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Public Zone 公開區 => Travelogues 遊記相薄 => Topic started by: chin on 09 February 2009, 04:14:19
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Tibet - one of the poorest and most remote part of China, yet full of mystics that attracted thousands from outside.
The trip was planned for last year, but postponed due to the SARS epidemic. The trip included trekking for a few days, lots of 4WD rides, half a dozen high mountain passes, and visits to many monasteries and temples.
It was an entertaining and educational trip, with lots of twists and little adventures.
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Our Guide
Most of us felt the high altitude almost as soon as leaving the Lhasa airport terminal. At 3700m, it was higher than any of my previous trekking trips' starting point.
Greeting us in the airport were our guides Nrawang and his assistant Gesang (pictured here.) Both are nice people, trying to accommodate our needs as much as possible. However I think they are trained as regular tour guides, not specialized in trekking.
The guides we had in Peru and India were real specialists in guiding trekking and mountain walking. They would organize such that there is always someone leading in front and someone walking along with the slowest. They would point us to the special floral and natural features. None of this happened in this trip.
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Drepung Monastery
Before the trekking starts, we spent 2 days in Lhasa with leisurely activities so we would get used to the high altitude. These leisurely activities including visiting monasteries and temples.
The first one we visited was Drepung Monastery. The first sight in Drepung is the row of locals sitting next to a stream, one hand extended to us for money, while the other hand holding a string of bells in the water. We were told that this is a form of prayer, and we can pay them to pray for us.
Not far up stream, this monk (picture on top) sat there, singing prayer loudly, clapping hands loudly, and at the same time signaling us to give him money.
Money. A world that we will be hearing over and over and over again in the whole journey. In many village we passed, kids will rush to us at the first sight of our arrival, and yell at us "Hello, Money."
Money is also seen everywhere in ANY monastery and temple. Money is struck up in the hands of Buddha statues. Money is stick on the glass panel (that protects relics) at eye level. Cash is hand out directly to the monks in Jokhang while they are chanting. Money is in-your-face in all the religious establishments.
I understand that all the maintenance and going entity needs money. I just wish they can do it more subtly and gracefully, instead of in such direct sell-out style.
What disturb me most is parents would send their kids, as young as 3 or 4 years old, to beg from visitors. Yet the local Tibetan pilgrims would gladly hand out small bills (1 Jiao to 1 Yuan, or US$0.012 to $0.12) to every hand extended to them.
After talking to our Tibetan guide, he admitted this tradition of handing out money directly is a potential problem. The kids are so used to begging that they take handouts for granted, and taking them without shame and self-respect.
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Golden Faces
In one of the chambers in Drepung Monastery.
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Sera Monastery
You can hear the noise far away from the courtyard where the monks debate. It was quite a sight to see 100 or more monks, sitting in groups of 2 to perhaps 8, debating. In almost every group, one monk would standing up, talking with large body movement, such as swing his arm, clapping hands, and stumping foot.
We were told that the debates are exercises to sharpening the monks mind and debate skill, and that the body movement were to help emphasis their keys points.
The monks would occasionally change groupings. Those who stood up with large movements would tend to be the one standing up again. I wonder if there is a special role or just personal preference.
Note the monk standing up in the picture has a mobile phone in his belt.
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Observing Debates
While the monks debating, visitors can sit around in the courtyard to watch. Half of the visitors are non-Tibetans like us who has no idea what the monks are debating about, while the other half are Tibetans, like this woman, who watched with admiration and occasional smiles.
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Jokhang Temple
I took this picture in the large square in front of the Jokhang temple.
The square and the Bakhor Bazaar next to it are lined with hundreds of little stalls selling coral, turquoise and other tourist items.
There were also numerous young guys approaching us peddling Tibetan knives. All the knifes that I saw were new knives made for tourists. I was told that Tibetan men do not usually carry knives any more. So I guess the local demand for real Tibetan knives are gone.
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Lights of Hopes
In front of Jokhang Temple, there is a little chamber, half dug into the ground, with thousands of butter lamps lit up.
I was told that a score of families in Lhasa contributed to the building and maintenance of this special chamber. The special chamber was moved to right outside of the Temple due to too much smoke generated.
When we went into Jokhang Temple to see the monks chanting in the evening, I saw two well dressed Tibetan women, inside the chanting area, counting stacks of cash with a monk. 20 minutes later, an old monk handed out cash to each of the monk sitting and chanting there and then. I wonder if those two women were from one of the families that supported the temple financially.
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Guardians of the Potala Palace
Here we learned that the original palace, only a fraction of the current palace, was built in 7th centuey by the Tibetan king back in the Wen Chen Princess time. The palace was the political center of Tibet.
In 17th century after the 5th Dalai Lama seized political power, thus consolidated the "church" and the "state" power onto himself, he rebuilt the palace to a much larger scale.
Curious visitors like us now co-mingle with what appears to be pilgrims in the palace hallways. The pilgrims will offer money on the altars and add butter oil to the lamps.
This picture is taken on a large roof top of the palace, where we had beautiful vista of the Lhasa city.
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Superwoman Photographer
As soon as we got out of the bus that took us to the Potala Palace, we saw this woman squatting on the ground looking into her camera with the gigantic lens mounted on the tripod set to very low position. She was taking pictures of the many peddlers selling all kinds of junk.
On our way out, I saw her again, walking with a man. The guy also had 3 cameras on his neck and shoulder. Plus a smaller point-and-shot in his pocket and a nice (means heavy) tripod on one hand.
After talking to them, I found out that they are both from Beijing. When I asked to lay my hand on the big lens to see how heavy it was, he proudly announced to me the model number of his lens.
In the days that followed, we would see more groups with lots of professional-looking photography equipment on the roads of Tibet.
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Village School
I took this picture inside a moving 4WD Jeep when we passed a small village.
We were not allowed any photo stop because the long distance we needed to cover from Lhasa to Shigatse.
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Dusty Roads
One of the reason for the long travel time from Lhasa to Shigatse was because of large section of the road is under construction or improvement. So we were driving in mud for hours.
What made the trip even less comfortable was that the A/C were off (probably to save cost) and the tour guide insisted that all windows be shut to avoid dust coming into the Jeep.
In high altitude location like Tibet, the sun is very strong, and very hot without ventilation. I think the temperature inside must have exceeded 40C. At one point, I had to yell at the driver to get him to open the windows a bit.
That was the time I decided not to give any tips to the guide (other than the amount "agreed" before the trip starts. We actually planned to give another RMB1000 to the guide and his crew.)
The funny thing is, after a few days, most of us got used to sit in the hot vehicle.
(Photo by Paul.)
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Little Inn in Old Tingri
We arrived Old Tingri at about 4 or 5pm. Checked into this little inn with rooms like a jail cell. The room is about 3m (10 feet) by 2m (6.7 feet), with 2 beds, a wooden table, a wooden chair, a tin roof, a little window in front, and an iron door that does not quite fit the door frame (see photo at the bottom.) It was quite an effort to open and close the door. And my wife simply cannot open or close the door by herself. Half of the rooms can be easily bolted on the outside without people inside knowing it.
No one wanted to stay in the rooms.
So every one gathered in the restaurant, waiting for dinner or something to happen or simply sleeping in the restaurant. While the kids in the town checking us out at the windows.
At 3am in the morning, when awaked by the nature's call, I saw one of the most amazing and beautiful night sky. Thousands of stars hanging right on my head. I can see the Milky Way clearly and unmistakably. I stand in the freezing cold for about 45 minutes, gazing upward with a sore neck, and tried in vain to take pictures. Only if I had my 8" Celestron there and then...
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Food Hunters
Our first encounter with village kids in rural Tibet.
We were stopping for lunch at the road side. There were few houses perhaps 500 meters away. Soon after we stop, kids start coming toward us.
Right away our guide told us not to hand out food. We would finish our lunch, and gather all remaining food, and he will co-ordinate the "handover" of the food. At the same time, he announced the plan to the kids and old woman gathered around us.
It was a good plan. We were able to have lunch undisturbed and minimal fighting among the kids when food is distributed.
In the days that follows, we have many similar encounters where villagers, at the first sign of us passing, walk to us from as far as perhaps 1km away. Some kids would yell "Hello, Money".
I have been to other poor provinces in China, such as Hunan and Gansu, and never seen begging like this. Either Tibet is poorer than the other places, or Tibetans' upbringing does not associate begging with shamefulness.
(2nd photo by Spencer.)
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Yak Man
We met our team of 7 yaks that would follow us in the trekking and carried our water supplies.
Pictured here is one of the two Yak Men. He is 26 years old. At the end of the trip, I purchased his small knife. Although his knife is not as nice as those in the tourist shops, I felt that his is more authentic and had a connection to us.
Until this day, the knife still smells Tibet. Should I clean it????
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Arid Land
Picture taken during one of the uphill battle. Not as steep as the hills that we needed to scale in the India trip. There is not much to see in the landscape. Just boring walks.
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Lost
Lonely sheep on the road. The sheep we saw in Tibet were generally smaller than the ones we saw in India.
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Nature's Wonder
In the first 1/2 day of the walking, there were green pasturelands. There we saw this lovely horse family. Our yak man made some noise and hand movement that lured the young horse to get close to him.
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Rescue
Our trekking was actually more like walking. The "trekking" path roughly followed a dirt road. With this convenience, all our tents and supplies were loaded to a truck (except water which was carried by the yaks and followed us on foot.)
However on the 2nd day of trekking, the truck stuck while crossing a large stream. After two failed rescue attempts with passing 4WD jeeps, our guide left with a pass-by jeep to the nearby town to organize a rescue team.
We now needed to change our original plan.
Pictured here is our cook and his assistant rescuing supplies from the truck.
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Resting
Taking a nap while the crew trying in vain to rescue the stuck truck and before the tents are being setup.
In the evening, our guide came back with a big truck that pulled our supply truck out of the water.
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Supergirls
With the supply truck having problems, our guide decided that it was no longer a good idea to camp as planning originally.
So the next day, we were instructed to walk as far as we like, and our guide would get the 4WD jeeps to pick us up on the road as soon as the jeeps catch up with us. Those of us (such as me) who did not want to walk can just wait for the jeeps on the road side. Afterward the jeeps will go straight to the small outpost about 8 km north of the Mt Everest Base Camp.
Amazingly most of the girls declined the ride and walked as far as they can.
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Evening at Mt Everest
After few hours walking and few more hours in a jeep, we arrived at the outpost near Rongphuk Monastery, and checked into the newest guest house there.
From what I can see, they planned the guest house ambitiously, perhaps hoping one day it will be a 2 or 3 star hotel. The room has a control panel that resemble most 3 star hotels in China, with knobs to control the various lights, TV, radio, telephone, etc...
However at the time when we checked in, the room has none of these, except one lamp in the middle of the ceiling. In fact the whole 4-story guest house has only one toilet (2 slots for men, 1 for women) and no shower facilities. My guess is that there is no sewage nor water supply in the area.
The staff in the guest house also lacking concept for privacy. At one point, a staff opened our room door, without knocking first. When the door was opened, one man wanted to come in. Naturally I blocked his way, and asked why. Turned out he is a tour guide for another group, and he would like to see how good is the room so he may bring guest in in the future. We told him and the hotel staff to get lost. They probably just open other people's room after we shut them out.
Not that we can complained much (except for the gigantic fly found in our food once.) We knew that we were in the middle of nowhere, geographically and mindset-wise.
What compensated for the lack of material comfort was the beautiful view of The Mountain. It was majestic in the evening light.
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Paying Homage
We hopped onto the horse carriage at 7am and hoping to catch the morning lights at the Mt Everest. Too bad the sky wasn't good that morning.
The 8 km ride to the base camp was interesting trip though.
On the way back, we stopped at what appears to be a ruin on a small hill. After climb up the hill, our horse man went into a small house asking me to come with him. Then two doors later, we went into a dark room lighted by about 10 butter lamps. He then disappeared into a small hole on the floor (2nd picture here).
The hole is about 2 feet square, pitch dark inside.
I hesitated for 10 min before gathering enough courage (and the company of two other guys who just came up the hill) to climb down the hole.
Inside the hole was a small chamber. There were few butter lamps with very weak lights (which didn't do much to lit up the place). The small chamber is decorated like a shrine. There were some language problem so I did not really figure out what it was, except that it was a meditation chamber formerly used by certain holy person or god long time ago, those enlightened would see a foot-print on the wall, and the chamber is a very holy place for the Tibetans.
Our horse man came out of the hole a happy man, and I came out bemused by the experience.
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Village Kids
Pictures of kids in one of the village we passed at the end of the trekking. The baby on the girl's back is only 6 months old, we were told.
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Old Man
On the way back to Shigatse, we stopped at a village school to distribute clothes to the kids. We brought with us about 200 T-shirts as donations.
About 10 minutes after we stop at the school, the news spread and seemingly the whole village came to the school.
The old man looked on coolly as we distributed the clothes.
Without the sign on the entrance, I may not guessed that this is a school. The school yard was used to dry mud bricks. And I am not sure all the rooms were used as classrooms.
(The Schoolyard photo by Bonnie.)
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Vegetable Fields
At the outskirt of Shigatse.
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Quartz Seller
In Karo La Pass where we can see a hanging glacier. Through our guide, I found out that she is 50 years old. We purchased some quartz from her all for few Yuan.
The stones are not polished, thus still have all the characteristic pattern of quartz. Good deal.
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Tashilhunpo Monastery
Due to the change from the original trekking plan, we visited Tashilhunpo few days later than planned. And lucky us, the day that we visited is also the beginning of an annual festival (that will last three days.)
There were lots of people gathering outside Tashilhunpo. Lots of vendors from selling clothes to operating dice gambling stalls.
The monk pictured here has been engaging in conversation with our group before we enter the monastery. And he followed us for a long way. He tried too hard to force a going conversation, you can smell that he is up to something.
At the end of the visit, I heard from people from our group that he separately asked members of our group for money, after telling his own hard luck story.
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Look!
Something is happening up in the hill where there is a castle like building. The lamas on the hill were playing traditional Tibetan sacred music with drums and horns.
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Monks Cleaning Before Ceremony
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Waterboys
Young lamas coming down from the "castle" with vases.
Later, in the second picture, I found out that they are transporting water.
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Flag Carrier
Before the main ceremony starts, these young lamas brought the "flags" (I don't know what are they called) from the castle to the low ground.
Tashilhunpo Monastery is the seat of the Panchen Lama and "one of the great centers of Tibetan Buddhism." The castle-like building is probably the most important building in the monastery. (I did not get to visit the "castle" because by the time I wanted to go up, the road was blocked for the ceremony.)
When we first entered the monastery, there was a great banner the covered the whole front side of the castle. The square banner must have been 30 to 50 meters long on each side. On the banner is the image of Buddha and other religious drawings.
At the first signal, a blue and yellow cover (of the same size as the banner) fell from the top of the "castle" to cover the banner. At the second signal, both the banner and the cover felt to the ground following few guiding wires. At the third signal, the wires were retrieved by perhaps 15 lama monks on the roof.
It was quite a scene that shows the design, organization and discipline of the monastery.
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Banner Carriers
About 30 minutes after the drop of the banners, a long procession started to come down from the "castle".
It start with musicians and the flag bearers in the front, followed by man dressing in horse like costumes, then two very large and heavy object each carried by perhaps 20 monks (picture here.) I think these two are the great banner and the cover of the same size.
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Lama Musicians
As the long procession came down to where we were allowed to observe the ceremony, the musicians entered a platform on a bit higher ground, while the horses and the banner carriers disappeared into a courtyard that was off limit to us.
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Misadventures
We left Lhasa in the morning for Chongqing. The plan was to stay in Chongqing for one night before heading home the next day.
So we thought we would stay in Chongqing.
Turned out the travel agent booked us in a hotel 120km (!!!) from downtown Chongqing, in an area that is technically still within the Chongqing municipality. And that was only the beginning of our misadventure.
Picking us up from the Chongqing airport is a minibus just have enough seats for our group, but no room for our bags and gears. So we had to pile up the bags in the walkway, 2 or 3 bags deep.
After more than an hour's drive, the hotel was no where in sight (we didn't know the hotel was 120 km from the downtown at that time.) Then the bus came to a stop in a dim tunnel. The driver then announced that the engine ran out of water. After cool down for some time, and gathered all the drinking water we have then, the bus would move and stop few more times.
It took more than 4 hours to travel the 120 km. In comparison, the flight from Lhasa to Chongqing was only 2 hours.
After checked into the "120 km hotel", my wife and I decided enough is enough. We wanted to see the famous mountainous historic city of Chongqing. After few calls to make hotel arrangement, we packed and get a taxi and off to Chongqing downtown.
It was the most expensive taxi ride I ever have in China at RMB400 (except when we chartered hotel cars for the whole day.) And another adventure in itself.
We spent the first 5 minutes insisting the driver to take us to the hotel front door, instead of dropping us at the downtown taxi station and get a local taxi. Then after few minutes of driving, he stopped the car, pulled out the key, and went straight to the trunk with two other guys waiting on the roadside.
I jumped out of the car immediately, afraid that they might take our bags. Turnout that one of the guy was the owner of the taxi and is getting his own stuff from the trunk, and the other guy was the driver for the evening shift who will take us to downtown.
With the new driver on board, we again spent the next 10 minute insisting that he take us to the hotel directly, instead of dropping us off at a taxi transfer. I even called the hotel on my cell phone to get him the direction. Luckily at the exit of the highway to downtown, we were able to hire a driving guide.
Finally, we arrived at the Chongqing Hilton, with all the creature comfort offered by a real 5-star hotel. The first thing we did, after a long hot shower, was to enjoy the sushi and pastries at the executive floor lounge.
It's good to back to civilization.
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One of our group members, Memie Kwok, a medical doctor working in the Chinese University, reflects on the trip.
Letter from HK- a rambling reflection of my journey through Tibet
by Memie Kwok
I got back from Tibet on Sunday with a huge bruise on my left leg which extended from the knee down to the ankle, as well as abrasions of the left hand and right knee, a result of being thrown off a horse carriage a week prior.
The horse was spooked by a truck and made a sharp U-turn, the flimsy carriage couldn't follow suit so it collapsed sideways and sent me flying and crashing onto the gravel ground!
It was lucky my teeth weren't all knocked out which could easily have happened!
The trip was not as hard as I imagined, we only got up to 5200 meters (Tibetan base camp) , and the trekking route was actually the car route, so it's more like walking than trekking. All in all the trekking was not as challenging or interesting as trekking to the base camp (5600 meters) in Nepal last year.
On the other hand we visited a lot of temples and learnt a lot about the Tibetan culture and religion, which I found intriguing but unfortunately not everyone in the tour appreciated it.
The food was good though, as you'd expect travelling anywhere in China, with the result I actually put on weight in spite of the physical exertion! The yak meat didn't have as much of the strong flavour as when I tasted it the first time in Nepal, but in Tibet they use a huge amount of garlic in their cooking, which might have something to do with it.
I picked up a certain under-current of political and ethnic tension between the Tibetans and the local Han Chinese, though everyone tries to avoid discussing it openly.
Coming from a colony which underwent 150 years of foreign rule, I understand fully the Tibetan sentiment for independance. But from what I've seen during the trip I really don't see how Tibet can survive as an independant state, particularly in this global economy.
The place is desperately poor despite all the money China's pouring into the province every year and there's not a lot of natural resources, there's some minerals/oil about but it'll take a lot of money to mine them. It appears most of the food there is imported from China as the hostile climate, high altitude and poor soil cannot support a great variety of farming and animal husbandry.
Illiteracy rate is high, especially among women. There seems to be little concept of law among the indigenous people and most rules are religious rules, which is not necessarily a bad thing except it seems the people are allowed to bend them in whichever way they please to suit their own purposes.
There're a lot of inconsistencies and paradoxes between their proclaimed beliefs and their actual practices and behaviour, which we as outsiders might find baffling but somehow make perfect sense to them!
Efficiency is a foreign concept and making do or going without seems to be the rule of the day. All this is rather quaint but unfortunately does not inspire confidence in foreign investors.
On the other hand the peddlers were the most aggressive I've encountered anywhere in Asia , as were the beggars, some of them appeared to be religious personnel.
As a health worker I was appalled by the hygienic conditions: upon arrival the first thing the guides cheerfully informed us was "Everywhere is toilet!" which literally means you can stand (if you're a man) or squat (if you're a woman) and answer nature's call anywhere you want! A friend of mine, an English doctor working in Tibet, said educating people to wash their hands after defecation is like pulling teeth! So it does not come as a surprise the leading cause of death in infants is diarrhea illnesses.
I found the Tibetan people to be generally quite good looking though a bit scruffy, but I was told those who live in the city now do take more baths. Our cook was adamant he bathed everyday but I didn't really believe him. That darkness of the skin is not all due to pigment! But as the weather is fairly cold all year round maybe you really don't need to bath every day.
Then too, water is a big problem in the area and everywhere we went we saw engineering projects in progress by the Chinese Government to improve water supply to the villages.
Maybe because of the harsh climate or the harsh life there, people do age pre-maturely, and the older people all have terrible dentition. This is why I get very irate when tourists hand out sweets to the local kids, with no proper dental care available their teeth would get ruined in no time!
On this trip I'm again struck to the core by the greatest injustice of all in this world, which is the unequal distribution of resources. In HK we spend roughly one million dollars on education alone to put through ONE university educated person (9 years of free schooling and for each year of university study, the tax payers have to subsidize HK 200,000 dollars per student), not counting food, lodging, clothing, medical costs, etc. One million dollars could probably have fed a whole village in Tibet for a life time! And what do we get for our million? Unfortunately the investment return in some of our students is dismal: it's not only that they're below par in knowledge and skills, but that the bigger issue is in their weak character which makes them easily influenced by others and make bad choices for themselves, an inadequate personality which leads to the lack of direction in life, and poor self-confidence which results in their constant need to seek superficial approval from superficial people over trivial matters !
In our group we had a brief discussion (2 sec , which regrettably is the extent of intellectual capacity prevalent in the group) on age and maturity. It is my view that as globally the overall life expectancy is not more than 50 years, and in a society that retires people at age 60, 30 plus is definitely middle aged, at this age most people would have worked for about 10 years, settled in a career and saddled with family and children, so youthfulness can no longer be used as a excuse for some people for their conduct and outlook on life.
There's an old Chinese saying "四十而不惑" , there's just not that much time for these people to sort themselves out and set a course in life before they're at the age when they're expected to have acquired a certain level of enlightenment.
This Tibetan trip re-impressed on me the belief of Karma: nothing comes from nothing, and what goes round comes around. The fundamental teaching of Buddhism is on the Four Noble Truths, and the underlying principle of this teaching is the universal principle of causality. There is no concept of punishment in Buddhism, only consequences of our actions; repetition of the same actions produces a habit; a collection of habits is a personality; and this personality will produce its own destiny. Morality in Buddhism then is understanding what will bring good. What we do, therefore, can be wholesome or unwholesome, skilful or unskillful. We do indeed reap as we sow!
It's hard to argue with this philosophy of taking personal responsibilities, having good life values and never take our good fortune for granted .
It is good to remember a thankful heart is a sure index of spiritual health, and that one can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay in 'kind' somewhere else.