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The Tibetan Monasteries : 17 March 2004
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We drove through the whiteness of a snow storm in the Himalayas, cliffs on either side of us, in a barely functional Land Cruiser with no tread on the tires, and a maniacal Tibetan at the wheel. We could barely see the road, but we could sure feel as the back end slid around the curves. Eventually, we made it to the top of the 5,150 meter pass where we had first seen Everest. We all piled out of the car to take one last picture, though all you could see was white cloud and snow all around. Then it was back down the other side of the pass (probably even more frightening than going up) and back into Shegar to get some lunch. From there, it was through another pass, then along the Yellow River back into the city of Shigatse, Tibet's second city. This was another very long day of driving, over 10 hours, until we hit the hotel. We did splurge here, for about $20 per person, on a 3 star hotel, with a hot shower and a real toilet, though we had to call down to reception to get them to turn the hot water on for the shower. It even had a nifty little restaurant where the five of us had a room all to ourselves and a good selection of Chinese food. This was also our goodbye to Eva, who was going to leave in the morning via a bus directly back to Lhasa, so she could get back home to her family. In the morning, we headed to the Tashilunpo Monastery, home of Tibet's largest Buddha statue, some 26 meters high. We hit the monastery right at the opening time, and became part of the crushing herd that forced its way through the sights, clockwise of course, as quick as possible. On the other hand, there is something about Tibetan monasteries that makes them very repetitive after a while. Maybe it's going to room after room with identical layouts of things like 10,000 identical Buddha statues. There was a very interesting room burried in the middle of the monastery. Here we entered this room with probably 15 or so monks, and a like of people. The people would wait in line to give the head monk some money. He would write something, and chant something, and then all the other monks would join in the chant. Strangely, though, all the other monks also had papers in front of them, presumably with prayers of some sort on them, but also with piles of money next to them. As a matter of fact, throughout the entire temple, piles of money was another of the repeating themes. It was strange to see so much money there, while outside the monastery walls, there were people, both monks and civilians, covered in dirt and persistently begging for any small change. Then again, a huge pile of 1 yuan notes is still not exactly a large sum of money. Our way back to Lhasa from Shigatse was via the "Old Southern Road," with a stopover in the town of Gyantse. The stop was partly because Gyantse has another interesting monastery to check out, and also partly because the next day would be another relatively long day of driving along Yamdrok Tso, another amazing turquoise lake in the mountains. The road to Gyantse itself was a relatively new and nice road, at least by Tibetan standards. The town itself, however, was an absolute pit. It's about three streets long, and totally dirty and disgusting. Large enough to be awful, but small enough not to have anything nice about it. We checked into our "hotel," a tiny room with four beds crammed in it and no toilet, then headed out on the town for some food. Our gamble with the food at one little place paid off, as none of us got sick. After eating, we wandered around the town a bit, being pestered by local kids several times. At one point, we saw this huge crowd around the town's main intersection. Turns out someone was trying to sell a dog. "250 for the dog," a woman told us. It was a nice looking dog, too. Actually kind of clean and fluffy looking, and tied to a motorcycle. Eventually, we headed to the Pelkor Chode Monastery and the Kumbum (which means "a hundred thousand images") this big building with a golden dome and 8 levels of little rooms filled with awesome statues and paintings of the various gods. Pretty cool. We then headed to the monastery itself, one of the few we were actually able to go through pretty freely... well sort of. We had headed up a staircase that led to the roof. There was a really nice view of the city, and of the old fortress next to the monastery. We had been hanging up out there for about 15 minutes, and started to head back down. But when we hit the doorway at the top of the staircase, the door was closed. Not just closed, but locked. At first we didn't believe it. After all, there were still plenty of people in the Kumdum, and wandering around the grounds of the monastery. We had just passed some others coming down from the roof when we went up. But the best part was trying to get help. David found a broken window that opened into the main monastery area, and was trying to get the attention of someone there. But that wasn't working. Andrea and I would shout at the people outside the building from the roof. But if they bothered looking up at all, they would just wave and shout "Hello!" and then turn away. None of them understood English well enough to tell the difference between "Help!" and "Hello!" So there we were, the two dopey Americans stuck on the roof waving at everyone, and unable to get down! Eventually, we got the attention of the guy taking money at the other building. He said "Come down," and we said "We can't!" A bit of charades about doors and locks and keys, and he finally got the picture. But then he got on his bicycle and left! Great. Another ten minutes of trying to get someone to help us was starting to make this relatively humorous situation actually a bit annoying. "What kind of monk are you?" Andrea shouted at a monk that waved at us, then turned his back. And David said "When we get down, I'm going to punch that guy" about the one inside the monastery that woulnd't come to our aid. Suddenly our hero returned on a motorcycle. He ran up the stairs and opened the gate, and was quite apologetic. We just got out of there as quickly as possible. The funniest part was that the entire way out of the monastery, and halfway up the road back to the hotel, you could totally see where we were. The entire town must have been talking about us by this point! The night itself was kind of scary. After our misadventure on the roof, we blocked ourselves in our room and played Scrabble, while watching Chinese TV. The room, however, had no heating, and was getting colder and colder, making it almost impossible to play. Finally, we couldn't take it anymore, especially when, for an additional $1 per person, we could move from the dorm style room to the normal hotel style room, including its own bathroom and toilet. So, we moved, even though the room still had no heat. It was a little warmer, though, thanks to carpet and extra insulation around the windows and doors. Strangely, the TV in this room didn't have the same channels as the other, but we were able to finish our game and enjoy the Chinese soap operas anyway. For dinner, though, we were at a loss. None of us wanted to brave the "restaurants" in this town again... far too scary. So we ended up buying a bunch of junk food, crackers, cookies, ramen noodles, and stuff, and ate what we could back in the room. Oh, and that toilet? Well, the water in the toilet wasn't working, so they came in and put the movable shower head into the toilet tank to fill it up. Of course, eventually it would fill up all the way and start running out the side onto the bathroom floor, along with the brown sludge piled in the corners. What fun. We couldn't get up early enough the next morning, and were ready to go promptly at 9, probably the earliest of the entire trip. For once, we even beat our driver, who has slept in a bit, though I think he was a little more used to living in places like this. We headed out of town along the old road, which was indeed old. Back to the dusty and bumpy one-lane roads through the mountains. We headed first by a big dam, and the partially frozen lake behind it. Here was where a villiage had been displaced by the dam, and the government had built a brand new one outside of Shigatse. We remembered driving by it, because all the buildings were so perfectly aligned. Next, we drove through the mountains themselves. These mountains, though not as overall high as Everest, were still totally amazing. It was especially cool because the road was literally at the foot of the mountains, and you could see the snow and ice and glaciers up the sides. Amazing peaks, and amazing weather, we kept making Tsuldul stop so we could take pictures. At one point, we passed a little house with about 10 people out front, and a few yaks. As we all piled out to photograph the yaks, the woman came up to us, "2 yuen for yak photo! 2 yuen for yak photo!" We joked about it the rest of the drive. After the mountains, and an amazingly cheap lunch, came the lake. Here was another amazing turquoise lake in the mountains, this one the third biggest in Tibet. It wasn't quite as frozen as the others, but still had plenty of ice, along with impressive views of the mountains all around it. And, once again, it was stopping every couple of miles as yet another amazing view came into sight to take some pictures. We went over our last pass, at about 4,800 meters, then down the probably the most terrifying drive on the other side. Not only was it the usual bumpy one lane dirt road with traffic and no guard rails, but this time there was all this construction. This means that half the road would be taken up by piles of rocks or dirt, and not always the half between us and the steep cliff over 1,000 meters down to the valley floor below. And, to top it off, the bolts that held down the front seat came out, so every bump had Andrea bouncing the whole front seat into my lap on each bump. We pulled back into Lhasa listening to our favorite Chinese pop singer (that we'd listened to at least half a dozen times in the last five days), for a relaxing night back at the Yak Hotel, before we started our next journey... but that's a story for another day. In the mean time, here are some movies for those of you with broadband access:
Lee Han Ming arguing our way up to a temple - 13.0 MB |
Replies: 5 comments
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Okay...You guys trapped in the monastery was funny. I cannot wait to see your mountain pictures. All here is fine and dandy! Posted by Chris @ 03/19/2004 11:10 PM PST |
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P.S. We moved back in to Tutu's to save money... Posted by Chris @ 03/19/2004 11:19 PM PST |
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Hey Kids, You guys are on quite an adventure. Wes & I are jealous. Great Pictures and stories. The China stories about the wholes brought memories back when we went. Posted by T.Monkey @ 03/21/2004 07:38 PM PST |
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hey Monkey....brought back memories of when we went to China or when we "went" in the "holes"??Ha Ha. Posted by Andrea @ 03/22/2004 03:47 AM PST |
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Maniacal? Kinda like riding with me on the 405? Wheeeeee! Posted by Patrick @ 03/24/2004 05:20 PM PST |
