Tibet

Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, is a very colorful city. The evening that we arrived we joined the pilgrims circumnavigating the Jokhang temple in the center of Lhasa.

Everywhere in Tibet people walk clockwise around religious sites, which can be anything from mountains to monasteries, swinging their prayer wheels and prostrating themselves on the ground. The circuit around Jokhang temple is the innermost circuit in Lhasa called the Nangkhor and is only a few hundred meters around. On the outermost Lhasa circuit, or Lingkhor, you can spot people dog walking and holding their dog's lead with one hand while they swing their prayer wheels with the other!

After circumnavigating the Jokhang temple we explored the surrounding area, which is filled with market stalls. Tibetan women wearing their distinctive outfit of a long dress with a stripy apron were out shopping while Monks in red robes, some playing drums, seemed to be everywhere. In fact, the only thing that detracted from this fascinating scene was the obvious poverty. We saw lots of beggars in Lhasa, more than in any other city we have visited on this trip, and many of them were clearly sick or had some type of disability

Dominating Lhasa's skyline is the huge Potala Palace, former home to the Dalai Lamas. Due to limitations on the numbers of visitors, in order to get a ticket you have to queue at midday to reserve a ticket for a particular time the following day. I left Steve, having a very late breakfast, in order to go and reserve some tickets. Unfortunately while I was in the queue a taxi ran over a small stray dog with a long shaggy coat. Fifteen minutes later when I got out of the queue the dog was still alive but clearly in agony. The poor thing kept trying to move around, dragging its mangled hind legs behind it.

A Chinese man who spoke some English translated for me and one of the taxi drivers phoned an animal ambulance to come and collect the dog. I managed to give the dog some water but I wasn't really able to do anything else for it as unsurprisingly it tried to bite anybody that got too close. It took over an hour for the animal ambulance to arrive during which time I just had to sit and wait and watch the dog suffer. I was however cautiously optimistic that if against the odds such a thing as an animal ambulance existed in Lhasa then maybe there would also be a decent vet.

Unfortunately the animal hospital turned out to be just a room with a man in a dirty white overall, some tins of dog food and some medicines. With no operating theatre it was pretty obvious that the outlook for the dog was hopeless. The vet could speak almost no English but I tried to explain to him that if he couldn't do anything else for the dog he should put it to sleep or at least give it a pain killing injection. In the end he did give it some type of injection and it lay down quietly. I handed over some money and managed I think to get in return an agreement that they would look after the dog until it died. By this stage I had got quite upset and I hope that in reality the vet was just waiting until I got out of the room to put the dog to sleep. It was all highly depressing, especially because in England it would probably have been possible to do have done something for the dog.

The next day we went to the Potala Palace. To get to the entrance we had to climb up many flights of stairs, which at an altitude of 3490m left us completely out of breath. The palace turned out to be a veritable rabbit warren of rooms, shrines and tombs with some amazing views out across Lhasa and the surrounding hills.

After a visit to Jokhang temple we felt like seeing something of the Tibetan countryside and took a tourist bus to Namtso Chukmo Lake. This is a very large, beautiful, blue salt water lake fringed by snow capped mountains. Our bus took us to Tashidor, a kind of shanty town made up of tents, by the shores of the lake. Having checked into the tent where we planned to spend the night we set off on a walk along the lake shore. We were now at 4800m and as we had ascended 1300m in a few hours on a bus we weren't acclimatized to the new altitude. This meant that shortly into our stroll we both developed splitting headaches!

Both in Lhasa and in the surrounding countryside we saw quite a lot of evidence of the way in which the Chinese Government is taking over Tibet. Although the Tibetan traditions and culture are still very strong there are obvious signs that things are not right. In Tibet you see many Chinese soldiers and police, far more than in the rest of China. There are Chinese flags everywhere, many flying from newly constructed homes. There are also many Chinese immigrants and while it might be an exaggeration to say that they are all driving new looking jeeps, they are clearly much richer than the Tibetans. The Tibetan language has also been replaced by Chinese characters on most signs. If the Tibetan script is there at all it is written in small letters at the top.

One of the things that struck us about Tibet was its uncanny similarity to Mongolia. This goes way beyond both countries having herders that live in tents and raise yaks and goats. You can see exactly the same patterns, designs and colors painted inside Tibetan temples as are painted on the furniture in Mongolian gers. The traditional music is so similar that many of the melodies are actually the same in both countries. Perhaps the explanation is the Mongol invasion of Tibet and the subsequent adoption of Tibetan Buddhism by the Mongolians. Although most Mongolians lost their religion during the period of Russian domination this Tibetan influence must have rubbed off on other areas of Mongolian culture.

Traveling outside of Lhasa is a little bit tricky if you are not on an organized tour. Many areas of the country require special permits to visit and this combined with the bad roads mean that most tourists end up arranging their trip with a travel agency. After our return from Namtso Chukmo Lake we spent a couple of days relaxing in Lhasa and recovering from our headaches. We then decided to take a public bus to Gyantse as there is a good road that leads there (who said the Chinese never did anything for Tibet huh) and no special permits are required.

The buses were like a return to Bolivia, tightly packed in with chain smokers and people who almost certainly didn't have access to a bathroom with hot running water for daily showers! It was quite fun though to get out of Lhasa and see a bit more of Tibet.

Gyantse turned out to be a very nice town where people were if anything even more friendly than in the rest of Tibet. The town itself was quite small and modern but the Pelkor Chode Temple Complex on the outskirts of Gyantse was very interesting as was the adjacent stupa, the Gyantse Kumbum. The town was also overlooked by a medieval fort.

Before seeing the cultural highlights of Gyantse we headed to a restaurant for breakfast called Gyantse Kitchen, attracted by a large sign in English outside which promised Western, Tibetan and Chinese cuisine. Our waitress looked a little out of place in Gyantse as she spoke good English with an Indian accent and was wearing a salwar kameez. Curious, we got into a conversation and discovered that she was from Nepal. She had been working as a chef in Lhasa and had been drafted into Gyantse Kitchen as the owner was unable to find a western chef in Gyantse.

'Gyantse is so dull', she said. 'Nothing to do and I don't know anybody here'. After explaining a little about the trials of life in Gyantse, most common ingredients for the western style food she was expected to cook being unobtainable for a start, she asked if she could come and visit the temple with us.

First though she explained that she would have to change into proper shoes. We waited around for a little while and were surprised to discover that for the walk to the temple she had changed out of her sensible flip flops into a pair of strappy high heeled sandals. Clearly this was a woman far too glamorous for small town Tibet!

Sadly we had only just made it to the Pelkor Chode Temple when her boss phoned saying that a tour party requiring western style food was on its way and so she had to rush all the way back to the restaurant.

While visiting the temple I finally discovered a use for my Footprint Guide to Tibet (don't buy it whatever you do) which I had written off as being entirely useless as it contains almost no practical information. A trainee monk of about eight asked to have a look at it and found an illustrated guide to Buddhist images and deities in the back in both Tibetan and English.

The trainee monk was fascinated and took me on a bit of a tour pointing out the names of the different deities. As he was clearly much more interested than me in the subject I decided to rip the relevant pages out of our book for him
accidentally poking him in the eye in the process. Fortunately after standing with his eye shut and wincing for about a minute he turned out to be ok and gave me a wooden bead bracelet in return.

Tomorrow we return to Lhasa and the next day we are going to get a flight to Kathmandu. We decided to wimp out of the overland route to Nepal after hearing horror stories about dangerous roads and landslides on the way. Nepal is going to be the last stop on our trip.