Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Lhasa, Tibet: Oh Tibet! The Land of Snows! The Roof of the World! The stuff of my dreams!! I can't believe I've finally arrived...


Lhasa is a big city: The main streets of the Barkhor are always bustling with hawkers, tourists, merchants and pilgrims. Tibetans of all ages sell their wares (prayer flags, jeweled daggers, vegetables, yak butter...) Tourists snap photos and adjust fanny packs while wizened nomads shuffle around the temple, prostrating, turning prayer wheels and chanting.


But amidst the bustle, (and always below it, as I'm beginning to recognize) is a peacefulness and sort of ancient calm that only a city so holy can embody. I like to stand in front of the Johkang Temple, smelling cedar and incense and yak butter lamps, letting throngs of pilgrims pass me in waves, and think about where these people have come from and where they are going. Today I thought I could feel the whole world turning around me.

But! Enough reverie in Lhasa: Tomorrow I set off on my adventure proper. I've signed on to a sixteen day journey that will take me first to the holiest and then to the highest mountains in the world, and in between, the best adventure Tibet has to offer.

After seemingly endless hassles with the Chinese government, I've decided the best way to travel is by private Land Cruiser. Yesterday, by a stroke of serendipity, I met two (charming) Austrian medical students who also want to travel to Mt. Kailash and Everest. Basan, our travel agent, is also charming, though his favorite phrase is "trust me" which usually has the opposite effect. We've only just met Chime and Nawang, our driver and guide, but, like most of the people I've met here, I liked them immediately. Our car is a bright blue Toyota whose odometer stopped at 400,000 km. I think the six of us will make a good team.

After just four days in Lhasa, I'm ready for the solitude of the plateau and the majesty of the mountains. Maybe my Shangrila waits for me there...


"I was lifted above a worlds of love, hate and storms of passion for I was clam amidst the eternal silences, bathing in the living blue. For peace rested on one bright day on the mountaintop."

Isabella Bird, "A Lady's Life in the Rockies"

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home