Enroute to Lhasa

Nov 9th and 10th

I­ woke this morning (Nov 10th) to a brilliant sunrise, 15 hours into my train ride to Tibet. For the first time since my arrival, the sky was a crisp blue color and the sun rays had the power to prevent me from staring too long at its golden radiance. Even in Guilin and Yangshou there was a perpetual haze that clouded the horizon. In the cities the sun, if you could see it, rose as an angry red orb. You could stare at it without risk as the thick clouds of pollution smoke obstructed both its rays and the visibility around you. At times, the pollution was so bad that visibility was limited to a few meters. On my last train ride, I went through an industrial center and the window was a grim, gray cloud. It was really sad to see such a display of environmental rampage but it is just as much our fault, the people that buy the shit that fuel these factories, as it is the Chinese. I consider myself very privileged to live in such a clean country.

Now the views challenge Canada’s cleanliness and beauty as the train rides through crisp air, growing mountains and empty space enroute to the Tibetan plateau with a final destination: the city of mystery and beauty, Lhasa.  The train is a very long ride however, 33 hours.  For the most part this train has been uneventful, no sword girl no ducks through the window just police asking for permits and myself being forced to fill out forms in Chinese. Yesterday I managed to get up to a little though. I’ll fill you in.

I got up at 7 after a typical hostel sleep, if you’ve rocked the hostels you know the type. I crashed out early at 10, still recovering from Yangshou madness. Already old Early Bird Gets the Worm or EBGtW is asleep. I soon follow. At 11:30, I’m woken up by The Lumberjack, who crashes into the room, trying to be quiet. TL goes to sleep and proceeds to snore unnaturally loud, cutting wood at the decibel level of a sonic boom. At 1 am, The Late Traveler comes in, and has to organize his entire bag before going to sleep, but at least TLT wakes TL up interrupting his legendary woodcutting session. At 3 AM, we are

all woken up by The Drunkard, who is knocking furiously on the door because he is to drunk to find his key. TD is finally let in by TLT and he turns the light on and stumbles in, fully clothed, passing out facedown in someone else’s bed. TL returns to wood chopping and everyone else returns to trying to get some semblance of sleep. At 6 AM

EBGtW rises for his morning ritual of cleaning noisily before he departs. At this point, I  gave up trying to sleep and decided to go say whatup to some Pandas.

I jumped on my rental bike and rode through the smoggy streets that were still waking up. By 8am I was at the Panda research center which was full of old white people and tourist types, a clear sign of a tourist trap. All the folks on their pre-packaged group tours seemed to be having a very different experience of China, many of them were completely oblivious to everything, paying twenty American dollars for a 50 kwai {less than 5 dollar} entry fee.  It’s people like this that help scammers thrive, which makes my traveling that much more difficult. These folks just seemed so out of place and although they were all 20 to 40 years older than myself, a guide had to ensure that they didn’t get left behind because it was clear that they were unable to look after themselves. Oh well, the Panda’s were cool, though for bears they are kinda weak sauce. I’d totally kick a Panda’s ass in a fight.

After getting my fill of Pandas and Americans, I biked back into the city. After 2 hours of booking my Lukla flight and prepping my two week trek to Everest from the Nepal side, I still had 4 hours to kill before I needed to depart. I checked with the hostel and much to my dismay, there was no parachuting, bungee jumping, rock climbing, gunshooting or other novelty activities nearby. She recommended I get one of Chengdu’s famous massages. Who knew this would be more extreme than any of my previous suggestions.

I go to the shop, just down the street and giggling Chinese girls usher me into a room where there are 5 other dudes, in various stages of massage. First my temples and face, then neck, then legs then fingers and feet. I turned on to my stomach and took off my shirt and had Chinese medicine massaged into my back, then oil was massaged over that. This is where standard massage stuff ended.  Homegirl takes out a seashell and starts scraping skin off my back, after ten minutes she disappears. She reappears… with a blow torch and a basket of glasses… uh oh. She lights the torch and heats the inside of the glass before pressing it to my back. The suction stuck these glasses to my skin, creating massive hickeys all over my back. She left them on for ten minutes and proceeded to beat my legs. After taking them off, she put a giant incense ember inches from my back heating up my ravaged skin. Two hours and 6 dollars later, this is how I looked……..

Ravaged by a petite Chinese girl…..

It is now 6 PM and I sit in the meal car, looking out on the endless plateau. In the distance I see snow capped peaks that are mere foothills of the Himalayas. I still have hours to travel before I will arrive in Lhasa. In true underestimation of train duration style, I have found out that this train is 45 hours in length. I have only covered 20 of these hours. I have walked the entirety of the train and have found only a handful of English foreigners on board but already Tibetan dress and language is quite visible. I sit, recharging my laptop in a meal car filled with smoke, Chinese police and civilians. I am eating gampow chicken… what ever that is, with fan (rice) and yi pi tsingtao pi jiu (a bottle of Chinese beer).

Outside the window, light flees the barren plateau and unforgiving winds rip the tattered prayer flags and frozen land while I sit in the comfort of the train. I’ve finished reading The Climb, Anatoli’s take on the 1996 Everest disaster. Hearing names of the places I will soon visit, I feel steeped in the lore of the Himalayas. Also the magnitude of the Plateau which I have barely scratched the surface of, has a humbling way of making one feel insignificant in the most sublime of ways. 25 hours till Lhasa.

Nov 11,

45 hours after departing Chengdu by train, I finally arrived in Lhasa.  The train ride had a few thin air moments, topping out at over 5000m.  Some moments I felt a little short of breath and it was tough to sleep at times. However for the most part, the ride was amazing. Gazing out the window at the endless plateau 4 to 5 km above the sea was pretty astounding. The barren landscape had this raw beauty with such a sharp clarity thanks to the cold, thin air.  It was such a stark contrast to the overcrowded and heavily polluted China. The morning sun rise over the plateau was pretty astounding, something that pictures just can’t capture but will remain in memory for some time to come. Over lunch in the meal car, I had a great conversation with a Tibetan named Jampo and a Chinese guy named Jackie Wu, but for the most part, I kept to myself fixated to the landscape flying past my cabin window.

The plateau is big, and it is empty, the grass and snow covered plains move through mountains and rivers, with only the odd stone shack or tent hinting that mankind had been there. Herds of Yaks would often become visible some times numbering in the hundreds, with one lonely herder standing exposed to the harsh elements raging outside the train. The raw beauty was pretty incredible.

Finally after a very long train ride, we arrived in Lhasa. I was greeted by my guide and taken to my hotel where I have a private room.  Before meeting the other tour members, I had 3 hours to roam around the city, and much to my surprise, the beautiful sights and buildings were not that interesting. I was captivated by the beautiful people of Tibet.

Lhasa is a city in which the many nomadic people make pilgrimages to the holy sites; throngs of these amazing people of the plateau were paying their devotions. Older people and children were everywhere, each with a captivating appearance, and if they looked your way, an even more captivating smile. While in Korea, I saw many beautiful women but sometimes they had undergone plastic surgery and wore hundreds of dollars worth of makeup on their face. Tibetan beauty could be called ugliness by some, many of their features worn from the harsh environment in which they live their lives, but in their appearance there are so many stories that could be told. Even the children, with dirty clothes and faces have this haunting aesthetic of a person who has grown up in such an incredible environment.

But despite this, they seem so happy, I learned from my guide that many of them have traveled by foot for up to two years to get to Lhasa and that this visit is a once in a lifetime opportunity for them. I am humbled by these people and considering my petty concerns, and the concerns of so many others, I feel as if I could learn a lesson from them. Meanwhile, Chinese soldiers, many of them children themselves, are posted at every corner.  They hold automatic rifles and are dressed in full combat gear.  They ask for my travel permit and will confiscate cameras if you dare to take a picture of them. It is a sad thing to see and it seems completely unnecessary. Despite obvious poverty, Lhasa is the most peaceful city I have been in. It is full of pilgrims and is free of the usual worries.  I hope that this problem will solve itself in the near future as it is so very sad to see such repressive force in such a magical place.

I write now after a delicious Yak steak and French fries, tomorrow is the Potala Palace and more Lhasa magic.