China 2007

In our exploration of the town of Gyantse, or Gyangtse, we found little more than a few necessary shops and some anxious girls in a hole by our hotel. From Beijing to Tibet, the price of bottled water decreased from five dollars to thirty cents. Of course, when we enter a supermarket, we had to search hard to find a package that hadn't burst open from the pressure, and had to be taped shut. Oreos were a little over a half-dollar, and drinks still thirty cents. I found breakfast to be unnecessarily spicy, every alternative quite bland. My assortment of accumulated snacks - dried kiwi fruit, among others - might actually come in handy. The bus ride was quick, but by the time we entered the monastery, around 9:30, the weather was already heating up.

Dogs are an unwanted pest for the Chinese officials, who kill any they find wandering the streets. The monks - firm advocates of life - take them in, feed them spicy Tibetan food and care for them. We passed the prayer wheels and entered the main chamber, where the monks change and pray in the early morning. It cost a few dollars per room to take pictures, so I was about broke by the time we got done with the hundreds of chapels. Okay, I only spent about ten dollars. We observed people crawling under the scriptures to receive blessings, pouring butter on burning candles, and placing money at many of the statues and monuments. We climbed many stories of the steeple to get a good view of the city. Our path was constantly blocked by hundreds of peaceful pilgrims, always walking clockwise.

From the near-highest point of the steeple, we got an excellent view of wall ascending into the nearby mountains to enclose the monastery. In the distance, a decrepid castle on a hill paid homage to the rich history of this city, primarily an attempted Indian invasion. Somebody asked how the monks prevented disease to spread among the pilgrims, and our guide explained: Tibet was so high, with such clean air, that infectious diseases were extremely rare. Not a single Tibetan got SARS, even when a Chinese lady with SARS arrived in Lhasa. Before we left the monastery, an old friend of our guide insisted on presenting him with a sandlewood necklace, a rare item of religious significance.

While some remained on the bus, we walked around the town - through local, residential streets. We observed locals carrying water back to their residences, children sitting around, and people tending their animals. Some of the children demanded money if we took pictures of them, and some wanted money regardless. The animals didn't care.

On the bus, departing, our guide told us how Chinese tour guides would often take groups through monasteries, telling them lies. The monks were constantly quarreling with these lies, trying to correct them, but the guides claimed that it was "none of their business." Just another reason to be thankful for our Tibetan guide and driver. Before a quick photo stop (more precariously-placed monasteries) and lunch, we watched a bootleg version of Snakes on a Plane that my roommate had purchased for a few bucks the prior evening. I was very surprised at Mrs. James' reaction to the parts with sexual content or explicit language - it seems her reaction to everything is to crack up. It was a fun experience, "bonding" with a bus-full of people shouting, "Oh!" whenever something painful or bloody flashes across the screen. I fell asleep shortly, my head in incredible pain as we rattled across bumpy road. When I woke up, it was time for lunch. We had pulled over by the river, at this point molded to manmade shores. Our lunch consisted of peanuts, yak, chicken, orange jello, 3 hard-boiled eggs, and some spicy vegetables. Mrs. James' observation seemed to hold: wherever we stopped, people came out to see us. In this particular instance, they were begging for food. Where did they come from? There was a farm house several miles down the road, but all around was mountain and desert. After lunch and before continuing on, we wandered around the area. Peter went down to the river, and his shoe fell in - so he jumped in to chase after it.

We continued on for a few hundred kilometers until we were stopped by Chinese police. Our bus was ushered into a holding area, and our driver got in a line of about twenty people who had been "speeding". Considering our bus couldn't exceed 40 km/hr, and that every car that had passed got stopped, I was slightly suspicious. We had no choice: we payed the thirty dollar fine, and we were off.

Just after lunch, my head started throbbing every time the bus went over a bump. Pound, pound, pound, pound. And then my nose began to bleed. I had been drinking a lot of water, and I took an Advil, but still... strange that the symptoms of altitude sickness hadn't kicked in until now.

As we approached Lhasa, after passing the new airport road, we came to a sudden stop. Yaks. Mrs. James jumped from the bus, quite literally, and ran to take pictures. There were two, at first, then two more. And then, jackpot. Ten yaks or more nibbled at brush halfway up the steep mountain beside the road. We scrambled to photograph them.

And just a few minutes from the city, we passed next to a slow-moving river, and shouts came from the front of the bus. Five or six yaks, varying from white and black to brown, were wading into the water, hanging out in the herd. Mrs. James declared this the "scenic highlight of the day."

We pulled through a tiny arch into a traditional Tibetan courtyard. This five-story building was the Yak Hotel. No elevator, limited resources, best view in town, and our rooms were on the fourth floor. First things first, dinner. My room on the fourth floor was the closest to food in the whole hotel - these people knew who they were dealing with. On the fifth floor - the roof - tables were laid out banquet-hall style. The Portala Palace was glistening in the sunset and pending thunderstorm, just a few blocks west of our hotel. Dinner took an hour for them to prepare, and consisted of various Tibetan meats and spices, probably the best meal we had eaten in Tibet. The waiters spoke English extremely well.

After dinner and a long day, I was still too excited to just collapse. So I decided to take a trip to the department store, camera shop, and supermarket. There weren't enough empty rickshaws or taxis for all of us, so Winn and I had to run alongside - until we got too tired to continue. So we joined another group, and went in search of food and souveniers. I wanted to find a cable that would connect my still camera to a computer, but not a single shop had heard of it. I asked around the group, but still no. Ironically, I found the next morning that my roommate had one, and didn't even know it.

We bought some cheap food and set off back to the hotel. I spent much of the evening staring out the window at the faces and activity below. Late into the night, the rickshaw pedalers were still going strong, and the horns were still raging.