms and angry bursts of Mandarin. There was some tense back-and-forth between the soldiers and our guide (and since our guide barely spoke any Mandarin, I don’t think the discussion was very constructive). Everything seemed to be settled, and we starting walking again. More pointing, more angry exchanges. Our guide looked as baffled as we were, but he assumed they were suspicious of his credentials/paperwork.
We waited on the bridge for about an hour, looking at the mountains, and the river way below us. We were conspicuous, the only two white people anywhere in the area, and we drew many curious stares. We watched the lines of pedestrian and oxcart traffic moving back and forth--round Tibetan faces with impossibly pink cherubic cheeks; small men and women carrying huge loads, with hair and clothing that looked eerily similar to that of the Anastasi or Navajo. Replace the Red Guard with US Cavalry, and we could have been in the American southwest circa 1900.
The Chinese soldiers were young and swaggering, looking bored and frustrated to be stuck in such a remote post. They often treated the locals with impatience and annoyance: barking orders, pointing, taking pleasure in making people nervous. The soldiers spoke only Mandarin, and were mostly from rural areas far away from Tibet. We were told that it was largely intentional. The Chinese often rotated soldiers in and out of this post frequently: If anyone stayed here long enough to learn Nepali or Tibetan, there was a concern they might acquire some local attachments or sympathies.
Eventually our guide was able to talk his way past the sentries, somehow… he returned with our Tibetan guide who walked us through the arch... We were finally in-!!
Past the crowds, we climbed into the waiting land cruiser and proceeded up the steep, partially-paved switchbacks into Zhangmou. More bouncing and lurching. Jacqueline and I marveled at the 100+ semi trucks precariously lined on the narrow cliffside roads, waiting hours or days to enter Nepal. The weather that day was cold and clear, but often the roads are muddy from rain or iced over. I asked our guide “Aren’t there a lot of accidents? Do many trucks fall into the ravine?”
“Yes.”
It’s a priority of the Chinese government to build a safe modern highway from Lhasa to the Nepal border. They’re about two-thirds finished, but the last stretch (which includes the precarious cliff trail) isn’t set to be paved until the spring thaw.
All of China is on Beijing time, so by crossing over into Tibet we instantly jumped ahead about four hours. We settled for the evening in a ramshackle hotel in Zhangmou. Peeling pergo floors; exposed wires and rebar; a decade’s worth of cigarette burns on the sheets and drapes. The bathroom was perfect abattoir chic: chipped tile with a strange filmy coating and blackened grout. There was no actual 'shower stall' to speak of; the shower was a faucet in the wall by the toilet, a plastic bucket and a drain in the center of the bathroom. There are very few travelers or tourists in December, and only 2 or 3 rooms besides ours were occupied. The hot water had been turned off for the winter(!) but the hotel proprietor offered to arrange for us the use of a public bath down the road. We politely declined. Curiously there was neither a heater nor any form of insulation in the room. In fact the whole hotel had paper-thin walls, and the hotel was in the habit of leaving their front lobby door wide open, day and night. We both slept in our boots, scarves and winter jackets underneath the bed covers… we went to bed cold, woke up even colder, and were unable to shake the chill.
About 4 or 5 days earlier, Jacqueline and I had been luxuriating at the W-Walkerhill hotel in Seoul, drinking mojitos at the painfully hip hotel bar, enjoying our environs as much as possible, knowing that our accommodations throughout Tibet, Nepal and India were likely going to be rough.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Taking care of business
I could probably go on at length about the beauty and remoteness of the Tibetan plateau, the exoticism of Tibetan culture, or the politics of Chinese occupation.
Maybe next post. For now, I just have this:
Our first morning in Tibet, in the town of Tingri... at the time it seemed unpleasant, but in retrospect it turned out to have been one of the nicer toilets we used:-)
(Jacqueline has a few good anecdotes that are maybe better told in a less public forum...)
Maybe next post. For now, I just have this:
Our first morning in Tibet, in the town of Tingri... at the time it seemed unpleasant, but in retrospect it turned out to have been one of the nicer toilets we used:-)
(Jacqueline has a few good anecdotes that are maybe better told in a less public forum...)
Sunday, December 2, 2007
In Nepal
Kathmandu! At last, one of the Big Five.
The "Big Five" are what I humbly consider to be the most exotic-sounding places on earth: Kathmandu, Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro, Timbuktu, and, of course, Rangoon. (Though I have to give honorable mentions to Tangier, Istanbul and Patagonia.)
Anyways we've arrived in Kathmandu, it's incredible here, and our hotel has internet. Our hotel also put us in touch with a small tour company that goes into Tibet. We weren't sure whether we could make it happen, but it looks like we'll be going after all. Our Tibet visas came through more easily than we expected, and on a sunday no less; it turns out the tour company has good connections at the Chinese embassy;-)
Again, we're not entirely sure what our internet situation will be (we may be out of touch for a while), but here's a basic rundown of what the next month will look like for us--
Overland into Tibet Dec 3; we'll be back in Kathmandu on Dec 9 or 10. From Kathmandu, we'll be heading into India and embarking, more-or-less, on the fabled Golden Triangle (though we like to call it the Septic Circuit). We'll be traveling via land cruiser and (*gulp*) sleeper train with a few other people on a sort of shoestring travel-group-tour-suicide-pact thing.... going through Varanasi, Delhi, Agra, Pushkar... I think we'll be spending Christmas in either Jaisalmer or Jodhpur... we finish up where we started, in old Bombay (now Mumbai).
If I'm able to, I'll try to post some Hong Kong/Seoul blogs; they may be a little out of order...
The "Big Five" are what I humbly consider to be the most exotic-sounding places on earth: Kathmandu, Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro, Timbuktu, and, of course, Rangoon. (Though I have to give honorable mentions to Tangier, Istanbul and Patagonia.)
Anyways we've arrived in Kathmandu, it's incredible here, and our hotel has internet. Our hotel also put us in touch with a small tour company that goes into Tibet. We weren't sure whether we could make it happen, but it looks like we'll be going after all. Our Tibet visas came through more easily than we expected, and on a sunday no less; it turns out the tour company has good connections at the Chinese embassy;-)
Again, we're not entirely sure what our internet situation will be (we may be out of touch for a while), but here's a basic rundown of what the next month will look like for us--
Overland into Tibet Dec 3; we'll be back in Kathmandu on Dec 9 or 10. From Kathmandu, we'll be heading into India and embarking, more-or-less, on the fabled Golden Triangle (though we like to call it the Septic Circuit). We'll be traveling via land cruiser and (*gulp*) sleeper train with a few other people on a sort of shoestring travel-group-tour-suicide-pact thing.... going through Varanasi, Delhi, Agra, Pushkar... I think we'll be spending Christmas in either Jaisalmer or Jodhpur... we finish up where we started, in old Bombay (now Mumbai).
If I'm able to, I'll try to post some Hong Kong/Seoul blogs; they may be a little out of order...
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