Rooftop of the World

Nihou from China!  Our blog is blocked here (along with our website, Facebook, YouTube, and other sites) so this posting is actually being put online with help from Alex's sister, Eliza. (Unfortunately that means we can't post pictures for awhile.)  We will definitely write more about the "Big Brother" effect that we've encountered once we are out of China.  For now, it's enough to say that it's a pretty crazy feeling knowing that things are watched and censored so much.  It's so different from anywhere else we've been.

We recently finished a great 8 day visit to Tibet that we arranged in Kathmandu.  We left very early on the morning of Nov. 3rd to meet our group of 28 people (after we'd been told the group would be 10-15 people).  We drove to the land border crossing which was a pretty nerve-racking  experience.  (Our bags were individually checked twice in order to make sure we didn't have any contraband literature/maps.)  Then we switched to Jeeps. The road has been blasted through some of the world's highest mountains and the whole trip we were above 10,000 feet.  Some passes were above 16,000 feet which is actually higher than Annapurna Base Camp and the towns we stayed in were only slightly lower than ABC.  A lot of people felt the effects of the altitude.  Obviously, because of the altitude the Tibetan plateau is also very cold.  Our first night felt like we were trekking again--sleeping in our coats, hats, mittens, and several layers of clothes. None of the hotels had heat.  We barely ever took off our fleece jackets. During the day we were more comfortable because it was always sunny.

Our first 5 days involved a lot of driving through the mountains on the winding road.  The landscape was gorgeous with large arid, barren hills and small Tibetan villages every once in awhile in the valleys.  On one day we got to see Mount Everest.  Another day we drove around a stunning turquoise-green sacred lake.  In many ways the landscape felt a lot like the Wild West.  The towns where we ate had markets with hanging skinned goats, people rode around in small horse-drawn carriages, and the surrounding land was empty and desolate.    Even now there is virtually no grass for the herds of sheep, goats, and yaks.  Also, it is already bitterly cold.  It's hard to imagine how they survive such harsh living conditions.

The Tibetans themselves look and dress just as we had pictured: women weave colorful thread into their long braids and wear a striped apron over many layers of clothes.  Their faces are rough and dark from the sun and cold. There is a lot of poverty so we also encountered a lot of begging.  Uneaten food in the restaurants gets carried outside to feed others.  Tibetans use a large variety of yak products in their cooking.  Yak butter and yak milk are particularly pungent and strong.  Yak butter tea is a local specialty: tea with a big glob of yak butter plopped on top.  It's apparently an acquired taste.  Yak meat was also very common on menus.

Besides driving and enjoying the scenery we did some sight-seeing which mostly involved visiting Buddhist monasteries.  Our visits focused mostly on seeing the chapels and temples of which each monastery has at least a few. The larger ones have dozens.  The chapels are all ornately decorated with mural paintings on the walls, hanging silk ties, and at least one central figure, often the Buddha, that is large and covered in gold.  We saw A LOT of Buddhas.  Some rooms have up to a thousand sculptures (usually gold-plated) of a particular boddhisatva or god.  There is a constant stream of local people who come to make offerings in the form of prayer, yak butter (for the candles), food, and money.  Many temples also had chanting monks which really added to the atmosphere.

We spent our last 3 days in Lhasa.  Much of the town is quite modern and it is obvious that it's build up recently.  However, the old town was much more charming and we spent most of our time in this area.  Our hotel was in the old town and at night food stalls would set up right outside our door.  We enjoyed two delicious and cheap dinners here.  All the food is placed on the table on kebab sticks.  You choose whichever kebabs you want for 1 yuan each (about 15 cents).  (Alex stuck to the veggie and tofu ones but Chris got
some chicken and didn't get sick.)  Then the lady pops them into a boiling wok of oil and they get quickly fried.  Afterwards she dumps on a bunch of spices and sauces.  We ate them right at the stall on small plastic stools in the cold and it was some of the best food we've had.

Besides eating at the stalls, the other major highlight was visiting Potala Palace, the home of the 5th-14th (currently exiled) Dalai Lama.  It sits up on a hill and it's absolutely massive and solid looking.  Architecturally
it's a beautiful building.  We visited the central red section which is where all the chapels and holy areas are.  Normally this would be off-limits to visitors if the DL was allowed to live there.  It was definitely awe-inspiring and beautiful and people are still allowed to pray here. However, the visit was also tinged with a sadness that this is not how it's meant to be used.

Overall we loved having a chance to see the scenery, remoteness, spirituality, and people of Tibet.  It was an interesting way to be introduced to China.  A nice thing about being on a group tour was that we had almost no decisions and plans to make or logistics to figure out. However, we all found our guide to be quite frustrating as he did not get the concept of letting everyone know the same information.  (Even for simple
things like our departure time or meeting place.)  Sometimes the visit was hard knowing the history of the region and disagreeing with the way people have been treated here.  But we also know that the only reason many of the historic (religious) sights are being preserved is for tourism so we are glad that at least some things are being saved, even if not for the right reasons.  At the end of our time we flew from Lhasa to Lijiang in Yunnan province in southwest China for a few days which is where we are now.