Lhasa, Base Camp Mt. Everest, Kathmandu......

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 14^th 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 14^th 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.