The Less Traveled Path

NEPAL: Trek to Everest

camm_hunter_gibson — Thu, 5 Feb 2009 09:33:00 GMT

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Day 31: The bear goes for another look

I say goodbye to Nader and wish the girls a Merry Christmas then we venture out onto Kathmandu’s grimy streets to find a taxi that’ll take us to the domestic airport for a fair price. Like most of the cars in Nepal, our cramped taxi had long ago abandoned any pretence of road worthiness. Cracks around the doors negate the need to wind down the windows. This is fortunate for when we stop at a street light an old beggar knocks incessantly on the glass until the light turns green. We grab our bags and run into the airport fearful of missing our plane but we needn’t have worried for it’s been delayed indefinitely due to bad weather. Looking out to the runway I can dimly make out the shape of a plane lost in Kathmandu’s early morning fog that sits like a thick blanket over the runway. There will be no flying until the fog has cleared. Apparently this is an almost every day event. So we kill the time with UNO and can even go back to the hotel to collect some forgotten items before our plane finally leaves around noon. The small twin otter sways in the high altitude breezes, more vulnerable to the winds then the bigger passenger carriers. It is the smallest plane I’ve flown in and we fly close enough to the ground to see clearly the flowing rocky rivers and winding yak tracks. The half hour plane trip affords breathtaking views of the isolated Nepalese landscape stretching out to a haze of cloud on the horizon - a wispy wall of white, and above the cloud, impossibly high, white-capped peaks against a blue screen, framing the edge of the world. A lady sitting across from Ryan vomits into a brown paper bag and Ryan the acrophobic squirms uncomfortably, caught between vomit and a fearful view.

Lukla airport, built by Sir Edmund Hilary and an army of stomping Sherpas, is considered one of the world's most dangerous landings. Hidden amongst a maze of mountains, perched atop a small plateau 2840 metres above sea level, the runway is 20m wide, 527m long, has a staggering 12% incline and lies between a rock wall and a 700 metre drop to the valley floor. As the plane circles to line itself up we all get a good enough look at this sliver of bitumen to ensure everyone is praying for a safe landing. We brake even before we’ve touched the ground, and laboriously pull up just in time to make the sharp right hand turn at the end of the runway into the small parking space.

Our hike to Everest has begun later than expected and so we only walk for two and a half hours before it gets dark. Shortly after dark we arrive at the hamlet of Phakding; a collection of half a dozen homes crowded onto a shelf above the river. Phakding at 2610 metres is lower than Lukla but it will be all uphill from here. The quaint little guesthouse we book into is surprisingly cheap. Gerry confesses later that it was already so cheap he felt guilty bartering with the elderly lady owner but it just isn’t in his nature to pay full price for anything. We pay 50 Nepalese Rupees per room, or 25 per person, this is well under 50 cents each and is by far the lowest price any of us, even Gerry, have ever paid for accommodation. However it is from selling food and drink that the guesthouses make their money, and so offering cheap accommodation attracts the necessary clientele. The food will become more expensive the higher we go but it is surprisingly good. After eating we go straight to bed; tomorrow will be a big day.

Day 32: On the rocks and straight up

All morning we follow the icy, boulder-choked river that flows with glacial run-off from the melting peaks that loom above us. Eventually we cross a wobbly footbridge suspended high over the river and the path abandons its banks and begins a long zigzag up the steep canyon wall through stands of pine. The path climbs upward unrelentingly. The higher we climb the thinner the air becomes, the more frequent our rest stops and slower our progress. Ryan, being slightly overweight and having recently quit smoking is the least fit of the group, and he soon lags behind the others. I fall back with him to keep him company and because I’m a little concerned that he might have trouble. The best Ryan can manage is a 5 minute struggle interspersed with 10 minute air sucking rests. In this way we very slowly climb the 800 metre rise in altitude to Namche Bazaar. At this speed and already being acclimatised to this altitude the climb is particularly easy for me and I happily chatter away while Ryan conserves his breath for breathing. Darkness falls before we reach Namche and so we climb by moonlight. Ryan, who by now has decided that this is way harder than he ever imagined and will be going no further than the next village, is immensely relieved when we round a corner and see the lights of Namche in the distance. I go on ahead to try to find the others but when I get there I realise that it’ll take me too long to search every guesthouse and so I sit down at the end of the path to wait for Ryan but Ryan never arrives. Eventually I start to worry so I follow the path back down to where I left him and climb all the way back up again without finding him. I start searching the dark village for the guesthouse where the others are staying, straining to hear their voices in the quiet night. Before long I hear Gerry’s distinctive laugh and enter the guesthouse to find Ryan and the others sitting snugly around a potbelly stove with steaming mugs of cocoa in their hands. There had been a split in the path and Ryan it turns out, had entered the village from another way. Slumped exhausted in our seats Ryan, Mark and Mick, new to these altitudes, all agree that today’s hike was the hardest thing they’ve ever done in their lives.

Day 33: Christmas at 3400 metres

Namche Bazaar is the hub of the Himalaya in the shape of a huge tilting satellite dish, mid-way up a precipitous mountainside where a few hundred houses huddle dramatically up the rocky slope linked by narrow cobbled paths and catwalks. Half a dozen snow capped pinnacles encircle the blue sphere of sky above. It’s a setting that could only be imagined by J.R.Tolkien. Today is a rest day for acclimatization and to help us acclimatize we undertake a 2 hour hike up to a small monastery run by female monks. It’s a gradual incline with beautiful scenery and we all enjoy the walk. Ryan’s confidence grows enough for him to decide he’ll keep going; to the next village at least. While stopping for a rest we strike up an impromptu game of bocce with some local kids, strategically choosing rocks from the dirt path. Up ahead the tiny monastery sits in complete isolation, dwarfed by the awesome mountains and deep valley. Here these dedicated monks live in content simplicity, the location their constant reminder of the power of God. We are taken inside to sit with them and share their stale cookies while they pray. After giving a small donation we leave the smiling monks and return to Namche Bazaar for Christmas shopping.

As today is Christmas day, for a bit of Christmas cheer we’ve all decided to do Secret Santas. I draw Mark from the hat and find a pair of warm yak wool bed socks and a 350 ml bottle of Mt Everest Whiskey. I buy a bottle for me too, figuring it would be an appropriate celebratory drink upon reaching Base Camp. A small store advertises international phone calls for 100 Rupees per minute. I call my family to wish them a Merry Christmas from the highest place they’ve ever received a phone call. I’m almost as high as Mt Fuji, Japan’s tallest mountain, and it is only my third day. In the afternoons at Namche, thick fog rises ethereally from the valley below and swallows up the village like an army of silently marching wraiths. I watch this eerie procession until the fog swallows me too. Our Christmas dinner is a not so traditional meal of sizzling yak meat. But it is a real treat and will be our last meat meal as we’ve been warned against eating meat further up where the lower population densities mean it may have been stored for some time without refrigeration. After dinner the Christmas gifts are handed out. For me a new beanie (I’d lost mine the day before) and a bag of mixed nuts (for hiking).

Our rest day has given me the opportunity to get to know my travelling companions a little better. Ryan is blonde with thinning hair and a light complexion. He’s quietly spoken with a distinguished English accent that makes him sound a little gay and generated discussions concerning his preference; the girls were convinced he was. Eventually somebody asked him and he said he wasn’t though he admitted that because people always thought he was, he’d started to think he might be so as a test he once kissed a man. It confirmed to him that he wasn’t gay. Although his story confirmed to me that gayness is a sliding scale. For him, this trek was an opportunity to get into shape.

Mark is also an Englishman but with a dark complexion. He’s tall and slender with a neatly trimmed 3 day growth. He lives in New York now. He moved there to pursue a career in modeling at which he has become quite successful and quite well-off. At present there is a large billboard poster of him half naked on the streets of New York City advertising a well known brand of underwear. Mark would speak with convincing authority on every subject, daring anybody to disagree. If, however, someone did prove him wrong he would grin sheepishly, his perfect straight white teeth reminiscent of the Cheshire cat. Mark was not a backpacker like the rest of us, rather a wealthy vacationer looking for adventure, but comfortable adventure and with all the best brand name gear. His backpack was crammed with such an extensive array of the finest mountaineering items that he would be appropriately equipped to go right to the top of Everest. Unfortunately for him the majority of this gear was unnecessary and only served to weigh him down. His backpack was by far the heaviest of the group and on a trek such as this, as Mark soon realized, the old adage ‘travel light’ is good advice. Before long he was discarding whatever he could, leaving things in guesthouses to retrieve on the way down. He gave me two cans of tuna which I struggled to fit into the small day bag that I myself was travelling with. He continued to carry the large, heavy pair of snow shoes. Considering that we’re hiking the Himalaya’s in winter they could possibly be an extremely useful item, if it was to snow (but it wasn’t to snow). However with top of the line cold weather gear and a blizzard rated sleeping bag he is certainly the warmest among us. At first I didn’t like Mark, we had little in common and he represented many things that I find objectionable. Eventually I would come to see another side to him; a funny, unpretentious side, hidden underneath his catwalk clothes, and by the end of the trip I would be surprised to find that I genuinely liked him.

Mick, on the other hand, was immediately likable. Stocky and hairy with a quick wit and a fiery temper he was the quintessential Irishman. He loved to be the centre of attention and was always making jokes, doing a fantastic Robert De Niro impersonation or performing magic tricks. By his own admission he was a big drinker, one night when staggering home from the pub with a small flask of whisky in his back pocket he’d slipped and fell heavily. When he felt something wet running down his leg he implored "Please God, let it be blood!" After learning I’d been living in Japan he made a comment about the difficulty the Japanese have pronouncing some English letters. “tey never develop ta ability ta say letters like ta R and ta L and ta V right?” Yeah,” I agreed, “kinda like the Irish can’t say TH”. He laughed “I left myself open ta dat one.” So I told him an Irish joke... ‘Billy and Paddy were walking in the woods when they came across a sign saying, "Tree Fellers wanted". One of them said, "Ye know, it's a shame Mick ain’t here. We coulda gotten the job." Once he remarked with his illogical Irish humour “You tree are a right pair if ever I saw one!” Later he would reveal a secret he’d been harbouring. He was going home to be a father. Nine months earlier he’d accidentally got a girl pregnant on a one night stand even though she was on the pill and he was wearing protection. He didn’t learn of this until she’d had the child and called him to give him the news, just before this trip. He hadn’t believed her until he’d seen the child, “Spitting image of me”, he said. “She’s going to be an ugly girl then” I lamented teasingly.

Together we have the whole joke: three Englishman, an Irishman, and an Australian walk into the mountains…

Day 34: 3860 metres

Temperatures that drop well below zero at night force us to wrap ourselves tightly in layers of clothing and zip up sleeping bags tight around our necks. Even still, the nights are uncomfortably cold and it’s difficult to sleep. But the Everest region lies at 28° north latitude, just beyond the tropics, so when the sun rises high enough to clear the mountain peaks and penetrate into the valleys where we slog forever upward, the temperature becomes surprisingly warm and I would shed layer after layer until I was carrying everything I’d intended to be wearing. We don’t usually walk together; rather each man picks his own pace up the mountain. It’s hard work, requiring frequent rests and minimal talking. There’s also an ego factor undercurrent, inevitable when a group of men face a challenge. I’m often at the end of the line, marvelling at the immense beauty around me and regularly stopping to get out my video camera to film picturesque terraced hillsides for farming, pocketed with handmade stone huts blending perfectly into the surrounding environment; colourful prayer flags strung across high passes flapping wildly in the high altitude winds; religious mani-stones inscribed with Sanskrit symbols placed along the middle of the path to form long walls at which it is customary to pass on the left; Buddhist stupas perched proudly on rock outcroppings; far ahead and high above my travelling companions, impressively framed by the imposing landscape while they determinedly ascend a narrow trail which skirts the side of a mountain wall that plunges down into a valley filled by a half frozen yet fast flowing glacial river of crystal clear water.

Sometimes I like to push myself. I’ve never felt more at peace than I do in this powerful countryside and I enjoy the simple, single-minded trial to body and mind. The half day ascent into Tengboche, up a Rhododendron forest trail, is the steepest of the trip; an uncompromising, high altitude assault. I set a pace that I can maintain, and dig deep. Before long I pass Ryan slumped back on a rock, his belly heaving, hands locked around his hiking sticks. Shortly after, Mick leans heavily against his own sticks. Further up, Mark curses his heavy backpack; and further still, driven by a desire to win, is Gerry. It takes about an hour, from the time I see Gerry to the time I’m out of sight again. It is, perhaps, the slowest overtake in history. As I edge past he puffs “I’m just... going at a pace... that I can... maintain”. “Yeah...” I puff back, “Me too”. I pass a Sherpa next, leaning back against tightly tied wooden planks, carried by a rope across his forehead. I shudder at the thought of trying to carry such weight up this incline. Even on firm ground at low attitudes I would balk at the prospect of lifting his load. “120kg” he tells me, when I ask its weight. Suddenly my 15kg backpack feels much lighter. He is one of many such Sherpas I see straining under back breaking loads of wood or stone for buildings and food for the homes and lodges. The ancestors of these devout Buddhist Mountain people migrated over the Himalayan range from Tibet and made their home in the rugged, inhospitable Khumbu Valley, devoid of roads and cars or wheeled vehicles of any kind. The high, cold, steep-walled valleys make farming difficult so the economy revolved around trading and yak herding until Everest became a tourist attraction capable of supporting a tourist-based ecomomy and the Sherpas who live at these high altitudes and spend their lives climbing up and down the mountains became well respected as load bearers, camp helpers and expedition guides. In response to the growing number of tourists each year, new lodges and teahouses are springing up all over the Khumbu region and this is a double edged sword for the Sherpas. On the one hand they are provided with means to an income, but for this crushing physical toil they are paid very little and of course the more they carry the more they can make. On top of this young Sherpas, just children, will take on the strenuous job. Occasionally, I find a sign that implores ‘Stop child labour’. Even still, I see many young teens straining under loads that I myself would struggle to lift.

I was beginning to feel like I would never reach the top of this unsympathetic, torturous climb when I crested a hill and saw before me Tengboche Monastery, the largest and most important Buddhist monastery in the Khumbu, flanked by high mountain walls on either side and with the most incredible view, straight down the valley, to the foreboding peaks of Lhotse and Everest, aglow in the late afternoon sunlight. As always, the horizontal plume of condensation that I’d grown accustomed to associating to Everest, streams from its summit, betraying the otherwise invisible high altitude winds.

Day 35: 4410 metres

Today is another day of hiking up the path less travelled, and the path is now far above the tree line. The sun creeps higher in the sky and I remove articles of clothing until I’m down to just a singlet. I have to tie my jacket around my waist as there’s no room in my small bag. I never imagined the days would be so warm up here. I put on my headphones and let the music blend into the magical land around me. I feel cleansed by this pristine, powerful environment; completely at peace. Along the path we come to another high bridge. Crossing these swinging bridges and looking down through their slats into the icy white-water below is a pleasure for me; I love the feeling of heights. For Ryan however, it is a painful ordeal and he would study the map every night, counting the number of bridges that must be crossed the following day. Upon arriving at a bridge he will wait until everyone else has crossed and then he’ll go over singularly, looking only straight ahead and with a mask of complete concentration on his face, focused on nothing but the other side. On this particular bridge I linger to take some video footage and Ryan, deciding he can’t wait, begins his determined, eyes forward crossing. I can’t help laughing when I spot his blank stare in the viewfinder. He doesn’t even see the camera.

The following bridge crossing presents a once in a lifetime shot for my video camera and I wish I could have be in two places at once to get it from different angles. The bridge is high above me. Mick is almost across and Mark is just starting out. Suddenly a yak, coming from the other direction, walks onto the footbridge, warily squeezing past first Mick and then Mark to get to the other side. We laugh wholeheartedly at the highwire high jinks. Later at dinner in Dingboche village, Mick, in his stand-up comedic style, describes the moment the yak passed and a look was shared between them. ‘What are you doing up here?’ said Micks astonished expression. The yak’s big brown eyes, open wide in surprise, wordlessly asked Mick the same question. We could all identify with his humorous description, familiar as we were with the yaks’ expressive eyes that roll sideways in their heads, suspiciously keeping you in sight as you pass. The rule of passing a yak, up here in the mountains, is ‘stay high’. This advice is intended to prevent an unlucky traveller from accidentally being knocked down a cliff. It would seem the rule has been given new meaning.

The others eat peckishly - a lack of appetite is a symptom of altitude sickness - but as I was well acclimatized by now, and doing massive amounts of physical exertion each day multiplied by the extra work my body must do at high altitudes, I was constantly famished and ate like a horse, frequently finishing the others meals. Most nights we sit in the warm dining room, begging the guesthouse family to put more yak manure into the pot belly stove whenever the fire grows too low, while we play cards, drink hot chocolate or ginger tea and make jokes. We mostly play ‘up and down the river’, a game I introduced. If we get bored with that we play UNO or Shithead. Tonight though, we go to bed early and spend an hour lying in bed playing Trivia Pursuit, calling out questions between walls and giving points for correct answers.

Day 36: 4920 metres

The sky today, like every other day before it, is crystal blue and cloudless and the skyline bristles with white capped peaks. The path isn’t steep; it follows the high bank of a shallow stream and allows us to walk easily together for the first time. Our game of Trivia Pursuit continues throughout the morning until Gerry and Mick argue about the rules and Mick, accusing Gerry of being stingy, declares angrily “If I gave you a bandaid you’d cut yourself.” In the distance I spot what I mistakenly think is a glacier wedged in a narrow valley. Being unfamiliar with mountain terrain I think that a glacier is a frozen body of water but it is actually frozen snow from mountain tops that moves slowly downhill. It looks close, kind of; and even though I’ve long since learnt how deceptive distance and size is in this great land, my inquisitiveness overcomes my better judgment and I start off at a trot down the sloping bank toward the stream below. At a downhill pace it doesn’t take long to reach the stream but when I look back up the slope the others have already shrunk to midget size. With them as a frame of reference I am better able to judge the distance to the frozen lake; like a telephoto lens in reverse, it pulls away, and the harder I try to reach it, the faster it retreats. The small stream, modest in size from above, turns into a fast-flowing, treacherous torrent and I scramble across the half frozen waters with some difficulty. The petite pebbles that had previously lined the banks of the stream have become an obstacle course to manoeuvre. Eventually I breach the ridge that trapped last summer’s melting snow which subsequently refroze and now sits like an ice rink between jagged, rocky peaks. I don’t stay long, the return is all uphill. Like a man possessed I tackle the hills, choosing the shortest and consequently, the steepest route. Up and over and down the other side - is an extremely simple sentence to write, but it encapsulates an hour long struggle. It’s not until later, when I’m able to study the map that I realize going left would have revealed a concealed bridge and a much easier path back to the others. And going right was a shortcut to our next village that would have bypassed the upcoming ordeal. But I go straight and eventually I find the four further up and on the other side of the stream, filling their bottles from the icy waters sourced from Everest itself. The appropriateness of the bottles we use is not lost on us; ‘Mt Everest Mineral Water’ states the label. “It really is now” we joke.

The map shows two routes to Lobuche, our next village. One is to skirt the bottom of the Khumbu glacier that originates from Everest’s face and flows downhill for about 15 kilometres between the high mountain range. The other is to hike along the forward edge of the glacier until we are parallel with the village then cut across it. Like me, the others mistakenly believe a glacier to be a smooth, scenic frozen body of water, and the idea of crossing one appeals to us. We choose the latter route on the basis that it will be more interesting; in this regard, we are not wrong. The powerful force of the slowly but steadily moving glacial mass pushes up a steep wall of dirt on either side meaning that we are unable to see the glacier while we walk along its flank. At a point where we think we’ve gone far enough there is a crooked goat track up the glacier’s wall. We had expected a more prominent track so are unsure if this is the right one. The climb up looks difficult so Gerry volunteers to scout it out first. After an exhausting climb he reaches the top of the wall and looks out beyond. “What do you see?” we call out. “Well...” He laughs unreassuringly. “I see lots of rocks that stretch right to the mountains on the other side... and no village”. A slight panic begins to set in. Are we lost? The question gets bounded around and accusations are loosed. Night is falling and spending a night outside would be uncomfortable at best. “Lobuche might be on the other side,” Gerry ventures, “It’s impossible to be sure from here.” But where on the other side? Are we directly across from it? Have we gone too far, or not far enough? We have no time and no choice but to cross so we follow Gerry’s route up the crumbling wall. At the top we too see the view that caused Gerry’s nervous laugh. An enormous expanse of rocks and rubble lie before us like Earth’s largest quarry. “Where’s the glacier?” we ask confused. Ryan consults the map and after identifying certain peaks proposes that we may have gone too far and the village of Lobuche is further back. The adventure of crossing this wasteland gives me a rush of adrenaline and I volunteer to veer left and cross diagonally so I can advise the others to redirect their course if I see the town. Alternatively Gerry pushes forward, hoping to find Loboche somewhere over the other side. Mick, Ryan and Mark struggle laboriously over the loose hilly substrate, exhausted and exasperated. I haven’t gone far when I come along a large exposed block of deep blue ice, sticking out from the rubble. Looking at the ice I suddenly realize that we are indeed on the glacier; this rocky trench is merely a thin layer over a heaving river of ice. I hear the others call out as they realize the same thing. I clamber to the top of a particularly high mound hoping to see the village on the other side but I see only debris in the darkness. Meanwhile, Gerry has reached the other side and he calls out “I see lights! It’s this way.” I scramble quickly toward him and although I have veered considerably left and then back again, I reach the far side before the others have reached half way. Gerry points down toward the handful of lights in the distance. Lobuche is a grim place, huddled along the edge of the Khumbu glacier at 4910 metres. The others continue to veer left and Gerry repeats angrily for them to head in his direction but they dismiss him and continue on. Realizing they don’t believe him I corroborate and grudgingly they move toward us; but in the dark and with little left in the tank they move agonizingly slowly so I go back down to them and shouldering Ryan’s pack I show the way. All three of them complain of piercing headaches hitting them like a jack hammer. We arrive in Loboche well after dark and slump into the first guesthouse we find, every ounce of our energy spent. We have hiked non-stop for nine and a half hours over extreme terrain and at high altitudes.

Day 37: A day of rest

The guesthouse is a wretched, dingy old place made of flimsy fibro that feels like it’ll collapse at any moment causing one to go crashing straight through the floor. As we’ll stay a day in Lobuche for acclimatization, after breakfast we change to a slightly better guesthouse and spend the rest of the morning doing some much needed washing. This consists of buying a pail of hot water in which to scrub the clothes then sitting them atop a corrugated iron roof to dry. The strong winds blow dust over them while they dry until they are almost as dirty as before they were washed. It’s a sure sign of remoteness when you have to buy hot water and pay to have batteries charged. This is easily the farthest away I have ever been from a civilization linked by roads. The five of us have been travelling in close proximity and trying conditions for more than a week. Tempers are starting to flair, we are becoming irritable and over-sensitive; and small disagreements become serious disputes. Rather than paying for the hot water, Gerry the miserly backpacker uses Mick’s gas bottle to heat his water for free, but Mick hears the sound of burning gas coming from his room. Mick’s already annoyed with Gerry and now his fiery Irish nature unleashes ferociously. A rift in the group is created.

I spend the afternoon hiking alone in the heaving, rock strewn glacier. Sometimes I come across a steep wall of exposed ice and I push large rocks off the lip and watch them go crashing down onto the frozen floor. It’s hard work scrambling up and down the slippery stones while struggling to draw breath and I’m worn out when I return to the guesthouse. I take my first altitude sickness tablet tonight; I have only one left from my trip over the Himalaya’s to Nepal. Sleep last night, had been difficult. I woke constantly, gasping for air, feeling like I was asphyxiating. When I did sleep my dreams where filled with twisted, demented images. I’d read about this condition earlier in an article on altitude sickness. It’s known as Cheyne-Stokes Respirations. Above 3,000 metres most people experience periodic breathing that begins with a few shallow breaths, increases to deep sighing respirations then falls off rapidly even ceasing entirely for a few seconds. During the period when breathing stops the person may wake with a sudden feeling of suffocation. The percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere at sea level is about 21%. As altitude increases (and pressure decreases), the percentage remains the same but the number of oxygen molecules per breath is reduced. At 3,000 metres there are roughly 40% fewer oxygen molecules per breath. At this altitude there’s about half.

Day 38: 5180 metres

It’s only 5 kilometres from Lobuche to Gorak Shep, the highest settlement in the Himalayas. Still, it takes us nearly 5 hours to get there with frequent stops to catch breath. Only Gerry walks alone, he goes on ahead and waits impatiently at Gorak Shep. We plan to go right through to Base Camp today, only stopping at Gorak Shep to book tonight’s accommodation. When we get there Gerry grumbles about how long we made him wait, and then he points to a guesthouse he’s already booked before quickly heading off toward Base Camp. Mick takes offence and rants about Gerry’s selfish attitude “We should be finishing this together. But Gerry only thinks about himself” a vein throbs in his forehead. “And what right does he have to tell us where to stay? Come on, let’s find our own accommodation.” I know Gerry is conscious of the time; and so am I. We still have a lot of hiking to do and not a lot of daylight to do it in. I desperately want to break off from the group and speed off to catch up with Gerry but now I feel obliged to wait for the slower members.

After following the up and down glacier wall for another 2 hours the tip of Mt Everest finally creeps out from its hiding place behind Nuptse. Continuing past Nuptse reveals a spectacular view of the Khumbu Ice Fall that spews forth avalanches from Everest’s mouth and pours down the valley slope in a chaotic jumble of boulders and ice, pushing masses of dirt to either side in its powerful wake. This frightening zone is Base Camp. Base Camp is not a single point but anywhere you can pitch a tent on the widespread rock-strewn base of the mountain. The outskirts of this battleground is enough for my companions, weary from the hike and aware of the lengthening shadows they turn back for Gorak Shep; but it’s not close to close enough for me. I drop down onto the glacier itself. Every now and then the trail crosses a bare patch of glacial ice that glistens like a polished onyx. The sounds of creaking ice and rocks sliding down ice chasms echo in the still air, breaking the silence of the valley. As the glacier is constantly moving, everything is changing, new crevasses open while old crevasses close and glacial lakes fill up. For this reason there’s no fixed trail and no map can show the area accurately. Though well aware of the danger I can’t resist climbing down into the core of one such lake and stand against its perfectly sculpted wall. Like a wave frozen in time it curls high above me. A groan from the ice floor sends me quickly scampering back to firmer footing. At the top of the valley stands fantastic, frozen pinnacles of ice glowing a radioactive turquoise, the largest nearly 30 metres high, known as Phantom Alley. They rear up like giant sharks teeth out of the surrounding rubble for as far down the glacial road as the eye can see. By now I know that I won’t get back to Gorak Shep before dark, but I can walk by starlight. Getting back to the solid path however, is a different issue entirely. To be caught on this glacier in the dark, trying to navigate around unpredictable openings in the ground, could easily spell disaster. I push on for as far as I dare in the dimming light, but not as far as I want. The Khumbu Icefall, at 5,400 metres, confronts mountaineers at the very start of their climb. It is regarded as one of the most dangerous stages to Everest’s summit. An icefall is created when a glacier begins to move downhill on a steep slope. Icefalls are literally hanging glaciers, falling slowly over geological time by the force of gravity. It is estimated that the Icefall advances three to four feet down the mountain every day, opening large crevasses with little warning and sending huge blocks of ice tumbling down the slope. Many climbers have died trying to navigate the route from Base Camp to Camp 1, such as a climber who was crushed by a 12-story block of solid ice.

I would love to spend time exploring the area at the bottom of the Icefall but I have no time to spare. I pause just long enough to take a photo of myself with my Australian flag, in the tradition of all great adventurers, and then hastily return the way I came, mindful of the setting sun. With trepidation I watch the last sliver of sun sink behind distant summits. Though the sun is gone there’s still enough light to see by. That too however, is dimming fast. I’m about half way across the glacier when the faint track I’d been following disappears in the shadows. I know I’ve taken a wrong turn when I find myself negotiating the unstable rim of a steep drop to a frozen pool. Pushing down a rising panic I abandon my efforts to stay on the path; instead I pick my way straight across the treacherous terrain, racing against the night.

With great relief I get off the glacier just as the last of the twilight fades away and from here I walk the well defined footpath by starlight. Not far from the village is a large puddle of frozen water that we’d enjoyed walking over on the way to base camp. It’s exciting crossing it alone and in the dark; that is until the ice expresses its disproval with a loud cracking sound. I race on tiptoe to the other side. Back at the guesthouse the others have grown concerned. Though Gerry is staying in a different guesthouse, he’s come to ours for dinner. “They wanted to go back and look for you but I told them you can look after yourself” Gerry explains. I nodded in approval. We’d been travelling together for long enough for Gerry to be able to say that. Although tonight is New Year’s Eve, none of us will be seeing in the New Year. For the first time since I was a teenager I will go to bed before 12am on December the 31^st. As planned from the beginning, tomorrow morning we will wake at 3.30 to climb to the top of Kala Patthar, a deceptively small hill behind Gorak Shep, to watch the first light of 2008 shine on the highest place on Earth. Before going to bed I make a sarcastically joke, “I wonder if there’ll have fireworks to see in the New Year.” “Yeah sure,” says Mick, “tey’ll light some yak shit, trow it in te air n beat it wit a stick”.

Day 39: New Years Day on top of the world

Knowing that the others will climb a little slower than me, I wake half an hour later than they do. Not far from the bottom I encounter Gerry sleepily climbing in the darkness. Gerry is confident of his superiority in most things and throughout the trek has always considered himself the strongest hiker. After exchanging a few words I leave him behind and about half way up catch up to Mark and Ryan. They’ve settled into a rhythm of step counting, resting between each set. In this way they make good upward progress. I learn that Mick wimped out; too cold, too hard and too early – these are the reasons but his justification was that he’d done Base Camp and that was the primary reason for the trip. But Mick was wrong; Base Camp was nothing but an ego trip, something we can brag about to our friends. Kala Patthar, and sunrise over Everest on January the 1^st was always our objective, and he should have been here with us. This is the grand finale of a terrific and taxing trip and we should have been together for it. Mere metres from the top I optimistically suggest to the others that we wait for Gerry and summit Kala Patthar together, this could signify our unity and reunite the group. Gerry reaches us and without a word walks past and onward to the rocky pinnacle; his belief that he’s beaten us energizes his last steps.

The summit of Kala Patthar sits at 5640 metres and is in all likelihood the highest point I will ever reach in my life. We’ve arrived before the handful of other climbers whom slowly make their way up the hill. Unfortunately we’ve arrived too early and must endure the unbearable cold while we wait for sunrise. Gerry and I have already experienced the discomfit of an early morning sunrise and know what to expect. Gerry has wisely brought with him his sleeping bag and a balaclava. Though undoubtedly warmer it makes him look like some kind of bizarre, giant mountain worm wrapped in a red silk cocoon. Even in his expensive mountain gear, Mark shivers with cold. In an effort to warm himself he shoves his feet inside his bag and throws in a couple of heat packs for good measure. Ryan pulls his Russian Ushanka hard down over his ears. Together we look a sight, but less so than the young Japanese man that’s joined us. Unable to bear the extreme cold he’s wrapped himself in a silver survival blanket and hidden amongst the rocks. Temperature estimates range from -30°C to -40°C; whatever it is, it’s fucking freezing cold. Gerry has a little ritual that he likes to do at iconic landmarks. He calls it ‘secrets at’. Although ‘secrets at Base Camp’ seems a bit gay to me we all humour him and each share a secret in turn. Ryan’s secret is sex with a particularly unattractive fat girl; Mark too, tells a story of sex. In Mark’s story he was walking a beautiful girl home from the bar. He really liked this girl and really wanted to sleep with her, he also really needed to pee. Desperately he holds on for the long walk, not wanting to disgust her and ruin his chances. When they arrive at her house he excuses himself and goes quickly to the bathroom. He needs to go so badly that in his haste he struggles with his fly and as he whips out his penis it sprays pee all over the toilet, all over the floor and all over his pants. After cleaning up and washing his pants he goes back to the lounge room where the girl waits keenly. Discreetly he turns off the light and they start making out on the couch. Slowly the girls hand creeps toward his damp crotch and he tenderly intercepts it. Again it moves en route for his crotch. Mark realizes that immediate action is required and so somewhat prematurely he stands and strips right down to nothing thereby narrowly avoiding an embarrassing situation. It’s Gerry however, who reveals his secret first and he can barely wait to tell it. Gerry tells of how he deviously kept a discount he’d negotiated with the guesthouse owner that should have been split amongst us. This story demonstrates Gerry’s personality perfectly; it’s not just that he selfishly took advantage, but that he couldn’t wait to tell us, and thought his trick to be very clever. As for mine, well..., it’s a secret.

Gerry, Mark and Ryan hurry down Kala Patthar, eager to start the return journey. Halfway down I find the Japanese man from earlier sitting with another guy and smoking a joint. He offers me a toke; I take two, wish him a Happy New Year and hurry off to catch up to the others. A few minutes later I find my frame of mind has altered somewhat and I become more aware of my surroundings, of the incredible awesomeness of this place. I begin to question the wisdom of rushing away without first appreciating it. I realize now that Everest has become a box to tick off and now ticked I’m off. Here I am, standing in front of the biggest natural wonder of this world, a once in a lifetime view, and I’ve not bestowed the respect it deserves. So I stop, and I stare. I look intensely at the pyramidal top of Everest. I try to comprehend the magnitude of the mountain, so difficult without the common frames of reference we have around us every day that we use to judge size. I focus intensely on the summit and try to superimpose myself upon it and gradually I begin to comprehend its massive scale and yet, its humble beauty. Since viewing Mt Everest for the first time I’ve been frequently surprised by how it often appears lower than the surrounding peaks. It’s a trick of the land and of perspective that creates this illusion, but now I see it also as Mt Everest’s modest nature. It doesn’t stretch out with a pointed finger arrogantly announcing itself as number 1. Rather it sits regally, unassumingly, surrounded by its royal regiment of 8000 plus metre peaks. Now I look around me at the surrounding countryside. I perceive the ancient geological weathering processes that formed this great land over millions of years. I see how scale is irrelevant and the processes that shaped this land are exactly the same as those shaping the sandpit in the backyard.

Mick is livid. Mark and Gerry have split from the group. They are racing ahead with plans to be back down the mountain in two days. This is extremely fast considering that it took us a week to get up here. Mick sees this as further betrayal but to me his feelings of injustice seem a little overemotional. He fumes about how he only came on this trip because Gerry asked him and how dare Gerry leave him behind. He fumes about Gerry’s selfish and insensitive attitude. But I know what it is that really makes him angry; Gerry is winning. Before we leave I fill my bottle from the pristine melting glacier water, a much better alternative than buying water. The price of a bottle of water in Kathmandu is 15 Rupees, here at Gorak Shep, it’s 250 Rupees. Down where the glacier terminates stone monuments stand in a sombre circle, overlooking the valley floor. These are memorials to climbers who have died on Everest, most of them Sherpa. I read one particularly stirring plaque on a headstone.

LATE BABU CHIRI SHERPA

Babu Chiri Sherpa was born on June 22, 1965. At the very young age of 13 he started his career as a climber. By the age of 35 he had summit Everest 10 times (twice in two weeks), spent an unprecedented 21 hours on the summit without the aid of auxiliary oxygen and became the fastest climber of the world’s highest peak by climbing it in 16 hours, 56 minutes, thus creating three unique world records on Everest.

On Sunday the 29^th of April 2001, while on his way to summit Everest for the 11^th time, he fell into a 200 ft deep crevasse; thus the extraordinary climber left this world.

Here we split from the path we’d taken up, following instead the valley floor and the glacier’s sparkling stream that meanders past the quaint stone houses of Pheriche. We push on, trying to get as far as possible before nightfall. I’m impressed by Ryan’s downhill speed; though the slowest going up, he keeps a strong pace all the way down. Just on dark we arrive at a rarely visited village called Pangboche. It’s just a tiny little place that sits at 3930 metres, a few small houses on either side of the track, wisps of smoke curl from the chimneys. We’ve dropped 1810 metres of altitude in 7 hours with our high speed descent, and covered about 25 kilometres.

We’re the only guests in the guesthouse, we sit close to the yak dung generated warmth of the pot belly stove with the whole extended family. The atmosphere is warm and friendly. An Indian music video that seemingly has no end plays on a small TV against the wall. On and on the Bollywood-style song goes. A lady screeches in a piercing voice at a man, and the man, who seems to be the milkman, whines back at her. The overdone acting, shrill singing and excessive length would be comical if it wasn’t so painful and it starts to send us all a little mad. I translate for the benefit of Ryan and Mick, a silly story about how the milkman has watered down the milk and the customer is really upset about it, but my story turns out to be right. Apparently this is a big problem in India. Even still, it’s difficult to comprehend how crying over spilt milk could go on for so long.

Day 40: Not even a Sherpa...

After an early breakfast and a fond farewell we shoulder our packs and hit the road again. Soon the alternate route rejoins the original path and we are speeding back the way we came. Like a rapid flashback at the end of a movie, dreamlike memories flash past my eyes. I stop frequently to catch the scenery in my viewfinder and then I gas it a little to catch up. At the bottom of the steep rise into Namche Bazaar I tell Mick and Ryan I’ll go ahead so I can call the airport and change our flight date. I’m almost at the top when I see two French guys and their Sherpa guide sitting on a rock and sharing a joint. Two tokes and a ‘cheers mate’ later I continue my blistering pace to the top. Rounding a bend I arrive at a breathtaking overlook; 1000 metres below me, slicing a deep crease through the valley, the running river gives false sound to the frozen waterfall hanging above it. 3000 metres above me, is the huge backlit spike of Ama Dablam, and 2000 metres higher still, almost hidden in the background behind a seemingly bigger Nuptse, is my last view of Everest’s Nepalese face. Again I question the point of rushing away from such a magnificent vista so I abandon my rushed return to sit with my back against a large rock and my legs dangling over the precipitous drop and take it all in. Twenty minutes later Mick passes me and another five Ryan comes puffing along, slowed by another uphill struggle. I join him for the rest of the walk into Namche Bazaar and to the guesthouse we’d first stayed in. Gerry and Mark had said intended to stay here last night. We figured we were only a few hours behind them which meant that despite their best efforts we would still arrive for the same plane. While waiting for our lunch orders we asked the owner what time Gerry and Mark left in the morning. “No, not this morning, last night!” he replied emphatically. “They ate dinner here then kept going down after dark. They said they were going to go all the way to Lukla. From Gorak Shep to Lukla in one day! I’ve never heard of anybody doing that. Not even a Sherpa!” he cried then shook his head in disbelief as he walked away. We are all completely taken by surprise. Mick’s face drops. He’d been driven by the thought of sticking it to Gerry but now his hopes have been dashed. I feel a pang of jealousy and a touch of annoyance at Mick and Ryan for holding me back, though I know it was my own choice to do so. Ryan is starting to develop a painful rash and he suggests we stay here tonight. After learning how far behind we are Mick can’t bear the thought of losing any more time. I too want to continue, so Ryan agrees to go on until nightfall.

We’ve dropped a further 1100 metres of altitude in 7¹/₂hours and another 25 kilometres when we finally reach the humble village of Monjo a little after dark. Ryan refuses to go any further. He has no reason to push himself; he isn’t driven by Mick’s desire for retribution or my slightly sadistic pleasure in pain. I expect Mick to concede but instead he says “Well I’m going to keep going.” Then he turns to me and asks, “Are staying with Ryan or coming with me?” I’m stunned by his hypocrisy. He’s spent the last two days bitching about Gerry’s abandonment and without an ounce of remorse he does exactly the same thing to Ryan. I’d also like to keep going but my reasons differ from Mick’s. I’m motivated by the personal challenge rather than revenge. I’m jealous of Gerry rather than affronted by him. I would love to have challenged myself like he has done; to have felt the thrill of accomplishing a difficult task. But it wouldn’t be right to leave Ryan behind so I reply “I’m going to stay here too”. “Look, what if we get up before sunrise and start walking in the dark?” Ryan suggests. “We can get to the airport before the plane leaves.” Mick nods reluctantly, “OK, let’s stay here.” Once in the guesthouse I go through my daily towel bath ritual. This is something I’ve done every day during the hike. After arriving at the guesthouse the first thing I do is go in to the toilets (there are no baths or showers) and break the layer of ice over the drum of water that sits next to each squat toilet. The water is scooped out with a bucket and used to flush the toilets but it is clean and clear water from the mountains. After stripping naked, I dip my hand-towel into the water and wipe myself down. It’s bloody cold, but afterward I feel refreshed and invigorated. Not long now and I’ll be able to have a real shower, I think longingly.

Day 41: Back to the beginning

It’s still dark when we leave the guesthouse for the final leg of our trek. It’s beautiful watching the landscape change as the light gradually grows stronger. My knees are now throbbing with every downhill step and I decide I definitely prefer going up. As they say, be careful what you wish for. The last few kilometres into Lukla airport are straight up and at this stage of the trip it is a demoralizing climb but I push on ahead to organise our seats. It would be disappointing to miss the plane now, after our supreme effort. I needn’t have worried though; the plane was delayed again, due to fog in Kathmandu.

When you take off from Lukla airport, the plane backs up to the very edge of the runway at which point it begins revving its engines furiously to ensure it has enough speed before it reaches the other end. Behind it, restaurants and hotels are obscured in a billow of dust. Then it lets the clutch go and screams downhill to where the runway drops off to the valley below. If you don't get enough speed, the plane will fall over the edge, until it gains sufficient lift. Just eight days from now, Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to summit Everest will die, and this airport will be renamed Tenzing-Hillary airport in honour of him and his faithful Sherpa who reached the summit of Everest with him. Less than a year later, two Australians will be among 18 people killed when a small Twin Otter crash-lands and bursts into flames on the sloping airstrip of Lukla. It will try to land in foggy weather.

When we arrive at Kathmandu’s guesthouse Mark and Gerry smile and say with surprise “We didn’t expect you guys for another couple of days.” Then they tell us their own story. Upon arriving at Namche Bazaar they’d stopped for dinner where they told an amazed audience how’d they’d come all the way from Gorak Shep that morning. “And what’s more” they added full of bravado, “we are going to continue all the way to Lukla tonight.” However, with a full belly and a warm comfortable seat to rest their weary legs, they started to regret there boastfulness. But it was too late to renege now for the dining room was abuzz with their story. So they shrugged off their weariness and headed out into the dark. The night for them, was a long one. All through the night they marched; their energy drained, their legs strained and their willpower waned the farther they walked. The last uphill climb that we’d struggled unhappily with this morning had almost broken them; their confident strides that had brought them this far now a feeble hobble until finally they crested the rise and entered the one alley town of Lukla, just a little before first light.

NEPAL: Kathmandu

camm_hunter_gibson — Thu, 5 Feb 2009 09:29:00 GMT

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Day 28: Freak Street

I had few expectations of Nepal before coming here. All I really knew about the country is that the citizens are very poor, Maoist rebels intermittently stage violent demonstrations and occasionally ambush travelling tourists demanding money (but as of yet none have been hurt),* and it is the foremost Himalayan trekking destination. What I do know doesn’t encompass what I find. What I find is an exciting city with a great vibe and an eclectic mix of people, peddlers and paraphernalia. Nepal became the abode of the hippie movement in the seventies and for a long time Kathmandu was the hippy haven attracting alternative backpackers who would come up from India in search of their own Shangri-La. The lingering effects from this transition are still strongly evident in Kathmandu with its chillum bars, shops selling colourful accessories and freely accessible drugs. The city itself is a veritable labyrinth of narrow streets and quaint buildings all cloaked in a thick layer of smog, a result of severe traffic cupped within the walls of a valley. Our guesthouse is in Thamel, near Jochen Tole, nicknamed Freak Street in memory of the many thousands of hippies who passed through. I enjoy strolling down this street with Nader absorbing the atmosphere and admiring the merchandise for sale. Nader, still wet behind the ears, happily gets into conversations with anyone who says hello, which is pretty much everyone, unaware of the fact that pretty much everyone who says hello is motivated by the prospect of parting foreigners with their money. Eventually I school him in this lest we never make it to the end of the street and he’s genuinely shocked to learn that their greetings are less than pure.

In the afternoon I meet Ryan, a friend of Gerry’s, sitting at the table on the roof of our guesthouse enjoying a cigar and a revealing view of Kathmandu. Ryan is an exceptional chess player and travels with a board. While he decisively beats me in a game I watch the rooftop life of the city around me. A lady hangs out her washing on a line strung between two poles, a couple of boys play an unfamiliar ballgame, an old man sits cross-legged, a curl of smoke rises from his rolled cigarette; on one particularly dilapidated building three men atop an unsecured corrugated iron roof play cards and swig whisky, surrounded by drying clothes hung over the edge of the brick wall.

Lisa found a restaurant that sells water buffalo steak and she leads us there for dinner through the dingy district around ‘Freak Street’. Drug pushers frequent these streets both day and night but for some reason there long, drawn-out, snake-like, “hashiiiiiiiiiish” suddenly close to my ear as I pass by is more comical then disconcerting. Their cries continue down the street after me while I ignore them, “mushrooooooms, opiuuuuuuuum, purple haaaaaaze” every drug I’ve ever heard of and some I haven’t are called after me like an encyclopaedia listing.

*I would soon hear of a tourist being killed but it was believed he refused to pay the small amount of money that was demanded of him.

Day 29: A spur of the moment decision

In the morning the final two contingents of Gerry’s trekking party arrive; Mark and Mick take a room in our guesthouse. Shortly after, a message is sent up that Herm, an Indian man Gerry contacted through couchtravel.com, is waiting in the reception area. Herm takes us to a rooftop cafe where we eat a hearty breakfast and drink freshly squeezed juice while enjoying the warm sunshine. It’s Herm’s task to organise the plane tickets for the start of the guys trek to Everest and they all excitedly discuss the logistics of their trek with him while they eat. Their energized discussions and eager anticipation is contagious causing me to muse for the first time of joining them. Gerry and the three other guys I’ve just met enthusiastically encourage me and I soon find myself saying “OK, let’s do it”. With a smile Herm takes my money and passport and heads off to buy a fifth plane ticket, flying in 2 days. And so, after finally getting down from the exhausting and debilitating effects of high altitude and freezing temperatures, just days later I commit to going back up. At least, I reason to myself, I have the advantage of already being acclimatized.

Day 30: Shopping

Today is spent visiting the many hiking shops that sell imitation North Face hiking gear and the one genuine North Face shop that competes with them. The guys stock up on sleeping bags, jackets and hiking poles. Gerry and I forgo the poles and as I’ve already got cold weather gear I purchase only a couple of pairs of extra thick socks and a warm pair of gloves. While walking I can’t help but notice the lack of invasive golden arches or any other multinational fast food corporations. Nepal is one of the last countries in the world where the international fast food chains haven’t yet made an appearance.

Standing under a trickle of lukewarm water before going to a local bar with the others in celebration of our impending trip, I reflect on the fact that it’s my first shower since leaving Lhasa, and probably my last for some time to come. At the bar we all get drunk and have a great time. I play Gerry in pool. After he wins Lisa tells me of Gerry’s success in a pool competition back in China. He won a cue stick and money for first place, beating a large group of indignant Chinese. Gerry continues winning all night, knocking off one opponent after the other and by the end of the night he hasn’t lost a game. Eventually there’s no one left to beat so I challenge him to a re-match warning him as I do so that this time he is going to lose. Half way through the game he’s well in the lead, having sunk most of his balls while I’m still yet to sink one. What he doesn’t realize however is that this is intentional. After a week in a car together I know Gerry well enough to know his weakness... arrogance. I patiently pull my shots short so the balls block holes and are set up. Gerry, confident in his lead, plays nonchalantly. Then, like the turtle and the hare I end the game with a flourish, sinking all of my well positioned balls and drawing a cheer from the crowd of onlookers wanting to see Gerry lose. My last deed for the night is to shout everyone a drink that none of us needed.

Crossing the Himalayas

camm_hunter_gibson — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:34:00 GMT

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Day 24: The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see…

We got up early enough that it was still dark when we piled our bags and ourselves into the 97 Toyota Landcruiser and left the city. Now, as we steadily snake ever upward, the roads twisting and turning so sharply that they nearly bend right back in upon themselves, the Tibetan sun lazily rises over the looming ridge. Before we’d left we had settled on a seating system to give everyone equal time in each seat. Conveniently, small sign posts mark the kilometres to Everest and so at each 20 kilometre mark we stop to stretch our legs and change seats; the one in back, crammed into a small gap between backpacks, switches to the front seat, and the rest of us slide one seat across. Jerry had volunteered to take first shift in the back and it wasn’t long before the claustrophobic environment combined with the curves had Jerry calling out for the driver to stop so he could throw up out the backdoor. “It must have been…” Jerry claimed between breathless heaving, “last night’s dip”. A man such as Jerry, who spends most of his life on the road, doesn’t like to admit to a travelling weakness. I was next in the back and I spent the whole time trying desperately to hold down my own vomit, and I’ve never been travel sick in my life.

Our highest pass on this day is a breath-taking 4900m. Stopped at the top we look out across a lake of the deepest blue, lying like a mirage amongst undulating naked hills. A lady who looks as old as the hills around her leads a shaggy black yak saddled with brightly coloured cloth down to the lake below. Lining the distant horizon we can see the white peaks of the Himalayas, our destination. The cloudless vista is broken only by the white sheet that flows from Everest’s leeward side, like a woollen scarf wrapped around its extended neck. It accentuates Everest’s dominating height, like its extra reach is just enough to slice open the belly of the sky that bleeds white, wispy blood. “Orographic lifting” I tell the others. (I realize my mistake much later while flicking through an old weather book of mine back in Australia. The kind of orographic stratus atop especially high mountain ranges, such as Mt Everest, the book informs me, is not caused by the lifting of an air mass but by strong wind blowing against the peak creating an area of low air pressure on the leeward side and as low pressure enhances condensation, cloud forms.) The wind up here blows unhindered and I gratefully zip up my snowboarding gear, bought especially for this trip, pull down my beanie, and pull over the hood. Still, the wind chills me and we stay out just long enough to snap some photos, marvel for a moment at the mountains, and then clamber shivering back into the 4WD.

A few hours later we arrive at a secluded golden roofed monastery situated in a narrow valley ringed by a high white stone wall. As we walk in a small boy comes running up to me and tries to snatch the bottle of water from my hand. I win the short tug of war and cry “What the hell you doing kid?” He runs away. I drink the rest of the water lest some other thirsty bugger tries to pinch it from me. An old beggar sitting cross-legged in the entrance way sees the empty bottle and pleadingly puts up his hands. “You want this?” I ask confused. I tentatively hold out the bottle and he grabs it eagerly. “That little kid didn’t want a drink,” I say with surprise, “he just wanted the bottle”. The beggars here are so isolated they beg for rubbish. I wish I’d kept all my empty bottles and brought them with me. I could have showered them with plastic presents. Throwing them in the bin seems like such a waste now. Inside the monastery sits an 8 story pagoda. Each floor a progressively contracting circle of dark alcoves jammed with golden idols and walls covered in elaborate murals, the top floor presenting the most impressive display. One particularly ghastly figure makes me laugh. A blue demon with giant golden balls hanging low between his legs stands on top of a small mortal, crushing the unfortunate man’s head under his foot.

I learn more about my new travelling companions as the trip goes on. Lisa, as her unintelligible accent suggests, is from far North England. I can rarely understand a word she says and I’m forever asking her to repeat herself. At first I wasn’t sure if it was her accent or my ears having trouble adjusting to the altitude but when the situation didn’t improve it became obvious that it was the former. Even after she’d repeated herself I was often none the wiser as to what it was she was trying to tell me. A tough, no-nonsense sort of girl, I initially found her quite abrasive but warmed to her considerably once I’d managed to see past her rough exterior to her softer side. In contrast, Andrea was easy to like; young and cheerful, with bright eyes and a bubbly personality, she was always smiling and thinking of others. She was in many ways the glue that held the group together. A more eccentric man than Gerry would be hard to find. I can imagine Gerry generates a love-hate relationship with pretty much everyone he meets. Of this, I’m sure he would be the first to proudly admit. Due to his vibrant personality and extensive travelling he has many friends all over the world, who would all I have no doubt, admit to loving and hating him, in equal quantities. For despite Gerry’s personality defects, his charisma is infectious. I found myself almost honoured to be travelling with this unique individual, an opportunity to learn from the master. To Gerry, backpacking is an art, and it’s an art he relishes and excels at. There are few backpackers, certainly none I’ve ever met, that could match Gerry’s enthusiasm, energy, drive, travelling and haggling prowess, and straight up experience. You see, Gerry is a full-time backpacker, financing his trips by working a couple of months of the year as a language teacher in England and benefitting from the countries strong exchange rate. I don’t know what language he teachers as he speaks 7 of them... fluently. Tibet is Gerry’s 73^rd country; his goal is to have visited 100 countries before he is 30, 3 years from now. He only counts independently recognized countries hence Tibet is actually uncounted in this total due to China’s sovereignty, as are many others. He crosses these countries via land borders; it’s not a fly in - fly out holiday, it’s on the road, all the way. When he runs out of money and does need to fly home he returns to the point of his departure and continues on. There are currently 193 independent nations in the world, before he is 30 he will have visited more than half of them. It is his dream that the Maldives be his 100^th country, an expensive, rich tourist, holiday destination; the perfect icing on a cake of backpacking grime and filth. He hopes that his luxury trip to the Maldives, his concluding country, will be fully sponsored and he intends to write a book about his 100 country countdown. I proposed he calls it ‘Around 100 countries in 30 years’. His faults are just as extreme. Although completely aware of it, he can be extremely selfish, arrogant, annoying, even childish, and yet somehow these characteristics only serve to make him more endearing; perhaps because a rough edge has more surface area for people to hold on to. Nader, in direct contrast, is green; this is his first backpacking trip and in perfect novice fashion he doesn’t even have a backpack, rather he’s travelling with a large suitcase-on-wheels that gets cursed vehemently by whoever is squashed against it in the back. He met the other three on the train to Tibet and it was then that he learnt of his mistake. Travelling to Tibet is fairly tricky business for the backpacker; it’s a relatively recently subjugated country by a communist regime and as such, rules and regulations regarding tourists are in a constant state of flux and confusion. Some entrepreneurial companies have taken advantage of this vagueness by convincing tourists they can only travel to Tibet on expensive tours. The state of affairs is so ambiguous that they may indeed be right. Naively, Nader believed the information he was fed and purchased a costly tour to Tibet of which he’d already paid a large deposit. He spent his first night in a hotel in China which he believed to be cheap, and it was by American standards but not in 3^rd world China. His jaw dropped when he heard how much Gerry, Andrea and Lisa had paid for their accommodation and dropped even further when he heard they weren’t on a tour. When they told me this I allowed myself a small smile at his naivety, but not too big as I know backpacking is a learning curve and we always have more to learn. Feeling sorry for Nader, Gerry and the girls vowed to take him under their wing and Nader wisely opted to forgo the tour, cut his losses on the deposit, and travel with them to Nepal. Complementing his naivety is a big smile, an animated laugh, a good attitude, and a youthful desire for a good time.

It’s afternoon when we arrive in Shigatse, our stop for the night. There is another monastery here, founded by the first Dalai Lama in 1447 but we choose instead to follow the path lined with prayer wheels up the mountain behind the monastery. I’m following the advice I read about for combating altitude sickness – ‘go high, sleep low’, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. At this altitude my head throbs with every upward step and I feel like I’m trying to suck air through a straw. It takes a supreme effort to climb but the view makes it all worthwhile; the clear air allows me to see effortlessly over the city, over the rolling hills, and beyond. At night Nader, I and another guy we met in our guesthouse go looking for a place to eat. We find ourselves in a bar sitting in front of a beer before we have time to ask if they serve food; they don’t. Not wanting to be rude we drink the beers and then excuse ourselves to continue the search. Eventually we follow a restaurant sign up some stairs and into a family’s house. The father sits casually on a bed next to a stove watching Tibetan pop videos on an old TV. He wears a black vest under a black coat and has a perfect pencil moustache. We are a bit confused and ask if this is a restaurant, “yes, yes,” he assures us and gives us a hand written menu. We sit down in their living room and I read out some of the menu items and pretty soon we’re all giggling and then laughing uproariously at the funny English in the menu. ‘A kind of beef noodle’, ‘a kind of cook food’, ‘a kind of drink’ – it was the least specific menu I’d ever read; but the ‘unripe beef jam’ was perhaps more specific than I would have liked. We ordered and ate and the father sat with us enthusiastically trying to communicate despite possessing almost no English ability. He spoke much like his menu read, confusingly. None of us had a clue as to what he was saying but it didn’t stop us from having an animated joyful conversation with him. Things however, became somewhat puzzling when he began pointing to his daughters and making gestures that in our own culture would be considered sexual. “Is he pimping his daughters?” I ask Nader uncertainly. “I’m not sure” says Nader, “but I hope so”, and attempts to probe for more information. The father takes out a pen and writes on a scrap of paper the letters ‘69’. “I think he is pimping his daughters” Nader exclaims excitedly and ventures a ‘yeah, ok’ with a nod of his head. He’d already been eyeing the two daughters and so couldn’t believe his luck. The father eagerly motions for us to follow and bewildered we do so, wondering if he really is offering his daughters or if this is just an incredibly embarrassing case of lost in translation. He leads us up to the roof of his house and beaming proudly sweeps his hand across the view in front of us. The roof of his house is blessed with a magical view of the picturesque monastery lit by the silver moon and we laugh aloud, realizing how completely wrong was our interpretation of the message he was trying to convey. We thank him for showing us his splendid view and take our leave, Nader takes a plastic bag that he’s poured his ‘kind of beef soup’ into. Finding the water was only lukewarm he was too worried about getting sick to eat it but rather than wasting it, decided to give it to a poor starving soul on the cold streets of Shigatse. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find a poor starving soul on the streets so instead gave it to a poor unsuspecting victim who happened to be ambling past at the time. I looked back to see him watching us walk quickly away, holding the bag of soup in his still outstretched hand with a look of forlorn confusion on his face.

Day 25: Dances with sheep

On the road again; all day we race along the bumpy dirt road that winds its way up, down and sometimes through the steep hills, every so often startling a lone traveller hiking in the hills or a family atop a yak-drawn cart piled high with all their worldly goods. Our driver beeps long and hard to warn them as we zoom through their timeless landscape. The shrill sound is jarring, ringing around the hills long after we are gone. Neither do we slow down for the small dusty towns that sometimes appear in the distance, quickly growing closer, and then disappearing just as quickly behind us; indelibly imprinting in our minds a few snatched images of an extraordinary culture lost in time on the roof of the world. Today’s pass is the highest of the trip, 5200 meters and as we go over the rise I pop another altitude sickness tablet. We’re all stingy backpackers so we skimped on the tablets and bought only enough for half the trip. I’m using mine sparingly, but I’m hurting, yet it’s preferable to running out before the end. We stop again to admire the incredible view from this height. Bright prayer flags flutter violently in the strong winds. The Tibetans climb to the highest Himalayan Mountain tops to string these flags across its ridges and peaks. The colours of the flags represent the five elements of nature and the five wisdoms. Upon the flags are inscribed mantras that the Tibetans believe will be carried by the wind horse over the mountains and up to the heavens, taking with them prayers of good will and compassion. Beside the flags are piles of carved mani stones, the most sacred six syllable Tibetan mantra ‘OM MANI PADME HUM’ etched into their weathered surfaces.

Early afternoon we get to the roadside village where we’ll spend our second night. Huge rounded hills surround us and I can’t resist my urge to climb them. “Go high, sleep low” I chant in an effort to inspire the others to join me. Only Nader is up for the challenge and so we set off to cross the vast field of dry brown grass that lies between us and a section of the mountain that looks to me like it would be the easiest to scale. The enormity of the countryside is humbling, we feel like ants, and without our normal scales of reference it’s impossible to judge distances and heights. It may be one hundred metres to the mountain; it may be one thousand, it may be one hundred metres to the top; it may be a thousand. Deeply eroded gullies run down the slope like skeletal fingers reaching out to clasp the helpless village that lies just out of reach of its bony hands. Grazing on the sparse grass at the foot of the mountain is a herd of woolly highland sheep. Amongst them, clothed in rags that blend into the desolate landscape around him, is their shepherd. He hops oddly on the spot, and I understand, scant moments before his melodious voice carried lightly on the wind brushes past my ears, that he is dancing. Nader and I are suddenly conscious of the significance of this moment, and we freeze on the opposite side of a particularly deep rift, fearful to break the spell of his performance. Presently, he looks up and sees us, but rather than stopping embarrassedly he waves for us to cross the rift and approach him. When we climb up the other side he greats us warmly, and seeing my forgotten camera in my hand, he encourages me to film him. He begins his dance again, this time, for an audience more appreciative than his gentle sheep. I film the entire show, possibly the only filming of this traditional Tibetan dance in existence, and I am moved almost to tears by the dignified simplistic beauty of this noble mans performance set amongst the vast and timeless backdrop of the Himalayan plateau.

We continue on to the mountain, looking for a way to cross the gaping chasms and start our climb. In the end we find ours inside one and rather than climb back out we struggle up the narrowing and steepening gap finally managing to get onto the foot of the mountain. From here it is a long, hard slog, putting one foot in front of the other and gasping for breath. “See that rock up there?” I’d say to Nader pointing to a rock a little larger than its neighbours a few metres further up, “That’s our next stop”, and we’d slowly hike up to this point before collapsing in exhaustion, then we’d wait for a while to catch our breath before attempting to go higher. In this way we gradually closed the distance to its top. At normal altitudes we could have hauled ass up this mountain, but now it was like trying to walk upriver against a flow of treacle. At almost 5000 metres I was learning the true meaning of thin air. A fair ways up Nader begins to get concerned about the dangers of the altitude but I feel confident that if we take our time and stop regularly we’ll be fine. “You can turn back anytime” I tell Nader, “But I feel alright so I’m going to keep climbing”. “I’ll see how I feel at the next rock” he tells me; and tells me the same at each subsequent stop. We struggle on, drawing heavier and heavier breaths. At each rock we rest and marvel at the incredible panorama before us. The land dips and flows like large motionless waves etched eternally into the earth. The quaint Tibetan village, our abode for the night, seems impossibly distant, and the only road, a roughly hewn dirt highway running straight between the two strips of houses, appears from, and then disappears back into, the edge of the world.

Slowly, determinedly, focused entirely on placing one foot in front of the other, we trudge to the final steep rise, just 20 minutes from the top. But it is just 30 minutes till sunset and so rather than pushing for the top and risking coming down in the dark I tell Nader we should turn back. In reality the top is tantalizingly close, five minutes at most under normal circumstances but this is the highest either of us has ever been and we are acutely aware of it. So we start back down, and ironically a few minutes later, I have to climb back up again after realizing I forgot my bag. Nevertheless, we are soon making great time back down the sloping mountainside, then following one of the crooked chasms that veer in the direction of the village. I feel fantastic, like my whole body has been rinsed with the purest O₂, but moments after I get back things go pear shaped and I begin to feel like a soda can that’s been picked up and shaken. My bodies buzzing and my brain feels like it’ll explode via whichever opening yields first. Nader, in a similar condition, goes straight to bed without eating. Although we’re paying for our high altitude climb now, I feel confident it will make us stronger in days to come; provided it doesn’t kill us.

Day 26: Qomolangma

We’re so close now to Everest; the excitement is palpable as we strain our necks to see its bulk through the front windscreen. Just one more kilometre according to the road sign that counts down the distance. From up ahead a distinctive coloured car materialized out of the dust... the Chinese police. “Shit” we all say in unison, our driver saying what I assume to be the equivalent in Tibetan. Our worst, actually our only fear, is about to be realized... permit check. The lights flash and the car slows to a stop across the road. I pull out my camera and start filming, not because I want the footage but because I hope the sight of the camera will unnerve them enough to let us off. I’m banking on the unstable tourism situation in Tibet, the result of communist control fettered by the desire to avoid negative international publicity. Predictably, they tell me in no uncertain terms to turn it off. I put it down, but leave it running. “Show us your permits”, they demand. Jerry hands over our contract with the 4WD company knowing full well it isn’t what they want but hoping we might be able to plead ignorance and be given leniency. It doesn’t work. “No, this is not permit, show us your permit”. These guys are in no mood for games. We insist that this is our permit, pointing for emphasis at the stamp on the paper. “No, no permit. You go back now”. We are all in shock; I refuse to believe that we have come this far only to be turned back mere metres from the most significant natural landmark on earth. Of all LP’s Thorntree stories I’d read, nobody had described anything like this happening, never when this close. For added effect we wave our newly bought Qomolangma passes in the air, bought, without any request to see our permits, at the gates a few kilometres back, and babble frenetically in an attempt to bombard them with confusing English explanations. Eventually they concede, “You can go to base camp,” they tell the driver in Tibetan, “for ten minutes, and then you must go back”. This means we’re unable to stay at the monastery that sits in solitude at the foot of Mt Everest. At 4980m it is the highest monastery in the world and surely affords the most famous and striking vista. It’s disappointing that we won’t be able to watch the sunrise from here in the morning but we are all extremely relieved to be allowed to continue to base camp so we readily agree.

BASE CAMP 5100m - HERE I AM. Sometimes I find myself wondering if this is all real. Have I really travelled to the foot of Everest? Am I really standing here seeing this, or has this all just been an incredibly lucid dream, and in reality I’m fast asleep on a mattress in suburban Brisbane? I would pinch myself, but my gloves are too thick. So instead I’ll just accept it, and stare. We each have a Lhasa beer, bought earlier in anticipation of a celebratory drink; ‘beer from the roof of the world’ states the label. But because of the extreme cold and altitude sickness none of us can meet the challenge of a full beer so we share one between us. Each in turn, toasting the mountain, its tip obscured by clouds that match the colour of the snow on its face, and then swigging from the bottle. I pull out some mini marshmallow chocolates from my pocket, my base camp gift for everyone, and notice as I hand them out that the packaging has ballooned taut in the lower atmospheric pressure. Because of our time limit we can’t stay for long but nobody complains as we retreat from the windswept barren base back to the 4WD. I pass a frozen pond on the way back and realizing that this is the first time I’ve ever seen a frozen body of water up close I decide I should slide across it. I give Nader my video camera so he can get my action shot and I take a big run up, throwing myself at the ice, arms outstretched, expecting to do a superman slide across the pond. Instead I stick to the ice like Velcro and ungracefully pull up a few feet from where I started. It was my first lesson in new ice verse old ice. The ice up here has been frozen for so long that it’s dry, and therefore, not slippery. I get up and dejectedly wipe the white powder from my jacket, Nader continues to film, “that looked like it hurt” he says observantly. I pretend that it didn’t.

There’s little to separate tonight’s small roadside village from the preceding ones. Packs of skinny stray dogs menace the dusty doorsteps; the silence of the street is broken only by a strange overloaded tractor-drawn cart or the occasional convoy that lumbers past, carrying goods to the border town. The grandmother of the family that runs the guesthouse is the sweetest lady I’ve ever met. Her toothless smile, filled with kindness, never leaves her face and the deep lines across her leathery skin convey great knowledge and strength. She stands in the courtyard next to a pile of thin cane chairs powerfully pulling them apart with her bare hands to use for firewood. I try to help her but with a laugh and a shake of her head she leads me aside and takes the chair back from me. I try again but again she insists on doing it herself and resolutely tears the strands apart placing it under her foot for leverage. Later, in the cosy dining room warmed by the fire made with her own hands, she acts like a delighted child upon seeing the pictures I take of her with my digital camera. Tonight is our last night in Tibet; tomorrow we will go through the Himalayan pass via the Friendship Highway into Nepal. But first we’ll challenge the ridiculously cold early morning temperatures and climb a nearby hill to behold Everest at sunrise. Although it won’t be as rewarding as from the monastery the view from here, across the plateau dotted with tiny villages, will still be spectacular. It is to be, or so I believe, my last view of Qomolangma.

Day 27: Friendship High-way

Nader and I were up early, not wanting to miss the sunrise. A little too early it turns out and we shiver uncontrollably at the top of the hill while the night sky unhurriedly lightens. I begin to think the cold has got to Naders head when he begins mumbling about frostbite and attempts to light a small piece of paper inside a crack in the rocks with the misguided belief that somehow this could warm his numb toes. “I thought the Canadians could handle the cold” I say to him. “Canada aint this cold” he retorts. I hop from foot to foot in an equally vain attempt to get some feeling into my own toes, realizing too late that two pairs of thick socks and hiking boots are completely ineffective against this kind of cold. As the last stars disappear in the growing light I see jerry coming up the slope toward us while Andrea and Lisa unenthusiastically follow behind. Their own timing is more precise; distant peaks to the right begin to glow golden as the first rays of sun sneak over the peaks on our left. But in front of us, the tallest peak of all remains untouched by the light. This golden glow painfully slowly oozes down the mountain range onto the plains far below then just as slowly creeps across the flat floor. And still, Everest stands in solemn shadowed stillness. From a distance the five of us must look like sun worshippers performing some kind of ancient ritual. We all impatiently watch the approaching light as it slides like syrup over the houses of distant villages on its inexorable way toward us, each performing his or her, own unique, foot warming shuffle. Finally the wall of light reaches us and we begin to thaw. The Himalayan peaks too, are all alight. All that is, bar one, Mt Everest; the peak expected to greet the sun first impossibly still stands in shadow. I begin to suspect that the sun, out of some deep devout respect, has parted its rays around Earth’s king. A less poetic explanation would be that Everest’s self-created cloud, which streams out from its leeward side, has blocked the morning sunshine.

As we begin the steep descent into Nepal down a valley between two Himalayan peaks, the scenery around us dramatically changes. Frozen waterfalls begin to melt, first dripping then falling; frozen rivers start to crack then flow, growing in speed and strength; first grasses then shrubs and finally tall alpine trees grow where earlier were only barren plains. Along a thin unpaved road that clings tenuously to the side of the mountain we drive, frequently squeezing past road workers with rags tied around their faces shovelling piles of crusher dust. A man, who I can only assume is supervising the operation, stands with his hand on the hilt of a sword thrust through his cummerbund. The last section of road before the Friendship Bridge that links Tibet and Nepal is lined with trucks loaded with goods for trade. Well before we get to the border this lengthy line of trucks forces us to tread the roads steeply dropping edge. Border town is a row of ramshackle wooden hotels and gambling dens built on the steep mountainsides that cater to the gangs of rough and tough drivers waiting to cross. The last building on this road is customs and this is where we stop. Our driver has steadfastly refused all small offerings of sweets or drinks over the course of our trip so we know he won’t accept our tip thus I jam the money into the back of a pack of Marlboro’s I bought on the boat to China and I try to give him that. Still he refuses and in the end I have to push the pack into his hand and run away to catch up with the others who have already pressed through the aggressive freelance money changers and into the customs office. Except for Jerry that is; the practiced traveller argues with one of them about his calculations while the man refuses to let Jerry use his calculator to check them. In the end Jerry gets a calculator off one of the girls and keeps the man honest. In a place like this an honest business man is as unlikely as China freeing Tibet but we need Nepalese Rupees to pay our way to Kathmandu.

Out the front of the office dodgy minivan drivers in dodgy minivans compete to take travellers the last couple of kilometres to the bridge. We all jam into one of these tiny vans with our bags on our laps and our faces squashed against the windows. It’s not until we’re on our way down the road, not much more than a mountain goat track, that we realize the driver’s side rear wheel is flat, the same side as the precipitous drop which we now lean perilously toward. The girls cry out as the driver speeds around left turns and we are all relieved when he deposits us alive at the bridge. But we are not over it yet; in front of us is the biggest human traffic jam any of us have ever seen. People fill every available space between the lines of trucks that compete to cross the bridge. It is a frenzied conglomerate of noise, colour, aroma, metal and flesh. Trucks and people alike are fully loaded, the people with huge sacks on their backs supported by a rope around their foreheads. Most of them, I notice incredulously, are old women, bent under the weight of bags heavier then themselves. We squeeze single file between a narrow gap between trucks and are funnelled onto the bridge amongst a sea of people, feeling extremely vulnerable, with only minimal control. It’s an intensely intimidating and nerve-wracking experience. The girls are freaked out but they hold it together and get across the bridge. I find my confidence buoyed in the company of others for I’m relieved of the burden of having to completely rely on myself to get through traumatic experiences and so what would normally have been nervous tension is replaced by exhilaration and excitement. I’m laughing out loud at the shear pandemonium and I laugh even harder watching Nader turn heads as he pulls his big blue suitcase noisily across the rough cobblestone surface; people straining under the weight of heavy baggage look enviously or perhaps disdainfully at him. The herd of people bottleneck at the gates on the opposite side of the bridge and for a horrible moment we think we are going to have to fight our way through with the crowd, but upon seeing us the customs officers open a side gate and like celebrities usher us through. Our next challenge is getting a ride to Kathmandu with minimal Rupees. Jerry and I attempt to achieve this while the others sit with the bags on the side of the road; and so begins a lengthy process of haggling and knock backs with the drivers of every type of vehicle we can find. Eventually we have no prospects left bar the bus, but the bus, as the girls have stressed and nobody disagreed, is not an option. That’s because the only seats left on the bus are amongst a pile of people and bags on the roof. Maybe, without our luggage we could have entertained the idea of fighting for room to cling desperately to the roof of a bus over atrocious roads for the however many hours it takes us to get to the capital, maybe; but not with our luggage. And so with one last desperate attempt to find a ride I walk all the way back up the road to talk to the driver of an old jeep who we’d come close to coming to an agreement with. I hope that he’ll still let us take his final offer - a price higher than we wanted to pay but lower than we could afford – but I don’t ask that. Instead I say again the price he’d turned down and he accepts. “Where’s your friends then” he asks and it takes me a moment to answer because I’m astonished he has. I jump into his truck and like a saviour lead him down to where the others wait anxiously. What we’ve got for our money is the boot of a jeep, to be shared by the 5 of us and all our luggage. It’s as tight a fit as could possibly be imagined and the jumble of legs and arms that stick out in all angles must look like a group of mannequins that melted in a store fire then fused together in random positions. It’s uncomfortable, but none of us complain as we drive past what almost was our transportation. The roof of the bus is completely covered in bodies and bags now; it is almost ready to leave. And we have even less cause to complain after our last passengers have taken their own precarious positions by clinging to the back of the jeep. There isn’t enough room for all of them so some are forced to hold on with just one hand. One of these is a small boy whom I’m convinced is going to be knocked off by all the jostling for space. We try to convince him to come and sit on top of us in our cramped quarters but he refuses and fortunately manages to cling on grimly until his stop. It’s not long before the passengers have thinned out enough to allow some of us to fit into the cab and the rest, me included, are able to sit comfortably in the back. I put on my headphones and watch the vision of Kathmandu unfurl before me, the open rear window like a TV screen showing a National Geographic documentary. I feel relaxed and content as the temperature warms the lower we drop into the valley and by the time we get to our hotel I’m able to take my ski jacket off for the first time in a month.

Forbidden Tibet

camm_hunter_gibson — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:54:00 GMT

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

Day 21: Yak Meat and a Man Named Popo

Looking out my bedroom window to investigate the noises keeping me awake, I observe the unloading of a truck, piled high with the red sinewy bodies of skinned yak, onto the road in front of the butcher shop across the alley. Whole yak minus only the head are piled 3 deep onto the pavement. I go back to bed as the old pick-up truck rumbles off, leaving two butchers to lug the bodies inside; one on each end. During a morning stroll I marvel at the huge slabs of yak meat that decorate the city’s streets. Hanging from open shop windows, lying on plastic sheets on the footpath, sticking out the back of the trays of modified 3 wheel motorbikes; it’s a vegetarian’s nightmare. The cold climate of Tibet, a country with a yearly average temperature of just 7°C, means it has little need for refrigeration. Passing pedestrians would point at a yak lying unappetizingly on the pavement and its owner, holding a large butchers knife, would grab a leg and hack it off with a few solid swings, then hang it from a set of scales held aloft in his other hand. The customer would pay his price per kilo, and toddle off with a leg under his arm. For a Westerner, this is an appalling disregard for hygiene, easily enough to make the most hardened meat lover turn vegetarian. Oddly, I was unconcerned, and in fact yak meat was to become my favorite choice of steak.

The Jokhang Temple, built in 547, is Lhasa's holiest temple, situated bang in the middle of the city in the Barkhor Market district; as the heart and soul of the city, this area bursts with atmosphere and contradictions. On the one hand, it is one of the holiest areas of Tibet, awash with pilgrims, monks, nuns and temples. On the other, the streets around here are the hub of Lhasa's commercial zone. Street traders, hawkers and market sellers fill the pavements around the Barkhor area pushing numerous weird and wonderful things including souvenirs, ornaments, Tibetan knives, Tibetan robes and hats, tapestries, religious musical instruments, gold and silver ware, sniffing tobacco and prayer wheels. Jokhang Monastery became the worshiping centre when the Tang China princess, Wen Chen, brought to the temple the statue of Sakyamuni in 700 A.D. The statue is believed to be modeled according to the appearance of Sakyamuni (as the boy who would become the supreme Buddha is known) when he was 12, and was consecrated by Sakyamuni himself. It is Jokhang's oldest and most precious object, adorned with many jewels, in an elaborate setting. Pilgrims have prostrated themselves in front of this statue for centuries.

I watched in fascination the continuous flow of pilgrims circling clockwise around the temple, spinning their prayer wheels, also clockwise, and twirling rosemary beads as they went. Hundreds of people of all ages shuffled past me, dressed in dirty but colorful rags and chanting mantras that filled the air. I began to realize that I had unintentionally arrived in Lhasa in the midst of the annual Buddhist pilgrimage. I remember watching a program about it years ago on TV. I’d been enthralled by the vivid beauty of the sacrosanct city and the spectacular and massive Potola Palace, stunned by the devotion and sacrifice of the pilgrims; But I never imagined that I would actually see it with my own eyes. Now, here I am, arriving at the same time as thousands of Tibetans from all over their country came to Lhasa to pray and suffer in front of important religious sites. They may do this all day long, for days, or weeks. Many beggars position themselves along these routes, taking advantage of the Buddhist belief that giving to the poor increases your good karma.

A short, balding man with the tanned, leathery skin, characteristic of the Tibetan people, approaches me and says, “It’s a Chinese temple you know” following my direction of sight.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“It was destroyed and rebuilt by the Chinese, so they can claim it as their own work. All the famous ones were. They even stole the religious treasures inside and replaced them with cheap imitations; Made in China. It is a reproduction, a fake. This is not Tibet”. I knew he was referring to the Chinese invasion during the 1950’s and 60’s when the Chinese Government, in a demonstration of their superiority over God and the Tibetan people, systematically destroyed important religious structures and the many artifacts contained within. “Were you here when they did it?” I ask.

“Yes,” he pauses a moment then continues, “I watched them burn our books of prayer, smash our statues, pilfer our possessions and imprison our priest’s”. He suddenly stiffens and changes the subject. “I am an artist” he says. I notice a suspicious character that’d sidled within ear shot and realize he must be Chinese secret police. I had previously heard stories of the secret police in Tibet who listen in on the conversations of Tibetans talking with tourists and if they hear any anti-Chinese discussions the offending Tibetan is immediately arrested and thrown in jail. “What kind of artwork do you do?” I ask, going with the new topic.

“Religious art, for the temples mostly. I paint wall murals, make Buddhist deity statues, carve incense boxes and ceremonial masks, thangka paintings… many things”. Our eavesdropper, deciding our conversation was harmless, moves on. “You see the video cameras around the square?” he asks without gesturing. For the first time I noticed the cameras, perched on high building tops, pointing down at us. “They are watching us”.

“Big Brother” I would have said; if I thought we would have understood.

“Do you want to see real Tibet?” he enquires sincerely.

I think about it a moment and then reply “Sure”.

His name, he says is Popo, and he seems unimpressed when I tell him he has the same name as my girlfriends dog. He takes me to a little temple full of character, hidden away in the backstreets just off the busy and noisy market square. It has dirty, whitewashed walls ringed by small, golden metal drums that are spun by the pilgrims as they circumambulate the building. Inside the entranceway is another drum-shaped wheel, this one as big as the room, which rotates in slow resolute revolutions, powered by the elderly pilgrims who walk unhurriedly around in circles with it. We squeeze past them into a dark back room where a priest, chanting in a low hypnotic voice, busily throws holy water over a group of people bowed in front of him. A large bronze Buddha statue reaches to the rafters, its face in the shadows; flickering light from the yak butter candles at its feet dance across its golden belly and lick at its lips that are curled into an almost imperceptible smug grin. Popo and the priest exchange a nod as he lead me up a narrow wooden staircase with a ‘no entry’ sign hanging across it. He pushes open the door above our heads and I’m momentarily blinded by the dazzling daylight. The sun’s rays, unhindered by air pollution and with less atmosphere to pass through, is bright and strong in Tibet. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust and focus on the white walls and red roofs of the buildings around us. When my eyes do adjust I feel like I could jump from rooftop to rooftop all the way to the incredible Potola Palace perched majestically on the far side of the city.

In the next temple that Popo takes me to, rows of robed monks sit quietly eating their daily rice rations. Popo points to a painting of the Dali Lama, hanging high above their shaved heads on a side wall, almost completely invisible in the shadows. “That is the only painting of the Dali Lama in a temple in Tibet” he whispers conspiratorially. I know that it’s illegal to display a picture of the Dali Lama, even in the privacy of one’s home, so I imagine that this last remaining painting, unnoticed by the Chinese officers, is highly revered. With pride he declares “This temple is two and a half thousand years old”. Pointing to intricate designs freshly painted on the temple walls Popo tells me that he himself painted them and in fact he is solely responsible for the restoration of many of the old temples in Lhasa. Statues too, and carvings, wooden masks and a variety of religious artifacts are all Popo’s work. I find it a little hard to believe but humor him anyway. He explains that he has 5 shops, each concerned with a different specialty. One shop makes Buddhist Thanka paintings, another ceremony drums using stretched Yak skin, another shop casts bronze Buddha statues, another wooden carvings, and the last, wooden incense burners. He takes me to each one of these shops in turn. Young Tibetan boys busily paint and sand and saw and file and polish. They are all homeless children, he tells me, many of them orphaned during the Chinese invasion, that he has taken in and given work. I know he hopes I will buy something but I don’t mind because he isn’t pressuring me and I’m enjoying his company and his off-the-beaten-track tour of the city. So when he offers to take me to see a small village outside of town I accept and arrange to meet him again in the morning out the front of my guest house.

Day 22: White Man has come

The next morning finds me shivering in a cobblestone courtyard while I wait for the lady who lives in the boiler room to turn on the hot water. She has such an indent between her eyes that she looks like she’s been hit with a nail punch and she grumbles irritably as she bangs the pipes to get the water flowing. The hot water doesn’t go on till 9.30 because the sun doesn’t come up much before that and is off again at 4.30. I like to make the most of my days when I travel so yesterday I had left the guesthouse before 9.30 and got back well after 4.30 so I was unable to have a shower. That was my third day without one because there were no showers on the train, so I didn’t want to miss out today. While waiting for the hot water, two others come down to stand on the cold rock floor with me. I learn from the girl that they are going to book a 4WD today that will take them over the Himalayas and down to Nepal. I’ve been looking to join up with a group to do this trip so I ask her if they might have a spare seat. She says they’ve already promised the last seat to a guy they met on the train, but they might be able to fit another person in if nobody minds sitting in the boot. I said I didn’t and fortunately nobody else did either, as everyone was eager to cut costs. I didn’t know it then but I was about to hook up with 3 people that were to be the perfect travelling companions. We would spend the next 4 weeks travelling together, sharing our experiences and becoming close. It turned out that Andrea, and Jerry, the guy that was with her, and their friend Lisa, where staying in the room next to mine. I organized to meet them later then stood under a trickle of warm water before going to meet Popo.

The village Popo takes me to could have come straight out of a National Geographic documentary. Dusty dirt paths separate high white stone walls covered in drying yak pats. They stick them there to dry in the sun then peel them off and use them in their clay ovens for heating and cooking. A bleached yak skull with horns adorns a door. Three shaggy yaks lie lazily in the dirt and suspiciously eye us as we go by. Two young boys, wrapped in rags, put down their sticks and stare. One absently picks at the dirty snot that’s smeared across his face. An old lady cloaked in a tattered but thick traditional Tibetan coat, spun from yak hairs and dyed in reds and yellows, a plat down each side of her head tied off with a colorful rag, hobbles toward us. She rasps something to Popo as she passes. “What did she say?” I ask Popo.

He answers, “White Man has come”.

In the centre of the village stands a beautifully restored yellow brick temple, “This,” Popo tells me, “Is the first Buddhist temple of Tibet”. To the side of the temple is a small mud hut and its into here that Popo leads me. It’s dark and smoky, lit only by the light that sneaks through the door behind us. As my eyes adjust I see two monks cloaked in red robes, sitting on a wooden bench and sipping from a steaming cup while an elderly lady stokes a fire and adds another yak patty. One of them motions me over and offers me a cup from the thermos. I sit and drink, enjoying the warmth that oozes down my throat. It’s hot yak butter I realize. Not a drink I could usually drink a lot of, but it warms me so nicely that I accept another cup. After warming up we go into the temple and look around. Popo shows me a wall mural he’s been working on. Buddhist deities wearing brightly colored robes and holding weapons or instruments sit atop white fluffy clouds while dragons and tigers swarm around them. The wall on one side is original and the other repainted. I like it like this. I’m able to appreciate what it would have looked like as well as its age. Inside, the temple has a sacred ambience, dimly lit and silent; we’re the only ones here. Each room holds precious treasures; ancient prayer books, grim-faced guardian statues, a line of golden deities. Again Popo leads me to the roof and I’m awed by this humble village ringed by large brown mountains against impossibly blue skies. The Chinese built highway that links Tibet to China cut this little village in half and now we cross the road to see one of Popo’s friends who runs a very modest restaurant in the other half of the village. As we enter her courtyard I see a small girl pumping water from a well, standing on tippy toes for the upswing. A kettle on a metal rod is suspended in front of a shiny board, it reflects the sun’s rays back onto the kettle and the kettle starts to steam. A deeply tanned lady with deep creases across her face and plats in her tangled grey hair comes out of a little wooden hut to retrieve the kettle. She smiles at us and speaks warmly to Popo while wiping her hands on a colorful apron that’s wrapped around her thick cloak. With a chunky gnarled hand she motions for us to enter her cabin where she pours us some hot Tibetan red tea with yak milk. This is delicious; and good for altitude sickness so Popo tells me. While sipping our tea I tell Popo I’d like to take him to dinner to thank him for showing me around.

I ask Popo to take me to a place where he often goes to eat and so after leading me through a maze of dirty, dark backstreets we come to a little shop squashed between two other little shops that look exactly the same. A warm glow comes from within. The family, whose house they converted into a restaurant, shows us to a table. We drink more red tea with yak milk while waiting for dinner and the mother talks intently with Popo. She has a beautiful smile but sad eyes. She learns through Popo that I’m on my way to India, overland, and she swoons. Speaking directly to me with those sad eyes and deep yearning in her voice she tells me, through Popo’s translation, how badly she wants to go to India to visit the Dalia Lama, but alas, it is impossible for her to leave Tibet; China would never grant her the visa. Such longing in her voice and tears in her eyes, I wish I could take her with me. We are served a very simple meal, a few small pieces of yak meat on rice. I promise Popo that I will come to see him at his workshop tomorrow and buy one of his paintings, the mother clasps my hands warmly and says goodbye.

Day 23: Potola Palace’s Praying Pilgrims, the Wheel of Life and a Yak Sizzler

I’m up before the sun and regretting it because nothing is open. I wanted to hire a bicycle and ride out to the mountains surrounding the city and from the top watch the sunrise over Lhasa. But I can’t hire a bike even though it’s actually 8.00, so I walk across town to the Potola Palace and wait outside until it opens. While I wait a line of pilgrims in front of the palace prostrate themselves on the sidewalk. Up and down, up and down, some with sandals or blocks of wood on their hands, others with cardboard or rags. They’ll do it all day long, from morning to night with a pious, religious fervor. A man and his 2 young boys, filthy faces, filthier clothes, lay themselves outstretched on the ground, slide their hands forward above their heads, stand up again and step forward to the point their outstretched hands had reached, and repeat the process over and over, painfully slowly circling the huge palace grounds. Elderly Tibetan's clothed in the traditional colorful dress woven from yak wool, with faces tanned dark and leathery from lives lived under a strong sun, shuffle determinedly in a slow gait around the circumference of the palace, spinning each of the hundreds of prayer wheels that run along the walls, or spinning in their hand, their own personal wheel, in slow hypnotic circles while quietly chanting ancient Buddhist hymns. Resourceful beggars, capitalizing on the Buddhist philosophy of giving to the poor in order to improve your position in the afterlife, have positioned themselves around the temple, and hold out a tin plate to the passing pilgrims; some of them, both pilgrims and beggars, have traveled days to be here. For more than a thousand years millions of pilgrims have trod these sacred paths with devotion in their hearts. I was intensely aware of being amongst an extremely religious ceremony.

The Potala Palace rises 117 meters on top of a hill, making it 300metres in all, and is the greatest monumental structure in Tibet. It was built during the 5^th Dalai Lama’s reign in 1645. This has been the residence of each Dalai Lama since, ending with the 14^th Dalai Lama's flight into exile in 1959. It was also the seat of Tibetan government where all ceremonies of state where held and housed the school for religious training of monks. Today, the palace has been converted into a museum by the Chinese. Inside the palace the grandeur is breathtaking. It is 13 stories high, containing over 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines and about 200,000 statues. Almost all of the 100,000 plus volumes of scriptures, historical documents and works of art were either removed, damaged or destroyed, but fortunately the palace remained relatively unscathed during the Chinese invasion and unsuccessful Tibetan uprising; for the most part being spared the ransacking by the Red Guards that befell most other buildings of worth. Room after room of the most magnificent religious opulence; in one room I come across the tomb of the 5^th dalai lama, covered in gold and precious stones including pearl from an elephant’s brain, standing 13m high and almost as wide. Exiting from the back of the palace I stop to take a photo of the view from up above the city and a young man stops beside me, to admire the view also, or so I assume. I walk down a little way and stop again to get a shot from another angle and the young man again stops beside me. I give him a smile and continue down and he walks along with me. Side by side we walk, in silence. He suddenly speaks excitedly in Tibetan. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand” I say and he looks a little forlornly back at his feet. “What’s your name?” I ask him. He smiles uncomprehendingly at me and we continue to walk in silence. After a silence that stretches well into uncomfortable he suddenly turns to me “Hello!” he bursts out with. I laugh, realizing he must have been wracking his brain to remember this English greeting and the awkwardness of the situation is relieved. He makes eating motions, I nod and we duck into a cheap noodle shop on the side of the road where to my surprise he pays for my bowl of noodles and cup of tea. I try to make small talk with him but it’s impossible so I pull out my map of Tibet and, figuring he was on a pilgrimage, ask him to show me where his home town is. He looks a little confusedly at the map, turns it around and upside down; I begin to get the feeling it’s the first time he’s looked at one. Eventually he circles uncertainly around a particularly remote area of the map and gives a little shrug. I flip the sheet over to Lhasa city and show him where I want to go next. It’s another temple outside of town called Drepung, located at the foot of Mount Grephel. Drepung is a monk training academy and is the largest of all Tibetan monasteries, at its peak it was the largest monastery of any religion in the world. Due to a population capping by the Chinese Government there are only a few hundred monks, considerably less than the 10,000 at the time of its foundation in 1416. The 2^nd Dalai Lama built his palace here and this was used by successive Dalai lamas up until the 5^th. We spend the rest of the day walking in silent communication around this complex. At the foot of each deity ‘the boy with no name’ puts a small bill into the offering box, I follow suit. Outside the temple I stop intermittently to take a photo, he looks over my shoulder at the viewfinder, “yes”, he says in appreciable agreement. He’s learnt an English word and now uses it with the enthusiasm of a boy with a new toy. Walking back down the hill to the main road we cut through the trees and I stop to take a photo of a small frozen stream winding through a carpet of fallen red leaves to the belly of an old yak resting on the forest floor. “Yes” he says earnestly with a nod, “yes”.

There’s just enough time before sunset to go see Popo at his workshop. I’d been impressed with the detail in the Mandala he painted and liked the idea of having a unique souvenir. A genuine hand-painted Mandala by a true Tibetan artist is not the kind of souvenir that most tourists return home with. I know that it is almost impossible to buy genuine Tibetan Thangka art; all art sold in tourist shops is done by the Nepalese and the trinkets are cheap Chinese imitations even though all the shops claim it’s ‘real Tibetan’. Thangka is a Buddhist painting on canvas overflowing with symbolism and allusion, which is hung in a monastery or a family altar and occasionally carried by monks in ceremonial processions. Because the art is explicitly religious all symbols and allusions must be in accordance with strict guidelines laid out in Buddhist scripture. Thangka perform several different functions. They are used as teaching tools when depicting the life of the Buddha or retelling myths associated with other deities. Devotional images act as the centerpiece during a ritual or ceremony through which one can offer prayers or make requests. Most importantly, religious art is used as a meditation tool to help bring one further down the path to enlightenment.

A particularly popular style of thangka is the Mandala, usually a circle that represents completeness of the cosmos. Mandalas are used as an aid to meditation and trance induction, intended to assist the meditator to experience oneness with the cosmos. A particularly popular style of Mandala is the ‘Samsāra’, the Wheel of Life, which is a visual representation of the continuous cycle of birth, life and death from which can only be escaped through enlightenment. According to the Buddha, like finding the beginning point of a circle, the beginning point of Samsāra is not evident. All beings have been suffering in Samsāra for an unimaginable period, and they continue to do so until attaining Nirvana. Buddha was the first person to grasp the truth of Samsāra and in doing so break the cycle.

Popo proudly describes in depth the symbolism behind his intricately sketched work of art. “The Wheel of Life” he explains, “illustrates the essence of the Buddhist teachings, the Four Truths; the existence of earthly suffering, its origin and cause, the ending of misery and the path to liberation from suffering. The Wheel of Life describes the cause of evil and its effects, according to Karma, causes and effects are the fruits of one’s own deeds. The circular composition of the wheel of life leads us though the twelve interwoven causes and their consequences to rebirth in one of the six worlds that fill the inner sphere of the Wheel. But the meaning of the Wheel is to show the way out of these worlds of suffering into the sphere beyond. The monster of impermanence appears above the rim of the wheel, a ferocious face with three fiercely glaring eyes and a crown of skulls. Holding the Wheel of Life in his claws, he is a symbol of the transitory nature of this earthly phenomenon. On his left shoulder is the Bodhisattava - the Lord who looks down in compassion and weeps as he beholds the suffering of all beings in the six realms and three spheres of existence. On his right shoulder is the Buddha celebrating the possibility of all creatures attaining salvation and rising to Nirvana. At the hub of the wheel are the cock, the snake and the pig, each with the tail of the one in front gripped in its mouth, locking themselves into an eternal driving force. The cock represents lust and greed, the snake envy and hatred, and the black pig ignorance; the three poisons out of which grow all life’s evils. The ring around one side of the hub is the dark path; those who give in to these basic evils follow this path to bad rebirths and hells. The corresponding white path leads to better rebirths and ultimate bliss. The six worlds surround the ring in slices, each slice a symbol of transitory existence. The first, at the top of the wheel, is the abode of the Gods; a paradise achieved by good deeds, yet these Gods are not yet freed from sorrow; they too, after thousands of human years, are subject to old age and death. Their special suffering is the illusion of the eternity of their paradisal state. The last world, at the bottom of the Wheel, is the hells – places of torment for all those who have committed evil deeds. But even here the Buddha appears, bearing a flame to bring light and hope to even the darkest region; a message that after atoning for sins, rebirth into a better world is possible”.

“Between these two worlds” Popo continues, “are the worlds of greedy ghosts, suffering from a hunger and thirst that can neither be appeased nor quenched, the worlds of animals, cursed as beasts of burden and oppression by other beings, the worlds of humans, driven by egoism and ignorance, their suffering is a repeated cycle of birth, sickness and death, and the worlds of Titans, driven by insatiable envy into constant fighting with the Gods for the fulfillment of their desires. Around the six worlds is the outer rim of the Wheel, the twelve interdependent causes and their effects. In the first of the twelve pictures an old sightless man, unable to find his way, symbolizes spiritual ignorance. The second picture shows a potter molding his own karma. In the third picture a monkey swinging from branch to branch symbolizes people’s inability to control their own consciousness. The fourth shows a boat with two people, spiritual and physical energy, floating inseparably on the stream of life. The fifth, a house with five windows and a door symbolizes the five senses and thinking, through which we perceive the outer world. A man and woman embracing demonstrate the consequence of sensual perceptions in the six. The emotions to which one is stuck, like an arrow in the eye, is portrayed in the seventh. A woman offering a man a drink illustrates the thirst for life in the eighth. The ninth picture illustrates the longing to keep that which is desired, represented by a man plucking fruit from a tree. A bride in the tenth symbolizes procreation of a new life and the eleventh demonstrates the consequence of procreation, a woman giving birth to a child. The twelfth and final picture shows old age and death, the inevitable end of all earthly existence, illustrated by bearers of a coffin, the corpse in the fetal position ready for the next rebirth and further misery in one of the six worlds”.

With my canvas wrapped in newspaper I pick my way through the grimy backstreets, passing by a man peeing openly into one of the roadside troughs that are found around the city streets, until locating my 20 Yuan a night ($3.50) guesthouse at which I find Jerry, Andrea and Lisa getting ready to go out for dinner to an up-market restaurant (for Tibet) that apparently serves the best yak sizzler in town. I go along with them and as we walk across town we pick up some new friends of theirs who have friends of their own and those friends have invited people they’ve met. We enter the restaurant as a group of thirteen and talking loudly enough to be heard over the sizzles of the yak steak served on a hot plate we learn that sitting at this one table, ten different nationalities are represented. We’re all pretty impressed by this and I say “only through travel could we sit at a table where so many nationalities have come together as friends”. The restaurant lives up to its claim as serving the best yak steak in Lhasa. It’s juicy and delicious, in-fact it’s the best steak I’ve ever eaten, better even then beef, and I vow it won’t be my last. Sitting next to me at the table is Nader, the 5^th and final passenger on our journey over the Himalayan Mountains that leaves first thing tomorrow morning. I find that we share similar thoughts on life and philosophy and I can see we’re going to get along well. After dinner we all go to a small pub for some Lhasa beer, but me and my four travelling companions to be, call it quits after one and head back to the guesthouse to get some sleep before our early departure.

The Train to Tibet

camm_hunter_gibson — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 07:56:00 GMT

Day 18: A Ticket to Ride the Highest Train in the World

Getting a ticket for the train to Tibet is not as easy as one might imagine. With the unpredictable, nervous Chinese Government continually changing and rearranging the rules that are only enforced half of the time, neither the officials nor the international community really know what's going on. The only thing anyone can agree on is that nothing is certain. Before leaving I spent a lot of time on travel forums researching this part of the trip, reading other backpacker's difficulties and success stories. There was constant debate about the need for a Tibetan permit, or lack thereof. In general people were not getting checked and most considered them to be an unnecessary waste of money that just added to the Chinese Government's coffers. Even those who were checked and didn’t have one were, more often than not, simply ignored. The risk was of course, that you could never be sure of the consequences, and there were some who had been sent back to where they’d come from or forced to remain where they were until attaining one, a process that could take weeks, or days, depending on the current political climate, who you were dealing with, and a host of other factors. Purchasing train tickets was also fraught with difficulty. Independent travelers were successfully buying train tickets but often by going to extremes; for example, taking a bus to different departure points where the officials were more lax, or giving a commission to a Chinese person at the station to buy the ticket for them. Some foreigners were told they couldn't have a ticket but on returning the next day to try again they were sold one. It seemed that there was only one sure-fire way to get a ticket and that's were Tim's connections came in. Tim asked his Chinese secretary to order a ticket online for me. I gave her the money and the ticket arrived in the mail 3 days later. I held in my hand one ticket on the highest train in the world, Beijing to Lhasa. Unfortunately even she had been unable to meet my slightly more complicated request to get a ticket to Xian, one of the first stops, and then another ticket from there to Lhasa. The communist government's hard headed bureaucracy is second to none. I was disappointed that I would miss the Terracotta Warriors but relieved to be able to complete the next leg of my trip.

The layout of the train is six bunks to a compartment, three on one side and three on the other. Not enough space between them to sit up, but enough for a comfortable sleep. I chose the top bunk because it was the cheapest, but of course that also means the most inconvenient. It was evening when we departed Beijing. I climbed into my bunk to do a little reading before falling asleep, noting the oxygen vents in the roof as I did so. Because of the high altitudes, the train uses compressed air similar to that of a plane, although not as airtight, and has oxygen masks available for passengers who may suffer any adverse effects; oxygen masks, I found out later from other travelers, which the conductor neglected to give me. Though he did give me small piece of paper to sign that stated I was able to adapt to altitudes above 3000 meters. I’d read somewhere that altitude sickness claimed its first victim the month after launch, last year. Considering I’d never been to high altitudes, I hoped I wasn’t being overconfident. Traveling along this railway I would cross passes more than twice as high as the highest point in Australia.

Day 19 and 20: ALL day ABOARD

I woke with a splitting headache that seemed to consume every inch of my head. It was my first taste of high altitude travel and was to become my regular travel companion until fully acclimatizing in Nepal, more than a week from now. Every day upon waking, I would have a terrible headache and a head cold that wouldn't quit, hence the first thing I did when I woke, was pop a couple of painkiller's followed by a couple of cold & flu tabs just to get my head right. At these high altitudes and low temperatures, I was unable to overcome the lingering effects of the cold that had kept me indoors for a week in Beijing.

Holding my head for fear it will crack like a cold egg put in hot water, I check the time on my travel alarm clock my brother in law Justin had given me almost 4 years earlier when I'd left for Japan. I realize with surprise that it is 8am, yet outside, the sun has still not risen. When it finally does peep over the hills at 9.00am (a result of China imposing it's time on Tibet), the dramatic change in scenery that has already taken place is revealed. Watching the sunrise from the picture window, I marvel at the Dr Seuss like landscape around me, glowing red in the morning sunlight, and blue in its shadow. For a while we rush through short tunnels that cut through rolling hills every 30 seconds or so. An electronic thermometer blinking above the door shows the outside temperature to be a chilly -18°C.

For two days I sit staring out this window, transfixed by the slowly changing scenery that rolls before my eyes. Trees become shrubs, shrubs become grass, grass becomes dirt and dirt becomes covered by a thin layer of ice. The mountain tops grow closer, as the train slowly creeps higher and higher. Eighty percent of track is at altitudes of 4,000 meters or more; there are 675 bridges, and over half the length of the railway is over permafrost, where freezing and annual thaws sends ground heaving in all directions.

The train is scheduled to stop at nine scenery viewing platforms to allow passengers to appreciate the unique and stunningly beautiful scenery along the way. Yuzhu Peak station is the first of these platforms and is already at 4159 meters. From here the Yuzu peak of the Kunlun Mountains, one of the highest peaks of the biggest mountain system in China, can be seen. Chuma’er River Station, a further 340 meters up, is the second stop and is situated on the Tibet antelope migration path for which the next bridge was built. The bridge is 2,565 meters long with 78 arches for the Tibet antelope to pass under. Further on the Qingshuihe bridge disappears into the haze. At 11.7 kilometers it is the longest railway bridge in the world. Another 50 meters in elevation brings us to the TuoTuo River Station, the source of Chinas longest river. The turbulent Yangtze originates from this broad, glittering highland river and surges all the way to the East Sea. Climbing upwards to 4,823 meters we get to the Bugiangge Station, surrounded by vast tundra and snow-capped mountains sparkling brightly against a crystal blue sky. 5,068 meters, the highest pass along the railway, is at Tanggulz Station from where the highest peak of the Tangula Mountain spears into the sky like a giant antenna on the roof of the world. At this elevation, air contains half the oxygen as at sea level, my head throbs and I take another ineffective painkiller. Down the other side of the pass, at 4,594, is CoNag Lake Station. The holy alpine lake, glimmering like a pearl, reflects with clarity the snow-capped mountains and the blueness of the sky. We roll into Nagqu Station, 4,513 meters, as the sun sinks in the sky, its glare tempered now. In summer, the fertile highlands are covered in endless lush green grass and the annual horse racing festival is held here. The grasses are gone now, giving instead an impression of endless desolation. The first yaks I've ever seen dot the landscape, grazing on moss and drinking from half frozen streams. A yak herder, with no sign of civilization in sight, sits amongst his herd. We stop at two more stations after sunset. The occasional light flickers from a small settlement etched into the base of a barren foothill. The highway that connects China to Tibet, first built in 1950 to support the Chinese People’s Liberation Army when they marched into Tibet, runs parallel with the railway now and we follow it the rest of the way into Lhasa. After dark, 47 hours and 28 minutes later, covering 4,064 km, the train rolls into Lhasa’s new railway station.

Two minutes later I’m in a taxi, not bothering to haggle with the taxi drivers only slightly unreasonable price. ‘Enjoy your time in Lhasa now,’ says the driver as we leave the station. ‘Next time you come, it might not be Lhasa anymore. That train changes everything; Tibet is not a secret land any longer.’ The impact the railway is bound to have on the fragile Tibetan culture has been well documented. The concern is less about foreign tourists and more to do with the increased number of Chinese workers the train will bring. Indeed only a handful of Tibetans were among the passengers on my train and none that I could see, worked on board, or at Lhasa’s massive new station. The nephew of the Dalai Lama angrily called it "the second invasion of Tibet.” ‘They will take our jobs and our houses,’ the driver continues ‘just like they already did our land’ he shook his head sadly.

China

camm_hunter_gibson — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:23:00 GMT

Day 6 and 7: Tianenmen square and The Forbidden City

The huge framed portrait of the Chinese Revolutionary Leader Mao Ze Dong hangs forebodingly over the entrance of the Forbidden City. Underneath and around Tiananmen Square touts flog everything from Mao Ze Dong watches with a waving hand that ticks away the minutes to Mao Ze Dong little red books. I paid for the audio guide for the Forbidden City because I had read that it was the voice of 007's Roger Moore but was disappointed to hear a woman's voice. Still, it was interesting to learn about the incredible history of this ancient city as I walked through its maze of palaces, courtyards, corridors and high brick walls. The secret garden was particularly impressive. Here people enclosed inside the walls could go to relax among pavilions, ponds, pines and craggy, twisted rocks. Standing above the courtyard where Mao Ze Dong addressed the masses I could sense the power of the place. Over the loudspeaker they announced the city was closing. The guards began ushering everyone out through the doors that were slowly being closed. I slipped through just as the doors banged shut, looking back just in time to see the terror on the faces of the couple of dozen people who didn't make it through. I don't know what happened to them, but I like to imagine that they were all executed. The guards continued to herd us out to the street with such efficiency that the elderly were hobbling along like crazy to keep up.

Day 8: A Temple of Heaven and food from Hell

It was said that when the Emperor stood in the center of the Altar of Heaven within the Temple of Heaven, he was the closest any mortal could get to God. Like ripples in a pond, circular stones spread out from the center, each ring a multiple of 9. The number 9, being the highest value digit, synbolically represented the emperor. Tim and I walked lazily through the temple grounds, where each building is based on elaborate symbolism and numerology. The buildings reflect ancient Chinese beliefs that imagine heaven as round and earth as flat with blue domed roofs that symbolize earth and sky. We stopped for awhile to watch a group of women with large red fans performing a hypnotic dance to Chinese folk music before arriving at the famous Echo Wall that surrounds the Imperial Vault. It was decided a test of it's acoustic properties - a spoken word at one end can be heard from the other - should be made. Standing at the opposite side of the wall I strained my ears for Tim's voice and was surprised to clearly hear my name come rolling around the corner. "CAMM"!

"WHAT"? I called back.

Afterwards, we went to a food market, where all manner of foods could be sampled. A firm believer of trying everything once, I pointed at the skewered scorpions, their pincers still pinching, tails twitching, and ordered a stick. First it was fried then handed to me with a mischievious smile. It was a strange feeling, to put scorpions into my mouth, to feel the spike of the tail dig into my lip and the legs stuck between my teeth. It was crunchy. Next on the menu was centipede. Plenty of legs to get stuck between teeth. "Tastes like poison" Tim stated in disgust. And indeed it did.

Day 9 - 14: A Cold

I haven't been sick for a long time so I guess I was overdue. Perhaps the cold weather contributed to me catching the cold. Calling it a cold though, doesn't really do justice to how bad I've been feeling. I've been stuck in the house for a week, too sick to do anything but sleep. But I feel fortunate that it happened now, while I have a house to stay in, rather then while I was on the road.

In China I find myself again contemplating currency. The Chinese RMB has 3 different levels. The Yuan, the Jiao and the fen. This means you can have a 1 Yuan a 1 Jiao and a 1 fen which is like 1, 0.1 and 0.01 respectively. Things get confusing when your looking at a handful of 1's trying to work out if it's a dollar, a 10 cent or a 1 cent. It's made more confusing by the fact that it can be both a note and a coin. The biggest Chinese denomination is the 100 which is only about $15, so getting a couple of hundred dollars changed gives a great big wad of cash that makes one feel rich. And one kind of is rich in this country where a bag of tomatoes can be bought for 15 cents.

Day 15: Duck and Cover

Tonight Tim took me to a restaurant that served Peking Duck. After all, you can't go to Beijing and not eat Peking Duck. First the cook brought the duck out on a table and sliced it carefully in front of us. Apparently they need a special duck slicing licence, it's quite technical. On our plates was placed the different cuts and the head. The waitress showed us how to place the duck into the crepe then cover it with sauce and fold it with chopstix. The skin was sliced very thin and literally melted in our mouths. I asked Tim why they say both Peking and Beijing. He said the early Westerner's pronounced Beijing wrong saying Peking instead because it was easier. So to be politically correct we should perhaps call it Beijing duck.

Day 17: A Great Big Wall

Today was the day I'd been looking foward to. Today I would visit the wall. I had booked a tour through a hostel I knew. It was called the Secret Wall Tour and they gauranteed that apart from the others tour members, there would be no other people on the wall. A pretty easy promise to keep, I imagine, on a 6400km long wall that runs mostly through uninhabited lands. After so many unusually (for Beijing) fine, sunny days in a row, I was disapointed to notice a light rain falling as I left the house; but when my clothes failed to get wet I realised it was snow. The snow caused the usually terrible Beijing traffic to become even worse. Stuck in this traffic as my deadline grew nearer I thought about the differences between Beijing's traffic and Shanghai's, that I experienced on a different trip. Shanghai's traffic is chaotic, psychotic and intense; but the traffic here is just a bloody great big crawling metal centipede. I much prefer the traffic in Shanghai. It's more fun. While stuck in this traffic and worrying about the time, unbeknownst to me, the hostel had called the number I'd given them, Tim's phone, and, thinking it was me who answered, asked if I was coming. Half asleep but thinking quick Tim responded with "Yeah, I'll be there in 10 minutes." His ETA was spot on.

It was the first snow of the winter and while driving to our destination, peering through the foggy van windows at the white-washed wall set in a snow-scaped wonderland, I couldn't decide if I was happy or sad about that. The scenery was painted perfection but the visibility was very low. At a point along a dirt road, somewhere between 2 towns, the van pulled over and we all got out to start the ascent to the wall we could see above us, snaking along the ridge tops. Once on the wall it was obvious that this was truly original. In most parts the wall was nothing but piles of rubble with weeds and bushes growing through the cracks. The walls of the wall often partially or fully collapsed. But in other parts it had stood up remarkably well to its 2000 year test of time and one could get a real sense of the age, history and greatness of this wall. At the peak of each ridge stood a sentry post where the Chinese guards would have stood watching for any rebel invasions. It was possible to stand on these posts and look out over the same rocky, treeless landscape. If a rebel army was going to attack, now would be a good time to do it, I thought to myself as I squinted to see a few hundred meters through the falling snow. I was really surprised at how steep the wall was. I was expecting to be walking along a fairly flat surface but instead found myself climbing up sharp inclines and slipping down slippery slopes. Up and down, up and down, until we went all the way down to a small village where they served us a traditional Chinese meal before taking us back to the city. The wall, winding over mountains and out of sight, is often compared to a giant, lazing dragon. Today, elegantly draped in a layer of snow, it could be the white Luckdragon from the Neverending Story. Still, I hope to return in the future to see it on a clear day, when its vast length can be more easily appreciated.

Slow boat to China

camm_hunter_gibson — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:15:00 GMT

Day 4: Birthday aboard

I hadn't slept well. The dreaded snorer had struck and he demonstrated an impressive pitch and volume which penetrated my brain even through the music coming from the headphones I'd donned in an effort to block it out. But the bad sleep was forgotten now as I watched the humorous characters on the train to the port. One man was a newspaper collector whose job it was to get all the newspapers from the luggage rack above the chairs. There were a lot of newspapers and this man, 5 foot nothing, jumped all the way down the train like a jackrabbit. Another man walked though my carriage with a bag of women's gloves he was selling with one displayed daintily on his hand, black velvet with lace around the wrist, making him look like a gay Michael Jackson.

I stood in line, waiting for a cab to take me the last few k's to the port. The man in front looked at me and suddenly spoke in a completely unrecognizable language. "What" I said. "Port"? He simplified. I nodded. He pointed to me then him then the cab. I nodded again. At the port I gave him half the fare (only about $1), but he refused it. With some difficulty I learnt his nationality, Mongolian and his name, Bargen. Boarding the boat I again noticed that I was the only Westerner however this time the passenger list seemed to consist entirely of Chinese junior high school girls and one young Chinese man wearing black shoes, black pants, a black bullet poof jacket with SWAT written across it, a pair of yellow safety glasses, and a black cap that read 'ZOO YORK'. Once on board I sat down and ordered a coffee. The only other white person aboard approached me and introduced himself as Alex from Russia. We soon became friends and spent the rest of the trip talking between games of chess. He told me a little about growing up in Russia. The change from Communism occurred when he was a teenager and offered many business opportunities for entrepreneurs. He saw doctors and lawyers, well educated people, doing the same jobs as him but not as well because they were older. It didn't encourage him to get an education. One such opportunity that he took advantage of opened when Gorbachev decided to do something about the alcoholic problem. New laws restricted the amount of alcohol each person could buy. However, bribery could get you as much as you wanted which could then be sold on the black market at inflated prices. A regular Al Capone. He said that once a week a policeman would come by, pick up a crate of vodka, and walk away. Never a word was spoken. His entrepreneurial skills served him well when he left Russia for Canada and started a small canoeing business on Lake Ontario. During the Canadian Winters he leaves the lake to study or look for other business opportunities. One such Winter he studied Film Production and so was able to give me a few pointers on using my video camera. Now, he was on his way to China to study the Chinese language. When I asked him to what part of China he was headed he replied, "I don't have any warm clothes so I'm going south". He beat me 3 games straight. I felt a little better when he told me that he had once beaten the Korean chess champion though added that it was probably just a fluke. I felt better still when I finally beat him in the 4th, though that too was probably just a fluke.

The Korean meal that I ate on board was huge with so many different ingredients. Again I was impressed by the value. Back in Japan this meal would cost twice the price, for half as much and would taste half as good.

Day 5: Birthday Blues

The Yellow Sea conjures up images of the Orient; of Chinese junks and opium dens. I couldn't help thinking however, as I stared overboard, that the Yellow Sea was more of a muddy brown. We disembarked at Tianjin and got on a bus that would take us the remaining 3 hours to Beijing. Looking out of the bus at this mining town felt more like peering into a war zone. The great open cut mines left the land barren for miles while the dust hung thick in the air creating a thick smoke like haze. As the sun went down it's rays created a similar effect to looking through a yellow filter on a camera. The many buildings in varying degrees of deconstruction looked just like they'd been hit by bombs that had smashed whole walls to pieces. The distant road lights, glowing yellow in the haze could have been flares or distant fires. The thick dust blanketed everything, roads, trees and cars, creating a monochrome world, a black and white war movie.

In Beijing I would be staying with my friend Tim. I had sent him an email previously saying that I'd be arriving on my birthday and was happy that I wouldn't have to spend it alone. Sitting on the bus I looked forward to getting to Tim's place and having a birthday beer. My plans were dashed however when, upon meeting Tim, he said "You know it's not your birthday today"? "Sure it is", I insisted "My birthday is the 27th". "Yeah, but it's the 28th today". I couldn't believe I had missed my own birthday. I wonder if that means I can stay the same age this year.

Korea

camm_hunter_gibson — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 09:57:00 GMT

Day 2: Arrive in Korea

I couldn't help noticing, as I walked through the ship that would take me from the place I'd called home for 3 and a half years to the first stop on a trip that would take me half way across the world, that I was the only Westerner on board. In fact, I seemed to be the only one who wasn't Korean. The fact that this was a ferry catering to Asians was made more obvious by the Karaoke rooms that vibrated with badly sung Korean songs from the moment we left port. In my room were 2 young Korean guys. One of them, Win, had been studying in Japan and was retuning to Korea to begin his compulsory military service. He wasn't very happy about that. The other, Kwon, had just finished a one month trip in Japan. We took the train to Seoul together then said goodbye to Win. Kwon helped me find my youth hostel before taking me to a little korean retaurant he knew which served very cheap (under $5), very authentic, korean dishes. I have never tasted so much flavour in one serving. Kwon told me that in Korea when you order a dish it always comes with about half a dozen other side dishes. I was a little surprised by the chopstix. They were metal, not the usual wooden style; thin, flat and quite heavy. After 3 and a half years in Japan I've become fairly adept at using chopstix but I found these difficult to use. After exchanging emails I said goodbye to Kwon and went back to the hostel. Later that night I returned to the streets to get some more food. I love the Asian street food culture. No better way to eat then by pointing at delicious looking foods in the many stalls lining the roads; foods you've neither eaten or seen before, then walking along the street while you eat. I like Korean chijimi, it's a kind of savory pancake, I wanted to try some in korea so I ordered one from the foodstall and was handed the biggest chijimi I have ever seen. And I was handed it wrapped in a plastic bag. I also came across without a doubt the strangest food combination I have ever witnessed in my life. peanut butter flavored squid tentacles. I had to try it, and it tasted... just as bad as it sounds. Coming down the street toward me I saw what I knew would be the first of many beggars. Lying on a trolley, his useless legs dragging along behind him, he pushed himself along with one hand in a sandle while his other, outstretched in front, pushed an old radio, playing a slow, sorrowful Korean song.

It's a strange feeling to think that this is the first day of a 6 month trip. Before starting out I just thought of it as a trip, done in one block. But here I am on day one and suddenly it's not one block but a sequence of individual days which stretch out over the horizon, over the Himilaya Mountains, and out of eyesight.

Day 3: Palaces, guards and grumpy old men

Ater a breakfast which included the Korean staple, kimchi, I headed to the TIC to book a spot on the boat to China. It only sails twice a week, luckily the day I want is one of those days. On the way there I dodged crazy motorbike riders who sped along footpaths and across pedestrian crossings, weaving through car and human traffic alike. The lady at the front desk of the building where the TIC was located was a little too helpful. She didn't just tell me the floor of the TIC (B1) but also lead me to the elevators, pushed the button, ushered me inside, pushed B1, pushed the close door button then stepped back and smiled. I smiled back, until the doors closed and I realised the elevator was going up instead of down, all the way to the top floor where we picked up another passenger before heading back down. At the TIC was some elderly caligraphy artists who were writing names in Korean for free. I got my name and Hiromi's name written in the Korean alphabet which looks a little binary.

The rest of the day was spent looking around a couple of palaces where I saw the changing of the guard. They wore colouful, traditional outfits, beat drums, and generally looked very serious and fearful. That impression was dashed somewhat when I stood beside one of the motionless guards to have a photo taken only to find that their beards were fake and falling off. A Tiawanese guy who introduced himself as Richard, explaining that he had named himself after a famous pianist, took the photo for me, then asked if he could get one with me too. I didn't want to insult him so I also got one of us together.

In front of the palace was a large group of old men. Some of them played some kind of Asian checkers, while the others stood around them watching and sounding there appreciation. In front of the other temple another group of old men were involved in a more heated form of entertainment, hotly debating in a language I couldn't understand. At first I thought it was just an augument, but when I saw they were still at it when I exited the palace half an hour later I knew that they, like the other men playing board games, were engaged in a game of minds.

Currency is a funny thing. The Korean Won and the Japanese Yen use the same denominations; hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands, they even look the same. So it seems like the same money but 100 Won is only 10 Yen so although the 6000 Won meal I ate for dinner tonight seemed expensive, it was actually only about $6, give or take a handful of change. Change... a pet hate of mine. In Japan they still have 1 Yen coins; these stupid, paper-light, little things that end up laying around everywhere. Everything is 198 yen or some such stupid price. In Australia it's not much better only it's 5's instead of 1's. But in Korea I never saw a price that didn't end in a zero. My 6000 Won meal tonight really was 6000 Won. The banana milk I bought, 1000 Won. I know the Korean Won goes down to atleast 10 because I saw it on the phone, 10 Won (about 1 cent) for 2 minutes, but the smallest coin I've seen is the 100 Won coin. After 2 days I've got 3 coins sitting in my pocket, 3 big coins. Back in Japan I would have enough shrapnel to sink a ship by now. Every time I open my wallet I'm breaking a note. My consumerist life is a constant battle between getting coins, and trying to get rid of them.

Leaving Japan

camm_hunter_gibson — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 17:03:00 GMT