"On the Trail"

The Journals from the Road

Into Tibet... 

After looking into the possibilities of biking alone into Tibet and seeing that although it might have been doable it would not be something to tackle if you were on a tight time schedule. For me, I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to ride and travel for a month with my younger sister, Penelope, and to visit schools together as a PeaceBike team. We both wanted to fit around her school schedule so that meant that I had best pick up the pace with a few more flights. Thanks to the great help of Susan and my wonderful Beijing travel agent I was able to book flights from Chengdu, Sichuan to Lhasa, Tibet and then from Lhasa, Tibet to Kathmandu, Nepal. I would spend just four days in Lhasa so I was ready to make the most out of my visit. Through a travel agency I got a package visit to Lhasa which seemed about the only way to book according to the rules for individual travelers. This included my flight, my permit to enter Tibet, hotel for three nights, transport to the tourist sites, and a guide for our group. This package cost around 300$ US dollars and a big chunk of that was for the permit into Tibet. 

Even before I got onto the plane I had made friends with some of the other travelers that were going to Lhasa from Chengdu also that day. In the name of geography, Chengdu is in Sichuan, China (I rode from Guilin to Chengdu by train). And now back to the story...A fellow named Len, from the US and working in Shanghai, helped me haul my bike box into the airport. We sat together on the plane and had a great talk. He had lived in Japan for a few years and spoke Japanese quite well. Many of the travelers in our group were from Japan including one long distance cyclist named Hiro. In a way I was glad that I wasn’t the only guy with a huge bike box blocking the aisle. Actually, everyone in our travel group was quite patient with the two “luggagally challenged” members as we lifted and squeezed our boxes onto the buses on both ends of the flight. The first day I decided to join a couple from Sweden, Yuan and Anna, on a walk around old Lhasa. We were all feeling the shock of the elevation change with Lhasa at about 4000 meters. I was walking very slow and had this light-headed feeling for the whole first afternoon. The only other time on this trip I had been at this elevation was when I was riding in the Andes in Peru and Bolivia but there I had about a week of uphill riding to acclimatize. The “old” section of Lhasa is full of native Tibetan people, a deduction I make as well as I can based on the unfamiliar language that I heard and the clothing that they wore. Many of the older men and especially the older women carried prayer wheels in their hands, which were kept constantly spinning. The wheels were actually a small container on top of a usually wooden pole. Inside the container were Tibetan Buddhist scriptures. Although I didn’t see many young people with these prayer wheels they were certainly quite common and could be seen on almost every streetscape. Yuan, my Swedish friend, had studied a bit of Tibetan and he had a phrasebook which became immediately invaluable to me because I had to find a bathroom and fast. It seemed the my bladder had shrunk at the high elevation... or something was causing me to have to go to the bathroom every hour or so. After about an hour walk I headed back to the Snowlands Hotel for a nap. The next morning we visited the Summer Palace of the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is not there now and has been living outside of Tibet for many years. It was interesting to see how the architecture of Tibet combined influences from India and China. For example, many of the creatures on the end of the roofs of the palace were part dragon and part elephant. 

50 Years of Liberation… 

It was a very interesting time for me to be in Lhasa. The steward on our flight into Lhasa told us that the Chinese government was celebrating 50 years of liberation of Tibet and that there had been a number of improvements made by the Chinese government during this time. When I was working in an internet cafe a police officer came in and told the shopkeeper that he had to shut the store down because it was near to where the ceremonies were going to take place. It seemed to me that this was a celebration for Chinese government officials and television cameras but few tourists or local folks in Lhasa could come close to the celebration. On one night there was a big display of fireworks in front of Potalla palace and I saw a number of people look out of their shops. There were police and guards at most intersections and the atmosphere felt quite different than other places I have been in China. 

Yak Cheese Soup… 

A cup of Yak  Cheese Soup  for you?

I got to try a few original Tibetan dishes, thanks in part to the coaxing from Yuan, my fellow traveler who had tried a number of Tibetan dishes and found them “quite good, actually”. When he and Anna and I went out to dinner for the second time he ordered some tzampa for me to try. This is barley flour mixed with yak butter and tea and is a very filling staple for many of the locals. I tried some of it and found it quite palatable. I would have not hesistated a bit if I were hungry and offered a bit of Tzampa to fill me up. I also had yak butter tea in a Tibetan home in old Lhasa. I had wanted to interview a young person from Lhasa and had interviewed two girls in China so I thought it was time for a boy. I ended up interviewing two 13 year-old fellows. Their grandfather (or possibly an older friend of the family) offered me a cup of yak butter tea. It looks about the same as India tea, or Chai but this tea was not sweetened with any sugar and had more of a salty taste to it. I took few sips and called that a hearty first try. The fellow that was translating for me in the interview said, “You think it is salty but we love it!”. Just to throw in one more food experience I had yak cheese soup at a lunch with fellow travelers. It was pretty good although once again salty and quite chewy. Once the others at the table saw that I was still smiling after my tasting they all wanted a spoonful. 

Friends all around...

On the last full day of my visit in Lhasa we got to tour the Potalla Palace which is the former home of the Dalai Lamas and of the rulers of ancient Tibet. Tourists were not allowed to take pictures inside most of the places we visited so most of my photos are taken of the outside of temples and on the streets. Inside the temples and palaces we saw room after room of sacred scriptures, statues of past Dalai Lamas, and ornate carvings and paintings. Though these things were really amazing I had such as short time that I focused on being with the people I was with and enjoying their company and not try to see and learn everything about Lhasa. 

Like I said earlier, many of the people I was traveling with were from Japan. There was also a kind couple from Israel, and a few others of us from multiple places. I want to thank my friend Miho from Osaka, who patiently co-coordinated a mini-trip to see “Tibetan dance” which ended up being “Tibetan popular karaoke”. Chiaki worked very hard to find us seats in the crowded club going back and forth between Mandarin and Japanese until everyone was happy. Chiaki and I had a special connection. She is from Japan and has studied Chinese for the last year in Beijing and my Japanese is not so good “Nihongowa amari hanase masen.”. So although she didn’t speak much English and I didn’t speak much Japanese we were able to communicate about a number of things in Mandarin. This for me was really a thrill, a cross-cross cultural experience. I was so privileged to meet so many wonderful people in these four short days. Thanks to Len, Joey, Miho, Alftan, Linus, Chiaki, my two Hiros, Anna and Yuan, and a number of other good folks for their friendship. Thanks to Charlie who made sure I had a flight to Kathmandu. Best wishes to Hiro as he rides across Tibet! 

For those of you wondering, this is not a political account of what is going on in Tibet. This is a brief and incomplete summary of my four day stay in Lhasa. Lots of things are happening in this region but for me to share my sketchy information related to this area could put some of the people who helped on this part of my journey at risk. For those who would like more information on my trip to Lhasa please send me an email at tad@peacebike.org. 

Thanks for following this journey!

TAD

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