The Kennedy International Center offered the China
Teachers an opportunity to take a trip at the end of second semester to Lhasa,
Tibet, the base camp of Mt. Everest and Kathmandu, Nepal. It was hard hard to
pass up an opportunity like that, so we signed up, applied for our permit and
took advantage of this opportunity. Now
we can say we are so glad we went and survived the trip and it is most
definitely a trip not a vacation, not for the weak or faint hearted!
Our guide picked us up at the Lhasa airport on Friday,
June 20; our flight was three hours late arriving after two false starts and a
one-hour delay on the runway in Guangzhou.
Interestingly enough no one mentioned passenger rights as we sat on the
runway.
It was very exhausting, the elevation was 17,322 feet or
5280 meters at the summit. I wish I had
a calculation of the oxygen or lack there of.
It seemed that we were moving in slow motion all the time. It took such a long time to climb, one foot
in front of the other- step by step. The
least amount of over exertion resulted in a killer headache. Slow and steady was the pace.
Our hotel offered oxygen bottles on the dresser as we
checked in, we decided to take it easy the first night in Lhasa, get a good
nights rest and see what we felt like on the second day. Fortunately we were able to sleep on the hard
Chinese beds without additional oxygen so the second day started well, not the
case with Jim and Karen Fisher our upstairs traveling friends. Karen was physically ill from the second day
through the eighth day when we reached a lower elevation.
We walked slowly from our hotel to the Jokhang Temple and
walked Barkhor Street in the morning. Probably
the most notable event was the religious pilgrims delivering the Yak butter in
liter thermos containers to be burned in the Temple. The floors were slippery, the stairs were
slippery; everything was coated in Yak butter. The pilgrims walk clockwise
around the Buddha stupa every morning and evening 108 times with Buddha beads
to keep track of the number of times they circle the temple. Several pilgrims prostrate before the temple
to demonstrate their devoutness. It
reminded me of jumping jacks to watch them stand up, keel down, prostrate their
position on the ground then get up again.
Try 108 of those each morning and night, no wonder they can walk and not
be weary and not faint!
The Potala Palace was the highlight of the stop. We spent the whole day hiking and climbing
the stairs up and down. We are allowed
into the Dali Lama’s residence and the Buddha Stupa that holds the ashes of
several deceased Lamas. This palace has
been added on by each Lama including the current 14th now in
exile. Each wall was at least six feet
thick and by some miracle was preserved from the Great Cultural Revolution. It
has a dormant feeling when you are inside.
Although there are Monks who still live there, there is not a feeling of
activity or life that was present in other palaces or temples. Our guide’s explanation
of the exile of the 14th Dali Lama has had an impact on the
remaining Monks. They can be seen
playing video games on their phones and doing daily routines without much
purpose. It is sad to see what has
happened without their Dali Lama.
We left Lhasa to our next destination Mt. Everest Base
Camp along the Tibetan Border. We got up
from our hotel in Shigatze at 5:30AM so we could be in position to see Mt.
Everest as the sun broke on the peaks. It
was absolutely breathtaking to witness.
The Himalayas were completely snow covered with glaciers in the crevices
as the sun came up. We live in a
beautiful world and this was a sight to behold indeed. Once we were off the
Friendship Highway on the dirt road, it was a 4-hour drive to get to the Tourist
Base Camp. The road was dirty, washboard
ruts, very narrow, so much so that when we did meet a vehicle coming down the
mountain, one vehicle must stop and pull as far to the side as possible to
allow passage. Very scary drops on the roadside
at that elevation. The highest speed topped out at about 25 MPH. It was a good thing we left early because
this would take us all day! After a very tense dirty four hours we arrived at
the Base Camp. I have heard stories
about this location but could never have imagined what it was really like. There were mini hotels in a circle make of
Yak Hair tents for people to stay in; food was prepared either by the
individual hotel-tents or in groups of hotels.
I am not talking about gourmet hotel food, Yak burgers and Yak Tea were
the delicacies on most menus.
The next passage was only permitted by bus, so we slowly
boarded the bus; this is where the climb really slowed down. The bus dropped us off at a point where we
would begin our own hike to the top elevation.
We arrived at the top just as the clouds moved from the peak, amazing
view and some great photos. There we
were clear view of the peak 5280 meters above sea level. It is unbelievable that human beings actually
summit this peak, beyond words to describe is about the best I can say. The ride back down the washboard road to The
Friendship Highway was as arduous as the trip up, stiff muscles just to stay in
the seat belted in and tense muscles for another four hours.
Once we were on the highway again we opted to keep going
directly to the border city of Zhangmu to get down to 2,000 feet and position
ourselves to cross the border into Nepal.
That decision made for a 16 hour day, however we had the easy part, I
have to admire our driver to take that expedition.
Crossing the Chinese border is always a treat but the
Nepal border presented some new twists.
They thoroughly examined our passports because they had never seen so
many entrances and exits into China in one year. Finally when we explained we
were teachers crossing the boarders their suspicion of drug dealers lowered
considerably. Finally we were allowed to cross and met the new guide from Nepal
who promptly walked us through getting our Nepal Visa.
Border bridges and river for crossing from Tibet to Nepal
Nepal Side of the bridge
Chinese side of the bridge
Nepal and China have an interesting political arrangement. Tibetans are not allowed to leave Chinese
borders so everything must be brought in to Tibet. We passed about 150 huge trucks from Nepal
loaded with goods to be delivered to warehouses in Zhangmu. The trucks begin to arrive around 6:00PM on a
windy narrow muddy road. Once they begin
to climb that mountain road there is no way to pass or get down the road. We were caught in the one-way traffic going
the wrong way. We were trying to get
down the mountain to Nepal and the Nepal trucks were trying to get up the
mountain to deliver their goods. Of
course we moved aside waited for the 150 trucks to pass with a half inch of my
window then continued down the mountain.
We made it to our hotel before the trucks off loaded and went back to
the boarder crossing to wait and sleep until morning when they would be allowed
to cross back into Nepal with the load of Chinese goods to deliver to
Nepal. The road was treacherous to say
the least but this truck delivery of goods across the Chinese Tibet boarder to
Nepal is a lifestyle they are accustomed to implementing daily, except on
Saturday with is their Sabbath.
There is a stark geography difference along this
boarder. We moved from dry dusty no
trees to misty, low level clouds, green foliage and tree all down high
mountains to a gorge that the river provided a natural boundary between the two
countries. I can honestly say I felt the
difference of oppression being lifted as we entered the streets of Nepal. The eyes and the attitude of the people
reflect freedom.
We saw many Hindu Temples and Buddha Stupas through out
Kathmandu. I came away with a much better understanding of those two religions
and the people who practice them. They
are very devout, praying, offering everything they have to the Buddha or to the
Temple early in the morning and late at night.
I saw more poverty, yet more religious commitment than anywhere I have
ever been. I wonder if Hinduism and
Buddhism enable poverty and the caste system.
Food for thought and many more discussions. On the last day in Kathmandu we visited the
Buddhanikantha Temple on the holy day, Saturday. None of us realized that we were going to witness
an actual body cremation. We stood
across the river and the oldest son brought the dead body to the funeral pyre
circled three time with the body, put water from the river in the mouth of the
dead person then started the fire for the cremation in the dead person’s mouth,
all part of the ritual narrated by our guide.
There were five bodies cremated while we stood there and watched on
Saturday afternoon. Absolutely
overwhelming to intellectually or emotionally understanding. Hindu women are not allowed to attend the
cremation ceremony, however Buddhist women are allowed to attend, we witnessed
some of both. They are very emotional
wrenching events.
We left Kathmandu at 11:30PM for Guangzhou arriving at
5:30AM. The last event of the last trip
surfaced at the airport. Our travel
guide and the University both had examined our passports and Chinese Visas
before we were allowed to apply for a permit to travel to Tibet. It seemed that all was in order, however we
were stopped at immigration with the border patrol claiming that our Visa’s had
expired and we were not going to be allowed back into the country. No questions, no if, ans, or buts, no
exceptions. We were distraught, we only
needed to get our belongings from the University then we could actually leave
China no problem. They would not budge
or even consider any options we suggested.
Blessings poured our way, by a stroke of genius we remembered the new
legislation for 72 hour Visas. We asked
if we could apply for the newly passed 72 hour temporary Visa. We needed to prove that we actually had
airline reservations with in 72 hours so back to the airport transfer gate to
get a copy of our flight reservation for July 1 to LAX. Suddenly the issue dissolved, we were
allowed to complete the paperwork at the immigration office, they stamped our
passports, we picked up our luggage and we were on the Guangzhou Metro by
7:30AM. Miracles do happen I am sure.
