The road to Lhasa

I spent my last day in Yangshuo hanging out, reading, and enjoying the array Western food options. Although I’m really enjoying Chinese food, it’s really difficult to eat three meals a day of the stuff, and Yangshuo’s backpacker atmosphere is a great place to take a break and eat hamburgers and pasta.

There are only a few legal ways to get to Tibet — one of the most common is to fly to Lhasa from Chengdu, which is what I decided to do. I arranged my train ticket to Chengdu through the incredibly helpful girls at a Yangshuo travel agency, who also offered to have some friends meet me in the nearby city Liuzhou to help me catch the train. I took the bus to Liuzhou via Guilin and arrived to meet Troy and his friend Fu, who guided me across the city to the train station. For their help, I took them out to a nice dinner near the station. The spicy food was some of the best I’ve had so far on the trip, and the guys had great English. With a hushed voice and nervous looks around the restaurant, Troy brought up some political issues including censorship, which really surprised me. He didn’t seem to be a big fan of the Chinese government, although didn't dare express his concerns in a concrete way. The conversation made me realize how little I appreciate the freedoms that we have in America — I can’t even imagine sitting back at home in a restaurant discussing the problems with President Bush in a low voice, worried that someone might overhear. Here’s Troy and Fu at dinner:



The 40-hour train to Chengdu passed surprisingly fast. I spent most of my time reading the enjoyable Peace Like a River, sleeping, and hanging out in the dining car. Upon arrival in Chengdu I was greeted by hostel hawkers and took them up on their offer to stay at Dragon Town Hostel, recommended in Lonely Planet. Our hostel was seriously impressive: the gorgeous building dates from the Tang Dynasty, and has cheap laundry service, a great restaurant, good nightlife, and extensive travel services — all for around four dollars per night. Bill was flying in from Shanghai to meet me that same day, so I booked us two beds in a four-bed dorm room. Also in our room was a super-fun and ridiculously well-traveled 18-year-old from London named Tahmina, who I hung out with most of the morning before I met up with Bill.

The next day, Bill and I booked our flight for Lhasa and headed out to see one of Chengdu’s major attractions, the Panda Research Base. Despite hearing mixed reviews at the hostel, Bill and I thought it was a really good experience. Scattered over around 100 acres are bamboo forests, research labs, and indoor/outdoor Panda cages with a total of about 40 pandas. Most of the pandas were indoors in cages sleeping or eating massive amounts of bamboo. There were a group of incredibly cool red pandas outside running around and playing — they look like red raccoons, move like cats, but act like playful dogs. The coolest part of the base was probably the twin pandas that were born two days before our visit, which were like tiny pink rats. Very few pandas are born each year, and we really lucked out to be able to see such tiny creatures in person.



After a few hours with the pandas, we grabbed dinner at a traditional Sichuan place which had all sorts of intensely spicy meat and vegetables on sticks. Men all around had their shirts off and were daring each other to drink — the most common drinking game had simple rules: If you don’t drink this whole thing, we’re not friends anymore!

The next morning, Bill and I woke up crazy-early and got on a minibus to the airport. In order to legally travel to Tibet, you have to go as a part of an organized package tour. We were grouped together with a bunch of other westerners on the minibus and at the airport. Our “tour” consisted of checking in, going through the metal detector, and flying to Lhasa — apparently that’s enough to fulfill the tour group entry requirements. Although I was exhausted, I managed to stay awake on the plane to look at the stunning views of the Himalayas:



We arrived at the airport and took an hour-long bus to Lhasa. I drifted off for a second only to wake up and see the breathtaking Potala Palace out the window of the bus. I woke Bill and we both just sat there staring as the bus drove through the city. Wow... we’re in Tibet.



We found a gritty-but-pleasant hotel for five dollars each, and headed out into the city. After some research, I was prepared to be disappointed by Lhasa: I had heard that the city was completely overrun by Han Chinese people, and that it was extremely difficult to get a feel for Tibetan culture these days. It was clear almost immediately that these reports were pretty inaccurate. We walked around with the smell of Yak Butter pouring out of almost every window, thousands of Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims parading around the Johkang Temple, prayer flags draped on every building, and little Tibetan kids flying kites everywhere. Although it is going through some seriously hard times, it seems to me that Tibetan culture is very much alive. Here are some videos of the Pilgrims walking around the mile-long Bharkor circuit, and some praying in front of Johkang Temple:





Yesterday, we headed out with our friend Tahmina from the hostel in Chengdu to the Sera Monestary, on the outskirts of Lhasa. I felt completely out of my element being a tourist in a very active Tibetan Buddhist monastery. Visitors chanted and prayed in their own ways as the three of us quietly observed their rituals. One of the must-see things at the monestary is to watch the monks debate each other at 3:00 every day in a courtyard. I had pictured twenty monks sitting in a circle, discussing important issues of their faith. Instead, we were treated to an absolutely insane display of around 100 monks passionately debating issues as they relentlessly clapped their hands each time they made an important point. I am so glad my camera can shoot video, because there’s no way to properly explain this in words, as you can see:





Bill and I are both totally in love with Tibet. This is definitely my favorite place I’ve visited so far on the trip, and will be extremely hard to top. We’re planning on joining up with a couple of other backpackers in the next few days to go on a five day trek (with yaks!) between two monasteries. We’ve stayed in Lhasa for a few days to acclimatize. The air on our trek will be thin and the elevation brutal: the highest point will be a whopping 18,000 feet!!!

Ryan

Photos updated: Yangshuo, Chengdu, Lhasa