China 2007

Flight CA4419. We've already been delayed an hour for takeoff, and I'm stuck in 15F. A window seat, to be sure, if it hadn't fogged up from my seatmate panting over my shoulder.

This strange Chinese man departs Lhasa for Chongqing. It seems he flies a lot, because he likes to pile his peas, carrots and tomatoes into the center of a loaf of bread, and shove it all in. He looks like some kind of accountant, in a striped white shirt and black pants. He seems young, though - a stuck-up lip and white socks with black shoes. He finds amusement in hanging his briefcase from a closed tray table, and even when perfectly steady, constantly adjusts it.

He pulls out a paper table, full of numbers and Chinese characters. He muses over it for a moment, then puts it away.

He has a habit of whistling. His arms are small, but his ambitions are not. He desires power, growth, impermanence. Stuck in a seat for more than twenty minutes, and all the armrests belong to him. The window gives him an outlet, though. The problem is, he's in the middle seat. And how can he look out the window? Well, he could turn his head. That might work. Or he could stand up, bend down or bend over to stick his head over mine or in front of my face. Then, he could look at the clouds to his heart's desire. I'd offer to switch seats with him, but I doubt he understands English. He probably won't get the monkey babble I'm so good at, either.

What a shame that my head is in the way. He'll have to tear open the air sickness bag and - oh, no, he's not sick. You had me worried for a second. He's just going to tear it to itty-bitty pieces, and place those pieces back into what remains of the bag. And then he'll put any unnecessary waste in there - a cup, his food, why not? What is a flight attendant good for, anyway?

Something else draws his attention. He stands up, several times, to twist his body just right. He has face sideways, so that his backside juts out into my seat - my "personal space" that I'd rather not like violated - and shouts wildly to someone in the back row. I bend forward, head in my hands, enjoying some peace from his once-eternal munching with mouth wide open. But now I can't lean back: he's claimed the window once more, this time with his ear pressed against my headrest. He begins to expand, and I move forward, squeezed against the traytable. He mumbles something to himself, for what seem like hours - only minutes that my non-captive classmate in other seats feel. I stare downward, focused, waiting to be relieved of the pain in my spine.

Back to his food - slurp, slurp, slurp. I dare to turn my head, and look outside, downward: only to see clouds and more clouds. I'm pressed forward once again as he nudges his way behind my head. I'm feeling quite violated indeed... but I suppose it's all in my mind. I had worried how my videotaping might interfere with his strict, rule-abiding moral standards, but as he sits next to me text messaging, seatbelt unfastened, I don't think I need to worry about that anymore. He starts banging the two metal pieces of his seatbelt together, for a few minutes at a time. We're almost there, right? I close my eyes.

Let's just not think about the Man Sitting Next to Me.

Tuesday, the third of July. It would be a long day of walking, shopping, listening, praying, getting sunburned, and going on wacky adventures with Mrs. James and Mr. Kozden. After a Western buffet on the roof, we boarded the bus and headed off to Tibet's version of a Summer Palace. Just like Beijing, it had become more of a summer park, the building essentially a museum. We walked through a tunnel of trees, and Nutu pointed out pieces of fur attached to various branches. They were placed there by people who had saved an animal from death, and taken a piece of their fur for a blessing and encouragement to others. We could see similar pieces at various monasteries. Mrs. James was feeling pretty good, so she pointed out a piece of an orange trashbag in a tree and asked, "Did somebody save the trashbag's life?" And then cackled, giving it away. But our guide, being downright awesome, laughed along and replied with a pointed, "Yes."

The place was full of flowers and fountains with no particular purpose but to be decorative. We crossed simple bridges over ponds full of ducks, and beside simple little buildings reflecting on the water to seem grand.
Finally we entered the main palace building. This place once housed the Dalai Lama, and pilgrims still came here to pay homage. We observed a gigantic mural of the history of Lhasa, from a statue being cut out of a tree (which we would see later as the holiest place in all of Tibet) to a palace being constructed over a lake. We saw the first monastery being built during the day, strangely destroyed at night, caught in an endless cycle until a great diety arrived and gave peace to the land.

Careful to give priority to the scurrying pilgrims, we moved on through the Lama's rooms of meditation, study, and public audience (separate rooms for local and Western audiences).

Mrs. James asked how China was controlling the religion in Tibet. Sadly, our guide claimed that the Chinese were taking yet greater measures to limit the people's practice of Buddhism. Walking around certain monuments in the clockwise fashion was prohibited, and prostration was sometimes persecuted. Seeing our interest in the subject, he continued on about the movie Seven Years in Tibet and subsequent films that emphasized the good qualities of Tibet, and how all those involved in the films were blacklisted for entry into China. From information he received from another student group, he told us about Students for Free Tibet. If we showed any adoration towards the region around Chinese, we would get "free coffee", a euphemism for deportation. We were soon silenced as we passed a guard, and couldn't talk about it for quite some time.

For some reason, our group likes the pain of climbing thousands of stairs. Although the next monastery we would visit wasn't on the itinerary, Mrs. James made us cough up the money, claiming we couldn't miss it. On the first part of our climb, we encountered whole bundles of fur from saved animals. We just kept climbing and climbing, occassionally entering chapels that all looked the same. One thing this city doesn't lack - good views. We had a panorama of the city below us, music faintly drifting up. One of the protector-diety chapels was for men only, and we took pride in our privelege. It wasn't much to see, however.

Whereas previous monasteries had cared for the stray dogs of the city, this particular one seemed fond of cats. In one of the main halls, a cat sat lazily on the throne of a statue. A monk was waving one of the decorative scarves on the statue above the cat, either trying to get it to move, or to amuse it.

We got on the bus once more, navigating through crowded streets. Within a few minutes (everything in Lhasa seems close) we were in the Baakar district, ready for lunch at a place called Lhasa Kitchen. The first impression wasn't that great: a hot and smokey room, Mrs. James running after us, madly shouting, because she had lingered behind buying a t-shirt and we didn't wait for her. When we got sight and scent of the food, however, our attitudes changed. The appetizer was tomato soup, that tasted as though it should have little spaghetti letters in it. Then, pita bread and cheesy pizza. Checken curry, yak meat, and lentil soup. I even talked the waitress into a free refill, something normally unheard of. We left the restaurant satiated, and with some free time on our hands.

I set off shopping in the giant plaza ahead of us. Little stalls with persistent owners (a few grabbed me, other just yelled a lot) covered every patch of ground, mostly selling little trinkets. A few sold monks' robes, a few tourist clothes, and one stall was completely taken up by a giant plastic blender, at least four feet tall. I found some permanent stores, hidden behind stalls, in which the vendors were not quite so obnoxious. I found a traditional sweater, made partly from yak, and an equally traditional shirt for summer wearing. I treasure the style of traditional Tibet: vibrant, random colors in patches and stripes that don't seem to have any fashion consideration.

Our appointed tour time for the Potala Palace was 3:20, so at 2:15 we met to walk over there. The palace is gigantic, with over one thousand rooms, of which two were built in the seventh century. The central "Red Palace" is flanked by two white stretches, displaying hundreds of windows, row after row, seemingly for eternity. Thirteen stories high doesn't even count the switchback after switchback of large Great Wall-like steps, ascending up the hill. It took much of our spare time to reach the inner palace, where we stopped to rest and watch the workers renovate, chanting and pounding. Other workers carried huge poles up and down the stairs, and still others beat things with sticks. They worked for free, their reward being the blessing of the palace grounds. Brown walls everywhere were just layers and layers of bundles of sticks, painted brown on their circular faces. Gold-ornamented roofs and rooms that stood out as second-story islands in courtyards make the place a maze beyond reckoning.

Construction on the Portala was begun by the fifth Dalai Lama, the first to hold power religiously and politically. Church and state, as Nutu put it. When he died before the palace was complete, his highest minister kept this a secret for twelve years, so that the people would not lose faith and could complete the palace.

We wound our way through rooms inside and outside, hallways, chapels and sanctuaries for meditation and prayer, seeing many outstanding things. Among others, the tombs of three Lamas were present. At least twenty feet high and of solid gold on sandlewood, these urns held just a handful of ashes. We calculated the gold alone to cost more than seventy million US dollars, no doubt understated, but they were also adorned with more than one thousand precious jewels and gems.

In one room, a statue was presented alongside a giant pearl quite important to the religion: believed to be extracted from an elephant's brain. In the Lama's chambers, many rugs covered with swastikas could be spotted. They were a symbol of permanence, our guide explained, and a blessing that the Lama would remain forever on his throne in the palace. That didn't work out so well for the current Dalai Lama.

Mrs. James declared the best engagement present to be anything with a swastika. Any Western spouse would most certainly appreciate the gesture.

After a long and exhausting walk (although the tour was only allowed to last one hour) we had finally descended to ground level. We were surprised that scriptures inscribed in rock, just lying outside on the path down, hadn't been taken. Somebody had offered an egg. Nutu once told us that even water could be offered to the many statues present in every monastery or holy place, as long as the donation was sincere.

We returned to square in the Baakar area, where the most holy monastery of all was located. This was the last we would see our bus for the day, and in getting all my stuff off and packed well enough to tour a monastery, I completely lost the group. So I had some fun exploring until I caught up with them at the entrance.

The place was flat, and just a few stories high, with every balcony, window and railing decorated with greenery and flowers. Once inside, it was crowded and dim, low voices chattering over the general murmur. Mrs. James had her first prayer in front one of the holiest statues in Buddhism: one of the three that just came out of a tree that was cut open. The other two are located in Nepal and India.

There wasn't much to see at this monastery besides the usual monks, cats, candles surrounded by butter and giant vats of wax, and statues. Nutu never failed to name each and every statue, getting the story pretty well pounded into our heads.

After the monastery, a visit to a government art gallery was required. We spent nearly ten minutes wandering through, not buying a thing because it was too expensive or too big. There were huge paintings of a female Buddha, and more statues, prayer wheels, and jewelry.

Then we were free, until dinner, again on the roof. I rushed back to the hotel along with many of the group, to rest and upload a fraction of my still photographs at the business center: 75 cents and hour for snail-paced internet.

Dinner? Spaghetti! There was a mix of Western and Chinese options in the form of a buffet, but I decided on the Western. It was a delicacy in these parts.

Mrs. James wanted to rent a bike and ride to the palace to people-watch, but the deposit was too much so we took a rickshaw, along with Mr. Kozden and my roommate. The square across from the Portala is the antithesis of any holy palace: a giant Chinese flag waves high, and in the background a sharply angled monument celebrates "the peaceful transition of Tibet to Chinese control." Kozden remarked, "The only thing the place needs is the Chinese National Anthem blaring over loudspeakers."

We walked down to a little lake behind the plaza, where five little boats were parker. Our first thought: paddleboats. But no, they were motorized, and they also had a little watergun on the front. Mrs. Kozden didn't want to go, but Mrs. James and Will hopped right in. The were pushed away from the dock, with explicit instruction (via sign language) not to go under any bridge or hit a buoy. Mrs. James immediately steered into the hanging branch of a tree, so that it scraped across the boat's roof, and the man in charge ran over shouting and pointing. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't tell Mrs. James to stop - she had plowed right into the thing so purposefully, then loudly said, "Awkward." The man was furious, and he kept repeating some phrase in Mandarin and pointing at the tree.

Meanwhile, Will was at the gun. Whenever he pressed the trigger, it began to play a loud, cheesy song. So when I finally stopped laughing long enough to warn Mrs. James, she couldn't hear me above the monotonous beeping and screeching. Suddenly, one of the buoys that Will had pointed the gun at exploded with water, showering the boat. Mrs. James screamed so loud, the whole palace across the street must have heard. Another boat embarked from the dock, and Kozden and I soon had a turn in Mrs. James' boat. After much reluctance I let him steer, and I had to listen to the tune drone on and on, occassionally setting off the buoy when the other boat was near.

When our twenty minutes was up, we took a rickshaw to the Baakar area. We were immediately caught up in a stream of monks, nuns and pilgrims circling the monastery clockwise. Dusk was coming on, and we watched the masses prostrate in front of the temple and half-submerged rooms full of candles.

As we walked through less populated streets and alleys, a monk stops us and asks to take our picture with his cell phone. Mrs. James proposed we take his picture. We then mused - having seen pictures of Lamas all around monasteries - that one day a picture of us would be there, the rare foreigners.

Will shopped for a door to ship back the the States while the rest of us watched the young and elderly walk around and prostrate. We came upon a booth where a little gun was set up, and a corkboard holding many small balloons. For a few cents, one could play until he or she missed a balloon. What a simple, amusing way to enjoy an absolutely amazing city.

Crossing the street back to our hotel, we played Frogger with the traffic. Even on a crosswalk, nothing would stop. As we avoided the big trucks and smaller cars, pausing in the middle as traffic whizzed by within inches, we almost got hit by a bike. What a joke.

Our final plan for the day was to get some chocolate cake, cheesecake or apple pie as served by the bar next to our hotel, called Dunya ("world" in ten different languages). We went in, to find a friendly Dutch expat who could speak English perfectly. The chocolate cake didn't look so good, so we all ordered apple pie, along with Mollie and Christina, who had joined us just after we crossed the street. And that's when I saw it: right in the middle of the menu, a Yak Burger. Yak meat. Burger. I was in heaven. I escaped alive with my burger and consumed it (the fries had attracted swarms of Webbies). Beautiful, beautiful yak meat, in an amazing burger. It can't be described in words - it was the most succulent, flavorful meal I've ever eaten. The apple pie with ice cream topped it off, and I had already eaten dinner. I'm becoming a hobbit.

To end on an unfortunately note, the sun of Lhasa is brutal. Even with sunscreen, much of the group went to bed with glowing faces, necks and arms... especially me. After such an exciting day, though, I couldn't complain.

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.

You may think 6 AM was brutal, but 5:30 today was worse. The Tibetan philosophy can be summed up in a nutshell: wake up early, drive fast, and honk loudly. Our voyage deeper into the Tibetan country took us out of town, on a bridge over a river that extends all the way from India, and onto one of the roughest dirt roads in existence. Whenever we rounded a blind corner, our driver seemed to accelerate. And honk.

Tibetan horns are LOUD. We got a dose as five caravans transporting Chinese infantry passed us on the main street last night - they didn't hesitate to make sure they had the right-of-way. If you're standing on the street, ouch. But if you're in another car, it's a little bit better, unless your driver also has a happy horn finger. Still, we ran into quite a few big buses at bad times, when we realized how grateful for that horn we were. Our next city, Chongqing, has imposed a fine for honking, in an attempt to reduce noise pollution.

We passed a peak at 14,000 feet - not the highest our journey to Tibet would throw at us - and we stopped for a photo op. Prayer flags draped across the power lines, crossing the road and assuming piles on either side. The clumps covered the entirety of the two little hills on either side of the road, interspersed with small incense fires. I had seen the pictures of Mt. Everest - it amuses me that while other religions strive for heaven, the comparatively unknown TIbetans/Nepalese have the market cornered in "getting-close-to-God." They work to great lengths to do amazing things, and then they treat such feats with humility.

We continued on for several hours until the road became paved, and then, immediately, we passed into the little town that had grown up around the monastery. There were hundreds of pilgrims, and many tents selling items for the annual festival, the monk dance. We were allowed to mingle with the crowd, mainly old and poor. Some obnoxious westerner actually went into the square in which the monks were dancing. The monks came out from the monastery in elaborate costumes, while accompanists on horn and drum kept an eerie background beat. We were given a brief walk-through of the place, including the main chamber, the chapel of protection, the living corridors, and the roof. Those of us who cared spun the scriptures - and then we watched sheep scuttle past and pilgrims walk many times, always clockwise, around various monuments in the area. The low moan from the horns of the ceremony droned on. I find the Tibetan sect of Buddhism to be strangely divergent from much of the Buddhist literature in existence: it places a high emphasis on a God, or diety, and ceremonies and pilgrimiges.

Nonetheless, everybody was friendly. We encountered one demanding beggar, and some of the people wanted to be paid for their pictures, but they were all friendly about it. Mrs. James considered us the diplomats of peace, spreading smiles to everyone who had never seen a white face before. Few cars hogged the street, as the masses in dark jackets, long pants and mid-hieght stovepipe hats carefully proceeded. We drove back the way we came, thankful to reach paved road once more. Our lunch consisted of potatoes, a variety of cold meat, mushy banana and some vegetables. We ate by the side of the road, lulled asleep to the baying of mountain goats on a hillside far, far away.

The road we would have taken to Gyantse was being paved, so we had to take a 6-hour detour. We passed through small villages of 100 people, narrow gorges where farmers tended their wheat and barley. Wherever we stopped, people came out. In the valleys, children ran from schools to say hello and receive our donations of food. In the high passes, farmers came from their fields to sit in the shade and watch us go about our touristic business. After we exhausted our resources of Tibetan music videos and movies, much of the bus played cards, throwing them into the underside of a frisbee. Once the driver stopped to fix the air conditioning, but that only lasted for a while. We drove all day and into the evening, encountering frequent accidents and road maintenance detours. Every few miles, a barricade of dirt blocked the road, and we were forced onto dirt road for a bit. We shooed all forms of wildlife off the road, and eventually drifted into a big city. We stopped at the main hotel for a quick dinner, where yak meat was a delicacy. The flavor was a cross between pork and beef, slightly sweeter, and quite tender. It was the best exotic animal I had eaten. Light was becoming scarce, so we had no time to observe the amazing monastery on top of the hill. This was the second-biggest city of Tibet - 130,000 people - second only to Lhasa, which recently jumped 50,000 to 200 thousand people (following the inauguration of the high-speed train service).

Only one more hour, Nutu said, and as we lost the pavement again, only thirty more minutes. We were all tired and sore, but no longer hungry. A few people were sick - not sure if it was germ, altitude or long-bus-ride related. Our hotel - the Gyangtse Hotel - was pretty much downtown. A few shops were scattered down the street until the scarce prospect of tourism drove them to an end. I wandered the streets with my roommate and neighbor, our first stop being the supermarket. Oreos couldn't have been fifty cents, a giant bag of wafers (I'm talking the size of my head) only a dollar. Considering the remoteness of the area, and the size of the shop, the prices amazed me. After Will started talking about a yak jacket for twenty dollars, I vowed to get one once we reached the big city. It would weigh me down, but I could sure use it in the Los Angeles winter. Perhaps even in the remaining Tibetan evenings. It would suit our domicile for the following two nights: the Yak Hotel. The Nepalese influence on religion, architecture and way of life (which is, essentially, religion) is apparent everywhere.

I returned to my room, feet tired after a long day of... sitting. My roommate let matches burn to clear out the mothball smell, as there was no way to get air flowing through the room. Sophomores, I say. I performed my necessary technological maintenance, with time to spare - a first for the trip. I might actually get a decent night's sleep.