Ganden-Samye
In Lhasa, walking up stairs makes you breathless.
But this does nothing to make you think twice about a trek where you not only haul all your own gear but truck over two 18,000 (5300m) passes.
Macke, Blume, a Chilean couple, an Irishman and I decide to trek from Ganden gompa (monastery) to Samye gompa. The Chileans and the Irish are one unit; we three another.
In the supermarket you only buy stuff with pictures on it cos Chinese is like Greek. Then you hope pictures and reality match. People randomly come up to you and ask you weird questions and offer you services and items. You feel like an illiterate celebrity.
You buy noodles, noodles, more noodles, noodles, dried fruit, and Meat Stick. These are skewers of marinated yak meat. You also load up on smokes and candy, and send Blume off to find the sine qua non of successful travel: real coffee.
You take a pilgrim's bus to Ganden. On this bus are Tibetan ladies and a dwarf with a roll of carpets larger than he is. You ditch your packs for a couple of hours of monastery watching. The usual smell of sewage is everywhere. In one chapel, one monk chants sutras and his buddy fiddles with his cell. In the murky kitchen the light is smoky and blue, and massive, human-sized vats of butter tea bubble and about thirty monks wqhack away at potatoes.
In the main hall a hundred monks chant sutras in pools of yellow-orange light. The sound comes from everywhere and has neither beginning nor end.
You get confused by the map and guide instructions but finally fire up a barren ridge along a rocky trail. On the crest you meet Unt. After the laughter subsides ("unt" means "camel" in Marashtran Hindi) you plop down for lunch. Unt is all too happy to eat candy and nuts, but is most impressed with mouth-numbing Meat Stick (it's spicy and it makes the sensation in your mouth vanish, like an anaesthetic) and then of course smokes.
You wander down through Lebhu village, where there's the usual friendly Tibetan freak scene-- a man with one leg, curious children, women with sunburned cheeks ("but not noses; why is that?" asks Macke), massive woofing mastiffs (nice doggie, nice NICE doggie...), a guy who looks
like he's been assembled by the Salvation Army, gawky teenagers, etc.
You cross the river and after an hour's walk up the next valley set up camp with the Chileans and the Irishman, who is blotchy red and white despite layers of sunblock.
Tibetans-- who totally lack Western ideas about privacy-- show up and stare at us while Macke makes noodles and you and Blume fiddle wiht the tent. You bought prayer flags for guylines and the Tibetanms are loving this. You get visited by a couple with a herd of yaks, a single guy in a pinstriped suit, and a small horde of children that you manhandle and (bad, BAD tourist) feed candy. One girl-- like Blume named Droma-- makes herself useful and even does your dishes.
You propose an ethnic stereotype trash-talk evening. The Chileans for some reason aren't into being referred to as "los huevones" even tho the Kraut, the Yank and the Mick are A-Ok with the names.
The next day you greet the Chileans with a "como durmieron ustedes huevones?" which for some reason the Chileans are less than excited about. They are industriously off at an early hour while you are on Latin time. At 11:00 you head out with Droma up the valley. You stop at her ba (nomad tent), the inside of which has a clay oven, neat beds, piles of blankets, and two boys with Hot Wheels toy cars. Droma Queen wants photos taken of her; the boys flee when cameras come out.
On the way up to the Zhug La, Blume passes you whiel you are pouring iodine into murky brown water and praying that the giardia will submit to the chemicals.
"I dont' stop," she says, "I must think."
The valleys are wide and grey-brown. You could roll asteroids around in them, they are so smooth. Billions of tiny flowers are everywhere. The odd yak groans.
On the Zhug La there are flags, a massive rotting old cairn, and brilliant tiny flowers. Blume shows up as you and Macke sit gasping.
"I can't go back to my stupid job," says Blume. This statement makes perfect sense up here. It's purification. You walk, you make step after step, your mind clears.
That afternoon the Chileans tell you that "huevon" is something like "motherfucker." So basically that morning you'd said "Hey how'd all y'all muthafuckas sleep?" The good Bonita's been using that name for you for ages. Hmm.
The Irishman is even splotchier today. Only three Tibetans stare at you and if you ignore them they will go and stare at the Irishman and his pot of noodles and then they eventually go away.
The next day-- because you have no gear or even pads-- you find a superb small crag on your second pass. You drool at unclimbed splitters and wicked ten-foot boulders.
In the afternoon as a wall of rain sweeps up the valley you frantically pitch your tent, and then the rainwall turns to mist and then hot sun. Blume goes to bathe and is overrun by a herd of yaks. Macke in his rain poncho looks like a mix of Klu Klux Klansman and U.S. Forest Service Ranger. DInner is Noodles and Meat Stick. You open a packet of marinated yak meat and soon
are rolling around in the grass, gasping.
The next day you get to the first village and succumb to the Tibetans' offer of a $2 tractor ride for the last 25 km. This turns into the most painful experience of your life as the tractor carriage is all metal, all angles, all pounding. You pass the Irishman who has a sense of trekking ethics.
You spend an evening in the Snowlands Restaurant. A small child spits at you. A drunk man wobbles around chanting. Endless locals stare in through the windo and wave. The Irishman drinks eight beers and Blume mixes beer and soda. The light outside becoems orange, deep blue, then black. There is a cow eating out of the toilet and the cow then enters the kitchen before trying to get into the restaurant. There is a cat on a leash in the kitchen, yowling.
The stumble home lurxches over rocks, around foul wet puddlles, and through dusky streets blue-grey in the halfmoon, with Tibetans giggling and singing and the odd yak bellowing.
The next day you get ripped off by the truck that take syou to the ferry. Samye monastery is stranded in a vast sandy valley. You take a flatboat across the river and in the middle the boatman runs it aground. You step into liquid and have the boat off the sandbank. Macke suggests that this assistance is worth a discount. Teh boatman disagrees.
On the bus back to Lhasa three Tibetan women chant and the driver chainsmokes. I see a series of unclimbed Apron-sized crags across the river and start planning the next expedition. Outside Lhasa we pass the "GOLDEN DRAGON TOURIST NOMAD VILLAGE." The multiple ironies here are obviously lost on the government.
Our next plan: find a shared ride to Everest basecamp (Tibet) then run for the border before our visas expore and the Chinese police get antsy. Back in five days.
But this does nothing to make you think twice about a trek where you not only haul all your own gear but truck over two 18,000 (5300m) passes.
Macke, Blume, a Chilean couple, an Irishman and I decide to trek from Ganden gompa (monastery) to Samye gompa. The Chileans and the Irish are one unit; we three another.
In the supermarket you only buy stuff with pictures on it cos Chinese is like Greek. Then you hope pictures and reality match. People randomly come up to you and ask you weird questions and offer you services and items. You feel like an illiterate celebrity.
You buy noodles, noodles, more noodles, noodles, dried fruit, and Meat Stick. These are skewers of marinated yak meat. You also load up on smokes and candy, and send Blume off to find the sine qua non of successful travel: real coffee.
You take a pilgrim's bus to Ganden. On this bus are Tibetan ladies and a dwarf with a roll of carpets larger than he is. You ditch your packs for a couple of hours of monastery watching. The usual smell of sewage is everywhere. In one chapel, one monk chants sutras and his buddy fiddles with his cell. In the murky kitchen the light is smoky and blue, and massive, human-sized vats of butter tea bubble and about thirty monks wqhack away at potatoes.
In the main hall a hundred monks chant sutras in pools of yellow-orange light. The sound comes from everywhere and has neither beginning nor end.
You get confused by the map and guide instructions but finally fire up a barren ridge along a rocky trail. On the crest you meet Unt. After the laughter subsides ("unt" means "camel" in Marashtran Hindi) you plop down for lunch. Unt is all too happy to eat candy and nuts, but is most impressed with mouth-numbing Meat Stick (it's spicy and it makes the sensation in your mouth vanish, like an anaesthetic) and then of course smokes.
You wander down through Lebhu village, where there's the usual friendly Tibetan freak scene-- a man with one leg, curious children, women with sunburned cheeks ("but not noses; why is that?" asks Macke), massive woofing mastiffs (nice doggie, nice NICE doggie...), a guy who looks
like he's been assembled by the Salvation Army, gawky teenagers, etc.
You cross the river and after an hour's walk up the next valley set up camp with the Chileans and the Irishman, who is blotchy red and white despite layers of sunblock.
Tibetans-- who totally lack Western ideas about privacy-- show up and stare at us while Macke makes noodles and you and Blume fiddle wiht the tent. You bought prayer flags for guylines and the Tibetanms are loving this. You get visited by a couple with a herd of yaks, a single guy in a pinstriped suit, and a small horde of children that you manhandle and (bad, BAD tourist) feed candy. One girl-- like Blume named Droma-- makes herself useful and even does your dishes.
You propose an ethnic stereotype trash-talk evening. The Chileans for some reason aren't into being referred to as "los huevones" even tho the Kraut, the Yank and the Mick are A-Ok with the names.
The next day you greet the Chileans with a "como durmieron ustedes huevones?" which for some reason the Chileans are less than excited about. They are industriously off at an early hour while you are on Latin time. At 11:00 you head out with Droma up the valley. You stop at her ba (nomad tent), the inside of which has a clay oven, neat beds, piles of blankets, and two boys with Hot Wheels toy cars. Droma Queen wants photos taken of her; the boys flee when cameras come out.
On the way up to the Zhug La, Blume passes you whiel you are pouring iodine into murky brown water and praying that the giardia will submit to the chemicals.
"I dont' stop," she says, "I must think."
The valleys are wide and grey-brown. You could roll asteroids around in them, they are so smooth. Billions of tiny flowers are everywhere. The odd yak groans.
On the Zhug La there are flags, a massive rotting old cairn, and brilliant tiny flowers. Blume shows up as you and Macke sit gasping.
"I can't go back to my stupid job," says Blume. This statement makes perfect sense up here. It's purification. You walk, you make step after step, your mind clears.
That afternoon the Chileans tell you that "huevon" is something like "motherfucker." So basically that morning you'd said "Hey how'd all y'all muthafuckas sleep?" The good Bonita's been using that name for you for ages. Hmm.
The Irishman is even splotchier today. Only three Tibetans stare at you and if you ignore them they will go and stare at the Irishman and his pot of noodles and then they eventually go away.
The next day-- because you have no gear or even pads-- you find a superb small crag on your second pass. You drool at unclimbed splitters and wicked ten-foot boulders.
In the afternoon as a wall of rain sweeps up the valley you frantically pitch your tent, and then the rainwall turns to mist and then hot sun. Blume goes to bathe and is overrun by a herd of yaks. Macke in his rain poncho looks like a mix of Klu Klux Klansman and U.S. Forest Service Ranger. DInner is Noodles and Meat Stick. You open a packet of marinated yak meat and soon
are rolling around in the grass, gasping.
The next day you get to the first village and succumb to the Tibetans' offer of a $2 tractor ride for the last 25 km. This turns into the most painful experience of your life as the tractor carriage is all metal, all angles, all pounding. You pass the Irishman who has a sense of trekking ethics.
You spend an evening in the Snowlands Restaurant. A small child spits at you. A drunk man wobbles around chanting. Endless locals stare in through the windo and wave. The Irishman drinks eight beers and Blume mixes beer and soda. The light outside becoems orange, deep blue, then black. There is a cow eating out of the toilet and the cow then enters the kitchen before trying to get into the restaurant. There is a cat on a leash in the kitchen, yowling.
The stumble home lurxches over rocks, around foul wet puddlles, and through dusky streets blue-grey in the halfmoon, with Tibetans giggling and singing and the odd yak bellowing.
The next day you get ripped off by the truck that take syou to the ferry. Samye monastery is stranded in a vast sandy valley. You take a flatboat across the river and in the middle the boatman runs it aground. You step into liquid and have the boat off the sandbank. Macke suggests that this assistance is worth a discount. Teh boatman disagrees.
On the bus back to Lhasa three Tibetan women chant and the driver chainsmokes. I see a series of unclimbed Apron-sized crags across the river and start planning the next expedition. Outside Lhasa we pass the "GOLDEN DRAGON TOURIST NOMAD VILLAGE." The multiple ironies here are obviously lost on the government.
Our next plan: find a shared ride to Everest basecamp (Tibet) then run for the border before our visas expore and the Chinese police get antsy. Back in five days.
posted by Butch at 12:59 PM
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