Lhasa: Lost Photos & a Monk's Pen

JAN 18. I visited many places in Lhasa. I saw the Potola Palace (BuDaLaGong), the most famous landmark of Tibet. In short, there are a lot of Buddas there and a few tombs of former Dali Lamas. I took a lot of photos. Then I went and booked a tour to the Nepal border. I visited the Jokhang Temple, the most famous Tibet temple. Again lots and lots of photos. Most of my photos were outdoor ones from the rooftops of the palace and the temple. On my way back to the hotel, a guy (named Dorgee) started talking to me. He is probably 192 cm or 6 foot 4 inches. He looked Tibetan to me but he also looked like a tourist. So I asked where are you from and he said Kanding. Is that near Lhasa I asked? No, it is in Sichuan province, near the Tibet border. He is ethnic Tibetan and cannot speak Mandarin Chinese - only Tibetan, some English, and very little Chinese. He followed me around to some other places and we exchanged cell phone numbers. He was very eager to practice English. He visited Nepal last year for 2 months and is living in Lhasa now with his uncle to study English in Lhasa.

NIGHT OF MISERY. In the evening, I felt bad again. Just felt cold and shivering but it really wasnt so cold. I had some Niu Rou Mian (bu yao la jiao) - Non spicy beef noodles. Usually I like spicy food but I thought my stomach might not like it yet. Then I went to the net bar. I planned to download the photos from the first 5 days of my travels and email the best 3 or 4 to people. So I downloaded my photos. When I was 90% done (about 2000 MB), the computer crashed. Knowing this is a net bar where computers often delete other people's files when the computers reboot, I did not restart immediately. I went and explained the situation to the net bar staff. They assured me all my pictures would still be there when I rebooted the computer. I asked a second time. Again they assured me. So I rebooted. Upon reboot, there was nothing there. All files were gone. The net bar guy said, yeah of course all the files are gone. But you can redownload them from your camera. WHAT! I said? I had moved them to clear up the space on my camera. The net bar guy did not know much about computers. They had no restore software. And they offered no help. This was a loss of almost all of my photos from the time I had left Tianjin. I was really sad. :( The guy kept saying they are gone forever - forget it. But I persevered. I bought and downloaded some restore software to try to recover them. After many frustrating hours with the software, I was finally able to recover 25% of them. So I still lost a lot of photos. I finished at the net bar at 3am. I asked the net bar if they could give me 1 or 2 hours for free because their computer had crashed, their software had deleted the files, and they had no recovery software - I had to do everything myself. They refused and made me pay the whole amount. So I paid and left. No, actually I didn't leave. It seems the boss of the net bar had locked the door at midnight and had gone home. So we were all locked inside the net bar. This was ok to the other customers -- boys who were playing computer games all night. The guy said no problem. You can just sit here until the boss shows up at 9am. WHAT? I told the guy to call the boss and let me out of the net bar. Around 4am a key appeared and I was able to leave. I had planned to take a bus to visit a monastary the next morning at 630am. I knew that if I went to my bed I would sleep until noon. So I went to the hotel lobby and tried to do some work (trip planning, etc) and fell asleep in a chair. It was ok though. I woke up at 625. I checked my bag at the desk, ran down the street and...

JAN 19. ...made the bus. My night of misery was over. I slept on the bus for the 1.5 hour trip (45 km) to Gandan Monastary - seat of the Dali Lamas. It is beautifully located at the top of a mountain. In total, the bus ride (round trip) and admission to the monastary cost me $2.50 (20Y). Cheap is good. And the monastary and the views from the top of the mountain were amazing. I had a good time. An old monk in one of the temples there asked me to give him a pen. I thought he meant to use and then he would give it back to me. I gave him one that said "JH Churchill Funeral Home - Murray KY". When he got it he said "Thanks" and put it in his pocket! So an 80 year old monk at Gandan Monastary in Tibet is now using a JH Churchill Funeral Home pen! On the way back, I made several videos of people on the bus with my camera. They all loved it. Small children, old men, young women, etc. all posed in the videos. It was fun. Yes, everyone on the bus was Han Chinese or Tibetan except me. And nobody spoke English. One girl I met (she was probably 10) spoke excellent Chinese. Of course, I am not a good judge of Chinese, but I could understand so much of what she said. She said her family is from Ge-er-mu (Golmud) in Qinghai. After I got back yesterday afternoon, I met Dorgee again. He showed me around some places in Lhasa. Last night, I found that two new guys wanted to travel into western Tibet with us. One was an American and was one was Canadian. Both are studying Chinese at Capital Normal University in Beijing. The Canadian was realy sick and so we decided to postpone the trip one day to give him time to recover. So now I will have one additional day in Lhasa. Aghh! I'm ready to leave Lhasa already. I usually like to spend one day in a city. Jan 20 will be my fourth day... Ok, one more day in Lhasa...

Jan 20. I left around 9am and hurried over to Jokhang Temple. I had been there before, but I had lost some of the photos I had taken there. Plus, one of the guys staying in the dormitory with me at the Yak Hotel told me that if you go before 10am, you can get in for free by following the pilgrims into the temple. Sure enough, at 9am (the sun rises at 8:40), I was able to get in for free. I was able to take many good photos so I was happy. Then I stopped by my favorite Lhasa icecream vendor (whom i visited many times while there) and got some icecream for 0.5Y ($0.06). Next I decided to visit three monastaries near Lhasa - Dreprung, Nechung, and Sera. I took a minibus out of town to Dreprung and they told me to get out on the highway. From there, it was a 40 minute walk up the mountain to the monastary. Nice walk - but tiring at altitude. Right outside the monastary i ate lunch - a bowl of noodles for 1 kuai ($0.12). The monastary was interesting - and big! It was once the biggest monastary in the world. After seeing most of it, I walked downhill to Nechung monastary. Along the way I passed a man and woman carrying large bags on their back. The man looked at me in a strange way and in a girl's voice said "Hello money." This is a common things that beggar children in Lhasa say to foreigners to beg for money. However, he seemed really strange. I don't like to give money to people just because the beg. However, one thing i did start doing - and it seems to be beneficial to all - is to not eat all of my food at meals. Usually we just eat because the food is there - not because our body really needs every bite of food. I then ask the restaurant to give it to me in a to go box (dao bao). The first beggar to ask me nicely (some are really aggressive and annoying) gets to finish my food. I've tried this 4 times and each time the beggar began devouring the food before I walked away. I lose weight (or at least don't gain it - and the beggar is not so hungry). It seems to be a win-win situation. Anyway, I avoided this strange guy on the mountain - even running to get away from him. He was scary even though there was a woman (wife?) with him. Next I visited Nechung monastary and it was interesting. Tons of beggars there - mostly children. Images of dead/bleeding people inside. Really wierd for a Buddhist monstary. Afterwards, I took a bus into town and then another bus out to Sera. Sera is only 4 km north of central Lhasa. Sera was interesting because at 3:30 pm everyday (when i was there) the monks debate each other in the courtyard. The monks sit in groups and sort of yell at each other and slap each others hands. This is done in a friendly way - none of them are mad at each other. It even almost seemed like a show for tourists - they allow photos and video. After watching for a while, I climbed halfway up the moutnain behind Sera and got photos of the monastary and the Potola Palace in the distance. Upon arriving back at the hotel that evening, I found out that the Canadian student who was to go with us across Tibet was extremely sick and was about to fly back to Beijing to go to the hospital.

Speaking of Canadians...(Two days previously I met a 50-year old Canadian who talked to me about travelling to Everest. He used to teach on a small island in Lake Huron. About 4.5 years ago, he left Canada on his bike and biked from Canada - US - Mexico - Latin America --- all the way to Argentina. Then he and his bike flew (the only time he's flow on a plane in the last 4.5 years) to Cape Town, South Africa. From there he biked north through Africa and into Europe. From Europe he biked to Moscow, across the Stans (Khazakstan, Kyrgizstan, Pakistan, etc. to India. From there he hoped to bike into Nepal and then into China (via Tibet) and then to Kunming, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, and on to Australia. However there was a problem - when he got to the India/Nepal border, Nepal would not let him enter on his bike. So he biked back across India/Pakistan/Kyrgizstan and entered China at Kashgar on October 26, 2005. He then biked south from Xinjiang into Tibet.)

Anyway, I found that the Canadian was out but that the 27 year old Isreali guy (Or Russo) and the 21 year old American student (Chris Fitch) had each found another person to go with us. Or had found a 19 year old Australian (Kieren) and Chris had found a 26 year old Japanese guy (Yuya M.). Chris previously lived in Japan for 1.5 years and is fluent in Japanese. The problem is that our SUV (Toyota Landcrusier) was supposed to leave the next day and it could only hold 4 people and the driver. We found another group leaving the next day and then one of the 5 in our group had to decide to go with the other car (2 british guys). Our car was going to the Nepal border (one way from Lhasa) whereas the other car was going from Lhasa to base camp and then back to Lhasa. Since Or and I both planed to leave China and go to Nepal, we had to stay with our vehicle. So the choice was among the other 3. All 3 wanted to go with us and not the others. Finally the Australian conceded and went with the other 2. So our group was set - me, Or, Chris, and Yuya. Or and I went with Kieren to the other hotel to inform the two Britisth guys that he would be riding with them. The two British guys were wearing matching colors (blue) and previously Chris had commented that they were gay. When we got to their room, they were still wearing the matching clothes. Kieren told them - I'm going with you guys tomorrow. But you are normal people right? Of course the two British guys said yes we are normal. Who is going to say no we are really wierd? By the time we decided what was going on it was about 11pm. We are leaving Lhasa tomorrow morning at 8. Might not have Internet access again for several days.

Tonight, three Chinese students moved into the dormitory of the Yak hotel where I was staying. They were from Shanghai. I noticed the guy had some cuts on his lip but didn't think anything about it. Later I asked them if they had taken the bus from Golmud or flew in. The boy said they had taken the bus - one day after I had (2pm on Jan 17). Around 3am, the driver of the bus had fallen asleep and hit a truck which was parked on the side of the road. The truck was damaged but the driver was ok. However, the Chinese boy said the 3 of them were the only ones on the bus not severely injured. His lip was cut and the girl's leg had a bandage on it. He said the 4 people sitting across from them (an aisle in between) all died. So it seems the bus is not always so safe. He told the story very calmly, as if it wasn't a big deal! Glad I didn't take the bus!

In case you are wondering, today I have had no stomach pains and no apparent altitude sickness. I was running around on the mountain today where the monastary was and had no problems. Felt like I was almost back down at sea level like in Tianjin or Murray. So no health issues. I feel great. Upset about losing a lot of photos, but I realize photos are not the most important thing in the world.