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| This is comfortable |
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| Man in a panda suit? |
It’s funny seeing a big Oreo of bear dangling on a limb. For about $1000 you can get to hold one, but I didn’t need to get that close. We were very lucky, at one enclosure we were the only people in the area as a big old bear came walking out and about, parading right in front of us for a good 5 minutes before anyone else showed up. When he sat down to eat, I swear it looked and moved like a man in a panda suit.
The newborn pandas are cute and you can view them in their little incubators stretching and yawning like any baby. We followed the instructions from our guide and the signs posted everywhere saying no photos, especially flash which can hurt their eyes, so I don’t have any pictures of infants. If I was Chinese, I would have a full portfolio because neither the signs, nor the security guards standing right next to them, stopped or even slowed them down from snapping shots at a machine gun pace. Maybe blind pandas will be even more loveable. If you want to see pandas, this is the place to do it.
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| Friendly Tibetan couple |
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| Yak butter tea and flatbread |
From Chengdu we flew to Tibet. On arrival the sky was clear and blue, and the air fresh and clean; a welcome change from the rest China. On the way to our hotel in Tsetang, altitude ~11000 feet, we stopped to visit a Tibetan family home. According to our guide Pemba, people in Tibet are always ready to welcome strangers into their homes. You can walk up to any residence, knock on the door and they will receive you with open arms, something to eat, and a warm cup of yak butter tea; no questions asked. This stems from their religion, Buddhism. Countless Tibetans, monks and common people alike, make pilgrimages to the holy temples, sometimes travelling hundreds of miles with many of these prostrating themselves all along the way. It can take them years to complete their veneration and when you are travelling like that, you cannot carry all you will need so you are dependent on the kindness of your neighbors to see you through. I have not studied Buddhism and make no assertions of understanding, but peace and compassion are foundations and I can tell you by what we saw and experienced that without a doubt the Tibetans adhere to and practice their religion on a daily basis. The family was warm, welcoming and smiling as we entered their clean and brightly decorated home, a combination of traditional Tibetan furniture, colorful cabinets, couches and cushions; and the trappings of modernity, TV, stereo and blender.
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| Beer from the roof of the world |
The grandmother, 54years old, was taking care of the grandchildren while their parents worked the fields; farming is a major way of life in Tibet. She offered us some flat bread and yak butter tea. The bread was delicious and the tea is an acquired taste. Pema, who grew up as a nomadic Tibetan living above 15000 feet before leaving home to study in a monastery at age twelve, said he drank 40-50 cups a day. It’s a mixture of yak butter, water and tea, looks like grey, dirty dishwater and after the initial sip isn’t too bad. I was able to down my cup and finish off half of Anne’s, while Johan enjoyed the flavor and had three. We had yak butter tea and yak butter is brought to the temples as an offering and burned like candles or oil in lamps, but I never saw it used like our butter as a spread for toast so I have no idea what it tastes like and was also surprised to find that they don’t make any ice cream from yak milk; I see an opportunity. We had a wonderful Nepalese dinner which included yak which is very tender and tasty; and the hotel had some interesting accoutrements, but that’s a story for another time.
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| Yamdrok Yumtso |
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| Good looking and tasty! |
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| Lunch stop lookout |
The next day we took a long 2.5 hour bus ride up a switchback, hairpin road through Khampa pass to view Yamdrok Yumtso, a beautiful, turquoise, lake ~15,700 feet high up in the Himalayan mountains; this would be my first real test at altitude. Pema, having been raised at this height suffered no ill effects at all. Six of the nine people in our group, including myself, were taking drugs to help us cope. The air is thin up there and I felt a little light headed and out of breath if I moved too quickly, but those not taking the drug felt the effects much more intensely; the same result would be seen on Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was a little overcast so the lake didn’t have the brilliant turquoise hue it would have on a bright sunny day, but you would occasionally get a glimpse of its’ splendor when the sun shone through the broken clouds. Up here you could get your picture taken dressed in a fine Tibetan outfit while sitting on a yak, but I chose to pass on this corny costumery, sorry guys. We stayed only long enough to take some photos and use the toilet (an unforgettable smell sensation) before heading partway down the mountain, stopping to have a picnic lunch at a roadside overlook covered with prayer flags. From there our journey continued on down to Lhasa at an elevation ~12,000 feet.
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| Jokhang Temple |
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| Yak butter lamp |
In Lhasa I felt fine and could move about without distress although some in our party used the oxygen tanks available in the hotel rooms to help them feel better. Every breath would be needed when climbing the many steps of Portala Palace later that day. Our tour in Lhasa began with a visit to the holiest place in Tibet, the Jokhang Temple. It was built around 700 AD and houses one of three original statues of Buddha from India (if I understood the story correctly) and night and day Buddhists from all over Tibet come here to worship and pay their respects. Many people were prostrating themselves in front of the temple and there was a long line waiting to enter; these are true believers. Since tourists have a different reason to visit, they have a separate entrance which had no line at all. We are there as sightseers and observers, not devotees, and have no need to navigate all the intricate halls and individual “chapels” that make up this labyrinth of a holy place. You are not allowed to take photos inside the temple. Again, not being familiar with Buddhism, I did not understand the significance of all the deities and the meanings of the signs and symbols contained throughout the various rooms of the temple. The one thing I did understand is the true belief of the peoples’ faith in their religion; that was clearly evident by their actions. They moved slowly through the temple chanting prayers, spinning prayer wheels, prostrating themselves, making small contributions of money, adding their yak butter to the many lamps burning within, and loving touching the carved doorways and columns throughout the structure. The place was dimly lit, small coins and bills were stuck everywhere, and everything you touched was oily from the millions of fingers moist with yak butter. It had not crossed my mind until Sue, a fire marshal in her home town, said “you know, this place is a fire trap” and she was right. There were way more people in the building that should be allowed, exits were few and small, the place was built like a maze so you wouldn’t know how to get out, open flames were ubiquitous, the wood was saturated with flammable yak butter and there were tubs of the combustible animal fat everywhere. After that, the only thing I could concentrate on was getting out of there.
We did a lap of the Barkhor, or Pilgrims Circuit, following the hundreds of pilgrims as they slowly walked counterclockwise through the marketplace surrounding the temple, then made our way across the square before heading for the Potala Palace. This place was interesting in the fact that there were heavily armed Chinese soldiers on many rooftops and marching continuously around the square. We were told they are there to “protect” the Tibetan people; from who I’m just not sure. You can see the Chinese influence everywhere in Tibet, from infrastructure to immigration, since they “saved” the Tibetan people around 1950 from their evil theocratic feudal serfdom under Buddhism. Soon the Tibetan traditions and customs will be lost and you won’t be able to tell Lhasa from Shanghai so I recommend you visit Tibet now before it disappears totally into Chinese society.
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| Potala Palace behind the goofy guy |
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| Another view of the palace w/o the goofy guy |
The Potala Palace is/was the winter home of the Dalai Lama and the seat of Tibetan government before they were “rescued” by the Chinese and their spiritual leader/head of state went into exile in 1959. The building was started in the 7th century and three rooms still exist from that time, but most of it was rebuilt in the 17th century and like any old building maintained/updated over the years. When I saw pictures of the palace, I always thought it was built high up into the mountainside due to perspective, but in reality it sits on a free standing hill in the middle of the city. Still it is an incredible edifice standing about 13 stories tall and containing about 1000 rooms; we would visit twenty-four. Not all are open to the public and when you get to a certain point in the structure, you only have 1 hour inside before you have to leave. If we were even one minute over our guide would be banned from entering with tour groups again, so we moved quickly to accommodate the rules. As with the temples, you cannot take photos inside. The palace is still a working monastery with monks, living quarters and prayer rooms throughout. You can visit the Dalai Lama’s bedroom and sitting room where he would meet visitors and contemplate his faith. The palace also holds the tombs of previous Dalai Lamas all made of solid gold, the largest weighing 500kgs and there are thousands of statues depicting the various deities throughout the structure. It is a fascinating place to visit.
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| Some people walk their dogs others their goat |
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| Random image of Tibet |
That ended our visit to Tibet, except for the earthquake. Earthquake you say? Yes, during dinner our guide received a phone call from his wife asking him where he was, was he okay and did he feel the earthquake. Apparently there was a large 6.9 earthquake centered in eastern India near the Nepal/Tibet border which was felt all the way in Lhasa. Neither I, nor most of our group felt it, but our guide and a few in our party did and obviously his wife did. Guess I was too busy eating yak….yummy! Tibet was the most captivating part of my China visit and the one place I would like to come back to visit, but I will have to do it soon before it lost forever.
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| Yangtze River |
I did some more stuff in China, Yangtze River cruise (ecological nightmare or modern miracle), Shanghai (big, overcrowded city of 19 million), Suzhou (one giant silk mill outlet mall) ,
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| Shanghai |
Tongli (the Venice of China, okay it has canals) and Hong Kong (business on steroids), but I am going to pass on writing those up and move on to Africa; hoping to complete my story before I arrive home.
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| Tongli |
“…and I think to myself, what a wonderful world”
Thiele and Weiss
norb
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