Kailash dreaming

One wedding, several koras and a very long way - Part 1: Kashgar to Lake Manasarovar

2006-10-22T03:35:00.002-12:00

Well, one journey is complete and flowing into another. I find myself sitting in a little net cafe in Boudha, Nepal, beginning the process of writing and sharing about events that happened weeks ago. Fading memories and after-images bouncing around in my brain cells. Impressions and recollections competing and jostling for space - all asking for heart reflection, organisation and intelligent interpretation. This blog writing and sharing with you is part of that process i guess. Both a digital travel-diary and also a means of trying to make sense of what i observed, in the intertwined reality of inner and outer experiences. (By the way - i have split this posting into 4 parts to make it easier for computers to handle the pics. Parts 2, 3 and 4 can be accessed from the 'Previous posts' section - scroll down on the right - or from a link at the bottom of each posting).

The journey was really a long way - physically, mentally and emotionally. A solid work out for the body/mind! But while outer muscles recover easily, inner ones can take a little longer. I won't bullshit or gloss over stuff in this posting, i intend to be more emotionally real and reflective. The journey, particularly within the TAR - Chinese occupied Tibet - was tough. I saw more negativities emerge from this mind than i have in a long while and this was both highly uncomfortable and very humbling. Mostly it was in relation to the "Chinese" and my judgmental interpretations of them and their behaviour; my struggle and mostly failure to find compassion and a space of deeper understanding of 'them'. The emotionally immature part of myself is wanting to divide and separate and make them 'bad', 'wrong' and semi-beastial. Exactly the same technique that political leaders use when they want to convince one nation to go to war on another. The slightly more sane part of me wants to see straight through that and go way, way beyond it. Little steps huh,......

Prayer flags behind the red curtain,....

As a group of four very individual individuals undertaking an arduous physical and mental pilgrimage together, i can only say i feel blessed and honoured to have had such companions for the trail. We were each tested in different ways and saw some of the best and worst in ourselves and each other and provided space, support and understanding when required. Our parting after the first Kora around Mt Kailash (Mark moving on to other areas of Tibet) was relaxed and felt like a natural conclusion to a wholesome shared experience. Looking forward to catching up with Mark and Joe here in Kathmandu and seeing what else they got up to in Tibet!

So,....stories, stories and pictures. Where were we up to?? Somewhere around Kashgar i recall, hoping to find an accomodating illegal mode of transport across 1500km of dry, high mountains into the TAR,......

We scored a local bus from Kashgar to Yechen - the jumping off point for illegal transport into the western TAR and to Ali, its administrative centre. It was only about 6 hrs, but across an incredibly dry desert pavement landscape, flat and barren all the way to a haze-stained horizon. Dancing dust-devils swirly-whirling up out of the void, spiraling dust upward in a frenzied vortex of grit and energy before disintegrating back into nothing. We were all mutually groaning our lack of appreciation when the VCD player on the bus went on for a second round of the same C-grade Chinese music videos. I spotted a potential source of audio relief - a couple of exposed speaker wires! At the next stop, a deft hand movement and a couple of speaker wires were twisted together in a neat short circuit, thus sending the two offensively squawking speakers nearest us into the bardo-bliss of sweet silence. How clear and light we were after this! (apologies to non-Buddhists for unintelligible jokes!).

Yechen was a dusty, dead-end truckstop mostly, full of Han Chinese very far from home and the indigenous Uigyuir people, mostly avoiding eachother. Interesting. I am sure it would make a fascinating social study. The straight, lonely and very wide main street had a large Peoples Liberation Army base on one side and brothel after brothel after brothel on the other side - lit up inside with pink neon, signs hanging above the doors with smiling, 1/2 naked, pubescent Chinese girls.

Prostitution seems very much out in the open there and i guess the PLA base provides an ample supply of testosterone charged customers. When we first rocked up during the afternoon (before the pink lights went on) Mark and i were searching for accomodation and accidentally wandered into one thinking it might be a hotel. They seemed very smiley and happy to have us in there (which sent alarm bells ringing!) and then quickly ushered Mark upstairs to look at a 'room' while i stayed downstairs and tried to decipher the large board listing prices next to 'services'. We left rather quickly.

Notions of efficiency. Is number 127 'satisfactory', 'average' or are you having a bad hair day and feel like pushing 'dissatisfied'?

Expecting that we were going to have to split into two groups in order to hitch a lift in a truck to Ali, we were very sweetly surprised to discover a sleeper bus willing to take us directly there in a couple of nights time. Amazing! Too easy. Apparently the guy had some police contacts and said it was no problem, normal even. Quite different to the stories we had heard from fellow travellers who did this journey last year. Seems as though things are opening up along this route - for the moment at least. So, we organised a joint day of meditation in our little 4 bed dorm, silence and inward looking a more sane way to spend our time than than pacing up and down a dusty, divided street.

At the appointed hour, we rocked up to get on the awaiting bus and were told to hide in a back room for one hour to avoid any nosey police that might be lurking about. During this time the window seats near the front of the bus - which we had requested when purchasing tickets and had been assured of - were occupied by immovable, chain-smoking Chinese passengers. Injies (Tibetan for 'westerners') had for dinner again! Bundled up in the reclining position we disappeared into a darkening night in the wake of a wild and blustery duststorm. Bound for Tibet,......

The sleeper bus-rattle blues,....

At about 2am we were awoken to go into an army checkpost. Nerve throttle open, a little unsure what would happen next. Wide eyed. Chinese being scrutinised and names written in a ledger. Our passports were diligently checked, but no details were recorded in the book. Ahhhh, so the army checkpoint fellas are in the bus companies baksheesh loop and us injies allowed to slip by the back way. We were not here; I did not see you; or just like Manuel from Fawlty Towers "I know nuh-ting!". Back on the juddering bus, rolling along the hours of a harsh and wild landscape outside the windows. The Aksai Chin is an elemental place. Few nomads even venture there, there is so little grass and water.

Juddering along the Aksai Chin

Little duckies bagged for the frying pan

At a roadside truckstop i see yet another example of human disconnection and contempt for other sentient beings. Eight geese stuffed into a bag, trucked in for the restaurant trade, waiting for the pot, frying in the sun without food or water. One was dead, another injured and close to death. What to do? Such treatment is so unnessesary.

At around 6pm that evening, almost 24 hours into the trip, we encountered an interesting situation. Our bus driver tried crossing a deep stream a tad too fast. This caused the radiator fan to explode into high speed razor-shards (due to hitting the water or a rock?) thus tearing great gashes in the radiator cooling fins. I watched the divers assistant try to fill up the radiator after we stopped to assess the extent of the leakage - it poured out almost as fast as he poured it in!

The interestingness of this situation had a sharp edge to it. We were on the verge of the highest pass on the Aksai Chin road, at about 5000m. We were feeling the altitude, but doing fine, due in part to our previous acclimatisation efforts, plus Anna, Mark and I were rolling on Diamox as well (a useful drug for altitude that helps the kidneys restore blood pH which gets out of whack due to CO2 / O2 imbalances - you have to drink and piss like a trojan though!). However, some of the Chinese on the bus were doing decidedly less well. One woman had been vomiting repeatedly for several hours and a couple of others were snorting oxygen and the guy next to me had been rolling around groaning, holding his head and was now either asleep or unconsious, i couldn't tell.

Red-earth and vast open spaces on the Aksai Chin

High altitude truck stop on the Aksai Chin, site of our impromptu radiator repairs

We eventually limped back to a truck stop that was only several km from the site of our drivers over-zealous river crossing attempt. We bundled off the bus while they started the task of pulling out the entire radiator for a full-on roadside repair jobbie on the restaurant floor. We were here for a while so we settled in. During dinner the front door of the warm restaurant we had all retreated into swung open - some other passengers virtually dragged into the room the Chinese woman who had been vomiting. She was now in a barely conscious state.

This was a tricky situation. She was in a really bad way and had deteriorated rapidly since stopping at this altitude. We knew enough about Acute Mountain Sickness, its symptoms and treatment to know that this woman was in a potentially life threatening condition. Death from HACE (high altitude cerebal odoema - swelling around the brain) can occur in as little as six hours of manifesting severe symptoms and we had been here for 3-4 hrs already. The Chinese seemed to know bugger all and took a bit to comprehend the seriousness of her situation whilst Anna and i checked her out.

She had all the classic symptoms; very rapid, but faint pulse; massively dilated pupils; severe headache; persistant vomiting; she was only just conscious and failed miserably a gait-ataxia test (straight line walk toe-to-toe). She couldn't walk without assistance on both sides and even then still dragged her feet. If one was trekking in Nepal this would mean down, down, down - NOW!!! - regardless, even if it was the middle of the night and bucketing rain, as the person could be dead by morning. We communicated this, but there were no cars or trucks working at this place to take her down and the radiator repair job underway was of unknown duration and uncertain outcome. What to do?

We had some strong steroid medication, precisely for this kind of situation, which can temporarily reduce HACE related brain swelling and buy the patient some time in which to get down. Dishing stuff like that out to one of us four would be one thing - our lives and our risk - but to dish it up to a stranger, not knowing if they might react or ???, was a bit freaky to say the least. Given the circumstances there was little choice. We gave her the pills to pop, kept a close eye on her and prayed the radiator was fixed soon. Her husband ignored our advice and gave her some food after the pills, so she threw up again 40 mins after taking them. How much had she adsorbed into her bloodstream? Do we give her more? Her pulse had grown stronger after the meds and she was more alert, but other symptoms still remained. Anyway, we kept a close eye on her and to cut a long story short, the radiator was fixed by about 1am in the morning and we rumbled off into the darkness and over the pass and down, down, down - only 800m lower, but that was enough to reduce her acute symptoms. So, our Chinese lady-friend made it to Ali (with a sore head, but in one piece!) and so did we, 40 bone-jarring and Chinese-ciggarette-smoke filled hours later.

First views in Tibet

Morning vistas as we reached the TAR

So, far out. We were in Ali! The longest single leg of the physical journey over just like that - rough and very smoky to be sure, but relatively plain sailing. All that remained to do was visit the PSB (Public Security Bureau). There we would turn ourselves in, say "yes sir, no sir, sorry sir", pay the approriate fine whilst looking appropriately sheepish and submissive and hey presto, a stamp and a signature or two and we would be 'legal' aliens, instead of illegal ones. It was a Sunday, but what the heck, we had a go.

At the PSB office and there was a door open so we wandered in to a large tiled ediface, curiously, cautiously. There was a caretaker woman there who told us to wait and made a phone call. A lovely Tibetan woman then rocked up, on her day off, and patiently put us through the rigours of Chinese PSB formality. She collected our fines, asked us some serious sounding questions - to which were warned to reply honestly - and then promptly issued us with red-ink stamped permits, all the while apologising to us for keeping us there! On her day off to be fair! Amazingly simple.

There was a hilarious sign in the hall of the PSB building, written in english apparently, quoting rules and regulations for would be 'legal aliens', but it was entirely indecipherable. I include a quote, word for word, to see if you can tell me what they are on about! I quote from the opening paragraphs of the sign, including typos: "The bust this that the public security gear adjust grasping ordinary visa foriegner and implements the visa administration chiefly to consist of the visa tosign and issue, defers and pluss autographs and alternation and withdrawing with proclaims is up to standard to be contain. Foriegner enters a country queen, in case the manouver which will be go in for outside original capacity have to propose the visa sort and alter the application to person in charges gear. In case man travelling together have to plus the bamboo slips." I'm sure they are trying to communicate something important - but what!?

Tibetan road workers waiting for a lift in Ali

Ali was a kind of strange place. A far flung administrative outpost of a colonising power. My first impression when arriving at the town was of the ramshackle slums on its edges - housing Tibetans, not Chinese. The flavourless, stock-standard, white-tiled, two storey street frontage was full of mostly Chinese shops staffed by mostly Han Chinese. There were Tibetan shops to be sure, and Tibetan resturants full of Tibetans (and mostly horrible food), but they were in the minority. The most Tibetans i saw in this area were the roadworkers, grubby and darkened from their labour, either in road crews outside town or leaning on their shovels and waiting in gangs for lifts out to where the road crews were. I don't recall many Chinese wielding shovels. A two tiered society perhaps? Evidence to this effect beginning to accumulate.

Elderly Tibetan man in Ali

At last i was getting a chance to try out some rusty Tibetan, but i had learnt Lhasa dialect and this was far western Tibet, so there were some pronunciation difficulties to transcend! Without the two phrasebooks - Mandarin and Tibetan - we would have been stuffed for even the most basic tasks as very, very few people spoke even a word of english. Exasperatingly challenging communication difficulties aside, we managed to find out about public transport to Darchen - the town at the start of the Mt Kailash Kora.

However, we decided to do a several day detour along the way to a place which is renouned as one of the most spectacular examples of an old kingdom remaining in western Tibet - The Guge Citadel near Zhada, Tholing and Tsaparang, about 100 kms west of Mt Kailash in the depths of the Sutlej gorge. {I am aware that all these place names can easily become a blur of syllables, so have included a map below showing the rough location of Ali, the Guge Kingdom and Mt Kailash in relation to Kathmandu and Nepal.}

Rough location map of the Guge Kingdom and Mt Kailash in relation to Kathmandu and Nepal

The journey to Guge was gob-smacking; vast plains and high passes surrounded by multi-coloured mountains - the result of massive iron-mineral deposits. The Chinese name for Tibet means "Western treasure house" - they are not likely to give up its resources so easily.

Iron-mineral laden mountains on the way to Guge Kingdom and Sutlej gorge

Mark on the bus, views on the road to Guge,....

About 1/2 way into the trip the locals emptied out of the bus and it was just the four of us left, plus the drivers and about a dozen frazzled fish. Our slightly unusual travelling companions were bound for someones dinner at Zhada (the town near the Guge Kingdom) and were sloshing and joshing about with the bumps in a double layer of plastic bags. At one point some luggage fell down and knocked over one of the fish-bags on its side, smashing the styrofoam outer casing and abruptly changing the dimensions of the fishies world (I wonder what they were thinking?). I had this python-esque vision of the plastic bag rupturing and us bumbling buddhists struggling to catch slippery fish flapping around in the isle of a bouncing bus in the middle of a dry, rocky moonscape. Fortunately for the fishies, the bag held!
Bagged fish on a bouncing bus

Afternoon light on the road to Guge

Kata and the Sutlej gorge in the background

About 9 hrs later we rocked up at Zhada and found a pad for the night. The bus journey had been spectacular, but we were all buggered due to the kidney-bruising and eyeball-jarring roughness of the road. It made the road across the Aksai Chin seem smooth comparatively! Asking for the location of the loos (as you do when you rock up to a new place) we were informed that they were across the street; on the side of the main street in fact, just behind a couple of scraggly poplar trees with a fine view of passing pedestrians. Just dodge the remains of other peoples efforts and go for ya life. Lovely.

At this point i have to descend into a discussion about toilets, dunnies, the other end of the food tube etc - or the lack thereof - in western Tibet. No western Tibet related travel blogsite worth its salt could safely avoid this issue - unfortunate, but true. For those uninterested or squeamish, just skip this bit. You have been warned! I guess my first thought is "How hard is it to build a shitter??". I mean, you get a spade, dig a hole, bung some planks over it, raise a wall and a roof and hey presto. Apparently not. Most of the 'toilets' we encountered in western Tibet put Indian railway ones well to shame, and that is truly saying something. In fact they made most Indian ones i've seen look positively dazzling!

You could tell when you were approaching the 'toilet' by the increasing density of human droppings which radiate outwards from the central target, anything up to 20m or so. Apparently hitting the target (ie getting in the hole) is unnecessary, and anything in the approximate vicinity is good enough. Approaching the actual target is fraught with danger, both for your boots and nose, as the dropping density increases exponentially and one has to step very gingerly to find patches of safe earth. An absolute hoot in the dark!
Not a dunny. Solar kettles were big throughout western Tibet, and good to see - renewable energy in action

On to more savoury topics,....One of the main reasons for us choosing to visit the Guge kingdom was its historical significance for Tibetan Buddhism and contemporary links with our own lives. About 1000 yrs ago there was a very famous Indian Buddhist master, scholar and meditator called Atisha. Apparently he was invited to Tibet to teach, but initially declined. The King of Guge at the time who had invited Atisha, Yeshe-O, was captured by a foriegn power and held to ransom. When one of his relatives raised the approriate ransom sum in gold, Yeshe-O told him to use it to sponsor Atisha to come to Tibet instead and teach the Buddha Dharma, as this would be more beneficial than using the gold to save his life. So the story goes - it's a good story!

'Historically', Atisha did come to Tibet (spending many years there) and spent several years dwelling in the Guge kingdom at Tholing (right near modern day Zhada). It was here that he composed some pivotal texts, condensing the essence of Buddhist thoughts and philosphy for simple Tibetans. One such text was the Lam-Rim ('Lamp for the Path'). It was this architecture of Buddhist thought that Anna and i first encountered at Kopan Monastary in Nepal in 1996, subsequently transforming our lives. So, deep homage to King Yeshe-O and Atisha!
The stupa of King Yeshe-O at Zhada

Stupas, mani stones and Yak horns at Zhada

While the Lam-Rim was once composed just up on the hill behind the town, and once upon a time a large community of practioners dwelt here, Zhada now is a far cry from its high history. Impermanence. Now a one-street Chinese town, complete with knock-shops and Karaoke bar. The stupa at the end of town near the Sutlej River had been restored and Tibetans allowed to circambulate and say mantras again, but the prayer wheels had no mantras on them. Just yellow, rotating tin cans. Kind of symbolic for the hollowness and facade of what i saw later on in the journey at Tashilhunpo Monastary in Shigatse.
Rotating tin-cans - prayer wheels without mantras

One afternoon i climbed up amoung the ruins of the old city above Zhada, hunting for some atmosphere and sense of what this place must have been like - an age ago. Ruined forts, old caves and broken stupas greeted me, a biting wind rushing up the Sutlej valley as the sun set. I came across a large stupa which had been broken into, guardian boddhisattva snow lions violated - maybe someone vainly hoping for material riches on the inside? Curiosity overcame me and i poked my head in the dark to have a look; disorded and decaying pages of pechas and many beautiful little tsa-tsas lay scattered among the dark rubble. Relics of a time now gone,....
Chenrezig tsa-tsa from the insides of a broken stupa

Hillside view and afternoon light from ruined city above Zhada

The Guge Citadel ruins were incredible. A joint testimony to lost kingdoms, tantric buddhism, communist notions of 'creativity' and burrowing all at once. Must have been astounding in its hey-day. An ants-nest and rabbit warren of tunnels, Gompas, dwellings, caves, stairs and secret passageways all winding, twisting and bending their way into a roughly conical shaped hillside made of soft mudstone.
Guge kingdom citadel

After arriving we were escorted (minded is more like it) through a series of Gompas. These originally contained some of the most significant statues and Buddhist wall frescoes in western Tibet. Now they were all under lock and key and you were definitely not allowed to take photos inside (so the ones you see here were taken very discretely and from the rooftop skylights). After entering it seemed clear why. All had been heavily desecreated by the Red-guards during the height of the Cultural Revolution. Broken statues with limbs torn off spewing contents all over the floor; shattered buddha heads, holes in the walls and torn scriptures were most of what remained, apart from the atmosphere and some remnant wall art hidden in the gloom.
Remnants of a red guard rampage. Empty gompa, golden Buddha gone, light remains,...

Smashed statues and a shaft of light in a ransacked gompa

Buddha faces and piles of pecha (Tibetan scriptures) in the rubble

Obviously the Red Guards had taken their job seriously. I tried to put myself in their shoes - What were they thinking at the time? This place is insanely remote, 1000's of km from Beijing, hard enough to get to now and it must have been incredibly difficult back then when there were no roads. What kind of thought process had to lie behind the zeal and single-minded intensity required for someone to travel over such austere distances to engage in acts of petty vandalism and bust up a few statues and Buddha heads?? Obviously for them it wasn't petty vandalism and they believed in what they were doing, otherwise they could not have made the effort. Unfathomable.

The official Chinese blurb that greets tourists at the front gate mentions nothing of this, just an obscure reference to the Kingdom having fell into ruins after wars in the 17th century. The history written by the victors is so often one-sided that it does little to promote reflection by subsequent generations. How much white-washing like this throughout the ages? I think of my own experience growing up in Australia and what i was not told or taught about the genocide of Aboriginals. The horror of what was left out. Just one-dimensional tales of glorious white explorers who 'conquered' a vast, unexplored new land. Are there any places or people on Earth to whom this has not happened to?
Official Chinese bullshit sign no. 1 of many

To be fair, some of the remaining wall art was pretty amazing. Incredible detail and covering every surface of some Gompas in a riot of colour, dieties and pictorial stories. Such a potent and vivid contrast with the rough world of brown rock and endless blue sky outside. The contrast causes them to impress upon the mind. I found myself having visual flashbacks of stupas, multi-armed dieties and colourful mandalas as i was preparing for sleep that night. As we left the Gompas and wandered up into the complex itself, we came across some meditation caves that had a black encrustation on the walls and roof that resembled tar - accumulation and congealed smoke of how many millions of butter lamps past? How many offering prayers?
Mandala at Darchen Gompa. Similar, much older mandalas remained in the Gompas at Guge, but could not be photographed

Butter lamp tar on the walls. How many years of burning butter?,....

The rest of the complex was great to wander about in, and would have been a hoot if you were a kid with a tribe of friends playing hide and seek! Views from the summit over the Sutlej gorge and surrounding valleys were nuts. But i'll shut my mouth now and let some of the photos do the talking for me,.....

Tunnels carved out of the mudstone winding through the citidel

North views from the summit of the Guge citadel

South views from the summit of the Guge citadel

View of the valley below the Guge ruins

Decaying walls and a view to a Gompa and valley below

Anna and Joe contemplating the view from a window of the winter palace at Guge

Temple roof detail at Guge - a Garuda of wisdom eating a snake of ignorance

Guge fort and surrounding hills

Prayer flags and the Sutlej gorge at Guge

I think it was in Zhada that it became very apparent that we were minority travellers. (It also became apparent that all of us were suffering from outrageous foot odour! - Chinese food (?) or too long in boots (?), who's to know!). There were stacks of other injies there to visit Guge, mostly middle-aged Europeans, but they all had very expensive private hire-jeeps and guides and the majority had come in from Lhasa. We weren't real thrilled about the prospect of getting back on the bone-bruising bus out of there with our not-so-friendly chain-smoking drivers, but few other options existed. So we got back on the public bus, out of the Sutlej gorge over the passes and out to the main road where we intended to hitch a lift to Darchen.
Broken statue in a wrathful deity room at Guge

This trip was intense and a bit of an emotional crossing point for me in terms of my patience with 'Chinese' behaviour and their way of relating to us - like barbarians with wallets - whatever trickle of patience that had been there dried out. The bus was loaded with chain-smoking Chinese, spagging on the floor and barking at each-other and us. Part of me doesn't want to even speak about them like this now or give energy to an aggressive, deluded and shallow view of them and their behaviour - yet that was definitely my view at the time. I was off it! They really couldn't understand our smoked-induced suffocation and desire to let fresh air in the windows, leading to some mutual tension during the journey. The bus driver even stopped the bus at one point and was going to evict Joe who was resisting paying the rip-off fee we had been charged. However, we made it to the main road and happily leapt off the bus, into the waiting arms of a bunch of Swiss travellers who had their own vehicles and were heading to Darchen! Their guide was a lovely Tibetan guy who called himself 'Everest' and we managed to sqeeze into a 4WD with him and a driver the following day, anticipating our first views of Kailash.

Swiss lift no. 2

Mt Kailash beckoning,.....

Rounding hills and crossing streams, past masses of roadworks, excitment mounting, "Is that it?", "Surely its that one?". We saw the looming southern face in the distance and glimpsed the steep sides of the western valley where the Kora trail goes as we approached Darchen. We paid a quick visit to the Darchen Gompa, loaded up on some tucker, recharged batteries and then got ourselves a hire-jeep for the 40km trip to Lake Manasarovar - on a mission to get married!
Stupa at Darchen

One wedding, several Koras and a very long way,......continued
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Part 2: Wedding at Lake Manasarovar

2006-10-20T00:52:00.002-12:00

The wedding! Here is a bunch of wedding related photos and some story for those interested. If not, then blog onward!

After arriving at Chiu Gompa by Lake Manasarovar, a cold wind howling across the hill, we decided on a date for the wedding - 1st October - and then agreed to stay a few days to chill and give ourselves and our butts a break from Chinese buses.

Chiu Gompa overlooking Lake Manasarovar

Prayer wheels by the Lake

We both needed a couple of days to prepare mentally and also to choose an appropriate site for the ceremony. Getting married is not something you do every day huh!

Chiu Gompa is very old and has links with one of the first Indian masters to introduce Buddhism into Tibet - Padmasambhava; what a champion! - way back in the ~8th century. Apparently he spent the last week of his life here, meditating in a cave on the hill where the monastary is located. A good place for a relationship committment ceremony that was very much based on Buddhist principles.
Chiu Gompa
Gurlu Mandhata across the Lake in morning stillness

Stupa with Mt Kailash in the background

Lake Manasarovar is incredibly beautiful. A deep and powerful place with many moods; from nurturing calm to relentless pounding of evening winds. Still mornings with glassy waters, deep turquoise reflecting the blue sky and mountains, and wild blustery afternoons with a cold wind roaring across the lake are enduring memories. The best waves i have seen in the last two years were here - perfect lines walling up, one after another, crashing onto the rocks of the shore - only they were 6 inches high! Good for a mouse on a mal maybe?
Chortens and prayer flags in the evening wind at Chiu gompa

Lake Manasarovar sets rolling in

The Tibetan word for wedding is "Chang-sa"; meaning place where Chang (Tibetan beer) is consumed, kind of suggestive of a culture that doesn't mind a beer or three! We chose a sandy little bay in which to hold the ceremony and then spent the day before having a swim and wash (without soap of course!) together in the lake. It was cold to be sure, but totally swimable - for about 30 seconds or so before ones feet began to transform into throbbing icicles of bone-fire. Very happy to bathe in the lake, shedding some of the omnipresent Tibetan dust, and then drying in the warm sun of the rocks by the shore,....
The wedding bay in the morning light

After a dip in the Lake on the wedding eve

Anna and Scott on the wedding eve

A cute, and very tough (to survive winter at 4800m), little lakeside Lizard

Sunset on the eve of the wedding ceremony

I spent the night of the wedding eve camping alone at the lake, near the ceremony site, preparing the Mandala in the sand as the morning sun rose. The Mandala was a focus point for the ceremony; we sat around it; added symbolic objects to its lotus petals as we recited vows; danced and held hands around it; poured lake water on it and finally dissolved it at the end. For those not up with hindu-yogic Mandala symbolism, this one represents the heart chakra ('Anahart' or 'unstruck') with 12 petals, and the two interlacing triangles represent the union and harmony of the decending current and ascending currents, of immanence and trancendence, earth and heaven, of feminine and masculine principles.
The wedding mandala

Dawn of the wedding day

Mark and Joes contribution to the day was outstanding and very deeply appreciated by Anna and I. Mark was a fantastic celebrant - warm and clear, with heartfelt invocations and never once missing a beat. Joe did a champion effort just to get there as he had been sick with a bad (and continuing!) case of the trots the night before. I really didn't expect him to make it as he was very weak, but was deeply impressed by his resilience in showing up and reading the contributions from friends and family as well as being photographer!
The bride being escorted down the aisle, complete with red-carpet

The glorious blushing bride

The ceremony circle

For those interested in a brief outline of the ceremony; it consisted of an invocation and refuge at the start, followed by a reading of some letters from friends. We then recited vows related to the six perfections (generosity, ethics, patience, joyful effort, concentration and wisdom) whilst placing symbolic objects in the Mandala petals. After this we spoke vows that we had jointly created together based on some ideas from a marriage ceremony inspired by Lama Yeshe, whilst standing and exchanging places around the Mandala after each one; symbolic of the dance of both intimate relationship and life in general and also of seeing the others perspective. Mark poured water from the lake onto our foreheads, a ring and katas were exchanged, letters from family were read and then we dissolved the Mandala. The bouquet was tossed (i think Mark caught it twice!) and after a few hours interlude we headed back to Darchen to start Kora the following day. Honeymoon to be on the Kora trail!!! Related photos below,......Many thanks to those friends who contributed their blessings via cards, your presence was felt!

Placing symbolic objects in the petals of the mandala lotus

Exchanging places around the mandala

Exchanging kata's

Dissolving the mandala

The wedding bouquet

Mark and Joe getting ready to dive for the bouquet

After the ceremony

The married couple

One wedding, several Koras and a very long way,......continued
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Part 3: Kailash Kora's

2006-10-19T00:54:00.000-12:00

Arriving back at Darchen in the evening after the wedding ceremony, we started preparations for Kora the following day. Lightening our packs, ditching non-essentials and ensuring we had enough snack food were priorities. Sticks at the ready. Stoked to have made it this far without dying of dysentery or crumbling into little quivering pieces on a juddering bus, and about to embark on our first circuit of the holy Mountain together, we set off into the morning blue.

Four friends ready to set off on our first Kora

Mani stone at the first prostration point, Kailash in the distance

The pole raised each year to celebrate Saka Dawa

A Tibetan woman and mother near Darchen

The weather was cloudless and stunning - in fact it was largely cloudless with sunny blue skys the entire time we were in the TAR. There were loads of colorful pilgrims on the trail, nomads in family groups mostly, often with babies and young kids at heel. We settled into our own pace and gradually wound our way past the first prostration point and into the mouth of the western valley. This valley has wild rock formations, all with symbolic significance in the Tibetan Tantric world, representing various deities and historical figures.

View along the western valley, Guru Rinpoches 'torma' in the background

Tibetan pilgrims on the kora trail

Ancient stupa in the western valley

Light on the otherworldly rocks of the western valley

Anna Skywalker challenged the Dark Farter to an impromptu duel in the western valley - and lost. Her light-sabre-stick beyond repair by any force

Occasional shenanigans on the trail served as light relief, for at this altitude the physical effort of carrying a pack, even with only ~8kgs, makes your lungs and heart work seriously hard. Joe was still being plagued by a persistent gut bug and weakened from the previous day. It was a longish day before we arrived at Drirapuk Gompa, at 5200m. Drirapuk has an incredible location - situated on the side of a hill facing directly towards the magnificent northern face of Kailash.

A self manifesting Buddha in the rocks - if you have the karma to see it of course!

Western face of Mt Kailash

The magical North face of Mt Kailash

Anna had a couple of minor balance and confidence issues arise whilst crossing the rocks of a rather cold stream at Drirapuk. The resultant slippage led to her boots becoming fully submersed in the water. The challenging karma of having wet boots, the day before crossing a major pass, was compounded by the fact that when drying them by a fire that night the inner soles got a tad too hot and performed an irreversible shrinki-dink-shrivel up trick - thus rendering them absolutely useless. No inner soles on the pass for Anna!

Anna in the drink while crossing the stream to Drirapuk gompa

Rows of stupas at Drirapuk Gompa

Sunrise on the northern face

We were pretty hungry by the end of the day, having missed lunch, but were informed by the Gompa that there was no food available beyond Tsampa. Too many Tibetan pilgrims were waiting to be fed. This was fair enough, but this turned out to be part of an emerging and ongoing pattern of injies being lied to and treated like crap and charged a bucketload for it. So we settled in for what we could scrounge from our tucker bags and managed to get some hot brews into us before bed - high altitude dreaming.

Clothing left behind by Tibetan pilgrims, symbolic of shedding the ego

Heading up towards the Drolma-la pass, ~5600m

The next morning began with a slow, steady plod up the hill towards the Drolma-la pass at ~5600m. Part of the scenery included many large piles of clothing, some very artfully arranged (!), which had been discarded by Tibetan pilgrims - representing symbolic shedding of the ego. There is one point where you lay down and visualise yourself going through the death process and the body decaying, rotting and withering away into crow gibblets and bleached bones. And then you emerge reborn and renewed. This was good idea and also seemed a pretty strategic spot to rest just before the last steep ascent to the pass!

Prayer flags at the Drolma-la pass

Tibetan woman with baby on her back resting at the Drolma-la

A well deserved rest at the top was followed by a steep descent into the eastern valley, past Buddha footprints in rocks and other significant points. There was a cold headwind wind howling up this valley as we made out way to the next Gompa. Progress felt slow and it was a very long day by the time we arrived. Joe and Mark reached there just on dusk. This Gompa, Zatrulpuk, had a cave that was dedicated to Milarepa, one of Tibets most famous and amazing Yogis. Apparently he meditated here for a while and there are many stories and sites related to him and his various exploits in the eastern valley.

Afternoon shadows in the windy eastern valley

A Buddha footprint (paw-print??) in a rock after the Drolma-la

Inside a Milarepa cave at Zatrulpuk gompa in the western valley

Contemporary western Tibet art object - decorated sheeps skull

It is only a few hours walk from Zatrulpuk to Darchen, so we took plenty of time the following morning to savor our breakfast of Tsampa and rancid-butter-smelling hot water. To be fair i actually really like Tsampa, though the quality varies substantially. Unfortunately it can be really hard on your digestive system (especially when it has finely crushed sand in it - a by-product of the barley roasting process) and can result in copious quantities of gaseous emissions. Particularly when consumed over a prolonged period or in large quantities. I mean a fart or two is fine right, but very, very large ones every few minutes is painfully ridiculous!

Tsampa again?!! Can you pass the rancid-butter-smelling hot water please?

Towards the end of the 1st Kora, weary and happy

An expression with a million words,...are we there yet?

So, back at Darchen, weary and happy. Ripe for a wash and keen to clean socks that were ready to leap off ones feet and crawl out the door. At this point we realised we had not had a wedding cake yet! So began the process of assembling the ingredients (chocolate drinking powder, nutella, almonds) that had been lovingly carried all the way from Daramsala. A chocolate-tsampa-nutella wedding cake was the result and we all agreed hands down that this was the only way to eat roasted barley flour!

Cleaning up (socks - errrrgh!!) back in Darchen

The infamous tsampa-chocolate-nutella wedding cake

Darchen is a strange place. Especially after the silence and beauty of Kora. Rather like an unloved truckstop, only far fouler than any truckstop i have had the fortune to witness. A pit-stop for passing pilgrims. This is the jumping off place for the Kora, one of the most sacred circuits in the whole of Tibet, indeed Asia, and yet Darchen most closely resembles a garbage dump or land-fill, with a bunch of dwellings roughly stacked on top. Stuff strewn everywhere, especially in the stream which flows out of the sacred inner Kora (which also happens to be the towns water supply!). The entire place was loaded with garbage and all manner of discarded plastic crap. But perhaps the most common item of all was smashed beer bottles. Oodles of them. Everywhere shards of green and brown glass poking up out of the earth.

Main street in Darchen - piles of garbage all over the place

Loads of large dogs roamed the streets of Darchen and about 20% had a limp. I wondered about this when i first arrived and finally twigged to what it was - paw injuries from all the broken glass! All this garbage - was it a result of disconnection or lack of education or what?? What about this sacred-earth thing guys?? Is this just my own stupid romantic notion? Eco-friendly nomads or some other one-dimensional concept i was clinging to?

Maybe no one cares here because the bulk of the population is so transient. Possible, but it really is not that hard to dig a large hole and put the trash in hey. No, it does not solve the deeper issue, but contains it and helps with amenity and basic hygiene. This was the source of many head shaking conversations whilst we were there and made going outside rather unpleasant.

A Tibetan woman with the backdrop of the polluted inner Kora stream as it flows through Darchen

Construction of masses of new accomodation underway at Darchen

A pet sheep at the Om cafe in Darchen - our favourite hangout

However, another part of Darchen is undergoing a major construction boom. Things are happening in the dust and garbage. Government sponsored accommodation buildings are being built at a rapid rate and given what we saw from hills above the town, this could easily more than double the towns current carrying capacity. Given that the Chinese are intending to build an airport at Ali and are also going gangbusters to tar the road all the way from Ali to Darchen (the first third is already complete), collectively this seems like a recipe for a massive Govt. sponsored tourism expansion. I wonder what they are planning to do with all the extra shit and garbage then?

Nyenri gompa nestled in the side of a hill

At this point in the journey the group of four dissolved a natural dissolution. Mark felt complete and content with one Kora and wanted to explore other parts of the TAR in the time he had, so he decided to hitch out the following day. We wished him well, hugs all round and prepared ourselves for another circuit of the holy mountain.

Stone tablets at the Vajrayogini sky-burial ground during the 2nd kora

We decided to take our time on this Kora and soak up the atmosphere a little more. The first Gompa in the western valley was our pad for the first night, breaking up the journey and allowing us to check the place out.

Afternoon light on the 16 Arhats

A fleet of yaks loaded up for an group of westerners

Pilgrims resting after a hard day on the trail

On the second morning we came across a little life-and-death in the mountains scene. A golden Marmot was being hounded by a hound, and was surely bound to be a dogs breakfast very soon. We chased the doggy away, understanding his situation, but empathising a little more with the Marmot whose life was on the line. Mr Marmot was freaking - shaking and quivering with fear, lathered up, teeth exposed, eyes wild and frozen to the spot. I tried to (carefully) encourage him to think about going back to the safety of his burrow, out of range of the doggies canines. The doggy, looking very innocent, slinked off into the sun to watch the stick-waving injie antics. The Marmots post-fight-flight trauma was pretty intense and it took about 10 minutes of us standing guard, before he relaxed enough to stop pretending to be a statue and move to go underground.

The marmot that was nearly a dogs breakfast - literally

Afternoon light on the roof of Drirapuk gompa

Sunset on the north face of Mt Kailash

On the second day we had heaps more time, allowing us to do an afternoon walk up the small valley towards the astounding north face of Kailash. Prayer filled steps and deliriously happy to get there, we sat contemplating the magnetic vastness and power of the place - which seems to draw you in to a space of silence and reverence. We placed an object given to us by one of our teachers at a small stone meditation hut there, thankful for all out teachers, past and present.

I found myself flabbergasted by someone’s beer bottle blasphemy, wondering how is it possible for someone to bring it there full, here of all places, and then not take it out empty? Astounded. Though this is fantastic example of how the mind is continually joining the dots and adding its own meaning to things. It is entirely possible that this beer bottle had been lovingly carried there by some 'rough as yak-guts' nomad who wanted to make an offering of beer to the stupa in the northern valley (Tibetans do like their beer!). It is also possible that they then thought that the bottle was so lovely that they would leave it there as an offering also. Improbable perhaps, but entirely possible. Would i have been flabbergasted and sitting in judgement then??

Anna and Scott goofing near the north face under the influence of extreme altitude

Beer from the roof of the world indeed. How is it that someone could carry this in full, but not take it back out empty?? Flabbergasted,.....

That night a full moon burst over the ridge at about 8 pm and lit up Kailash and the chortens in the surrounding valley. Silence; starlight; still, cold air in a hushed spectacle of beauty. A Japanese fella who had been staying in the dorm with us set of to do the Drolma-la by full-moon light - without a torch. Full power to him!

Moon and starlit Chortens in the Drirapuk valley

The north face of Mt Kailash under the light of a full moon

Milarepa and friends in a meditation cave at the back of Drirapuk gompa

The following day we decided to get an early start for the Drolma-la. It was bloody cold hey! I remember washing the Tsampa out of my bowl near a stream, feeling my fingers disappear from the world of sensation, and between putting it down, opening my pack zip and then picking it up again (maybe 5 to 8 seconds) the residual water on the inside of the bowl had fully frozen.

Given all the rubbish i had seen to date, both in Darchen and on the Kora, i decided to stop whining and get pro-active. There where stacks of D-sized Chinese batteries alongside the Kora trail, most containing some mercury, which is nasty for soils but totally disastrous for aquatic organisms. So i decided to gather as many as i could manage (~4kg) and put them in a hole back at Darchen. I questioned my sanity for this decision more than once on the way to the Drolma-la. When i did the calculations to figure out how much mercury this had removed from the Kora it worked out to be about one whole gram! Gotta laugh! And yet i know that many small actions add up. Unless all of us take some small degree of personal responsibility for this earths care, we will all be burnt-toast - along with countless other creatures.

Mercury laden batteries discarded on the kora trail and streams

The north face, again

Given that we had intended to take it slow on this Kora, it was interesting that the third day turned into a 12 hr, 32 km epic. We decided to skip staying at the third gompa - the lure of a decent meal in Darchen was too much, so we kept going till the sun went down, Anna on a Red-bull!

Different bodies, different worlds. To a world cup fan, an object of veneration; to this horse, a tucker box

After a day in Darchen we knew we were ready to go. There was a strong feeling of having completed what we had set out to do. Arranging transport out was another matter. We needed to go east, towards Shigatse, Lhasa, Nepal and the rising of the sun, but there is no public transport that does the 500 km leg to Saga - the next place where public transport can be accessed on the southern route. An alternative northen route was possible, but it was over three times the distance and several days and nights on another sleeper bus. Best avoided if possible. So began the hunt for lifts.

The Barkhor plain, Gurla Mandhata and Lake Rakash Tal from the hills behind Darchen

Most of the available transport was very flash 4WD jeeps. Spare jeeps with bored, chain-smoking drivers, whose cargo of westerners were currently on Kora, were willing to take us to Saga - for a price. Trying to organise and align other budget, independant travellers also wanting to go the same way to share a jeep was a little tricky. Certainly none of the western groups themselves (even those with plenty of room) seemed interested in a couple of paying passengers. The brand new, very shiny, Japanese 4WD's that abound in the TAR (a direct result of injie tour groups paying exhorbitant prices for transport) have lots of passenger room, but the injies who pay are not so keen on sharing it apparently. Fair enough.

Old Donkey, new Donkey in western TAR

Reviewing Chinese policy on tourism in the TAR reveals they are not keen on independant, budget travellers for several reasons. Mostly because they don't make much money out of them and secondly, i suspect, because such travellers have shown themseleves to be a little harder to control and more likely to be a pain in the arse for the Communist party (ie. 1989 uprising in Lhasa) and also are more likely to be semi-informed about the situation in Chinese occupied Tibet. Hence, making alternative modes of transport for westerners either unattractive or unavailable is unofficial policy and a very effective means of channeling, controlling and herding tourists.

View of the South face from hills behind Darchen

One sunny afternoon, whilst hunting about for alternative transport possibilities, we saw a bus come lumbering up the hill towards Darchen, dust plume trailing behind. We both said "Thats us!" and decended on it in a flurry as soon as its doors opened. The uninterested and uncooperative driver seemed to communicate that it was bound for Saga (amazing!), so we dashed back to our pad and packed as quick as we could. One of our local contacts informed us that this was actually a hire bus and was indeed going towards Saga. Apparently the police had banned a bunch of Tibetan pilgrims from using a truck to transport them home and so thay had to hire a bus instead.

A happy Nomad, winning at a game of snooker

Rocking up to the pilgrim bus, it was already loaded to the hilt and rupturing with smiling, butter-reeking Tibetans, every seat most definitely taken. We didn't care, we wanted out of Darchen. I pleaded and grovelled in broken Tibetan, sending a huge Ama-la (elderly Tibetan woman) into rollicking fits of laughter. This was a good sign, but it was up to the Chinese driver. He initially quoted us an outrageous price (we could have got a jeep for less than that!) and then dropped to almost 1/2 as we began to walk away. Packs were quickly lashed with a long kata on the roof to a bulging pile of luggage and animal hides. We were squished into the spare drivers bed space, noses virtually pressed to the front windscreen and suddenly the bus was moving. Yeehah!!

The Barkhor plain and vast open spaces

We had managed to grab some tucker just before leaving Darchen which we then proceeded to eat - rice and vegetables out of a plastic bag, with chopsticks, on a corrugated judder-bar dirt road for the next 30 km. An entertaining hoot and a highly recommended activity! Down at the main road we saw the forlorn figure of one of our friends, an Isreali woman, who had been hitching solo by the road all day, jeeps with injies and space whizzing by, but none stopping. We got the bus to stop and she piled in with us on the spare drivers bed. Bound for Saga. Propped upright against the window and not a wink of sleep for 12 hrs, but honestly very, very happy.

Hills and bare mountains on the way to Shigatse

At about 5am we turned off a side track, then across a river which led us to a dark and empty little village. The entire bus got out at this point - this was their village and the whole town had gone on pilgrimage togther! So it was just us three and the two drivers left as we got out to the main road, when the Chinese power games started. The driver faced the bus back the way we had come, towards Darchen, stopped it and then asked us to hand over the agreed price, or else he wouldn't take us to Saga. We were not in a good position - middle of nowhere, 5am, sub-zero outside - we had only one card and we were not about to dish it over. We had no guarentee at all that once given the money they would actually take us there. Given previous dealings with transport guys this was highly dubious.

At first it seemed like he was having a bit of a half-arsed power game with us, but once he climbed the tree he couldn't back down - the Asian 'face' thing. So he kept pressuring and we kept saying "No, we hand over all the money when we get to Saga" "No Saga, no money" etc - this is standard operating proceedure and he knew it. The pressure kept mounting. Only threats that we would get off the bus, here and now, and give them nothing at all plus a bit of an intervention from the co-driver, who was more level headed, turned the bus around and got us to Saga, where we happily dished up the cash. Pointless stupidity and time wasting power tripping with the injies. But there was more of that to come in Shigatse.

Road to Shigatse

Seven am in Saga is not pretty, but its amazing how a coffee can brighten things a little! The bland uniformity of street fronts in Chinese towns is mind-numbing - a reflection perhaps of communist notions of bare functionality and standardised thinking? Creative individuality not so hot on the agenda.

Another bus was spotted driving around town in the dawn half-light, beeping the horn like a maniac, searching for passengers. It was bound for Shigatse and had other injies on board. In a flash we were on it to - and then we drove around town for another hour and a half, beeping the horn some more (!), until capacity was reached.

Rubbish in a western Tibetan roadside town

The landscape we drove through during that day was bare, brown hills with twisted and folded strata exposed. It was heavily overgrazed with large erosion scars and interspersed every so often by grotty little roadside towns with the mandatory halo of rubbish. So, 28 hrs after leaving Darchen, we rolled into Shigatse, bum-weary and bone-tired and well off Chinese chain-smokers!

A brief stop on the way to Shigatse

(We caught up with Mark a couple of days ago in Kathmandu. His hitching journey from Darchen to Lhasa was a 5 day epic that made our 'escape' seem very tame. Marks journey in his own words below!)

From Mark:
"Apparently, there’s definitely no bus from Darchen to Lhasa. So, 8:30am, 2 degrees C at best, found me out and walking up the road toward the town of Barga, at the foot of the Lake, 35kms away from Darchen. In an hour i was toasty in a truck cabin. Another 45 mins found me strapping on my pack at Barga, and another literally 45 seconds found me staring at...Everest (the friendly Tibetan who was the guide of the second Swiss crew we had met on route to Darchen) and the empty Pajero 4WD as they gravel-skidded to a halt beside me, agape. Ahhhh....on my way towards Lhasa! They took me all the way to Zhongbao.

Then the Swiss behemoth vehicles had a breakdown, meaning a 3 hr wait. A bus to Saga, the next main town, from where one can apparently bus to Lhasa, rolled up, unannounced. It’s all getting weird! Well, 30 mins later it took off, filled by workers paid for by a boss to get to Saga. D'oh. An obstacle. Still, Everest was still heading for Saga, though the Swiss behemoths were going a pitiful average of 25kms an hour. Not ideal, but I’m not complaining. Still, i see hrs dragging by somehow unnaturally (to my mind)...

So, ok, we go with Everest- it’s been solid till now. Should mention that since the bus from Zhada, where i sat behind a Chinese tourist from Shanghai called 'Dam', Dam has been with Everest. so that’s the 'we'. Dam and me. The Swiss snails decide 73 kms is enough for today. ughhhh!! (don’t get me wrong- they are all lovely and kind) in a town called...dunno, its too small, i sit in a teahouse, Dam outside. I spy a new 4wd, Dam sidles up, i jump out to it, and it’s a thumbs up after a Chinese back-and-forth. You beauty!

Mountains on the way to Shigatse

We got a ride to Saga (how appropriate!) for 30 yuan each, 2hrs. Good deal. So, here i am in Saga. The idea was to get the 20-seater public bus, tickets available in the shop next to our guesthouse, to Lahtse, visit the gompa there, then on to Lhasa. Well, that’s where the almighty spanner of karma fell in the works! They will NOT take foreigners on that bus [note from Scott: yet with typical indecipherable inconsistency, several days later Anna and I and a whole bunch of injies get the public bus from Saga, no problem(??)]. Why? Order of police. No reason.

Until now, the police have been non-existent, other than to actually happily help us once at Darchen with no fuss. So, it seems impossible to get a ride on public transport from here. The go is that there is a checkpoint 2 kms out of town, which fines bus drivers for taking foreigners. So, the plan is to walk the 2 kms, pass through the checkpoint alone on foot, and then another km or so and flag down a ride. Next problem is the checkpoint at Lhatse. They are supposed to be tougher than Saga. So, if i get a lift, i hop out one km or so before the checkpoint, waltz through (ha!), and get a legal bus to Sakya, lap up the ancient warmth of early Buddhist monasteries, wonder at how anyone could actually stand there and smash it to pieces as the communist Chinese did for 10 years of the cultural revolution, pray some more, and land in Lhasa the next day, via a gorgeous and eagerly awaited PAVED road!!! Cant wait for that!

[after arriving in Lhasa]
G’day from Lhasa. Got here 3 days ago. The trip from saga was a shocker/ripper, depending. No buses would take foreigners, as I said, so I walked out past the police checkpoint. Walked about 5 kms before resting. Then got a tractor ride for 5 kms. Tantalizing, but not quite in Lhasa. Yet. Walked another few kms, then a lone Tibetan in 4WD picked me up for 13 kms. Nearly halfway to Daoban (road crew station) 22 where the northern road from Ali - with extra traffic - meets the southern road which I was on, from Ali via Kailash.

Walked another 7kms, before getting totally despondent. Hadn’t seen one vehicle for 3 hrs. Sat down to eat stale bread and vegemite, and a little vehicle came by, and kept going! Argh. Eventually a China post truck came and I squeezed in half crouching and balancing against the window, seat back and other passengers for 25 excruciating kms, up over a pass, and down to Daoban 22. Phew, glad to have caught that one. The walk was high, winding and long. Many trucks and 4WDs passed through the Daoban - none interested in me - until a land cruiser with 2 Tibetans came in, having finished a group tour, on their way back to Lhasa! You beauty!!!

They agreed to 150yuan for the ride to Lhatse, from where I wanted to visit Sakya before heading to Lhasa. Night fell, the pace was good, and they pressed on. These were my kind of guys, just balling through the night grimly and steadily until we got there. Hmmmmm. That’s when the wheels started falling off,....

For those who have any sense of comedy/tragedy, you will know I mean that literally. At about 10pm, on some unknown road in the middle of a plain, the front right wheel overtook us as we landed with a scratching thud on the rim. It ended up about 30 metres ahead of the vehicle in a ditch. Not to be deterred, and without a grumble or a missed beat, the 2 Tibetans were immediately out and into it with tools, after much laughter and sheepish looks. At this point, I also found it funny.

Village by a little lake

Fifteen hours later (!!) - the shelf life of humor in such situations is highly volatile. Anyway, they started reshaping the rim with rocks and pliers, picking up the pieces of shattered brakes and assorted wheel bits, and somehow managed to reaffix the wheel. We got about 25 metres before it came off again. It was 2:30am and time for a cramped, cold and frustrated “sleep”. Sunrise saw the uncomplaining driver out with his rocks and tools and infinite patience (he knows he can fix anything) 3 hrs later, we crawl another 100 metres, just far enough to get to the top of a rise, and for the bloody wheel to fall off again. Uggghhhh.

Traffic halted to watch the proceedings, and 30 minutes later, we try again. 50 metres and that was it, grinding and slewing, we pull over into a ditch for serious considerations. An hour of fruitless toil saw the driver head off in a passing truck, 15kms to the nearest town for parts and the other guy and me consigned to instant noodles and prayers. It had all turned to crap. I saw my “picking up a day” evaporate into “losing a day”, and there was nothing at all I could do. The one positive I could see was the opportunity to watch my mind and see what reactions were coming up. That got real ugly, real quick, so switched off. That worked for about a minute.

After 2 more hours and no sign of the driver and his new set of wheel bearings and axle grease, and a steady stream of non-compliant Chinese in 4WD’s, a lone foreigner happened by in a land cruiser. Just one - lapping it up by himself in the back, a near empty boot, and they stopped. My prayers are answered, watching my mind go from despair to joy, up and down, up and down. My “Hi I’m hitching with these guys, but they’re really stuffed”, was interjected with (in the most annoying syrupy American accent- well, any accent would have peed me off at this point) “Oh I’m sorry, I’m not taking any riders”!!!!!.

I’m maintained face and calm, for about 30 seconds, long enough for him to be out of harms way. Then I started to fall apart. All sorts of negative aggressive and self pitying thoughts raged through my mind. Every car that passed now became an object of hatred. I was seeing red. I couldn’t believe how quickly and easily I lost my patience, and I was aware of it as it happened, knowing I was somehow ‘failing’, as only one can given ones limitations. Tired, cold, hungry, losing precious ‘time’, I felt all the conditions were against me. What a turn! I did lose my perspective for a little while. Old habits.

Anyway, the driver arrived with everything he needed, and after 90 minutes we were really on our way. We limped into town, got something welded to the wheel, and headed off for Lhatse - at 30 kms per hour. Aaaaaaaaaaaaargggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Well, what to do?! I calculated that I could get to Sakya that night, just beating sunset, and still be on my original schedule to make it to Everest base camp and then Nepal by the 22nd. Of course, the trip took an hour longer than I foresaw, and we rolled into a guesthouse in Lhatse, an agonizing 25 kms short of Sakya. That meant a lost night, and decisions to be made. Fuming, I went to bed intending to hitch to Sakya at sunrise. The sun rose, but the ride did not. I let go of Sakya and found a bus departing in half-hour for Shigatse, 2 hrs away, and 5 hrs shy of Lhasa. Done.

Sakya was cut, and I was speeding on a beautiful asphalt highway, at least 80 wonderful kilometers per hour. I noticed how the currency had been changing since I left Nepal August 2. Trekking it was chocolate bars, water, and iodine for purifying it. Traveling up the Karakoram it was vegetables. Hitching on a schedule (mutually exclusive) it was hours and kilometers. All my own mind, my own desires and calculations and grasping. I loved the driver- I even found humor for his ear shattering appalling Chinese opera music, even the chain-smoking buffoons escaped wrath. I was flying towards Lhasa and happiness. Hehehehe. Still haven’t learned a thing it seems!

And then, it happened. Or rather, didn’t happen. The engine I mean. It just stopped. No water. A cooking motor, temperature rising, mine too. What idiots! Arrrgh, my latest best-friend was now a despised enemy. He was in the way of my happiness! Sigh. Time for more reflection. We finally got going somehow and rolled into Shigatse, home of the Tashilhunpo, seat of the Panchen Lama. The Panchen are the 2nd highest lama’s behind the Dalai’s, and the current has been under house arrest by the Chinese since he was about 4 years old. The commie Chinese have declared their own Panchen, in the hope of manipulating the religious/political scene. Seriously, house arrest since 4, and unheard of since. They wont let anyone know where he is, let alone talk to him. Shigatse has not much else going for it these days.

Tibetan houses

Luckily the bus to Lhasa left in half an hour. So I was again speeding my way to Lhasa, happy again, worn out mostly from the mental rollercoaster, but still happy and excited to be on the way. I started recognizing things from my first trip in 2002, and then, I started not recognizing. As we approached Lhasa, things started looking weird. There were now housing development projects rising up, a bridge, huge billboards showing monks and mobile phones, traffic lights, bulldozers etc etc etc. all the trappings of a rapid development of an outlying area with obvious designs underneath it all. Scary, ugly, bemusing, sad.

So now I sit, showered, well fed, too well, having visited the Jokhang temple, and just now the Potala. I shed tears from the ends of the spectrum today. Joy at the Jokhang, sadness isn’t the word at the Potala. What they have done there is appalling. The whole bloody thing is appalling. Again, watching the mind. All kinds of things came up for me around the visits today. But the sight of 3 old Tibetan ladies prostrating from the gutter in the wide tiled road in front of the Potala, behind them a huge flagpole with bright red Chinese flag flowing in the square where there used to be a fighter jet parked in full view (now removed) was too much.

After having just wandered through the museum that this magnificent edifice now is, having been denied access to so many wonderful rooms and chapels, even denied to walk around a huge triple Mandala that I went round 4 years ago, with the Tibetan staff shaking heads saying ‘Chinese police, Chinese police’ and making fearful faces at my request to walk around the otherwise open concourse of about 20 metres, and seeing Chinese police in crisp uniforms with crackling walkie talkies, laughing loudly and stalking officiously (here goes my mind again) around as if they bloody owned the place!!

So Lhasa here has me in a state of highly volatile and very, very mixed emotions. Scott and Anna had reservations about coming here, for their own reasons, but I’m adamant. You’ve gotta go. Even his Holiness has said that as many people as possible should come, and go tell people about it. Oh that nasty ‘splittist’! So here I am fulfilling my teachers¡¯ wishes. Ok, I don’t hate the Chinese. They are suffering, and causing more and more suffering all around them, and will have to experience the results in the future. So the Buddhist response is to see this and have compassion. I’m still trying. But I do hate, and that’s even going too far, the rigid and closed mind that creates all these horrid situations. I guess its cos’ it reflects rigidity and closed-ness in my own mind stream that I have yet to integrate and accept. Anyhow, I see how this whole pilgrimage has been a constant flow, at least I have more of a sense of that now, and also a strong sense of that in my life, eschewing destinations, ‘ends’, and just flowing, seeing, learning, opening."

One wedding, several Koras and a very long way,......continued
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Part 4: Shigatse and Gyantse Stupa to Kathmandu

2006-10-18T16:46:00.000-12:00

From the brown roughness of western Tibet to the glaring neon and smooth asphalt of Shigatse. If Shigatse was a test, then i failed miserably. It was here that i really encountered the limits of my ability to practice patience in the face of what appeared to be cold, obstructionist and downright appallingly rude behaviour.

Whilst we were there, Mark sent us an email informing us of the recent Nangpa-La pass shootings. Chinese soldiers had opened fire on a group of ~70 Tibetans trying to flee the country to seek asylum in Nepal, killing two of them. The whole episode was witnessed and filmed by a large western climing team at Cho Oyu. When released to the global media, the Chinese Govt. offered up some guff about how they were attacked by the Tibetans, firing only in self-defense and then one person died of altitude sickness afterwards (!). Surely they could have made up a more believable story than that? [note: more than half of the group managed to get to the refugee reception centre here in Kathmandu. They left for India about a week ago. The fate of the remainder is still unknown].

This was a stark reminder. Not only of the paltry nature of my own challenges there, but also of the seriously aggressive nature of the current communist regime and their ongoing violent treatment of Tibetans.

Nangpa-la pass (gap in the mountains on right). Site of recent shooting and killing of Tibetans whilst fleeing Tibet to seek exile in Nepal.

Shigatse was the first place were i have seen Tibetan beggars; lots of them. The town is large by TAR standards with a sprawling CBD grid and a very clear division between the old Tibetan quarter and the new Han Chinese side of town. Tashilhunpo Monastary, once home to the Panchen Lama (no. 2 in the Tibetan theocratic hierarchy) is nestled in the foot of a large hill on one side of town. A must see for Tibetoids.
Veg market in Shigatse

Part of Tashilhunpo Monastary

So we paid the ticket fee and entered the gates. Amazing architecture intact, as due to connections between the Panchen Lama and China the monastery was largely spared the ravages of the cultural-revolution that saw the vast majority of Tibet’s monasteries reduced to rubble.

Tashilhunpo monastery, once home to about 4000 monks, now home to several hundred. My first impression was how weirdly quiet it was. According to the Chinese jinglish sign near the ticket gate, it was a functioning Tibetan monastery; which are normally throbbing with noise and activity; normally resonating to the sounds of debate and recitation, the deep boom and thunderous banging and trumpeting of pujas?? This place was a freaky, silent ghost - a dead-heart reminder of what was.

Empty debate courtyards flanked by little arrows and yellow lines to herd the tourists in the appropriate direction. Not a functioning monastery at all. Welcome to "Disney-land" Tibet. Plenty of rides for the willing! Stunning camera opportunities in side-show Gompas for those willing to pay the camera fee! Roll up and roll on,.....
Entrance gateway art at Tashilhunpo

There were many Tibetan pilgrims also, still keen to pay their respects to the Panchen Lama and prostrate before the huge and otherworldly Maitreya statue. Their devotion and energy was genuine and a relief to witness.
Pilgrims at Tashilunpo Monastary

Young Monks washing

Monks had been turned into side-show ticket collectors for the Chinese. Bored and fidgeting with mobile phones, gathering camera fees from groups of tourists in each separate temple. Cobblestones once worn smooth with ~500 yrs of trampling monk feet - now mostly squeaking with the nikes and trainers of Western tour groups and wealthy Chinese.

Eavesdropping on the offal being dished up by Chinese/Tibetan guides to unsuspecting tour groups of Westerners and Chinese - paying oodles for their privilege and lapping it up with nodding heads; not a clue about the other version of history. I felt like screaming out, "This is bullshit!". Too much for this heart to bear with equanimity.
Buddhas in red light

As you can guess, i was not impressed. As we wandered through the complex, past so many locked doors, i found myself feeling nauseated, both by what i was seeing, sensing and the interpretations i was adding to it. We stumbled into some of the accommodation buildings and went looking for the monks and saw mostly empty rooms, rancid with rat piss, piled with rubbish. Rock-on religious freedom in Tibet,......
Locked doors and empty rooms,.....

Living quarters that were actually lived in at Tashilunpo Monastary

Robes waiting

The Panchen Lama is being bigged up by the Chinese, keen to spout about the closeness of their ties to Tibet and historical links with him. Pictures of the Chinese chosen reincarnation adorn all the temples - no sign of the other boy who went missing over ten years ago now and whose whereabouts have not been independently verified since. The Panchen Lama traditionally played a pivotal role in the search and selection of the new Dalai Lama and thus has immense potential political value for the Chinese Government. What a life - as a pawn in a massive power play.
Previous Panchen Lama and the Chinese chosen 're-incarnation' adorning the temples at Tashilhunpo

On the way out we decided to pay a visit to a special museum dedicated to the Panchen Lama, mostly out of interest to see what the official blurbs say. We were the only two in there and had our own little spy monk trailing behind us the whole way, who gave away his English capacity accidentally at the end.

The museum was - to be expected i guess - full of communist party drivel; a narrative that was partly fictional and that conveniently left gaping holes in its very one sided depiction of recent history. One stunning visual example of the central Governments arrogance and lack of understanding was plastered all over the walls of the museum - traditional paintings of Tibetan saints and deities, alongside contemporary depictions of communist party leaders making speeches and shaking hands with the Panchen Lama, past and present. No idea of irony.
No idea of the irony? Murals of a Chinese president meeting with young Chinese chosen Panchen Lama, alongside deities, saints and sages

I am aware that the tone of this is becoming more negative and sarcastic, a more or less accurate reflection of the direction my mind was heading at the time. Writing thoughts and feelings retrospectively is interesting. I have softened and opened a lot since leaving the TAR, having had space to process and integrate the experiences. But at the time i was seeing red!

Communication breakdowns were commonplace in the TAR and one of the few sources of amusement in Shigatse. One time Anna wanted to acquire some plastic chopsticks in order to stop using the wooden disposable ones that you are given in most restaurants. In a supermarket, she went in armed with a couple of wooden ones to mime her request (miming can get you a long way!). After miming she broke the wooden chopsticks in half and pointed to some plastic object. They nodded in comprehension - wandering off to return with some glue - to repair the broken chopsticks of course!

Some 'communication breakdowns' were not so amusing. At an internet cafe in Shigatse a young woman repeatedly tried to overcharge us. On the third occasion, when we owed 4 yuan, she tried to hit us up for 12. I pointed at her computer screen explaining that the two terminals we had been sitting at both displayed 2 yuan each - clearly, obviously and she knew it. She had a full hissy fit and mouthed off some Chinese obscenities at us as we paid her appropriately, as if we had ripped her off??
Gyantse stupa

Around this time we decided against going to Lhasa. Didn't have the heart. However, there was one more place we wanted to see - the Gyantse stupa, about 70 km east of Shigatse. This is one of the largest stupas in Tibet and has some of the best preserved statues and wall paintings in the TAR, surviving the cultural-revolution due to links with Tashilhunpo and the Panchen Lama.

After more bullshit, lies and difficulties with transport wallahs, we got on some public transport to Gyantse. A surreal experience sitting in a crammed mini-bus, smooth-as-glass tar road, doof-doof on the inside, while scenes of rural Tibet slid by on the outside; the barley harvest being threshed and winnowed; large piles of grain sitting in the sun; trees turning autumn yellow and massive piles of hay and barley stalks on hopelessly overloaded carts and tractors.
Young Tibetan woman looking towards Gyantse stupa with devotion

Gyantse stupa view

Again paying money to the ticket collector monks - attending to the sideshow rides in Theme park Tibet with listless enthusiasm. The Stupa itself was truly astounding, so well preserved and much more alive than Tashilhunpo - it is incredible that it wasn't trashed.

We spent several hours checking out the temples and gradually winding our way up the levels, past depictions of all manner of peaceful and wrathful deities. The symbolism gets gradually more complex and Tantric related as you ascend. A feast for Tibetan Buddhist dharma buffs. I will spare you the commentary and leave the photos to speak for themselves.
Woman making light offerings at the Gyantse stupa

The Buddha (not picking his nose, just a bad camera angle!)

Wrathful deity doing the wrath-stomp on the ego

Multi-faced Tara

Wrathful deity

Maitreya statue close up

Another wrathful deity - a good pictorial representation of how i was beginning to feel towards the Chinese by this time!

Guru at the heart, in the heart of the guru's guru,.....

A very serene looking buddha statue

A Green Tara

One of many, rather intense looking, Buddhist masters long past

Another very serene Buddha

A four armed White Tara

A four faced Chenrezig (?) or Amitabha (?) or maybe Vajradhara, not sure,....

The main man, in the earth touching mudra

Definitely Vajradhara, i think (?)

Views over the Tibetan quarter of Gyantse from the top of the stupa

The main gompa at Gyantse, complete with its chanting monks was strange. I couldn't tell if it was authentic or another revenue generating tourist side-show, replete as it was with frame-snapping tourists filing in and out, circambulating the fringes with flashes firing in a feeding frenzy for the friends back home. After the Stupa statue fest, we decided to check out the old Dzong on the hill. Historically significant and towering over the town it seemed well worth a look.
Gyantse Dzong (fort), dominates the hill with commanding views of the entire valley

No Anna, don't do it, don't do it! The foods crap, sure, but not that bad!

Again, the signage at the Dzong presenting the official Chinese version of history was so warped as to resemble a novel. In frustration i asked the money collecting lady (not a monk this time) whether the money we were forking over stayed in Gyantse or went to Beijing. She looked shocked and did not answer imediately, but as i was walking off replied in Tibetan "To Beijing".
View from the fort towards Gyantse stupa and main gompa compound

Prayers on the hill. Tibet needs them,.....

When i reflect back now, at around this point i fully lost it. Back in Shigatse i found myself spontaneously bursting into random obscenities abut Chinese - stuff that is not worth repeating. I vividly recall Anna breaking into tears one day in our hotel room in Shigatse and saying "I'm sick of being related to like i'm not a human being". Ditto. That was half the reason for deciding to bail from the TAR - ASAP.

The other half was my inability to handle what i was seeing, and of course the interpretations my mind was adding to it, with any semblance of equanimity. Part of me felt like leaving a big turd on the main road at the border and planting a flag in it saying "Fuck China!". Crass, horribly immature and rather sad - but true.

So, given such an imbalanced inner response at the time it was definitely best to leave. For the sake of all sentient beings! Really, in a deep sense there is no such thing as "China" or "Chinese" to blame and get mad at - just a collection of individual humans, each with their own unique stories, personal histories and shared cultural heritage. To be fair we also had plenty of interactions with lovely Chinese people - mostly women when i think about it (?) - in shops and in restaraunts whilst doing food order miming routines.

When one considers, it is obviously impossible to treat other people like shit, bark like a dog at them and behave in such insensitive fashion and also be a happy human being. Reflecting a little on the individual and collective trauma of the Chinese in the last 60 yrs, their behaviour suddenly becomes very explainable - not necessarily excusable, but highly explainable! What they experienced as a nation under Mao and during the cultural-revolution is well into the outer-orbits of insane human relations and almost impossible for us Westerners to imagine. Monument to a meglomaniac in Kashgar. Recent estimates put the number of deaths Mao was directly or indirectly responsible for at ~70 million. What a guy to reify?

While in the coolness of reflection and distance i can access that and other much wider, more karmic perspectives - at the time my emotional response was too overwhelming. Not much space left in the mind. So, in truth on one level - homage to the Chinese as teachers - both for humbling me and showing me where my practice of patience and compassionate-clear seeing is really at when the hammer hits the wood ie. bugger all. Therefore, much, much more practice to do!!!! It was an exceedingly powerful teaching of how resistance, judgement and fixed opinions (regardless of how 'justified' one thinks they are) just create pain and simply add more misery to the world.
Leaving the plateau - in a jeep!

That being said, our immediate concern was to find a way out of the TAR. A fortuitous encounter with a very friendly and honest private travel agent in a restaurant was the opening we were after. He was half Nepali, half Tibetan and spoke fantastic English. In a revealing moment of conversation with him i remember him saying how he sometimes wished he was Superman so he could get rid of the Chinese from Tibet. He sorted us with a jeep all the way to the Nepali border for a very reasonable price. Nepal bound on the friendship HWY!! In a very flash, shiny jeep no less - with loads of leg room even!

Rural house near Shigatse
Rural house along the friendship highway

Village and stark mountains on the edge of Tibet

There was a Tibetan guide and a Chinese businessman also making the journey with us. We were determined to pick up a hitcher if we saw one, as there was enough room for at least one person to squeeze in the back! We actually came across a young Chinese backbacker headed for Nepal and managed to get him in between the packs.

The landscape changes after we crossed the final pass and entered the drainage basin into Nepal were amazing. Soooo fascinating from an environmental, climatic, ecological and landscape-evolution perspective.
Mt Shishapangma from the pass that marks the start of the drainage catchment into Nepal. Bye to the TAR,.....

The down-cutting of the Bhote Kosi gorge into the main Himalaya range was sharp and rapid. Within the space of maybe 20 km, the bare, brown mountains of Tibet with their spattering of sparse, low-growing shrubs and dry grass, gave way to abundant towering conifers, luxuriantly damp rhododendron forests, bamboo groves and a fantasic array of other lush vegetation. Complete with moist, earthy-smells and waterfalls tumbling down impossibly gigantic cliffs, thundering sounds of rushing waters far below.
The beginning of the Bhote Kosi gorge into Nepal. In ~20 km it went from a dry and barren landscape to,.....

,....to this. Lush pine forests, tumbling waterfalls and the sweet earthy smells of abundant vegetation

Chinese immigration was too easy. I refrained from leaving a present with a flag and we wandered down to cross the border on the'Friendship bridge' over the Bhote Kosi - aromas of Dhal Bhat wafting up on the breeze. Then bang! - back into the frenzy and people-soup that is the mark of life on the sub-continent. The lushness and rainfall that lies on the southern side of the Himalaya makes a high population density possible - much unlike Tibet - but with that high density comes a grind against resource limitations, subsequent broad-scale poverty and increased disease, as warmth loving microbe populations also explode.
The Bhote Kosi gorge

However, we were definitely more than thrilled to be back in Nepal and to have said goodbye to the coldness of human relations in the TAR. We quickly discovered we had walked straight back into a local Bandha (a transport strike) and getting to Kathmandu that afternoon would be impossible. So we chilled out, chatted with locals and ate instead.

The next 24 hrs was a hilarious example of sub-continent mayhem and disorganised chaos! There was also a bandha the next morning, only this one had been issued for the Kathmandu area and there would be no public transport available the whole day. After a few hours we discovered that this bandha did not apply to tourists, and there were various jeeps, taxis etc willing to take westerners to the capital. Teaming up with 4 young Belgians fresh in from the TAR we managed to sort a mini-bus direct to Kathmandu for an appropriate fee. No worries.
Bhote Kosi river

About a third of the way to Kathmandu we came across a massive road block - a truck parked diagonally across the road with ~100+ other trucks, buses and assorted vehicles tangled in a big jam behind it. Apparently this was a local issue where the truck drivers were sick of being held up and forced to pay 'road taxes' - by whom it was not clear - either Maoists, corrupt border police or rouge village louts out for some drinking money?? They were fed up (fair enough) and decided to protest by blocking the road to the border. Their plan was simple and cunning - hold up a whole bunch of westerners on the way to / from the border and force them to stay the night. The ensuing ruckus would attract lots of media and draw attention to their plight, which is certainly a bummer.
Lush field and rice paddies - back in the world of green things

The Nepali drivers, in good old sub-continent fashion, resigned to this turn of events and sat down in groups playing cards or pulled up blankets and went to sleep under the shade of their vehicles. Several hundred westerners with plans, schedules, visas, group itineries and holidays to have, were not impressed and started crossing sides of the road block on foot, conversing with each other and the drivers who were not sleeping or playing cards, and thus began swapping transport. Once the process was underway, in the space of an hour most westerners had crossed the block and off on their way again. So much for the cunning plan!

We were shouldering our packs and about to do the same when an Ambulance came roaring up to the block from our side. Siren howling and a young woman inside with a post-op hemmorage - bound for Kathmandu. Our driver (not sleeping or card playing) saw the opportunity to retain his fee paying passengers and in 20 seconds we and our packs were jummbled back in the mini-bus and raced up behind the Ambulance. Like the red-sea, the blocking truck slowing parted. The Ambulance darted through the gap and so did we along with one other vehicle - before the gap closed again behind us. Ahead, a tangled maze of trucks and buses that we somehow managed to squeeze through - just - trying not to lose sight of the slightly narrower Ambulance.
Following the ambulance through the truck road block

Several hundred meters later we emerged on the other side to a clear road, but the Ambulance was out of sight. Our driver sped off like a screaming banshee for the next several km of pin-twisting corners until he caught up with the Ambulance - at another massive road block! All the westerners who had creatively swapped sides to go on to Kathmandu were now well and truly trapped at another large block in a small town by a bridge over the Bhote Kosi. Going nowhere slowly.
Restless injies stuck at the second block near the border

Again the Ambulance siren parted the sea of trucks and we followed in its wake. Our driver managed to deflect many questions he recieved from Nepali road-blockers about his dubious actions and equally dubious cargo. Apparently the woman in the back of the Ambulance was his mothers-brothers-sons-wifes-sister; so he was actually related and being a relative confers a legitimate right to tailgate them all the way to hostpital! The sea of trucks once again closed behind us, leaving many open-mouthed westerners staring at us in disbelief. Hot on the heels of the Ambulance, riding on someone elses misfortune, we raced along a traffic-free road to Kathmandu.
Lush fields in Nepal

Terraces on the edge of Kathmandu

So ended this little journey, with classic pythonesque type sub-continent chaos. While it is true that most things this side of the Himalaya in Nepal are totally confused and chaotic with collapsing and delapidated infrastructure, there is a warmth in the people here that is genuine and unmistakable. The capitalist type efficiency and construction mania of the Chinese in the TAR was impressive, but the attitude and human relations ruthless and cold - i know which i prefer.

It was during the first day of staying in Boudha that i realised i had not heard the sound of kids playing the entire time i was in the TAR. In nepal they roam around in little packs making an endless ruckus of laughter and noise. I hadn't realised that this sound of normal life was missing - or at least rare in the TAR. I spoke to Mark about it and he commented that he once heard a group of kids playing and laughing in Lhasa and it shocked him - because he also realised at that point that he hadn't heard that sound since being in the TAR.
Flight trails of moths drawn to the light of the Boudha stupa

Anyway, if you managed to get through all of this, them i am dead impressed! I hope you got a laugh or two and enjoyed the pictures and journeying tales. Little flickers and fleeting impressions crossing the sky of the mind for but a moment, and then gone,.....

This concludes this travel blog, as it was established for the purpose of this journey and is now complete. Thanks for travelling with us! Much love and hugs from Anna and i.
ciao
Scott and Anna

Boudhanath Stupa at night

One wedding, several Koras and a very long way,......continued

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Glacial kamping and gastric kaos: Karakoram to Kashgar

2006-09-15T23:16:00.001-12:00

We four pilgrims made it to Kashgar this afternoon, after many miles and some interesting little adventures along the way. What an intriguing place this is. A large, provincial Chinese city nestled in dry wastes on the edge of the Pamirs. Once home of many a 'Great Game' wanna-be and now a sprawling piece of modern urbia gradually consuming a charismatic, but dying old city in the middle of central Asia - yet still a major hub of central Asian trading. Apparently it has the dubious distinction of being the furthest city from the Ocean - so i don't expect to see many fellow surfers here!!

Hmmmm, so what have we been up to? Seems a lot has happened since i last posted. Have to cast my mind back to Gilgit, only several weeks and >1000 kms ago, yet it seems like an age. Time plays strange tricks like that,........Impermanence and constant change our friends for infinity,.....

We left Gilgit by mini-bus, revved up and well rested after the Naltar valley trek. Managed to get a few photos from that trek uploaded here and have included them below.

Mark and Joe at the end of first days trekking in Naltar - glad to rest those feet!

High camp on the Naltar trek, Shani or "Pure place where fairies abide"

Blues and greens of Naltar glacial lake and braided streams

Jagged peaks fringing the Naltar valley

Wild gorges with impossibly steep sides closed in as the Hunza valley began to narrow and the road clung - just - to the edge of crumbling cliffs, grey water thrashing far below. The bus dodging fresh rockfalls splattered across the tar. An enduring image for me was the sight of a roadside chicken vendor in a grubby little roadside village, reclining in a wicker chair, arms folded behind his head, an indecipherable look in his young brown eyes. Before him a dark wooden table; a bloody, feathered-knife; and a set of scales. Scuttling around his feet, dozens of fat, white chickens, missing tail feathers as a result of their cramped nightly confinement and mutual butt-pecking. How many practices had it taken to get so quick (??~2 mins) to grab, chop, slit, pull, skin, weigh and plastic-bag, a now dead chicken for a waiting customer. Life and death of a chook on the Hunza roadside.
Why did the chicken cross the road?? To get away from the roadside chicken wallah,...

Pakistani man with young child at a roadside truckstop

We arrived at beautiful Minapin, in the shady compound of a quiet guesthouse, lush with colourful flowers and apple trees bursting with ripe fruit, nestled in the footslopes of the towering Rakaposhi - a 7800 m Karakoram giant that looms over the Hunza valley.
Beautiful gardens full of light at Minapin

We were planning a short two day trek up to the edge of the Rakaposhi glacier, but some un-cooperative bacteria had other plans. For the next 24 hrs i ended up with the most violent case of watery gush i've yet experienced travelling - western medications did nothing at all - and the flow was finally stopped by force eating a large plate of plain cooked rice. Errrgh. It seriously took the stuffing out of me and at least a good week afterwards before i began to feel anything like normal energy levels returning. I guess it was a nice place to get sick!! Mark was hit by something similar the day after, but a bit less severe. Even Joe has had a intermittent case of dodgy guts! Impossible to know what it was - water or food (?) - the bugs were on our trail and zeroing in, but i think we managed to throw the scent with a 7 day trek along the Batura glacier in the Upper Hunza (more about that later).

I write about it kind of lightly, but it was an intense experience actually. The first time in adult life where i have deeply felt the frailty of this body and the ease of which life can slip away from it. It has left me with an uneasy sense of death, which is uncomfortable, but at the same time a wholesome thing if faced with some consiousness.

We met a lovely Swiss couple in Minapin who were travelling overland from Europe in an exceedingly well decked out 4WD van (see below). They gave us a lift to Karimabad, the 'capital' of the Hunza Valley, where we spent a couple of days recovering and checking out the small town and orchard covered slopes. An intended day walk to the Ultar meadow above the town was blocked by a large landslip, so we had to be content with laying low. Walking blocked again.
Travelling in Swiss style!

Views from Karimabad of the orchard studded Hunza Valley

Ultar meadow valley where the trail was blocked by a recent slide

There is a large, mud and stone fort perched strategically above the town with commanding views of the valley. This was Mir of Hunza's pad before the British ousted him into exile in the 1890's after he made one threat too many - something about putting the head of any British officer who stepped into his Kingdom on a platter i think.

Many a Great Game power play and strategic chicanery was acted out in this region and it is easy to imagine stepping back into the history of not-so-long ago. Francis Younghusband (a most intruiging character, better known for the military expedition he led to Lhasa in 1904), was sent here by the Brits to 'tame' the Mir of Hunza who was mounting raids on trading caravans running between Leh and Yarkand. He only had an escort of 6 Ghurkas and was lucky to get away with his life, mostly through bluff and self-inflated Imperial gusto. He (Francis) decided that the Mir was a pretty rough-nut and was only likely to be impressed by a display of 'raw military might', so he organised the Ghurkas to do a drill and then fire a volley at a rock across the valley. The Mir was suitably impressed and then pointed out a man walking along a water channel some distance away and asked Younghusband to order the Gurkhas to shoot him. Younghusband resisted saying that the Ghurkas were so accurate they would surely hit him. The confused Mir replied "What does it matter, he belongs to me?". Very different notions of life and death, value and meaning. Kind of glad to be passing through here 100 yrs later.

Baltit fort in Karimabad, once home to the 'friendly' Mir of Hunza

Water is life here. Water is life everywhere; but it is outstandingly obvious here. The dry rocky slopes of the Hunza receive neglible rain and massive solar radiation - so in its natural state, this is semi-desert landscape. It is lush and bountiful only because of hundreds of years of incredibly skillful channelling of glacial meltwaters along slopes and down onto flattened areas. Without this use of water the Hunza would be mostly devoid of human settlements; barren, dusty and grim.

Observing the state of this Earths waters and the way we humans treat them is a substantial part of this journey for me. We humans so easily foget our sacred duty as intelligent caretakers and the depth of our connection and interdependence on clean water, readily acting as if we are seperate. We are not.
High Lake in upper Batura

An image of a mistreated and overburdened river in Rawalpindi-Islamabad is burned deep into my retina; A large channel near the Afghan refugee camp, with the steep banks typical of a monsoonal river, flowing with black, anoxic soup, overloaded with human refuse and belching sulphurous fumes. There were many grey, leafless trees along the side of the banks. The branches of the trees were littered with flood debris marking previous monsoon high water levels - however the flood debris consisted solely of white, pink, blue and yellow plastic bags - fluttering in the breeze like surreal leaf-subsitutes. Not so great at photosynthesis i'd be guessing. Where the rivers are poisioned, so to are the people. Where the rivers die,.....

I can't help but think of the bacteria that were chasing us; the millions of people who experience such dead and contaminated 'water' as their daily reality and the chonic dystentry they must live with. Salt-water drops of sadness well up in me at our ignorance,......

However, we left Karimabad with a plan! - to do a week long trek along the Batura glacier in the upper Hunza! We hired a jeep to take us to Passu, the roadside starting point for the trek. This was a wonderful move as it allowed us to lift the canvas cover and tell the driver to go slow - thus we were all stunned by one of the most amazing jeep rides we are ever likely to take, along the flanks of the towering Hunza river gorge. Astounding stuff.

Joe and Scott goofing on the roof of a bus along the Indus

Narrow gorge along the upper Hunza valley

A massive alluvial fan seen from the Jeep on the way to Passu

Passu itself was located in an amazing setting (i keep using the same adjectives, but what to do??), a crazy backdrop of organpipe spires, stacked on one another, launching for the sky. Mark lined up a local porter for us, an older fella called Habib. He was really relaxed and this turned out to be a great decision as he carried our food and tents allowing us to reduce our individual pack weights to ~15kg - much more manageable than ~20kg.
Mountain spires and rugged grandeur at Passu

Crossing the glacial choss pile on the first day of Batura trek

The Batura glacier itself is one of the longer glaciers (~58 km) in the Karakoram. It was an ideal aclimatisation trek with a gentle ascent and a few days at higher altitudes. Crossing the glacier was the first challenge and to be honest we would have been totally stuffed without Habib. It was a massive pile of unconsolidated choss and i have no idea at all how he managed to find the 'path' through the rubble, ice and debris. It was a relief to get off such loose ground and once on the other side we followed along the ablation valley and lateral morraine for much of the rest of the trek. Anna an i spent a little time on the first day collecting aromatic mountain herbs, a type of sage and lavender, to use as an inscence offering during the wedding ceremony. Sooo romantic!!
Joe walking in the ablation valley with the Batura wall in the background

One of many rest stops along the Batura ablation valley

Rest stop with a view

A Batura Yak taking an early morning glacial dip

The Batura wall opposite us was a long, ice-capped ridgeline >7000m, rising to a full height of 7800m at its multiple peaks. Gradually more and more of it was revealed as we continued up the valley. It is very imposing with outrageously steep gullies, gargantuan cornices and no easy or obvious lines of ascent. The regular thump and roar of avalanches crashing down its slopes stopped us in our tracks in awe. The deception of scale becomes apparent when you realise that the avalanches are travelling at over 100m per second yet they appear to be slowly rolling down the icy slopes.
The remnants of an avalanche on the Batura wall

In the 1950's 6 European climbers tried an acsent of the Batura wall from this side. Five were lost and their bodies have never been found. No one has tried from this side again since. Looking at it, i understand why. In the full moonlight and outstanding weather that we experienced on the first few days, it is a truly awesome sight - but it is not for people - it is for crashing ice and elemental forces of wind and rock.
Third eye cranking! - Mark lit up by the rising full moon on the Batura trek

We were blessed by brilliant weather for the entire trek - sunny blue-sky days and luminious, moonfilled nights. One of the amusing things we had to contend with during the journey was speed-raids by rouge sheep and the odd cow on any exposed camp tucker. They have so little to eat up there - other than sparse alpine pasture and gravel - that the smells emanating from our camps were more than enough to overcome any shyness they may have felt at seeing four, strange, white-skined two-legs in their territory. Hungry sheepies can be persistant!
Camp 1 being besieged by salivating bovines

"Co'mon mate, give us some"; A hungry and persistant sheepie checking Joe out for some tucker

The trek had the usual share of culinary disasters and successes. Its funny, when you are using so much physical energy and have a limited and daily-rationed amount of food, tucker takes on a highly elevated importance. I think the hands down fav. of the trip had to be chapatis cooked in olive oil with vegemite (!!) - an epic production on a kero cooker without a chapati gridle!

The funniest food episode was, of course, the one to which we had the most attachment and expectation! We had some custard powder and had lovingly carried enough drinking chocolate powder to make a batch of chocy custard. At camp 3, high up in the valley, we decided the time for custard had come. Nearby were some huts of seasonal herders grazing their flocks of hungry sheepies and goats. In an effort to promote local produce, sustainable grazing and to inject a little money into the local economy, Joe purchased a couple of litres of fresh goats milk from the herders on behalf of us for use in the custard. How wonderful! We sat, solemly, intensely, four of us perched around the little cooker, in deep meditative anticipation as the luscious, creamy looking milk came to the boil, custard powder was added and the whole mixture made lovingly smooth, thick and chocolatey - too good!! At the first spoonful we all realised the devastating magnitude of our mistake ie. goats milk makes great feta cheese; chocolate is also great; but chocolate-liquid-feta cheese - essentially what our custard had turned into - is just a bad combination! I managed 1/2 a spoon, Anna less, Mark was equally revolted, but Joe had a good crack at a bowl full (very impressive!) - the rest was delivered to some nearby local porters, who being accustomed to goats milk, managed to devour it with ease and returned the empty pot!

Camp 3 on the Batura trek

Preping some tucker at Kara Kul - the importance of food inflates substantially when you are trekking

Anna relaxing into Tai Chi in the afternoon light at camp 3 on the Batura trek

The high camp of the Batura trek was situated above the main glacier, at ~3900 m, in a steep ravine which contained a small, green, crystal clear lake bounded by high cliffs. A stunning location. Joe definitely took the bravery award by doing a full swim, albiet rather brief, in the freezing lake, even though there was a massive sheet of melting seasonal ice 50m upstream. Even more impressive then eating choclate-feta custard!
High camp lake on Batura trek, the site of Joes very brave, very short swim!

Amazing views from the high camp on the Batura trek

High camp ravine and icy green lake on the Batura trek

A rather feral Anna looking like she is up for trouble!

Afternoon light glistening on the upper Batura Glacier

We arrived back in Passu, happy and exhausted. Trekking can be tough at times, both physically and mentally, but the adversity is always rewarded by a clearer and cleaner appreciation of the many simple things that are easy to take for granted; a soft matteress; water from a tap; a light; rest. After cleaning, washing and of course eating our fill of fresh Hunza apples, we got rolling the following day to Sost. From there we easily found a dualcab to take us the final leg of Pakistan, over the Kunjerab pass and into western China.
Tired, happy trekkers at the end of 7 days on the Batura

View from Kunjerab Pass on the border of China and Pakistan

When we arrived at the border at the top of the Kunjerab pass, the now Chinese road became a brilliant, smooth HWY without potholes - a marked contrast to the Pakistani side. The fresh faces of confident Chinese soldiers at the border post said volumes to me about a country that is clearly on the up and knows it.

The wide, dry plains alongside the border of Tajikistan finally gave way to Tashkurgan, where we contronted Chinese customs games, who seemed particularly interested in our walking sticks, diligently shaking them and checking for false bottoms. Tashkurgan had bizzare wide streets, but no traffic; flash and tiled two storey facades fronting the streets, but with collapsing mud brick slums hidden behind. It was here we had our first encounter with a Super market, Chinese style, in weeks.
Sky blue river on edge of Tajikistan

Tashkurgan: Our first Spuer Markep in weeks,...

Travelling as a group has been a blessing, in many ways really. We allow each other space, but regularly check-in and having four people to share organisation tasks is much, much easier. We are getting to see all sides of each other, the rough and the refined, and the sense of support and immersion in a shared experience is strong. I can only write from my experience, but i am happy with the level of harmony we have established and am sure Mark, Joe and Anna feel the same way. Some light moments, some intense moments, and all moments in between, but we are managing to support eachother through it.

We left Tashkurgan the following day, keen to get back to altitude by camping at Kara Kul Lake, a side-stop on the way to Kashgar. After a quiet altercation with a bus driver determined to part us from more money than he was entitled (to which Mark very patiently and successfully resisted), we alighted from a bus the following morning at the stunningly turquoise Kara-kul lake.
Magnificent Muztagh Ata reflected in the waters of Kara Kul Lake

Camp site at Kara Kul Lake

Reflections in Kara Kul

At 3700 m, it afforded good acclimatisation. Tucked away at the edge of Tajikastan in the Pamirs, at the base of Mustagh Ata, a 7500 m peak whose name means 'Father of Ice Mountains', the setting was absolutely stunning, and devastatingly windy! We spent a couple of days there, reading, walking, hiding from the wind in our tents and meandering before flagging down a Kashgar bound bus for the final leg of this part of the journey.
Anna and Scott rugged up and hugged up

Kara Kul Lake valley infill and Yak pastures

Beauty and the beast - they really are a multi-national aren't they,.....

So, here at Kashgar today, gone tomorrow. Back into the flux and whirl of journeying and pilgrimage. Western Tibet is the next stage and there is a sense that transport, permits and all things become a bit more uncertain and fluid from here on in. A long journey across the Aski Chin Range awaits us and hopefully we have all spent enough time at altitude to handle the >5000m passes without undue drama. There is a satellite view of Mt Kailash and Lake Mansarovar below. Intentions set, karma unfolding,......

So, there will be no more blog updates until late October / early November, when we get to Lhasa - all karmas being considered of course! So, with much love and warmth from all of us - to you family and friends who fill our lives with much meaning and joy - Ciao for now. Much peace.
Scott.

Scott trying not to blow away on the summit of small peak near Kara Kul lake

Introspections along the Indus,......

2006-08-29T23:01:00.000-12:00

Our intrepid travellers have made it to the upper Hunza OK. The C130 plane flight was cancelled from Islamabad twice due to dodgy mountain weather. So after a bout of the squirts due to mild food poisoning and the second flight cancellation, we all decided to get a bus,.... Ha. Asian buses, gotta love em! So twenty six hrs later, after 1000's of hairpin corners, one midnight road block protest by villagers angry at no electricity for four days, a minor bus breakdown at 3am, plus a kick-ass hair raising ride on the roof of the bus as the sun rose over the Indus valley gorge, we finally arrived at Gilgit. Little frontier town on the edge of Pakistan, China, India and Afganistan. The bus journey was tough on all of us, but we were all stoked to leave the heat and deadly smog of the big lowland cities.

Anna has been resting up for a few days at a beautiful guesthouse with lovely gardens in Gilgit, recovering from a smog induced cough. Mark, Joe and i just completed a four day trek in the upper Naltar valley. Absolutely stunning alpine scenery. Hanging glaciers, massive rock spires, succulent pine forests (very rare for here) and the odd ice blue glacial lake. A good few days on the trail, toning up the legs and working out the lungs in preperation for higher altitudes! Can't show you any photos unfortunately - lucky enough to access a computer here, let alone post pictures via it.

The general terrain here is very dry, exceedingly barren and rocky save for the few green oasis of areas irrigated by cleverly channeled glacial meltwaters. These green areas are all located on alluvial fans of epic proportions or the tiny bits of narrow floodplain that cling to the side of mountains. The Karakoram are wild, very raw a different to the other areas of the Himalayas i have visited. They are very young and growing fast. Everywhere is the look of simultaneous creation and destruction as bohemouth forces collide. The sharp, jagged-toothy peaks look like the spine of a giant saw-backed creature of earth and stone in progress of raising itself into the heavens. A rugged and elemental place. The mountains here are so steep and as there is mostly no vegetation to hold the rock in place, as soon as it starts raining or blowing hard, massive landslides start happening, roads block and nobody goes anywhere till it stops. Truly, parts of the 'road' up the gorge to Naltar valley looked so precarious and unstable that if you stopped the jeep and farted (a Hunza dried-apricot style fart!) you could bring a whole hillslope down on top of you. Seriously,......

Am encouraging Anna, Joe and Mark to contribute something to the blogsite, so you have something to read other than just my ramblings. Got something from Anna below. Will keep hassling the fellas!! Ciao for now with hugs,......

Anna: "Hey beautiful people! I've decided to post on the blogsite rather than write individual emails whilst on the journey. You're more likely to get an update this way.

Wow, where to start? I'm actually lucky to have been able to leave India. I threw my India disembarkation card some time ago thinking it wasn't important. The immigration crew at the border weren't happy with me kept saying "big problem madam, big problem,...." and wouldn't give me a new form to fill out. After many such statements, then asking me what my occupation was and me asking the right question "what to do?" they finally handed over the new form for me to fill out - halleluah. Next came the bag search which was a bit strange as we were leaving the country and upon entry didn't have to declare anything or have any luggage checked.

So far I've experiencd less hassle here and more friendliness in Pakistan than in India. The NZ embassy advised not to come to Pakistan at all due to extreme risk - hello, risk of what??? And at the same time for me as a woman, there is a more subtle, pervasive and supressive energy here.

I'm currently in Gilget in the Northern area of the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan. The lads have gone off into the hills trekking. I decided to stay put and rest for a few days at the Mountain Refuge with a paradise garden with a strong woman / Shakti energy. The last 10 days seem like a dream / whirlwind of dirty, hot, sleepless nights in cities. I am actually really exhausted and a bit sick after our most recent 24 hour+ bus journey and am enjoying not moving around. I must say I seem to be the "softie" traveller amongst the group, affirmed by my recent famous quote to Scott, "My kind of travelling is not travelling" - duh!

It's interesting being a woman here and I think most of my observations in this posting will be around this theme. There are hardly any woman out compared to men (I've had an urge to hide out when I'm here) and there are many variations of covering up from the full berka, to head scarf to no head scarf (more in the cities). The only thing that men can really check out is your ankles! Saying all this I haven't had any hassles from men and I am travelling with three males. I met a Canadian woman travelling on her own here and she said it has been a really difficult experience for her as many men perceive her as a prostitute.

I'm trying to get a balance between respecting the differences in culture and not feeling like a repressed woman (many of the men will speak to Scott and not to me when we are out). I don't think I was a very good advocate to let woman out of the house the other day at a local restaurant. I had a bit of a hissy-fit trying to order nan breads and gave the impression that I definately wasn't under the control of any man. And saying all that, where I am currently staying the woman are definately in their power.

Since September 11 the tourist numbers have gone down a lot in Pakistan. Especially here. To make ends meet the family running the Mountain Refuge have local woman from the hills stay for 9 months a year, to study at the local University. Sheshzadi, the mama, is 28 years old and is pregnant with her fifth child, after which will be her last. When she delivers her baby, it will be at an all woman's hospital (no men allowed, staff or family). Marriages are arranged here and most woman won't get to see their husband until the wedding. Sheshzadi's husband is really nice and I thought he was her father, woops! With their four little girls and the young woman students there are more woman about in a small space than I've see so far in Parkistan. The family are Ishmali Muslims, and are much less strict than many Shia's and Sunni's and pretty open in their world view. They have a job balancing Western men staying in a small space with young unmarried Muslim woman. They have to be careful to not risk a scandle (as simple as the family of one of the woman not being happy with her interacting with a western man) which could ruin the reputation of their business and a woman's marriage-ability.

So as a Western woman I am incredibly fortunate and have so many opportunities it's not funny. Thank goodness you couldn't arrange a marriage for me Mum and Dad, it would have been disasterous with my Taurian streeeek!!

Much love and hugs to you all,
Anna, Ana, Anahart

Four friends,.......

2006-08-21T19:46:00.000-12:00

Well, four friends have finally begun the meandering trail to Mt Kailash. Leaving the little Dharma community we had created together with Venerable Shenyen in Dharamkot was tinged with some sadness, but there was a strong sense of completion and the sweetness of having done good work and practice together with harmony. Time for pilgrimage now,.....

The heat of the plains and Lahore was, how to say(?), a very rude shock after many months of cool mountain air at McLeod Ganj. You know that scene from the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy flings a bucket of water at the wicked witch of the west who then cries "I'm melting, I'm melting". Yeah, something like this is appropriate imagery,.....buckets of sweat,....

We weighed our backpacks and joint kit at the railway platform in Pathankot and it came to about ~125 kilos. The printout weight tickets had one line fortunes written on the back, like little cardboard fortune cookies that you can't eat (though i'm sure the Indian street cows would consider them a treat!). Mine said "Drama is coming for you", or some such nonsense, which i took with an appropriate huff at the concept of superstitiousness in general. Two days later in Lahore i was sent skittling across the tarmac by a motorbike i did not see at all, whilst 'mindfully' crossing a busy metro road, causing me to do slight a double take of the ticket message. No injuries save for bruising, fortunately. Enough 'drama' to last the next wee while thanks,.....

Our joint weight gives us some serious incentive to do determined eating of our trekking food and any other consumables ASAP! Marks Mother very, very kindly sent a whole bunch of freeze dried veges over from Australia (Thanks!), which will contribute greatly to keeping our weight manageable during trekking and staying healthy in when we eventually enter 'tsampa only' land. Pakistan is a serious meat eating nation hey. Getting vege food here is a bit of a stretch - Anna and i have resorted to Pizza Hut twice (!) - both in Lahore and Rawalpindi just to raid their salad bar (plus escape the heat!). We tried a local street resturant last night and after much miming and gesticulation and "Nay beef, nay chicken, nay mutton,..." etc and then physically pointing out the rice, dhal and chapatis, we still ended up with two big chuncks of dead chook on the plate of rice. A no meat meal is a little bit too far outside the box here i think - it doesn't compute real well.

The first day we called in at Amritsar to check out the Golden Temple, sacred hearth of Sihkism. A highly atmospheric and evocative place. Evening prayers echoed through the temple, mingled with fading light and 1000's of devotees, some dipping in the waters of the large tank and many more lined up patiently to visit the inner sanctum. Very mellow atmosphere, relaxed and comtemplative. Impressive.

The rickshaw to the Indian/Pakistani border was easy, if somewhat bulging with our luggage. A parting conversation at the border reflects my current sentiment towards India well: (Scene - getting out of rickshaw at Indian border post, checkpoint no. 1 of 6; Midday, 35+ degrees C. Mobbed by half dozen Indians, whilst putting on our packs in preparation to go through immigration and customs).
Indian: "You want DVD, cold beer, very cheap, good DVD sir?"
Scott: "No thanks"
Indian: "Cold beer, last beer, no beer in Pakistan, cold beer you like?"
Scott: "No thanks"
Indian: "You want DVD, very good DVD sir?" (waving said DVD in face)
Scott: "No thanks"
Indian: "You like DVD, very good quality sir?"
Scott: "What do you reckon??"
Indian: "You want cold beer sir, we have cold beer?"
Scott: "Kush nay chay aye" x 2 (Hindi for 'I need nothing')
Indian: "DVD sir, good quality, you take?" etc, etc,...
They don't get the hint so easily. We wander off towards the border shaking our heads in some humour, both to say no and also in partial disbelief. Got to give them 10 points for persistence, but to be honest i'm glad to be out of India for now. Am well over that kind of in-your-face hassle. The Pakistanis we have met so far understand a simple 'no thanks' very well.

Have found myself engaging in some pointless comparisons between India and Pakistan in the last few days. Partly as a way of trying to decipher my experience of India and also as a way of trying to find a reference point for Pakistan. Best to let go of such notions i realise. They are just different. Hardly any street animals here (ie cows, dogs, monkeys etc) and the omnipresent aroma of shit-piss that plauges India is also far less evident. People here are generally very friendly and curious. They often ask why we have come here and seem to think that we westerners think they are all terrorists. Our media back home is sooooo unbelievably biased and full of utter-bull about this place and its people. Most of us know this i realise; but to actually see the stark contrast between the images cultivated in the media back home and the reality on the ground is potent. They are different planets entirely - one exists, the other is fiction. Who is writing the story???

The lack of hassle here is great, however as westerners we have a high novelty value which makes us very conspicuous, especially Anna. She is well covered up with scarf and long sleeves/pants, but she is a western woman and the mostly Pyjama clad local men here think this is kind of interesting. We spent a couple of days in Peshawar, a place dripping with 1000's of years of history, near the Afgan border and Pashtun tribal areas. Very conservative there, many women in full Burka. Mark and Joe did a day trip to the Kyber pass, with a jolly armed guard escort and a friendly guide who offered to take them to several interesting places related to the manufacture of guns and hashish. The old city of Peshawar was fascinating to wander about in, labrynthine alleys and narrow stores packed with all things imaginable, but the 'stand out like a sore thumb' factor is a little exhausting after a while.

We attended some Sufi singing and a drumming night while in Lahore. Very interesting stuff. The drumming was amazing, cranking rythyms rising and falling, fast and fluid. One of the two drummers (2 brothers) was deaf, and the Pakistani crowd was well intent on getting stoned to the eyeballs. Hash-laced ciggarettes were flying in all directions (i saw one fella sucking on five at one time!) and several very interesting looking sufi mystics were adding to the ambience by shaking their heads to the sky in semi-trance with beads of sweat dripping and eyes bulging. Outside the venue loads of street vendors with horse drawn carts were selling all manner of sweet and sticky midnight munchies to an increasingly doped up crowd. Intriuging.

We are planning on flying to Gilgit tommorrow, by a military C130 apparently, as the national carrier is not flying the Fokkers any more after one crashed a couple of months ago. Good to know they take air safety seriously! Looking forward to escaping the cities and heading for the hills! Our trekking intentions include a few 2-6 day walks in the upper valleys of the Hunza region, including Rakaposhi base camp, Ultar meadow and maybe the Batura Glacier. Will see how we go when we get there. A couple of photos from 'google earth' of some of the areas we intend to wander in are below.

This could be the last blog update for a wee while, as net access will be seriously limited till we get to Kashgar in western China. Much peace and love from us all for now. The trail beckons,.....

Delerious in Delhi,......

2006-08-07T18:49:00.000-12:00

What a place!! After arriving back in Delhi at 4:30 am by train from Pathankot for our visa run, my first impression was "Is this a war zone?". So many bodies sprawled on the pavement in brown rags, littering the roadside and endless alleys of crumbling concrete, surrounded by crumbling buildings, dimly lit and sweltering in the early monsoon-morning darkness. A crush of monsoon heat and the racket of traffic and horns soon to eject them from sleep. What sort of sleep is that??

Spacious and shady room with a view

A crazy place. How anything works here is a profound mystery beyond my comprehension. I guess the reality is that mostly things don't work, but they somehow manage to tumble along in broken and halting steps that the locals just adapt to. Being here again made Anna and I realise that we are ready to leave - 18+ months is long enough. There is a grinding here unlike any other place i have so far witnessed. Patience is wearing thin - with dodging rickshaws, touts, hawkers, hagglers, the omnipresent aroma of shit and acrid urine and the inscessent, jarring assault of mindless noise. Indians appear to like lots of noise,......So we intend this to be our last Delhi visit. For now.

Man with possesions

Phar-ganj rickshaw joyrides

We both got our visas ok, Pakistani and Chinese. The contrast between the mega-rich Australian embassy with its air-con high-tech super-security wall to wall carpets and free net access whilst waiting and the Pakistani concrete bunker dogbox-with-grill couldn't have been greater. Paper work to cross imaginary mind-made borders sorted,....

Outside Pakistani embassy

What the,....

There are so many strange and often unintelligeble phenomena here. Psychadelic bus altars with rapid-flashing coloured lights that make offerings to whichever divinity in order to keep the bus safe - and then they drive like maniacs! One of my recent favourites was a story on page 3 of a major national newspaper, about a policeman recieving extra payments for "moustache maintenace"?? Guess they reckon he has a killer mo. Full story below for your bemusement,.......
Being in a place such as Delhi can bring up a wide variety of emotions and responses. I know that the way that it appears to me is not how it is - my impression is just one distorted and biased impression among millions. Change of mood, change of day and it can all appear differently. However, for us hyper-sensitive, spoon-fed westerners it can often be a bit too much - some people leave here swearing never to return. Imagine how it must be for those who live all their lives in these festering mega-cities, being bludgeoned daily by sensory overload?? I cannot comprehend.

While waiting in Delhi for visas to be processed Anna and i decided to go and find an english language movie - for some temporary air-con bliss and respite from the noise as much as anything else. The cinema was 'broken' we were informed after arriving, so we teamed up with a couple of teenage upper-caste Indian girls for a rickshaw ride to one nearby that might (?) be working. On the way we rattled past a huge roundabout, swarms of traffic swirling around it like bees, of which we were a part - in the middle space were half a dozen low-roofed shacks, if you could call them that - patchwork human shelters stitched together from industrial refuse and plastic bags, sagging and drooping in the monsoon mush. The home, dining room, backyard and social space of 30 or so people, kids, grandmas, moms and dads. Beds consisted of concrete pavers, borrowed from the nearby footpaths, covered in damp hesian sacks, to lift them up a few inches above the lead and diesel infused mud. Lovely open view of the passing traffic. Seeing things like this make me think that whatever i have complained about in my entire life was a bunch of hot-air and mind-made bullshit - what do i have to complain about? Nothing.

When it is awake, this city hums with a relentless intensity that nibbles away at the edge of ones senses, like an alarm clock that you want to turn off, but can't quite reach. There are the odd spacious and leafy-green places, most notably in the well laid out embassy area; but this is not for the masses.

All things are impermanent - fair enough, i'm in the process of trying to get that. But the crumbling nature of Delhi has some extra dimensions and special ingredients that lend a unique flavour. A recent article by a columnist in the Times of India bemoaned the fact that every year during the monsoon the roads in Delhi become a pulverised mass of potholes and poor drainage. Then they pointed out that there is a part of Delhi, built by the Brits, where the roads are fine and have weathered the monsoon deluge for many years without disintegrating. The difference apparently is simply the quality of asphalt. Endemic corruption, tendering process baksheesh and the "screw to the last rupee" bargaining mentality means that by the time contractors lay down the Government supplied asphalt, it is cut with about 40% mud and dirt. Tar spiced with a sprinkle of earth,....

Crap quality products seem to be multiplying and invading the world more and more - like little alien viruses. Yet it appears they really are the norm here - and no one bothers to bat an eyelid. I have seen simple welding jobs that look like they have been done by monkeys on LSD and multi-story reinforced concrete buildings beginning to crack and drop chunks below, literally within days of being completed, because the cement was cut with so much sand and aggregate it hardly bonds. Its a wierd thing. When one considers the vast interconnected network of people, time and natural resources it takes to create even a simple item - like an umbrella for example - that when it explodes in a chaotic twisted jumble within 5 minutes of purchase, due to poor materials and workmanship, my first thought is "Why even bother making such crap". It is such an incredible waste of peoples time, lives and the dwindling resources of this little blue planet. Strange. I know there are many complex economic and social causes that lead to this lack of care in creating things, particulary poverty and caste, but it still perplexes me. I guess what is even more bizzare is that we have collectively created a lop-sided economic system that actually measures this kind of 'throughput' as a positive, ignoring the social and environmental costs.

Ha. On a lighter note, I used to wonder what happened to the advertising posters that are strewn all over the spare bits of wall here in McLeod Ganj - who is it that mysteriously takes them down? A couple of days ago i saw a street cow tearing and eating the posters off the wall, moistened by the monsoon damp. Cellulose is cellulose i guess - with or without ink flavouring. Another humourous thing Anna and i discovered today. For the last few days Anna has had a slightly dodgy belly and a very itchy scalp. She had thus been diligently taking some homeopathic remedy for her belly - or so she thought. Turns out it was a homeopathic remedy for dandruff!! Wonder if that explains the itchy scalp!

There is only so much of Delhi one can take in a single dose, so Anna and i bailed to Rishakesh for a few days while the Chinese visa was waiting. Near the sources of the Ganges River; holy temples, Shiva statues, colourful devout pilgrims paying their respects and freaky sadhus abound.

There was a strong festival type atmosphere there and it was a welcome respite from Delhi. Forests and mountains and wildlife of sorts. We managed a few dips in the icy and swollen Ganga, and gathered a little Ganga sand for use in the wedding ceremony. We spent a bit of time there creating and visioning the wedding ceremony, based around Buddhist principles and ideals. It flowed very smoothly and we are both pretty happy with it. Now we just have to get to Lake Mansarovar!

There is so much written on the faces of the people here. I have been enjoying trying to take pictures of people in natural poses, unaware they are being photographed. Its a bit kind of sneaky i guess, but the looks and the expressions captured in an instant of light and pixelated zeros and ones conveys so much that words or posed photos cannot. The joy of grandparents doting, resignation, raw pain and intensity of beggars, street urchins half-heartedly trying for some rupees,....A selection of recent shots below.

So, a reflection of sorts, impressions appearing briefly in the dew-bubble of the mind. Not the real thing - but then, what is the 'real thing'?,.......

Retreat reflections,......

2006-07-06T22:28:00.000-12:00

Both Anna and I have spent substantial periods of time during the 18 months in retreat. It's hard to explain the reasons why or to articulate the experiences that can arise in these silent, self-imposed, inwardly reflective spaces. They are both intensely personal and at the same time contain Universal elements at some level. Issues such as our unavoidable personal Death, the quest for happiness and peace, what it means to live a 'good' life and how to do that are all common elements of being human - issues we all face. Either consciously or unconsciously they exert a pull on our lives.
Our society, at least the mass-culture level of our society, does not really openly acknowledge the importance of the inner life - the life of the heart and mind - let alone have clear ways to explain it, encourage understanding of it or tools to promote positive inner transformation. Our culture is presently caught in a shallow worshipping of surfaces and is deeply wedded to a radical materialistic worldview. This worldview largely denies the validity of subjective inner experiences, simply because they cannot be measured 'objectively' beyond the 'random' collisions of particles.

However, the 'subjective' and 'objective' worlds overlap and exist interdependantly upon each other. Thus denying the validity of inner, subjective reality makes it very difficult for us to integrate our body of knowledge and thereby robs us of wisdom, values, deeper purpose and ethical vision. For all of these things arise in dependance upon subjective and inter-subjective experience. This is their context and they have no meaning without it. A culture and society bereft of ethical vision, purpose and wisdom is a sick one indeed - the flotsam and jetsom of individual lives unanchored in anything much beyond sensory titilation is all too apparent. What a bummer hey!

The body of Buddhist wisdom and philosophy is a pivotal inspiration for Anna and I, largely because it provides methods and means of investigating, understanding and transforming subjective inner experience ie. "know thyself". Any understanding that then arises is based on personal investigation, via meditation, of mind/body phenomena, rather than dogma or religious views per se. Little insights can arise all by themselves in the space of silent, clear attentiveness that views all things in an allowing embrace. Ways of thinking, believing, reacting and behaving that make unessasary misery for ourseleves and others begin to reveal themselves and start to drop away naturally. The transparancy and interconnectivity of all phenomena begins to shine,......

So, below is a selection of ramblings and ravings from retreat spaces, written whilst in silence, mostly as kind of notes/reminders to myself. It is nothing particularly illuminating or original, but it is offered here as a way of trying to share the inexpressable and connect with you at the level of shared humanity. I was very suspect about the notion of doing this for many reasons, but on the off chance they may touch some inner-chord with positive resonance, they are offered up. Enjoy.

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"The way the world appears to you says more about your state of mind than it does the state of the world."

"If there is any satisfaction to be experienced, surely it is related to how things are done - the qualities that are embodied whilst in action. The peace, prescence, joy, patience, love and mindfullness etc. Not the thing itself. Thus all actions, from walking to breathing, the most complex to the most mundane, are all opportunities for emboding the transcendant. Moment by moment letting go,......allowing space."

"The appearance is mind.
The apprehension of the appearance is mind.
The ignorance that believes the appareance to be true is mind.
Any story you hold about the appearance is mind.
Any attraction/clinging or fear/replusion you experience towards the appearance is mind. The awareness of all this taking place is also mind.
Nothing here but mind!
What are you afraid of?? - your own mind?
What are you being seduced by?? - your own mind?
To add judgement to it really is taking the game several steps too far,....."

"The mind can conquer 1000 galaxies by mid-morning and the arse never have left its seat"

"Its not a matter of bringing the mind back; it never went anywhere - thats the point.
It looks so enticing all those lights and flashing movement,.....
Its more a matter of getting it to wake up and experience fully where it is"

"There is no 'life' - only 'lifedeath'.
There is no 'arriving' - only 'arrivingleaving'.
There is no 'creating' - only 'creatingdissolving'.
In every beginning is its own ending, inseperable in nature.
All meetings contain the conversation of their final parting.
Let go this fleeting instant."

"Here's the deal - whether you want to let go of everything or not,

there really is no choice - you have to.
It IS happening, unstoppable.
So, align with it and create peace or resist it and create friction and pain."

"The mind/Universe is so empty of intrinsic qualities, so pliant and shapable,
that it can only give back what you put 'into' it.
A quantum ripple returning. Karma,....
If you put out clinging energy, this comes back, likewise anger, love etc".

"It is easy to speak of courage when fear is absent.
Much harder to be attentive fully when fear is present and not to split".

"Without distraction; fully attentive to what is.
No judgement; accepting everything.
Seeing the purity of all things in emptiness; inseperability.
The minds own energy reflected back - the perfect teacher, the perfect illusion.
Nothing to chase after here, nothing to fear either.
Sponteaneously complete.
Don't be distracted by this dream, remain aware and deeply present."

"Acceptance of all feelings is vital,
acceptance of all thoughts is crucial.
Acceptance of all that arises in this body/mind is in fact essential;
for without it deep understanding cannot occur.

Acceptance is spacious and silent,
acceptance is open and non-judgemental.
Acceptance is relaxed and unfabricated with itself.
Acceptance allows clarity and mirror-like wisdom to occur naturally.

Acceptance brings peace to the table,
acceptance brings deep inner quiet.
Acceptance opens the heart and lets love
through the door and out into the world."

"Two truths:
1) I know nothing at all relative to the magnitude of the unknown that surrounds me.
2) Whatever fixed concepts of myself I hold, positive or negative, are not true at all. The actuality is highly fluid and infinitely changeable, but conditioned by actions, attitudes and beliefs."

"Without stillness, there is no clarity.
Without clarity, one cannot see.
Without seeing, ignorance prevails
and one is bound to make the same mistakes over and over and over,......"

"Each moment of this life, each little action, thought and gesture, can be an expression of;
deep attentiveness, or dull repeatativeness;
courage or fear;
gratitude and wealth or inner poverty and lack;
connection and wonder or fragmentation and the staleness of thinking I already know;
a tender heart that is willing to risk everything to stay open or the long sleep of a dark mind.
Just keep choosing."
"A vast void swirls openly around the blazing needlepoint of this present moment.
Do you have the courage to abide here?
Without wavering, without reference, without wanting anything else at all?
The sirens voice of your own dark fog beckons.
The choice remains,....."
"The act of seeking for spiritual fullfillment in ordinary ways can cause two big errors that can keep one perpetually circling.
1) Reinforcing the dualistic notion of 'I' searching for 'something' out there, something to aquire.
2) Buys into the belief that you are not whole and complete already at the deepest level, reinforcing a sense of inner poverty and 'lack' and therefore continually wanting to 'fill-up'.
Need to stop this game!
Everything you have ever wanted, ever hoped for, ever sought, ever needed -
you already have within.
The jewel treasure is already yours child, just open your eyes."

"Acting out of a space of wanting to 'fix' or 'help' another,
as if they are broken or somehow incomplete, can create major chaos and fails to see the point: ie. just love and accept them as they are, without agenda.
This allows open, creative response to flow"

"It is precisely our sensitivity to pain, our tenderness and own experience of suffering that enables us to empathise with others.
To open up our hearts with compassion to their suffering.
To know beyond words that we are soooo the same. Therefore this sensitivity is to be valued and honoured; don't run away from it - face it, fully. It has much to teach you."
"Whatever I thought I'd accomplished - I have not.
Whatever I thought I knew - I did not know.
Whatever I thought I've done - I never did.
Whatever I thought I am - I was never that.
Whatever 'I' thought at all were concepts based on unknowing; deception without foundation. Best to abandon this kind of thinking."

"Love everyone.
Let go of everything.
Now."

"All situations are workable; some fluidity exists, inner or outer.
Creative responses are boundless and all arise out of the unknown.
Love and kindness are inexhaustable and grow in strength through application."

Preparations,....

2006-06-19T17:41:00.000-12:00

All journeys start with a single step, but there is never any definite certainty how they will unfold or where they will end up. Part of the joy of mystery,.....

After over 18 months of Anna and I living in India and Nepal we are planning on embarking on our most challenging travel / pilgrimage adventure yet. Inspired by the tales of many previous pilgrims and some intrepid dharma buddies who have recently done the deed, we are intending to go to Mt Kailash in Tibet to do some kora, departing sometime August '06.

Mt Kailash is regarded as sacred by both Hindus and Buddhists and figures highly in mythic cosmology as a symbolic centre of the Universe. A highly charged earth-power place and natural loci of spiritual energies - the central Asian equivalent of Uluru i guess. It is also a hydrological convergence - four of Asias major rivers find their source in the immediate vicinity of Kailash. The Indus, Brahmaputra, Sutlej and Karnali (major tributary of the Ganges). The waters originating from this region supply perhaps ~400 million people and who knows how many animals. A scared source of life for many,.....

Mt Kailash

The route we are planning is perhaps among the more difficult amongst several options, though there is really no easy way to get there - it is completely in the wops! - hidden well behind the Himalaya range, tucked away in western Tibet. We are intending to go via Pakistan, up the Karakoram HWY and old silk route to Kashgar in western China, and then down to Ali and Darchen and Mt Kailash, before heading on to Lhasa and back to Nepal (see map below).

Route map

A wee way to wander, through some pretty isolated country. Our intentions are to spend a few weeks in the Hunza region of the Karakoram range in northern Pakistan in late August, where we will do some trekking at altitude to acclimatise whilst soaking up the splendour of the Karakoram. The road from Kashgar to Ali goes very high very fast, over some 5400m passes. Many people experience problems with altitude on this route and to come down with AMS in such an isolated area would not be fun, so spending a bit of time at altitude seems a wise things to do.

There are now four of us teamed up for the journey - a good number. Anna, myself, Mark and Joe. Mark is from Australia and Joe from the UK and both are great guys who have spent a fair amount of time with us in retreats. All four of us did the 3 month Vajrasattva retreat at Tushita last year. It feels really sweet to be doing this journey as a group with a unity in terms of a Buddhist focus and opportunities for joint practice along the way. Reckon we will go well together.

Yeti trekking kitchen

Living in McLeod Ganj with Anna is wonderful at the moment. Staying at Yeti trekking lodge, which is lush and bursting with green lawn, a low key family place with doggies and chickens and rouge street cows making strategic raids on the lush grass. Am really enjoying doing home cooking after months of dubious Indian fare!

Prayer flags at Trijang Rinpoches Stupa

Doing a small amount of DIY type volunteer work up at Tushita in between time and trying to brush up on my Tibetan language skills. Just keeping it simple really. HH Dalai Lama is giving teachings here in a week or so, which will be great, and we are also blessed with the presence at the Yeti of one of our Teachers, Ven. Shanyen, the monk who led our Vajrasattva retreat last year. Very fortunate indeed.

Crazy Barloo the dog

Visa's to sort out in Delhi next month, which is one of those unavoidable obstacles/opportunities on the path. The monsoon expected any day now, so trying to get in as many walks up the ridge here to Triund as possible before it kicks in - will try and get up there this weekend for a few days in fact. Peace and hugs.

Yeti trekking

Room with a view

Anna up at Triund ridge

Pissing down,.....

2006-06-18T02:28:00.000-12:00

The monsoon is arriving here. Wild electrical storms racing down from the Daladhaur range in the afternoon, taking out the power for extended periods - not so hard here, given the power is out for extended periods anyway.

There is a picture of Anna below in the prelude to an electrical storm where the earth static was so strong her hair was literally standing on end.

Went camping this weekend with Anna up at Triund for a couple of nights. So beautiful up there, ragged peaks and cloud-scapes with an ever-shifting dance of light. Lambing season in full swing, saw one 5 mins out of the womb this morning. The shepherd kept guard while the mother chomped up the afterbirth with due diligence. Errrrk. Couple of photos to share the vibe of the place. Enjoy.

Plains faces,....

2006-06-10T23:17:00.000-12:00

A series of portraits of Indians, Nepalis and Tibetans, taken recently whilst journeying from Kathmandu across the Ganges plain to Delhi and McLeod Ganj.

2006-05-14T16:06:00.000-12:00