Lhasa to Kathmandu: Frozen Every Night

Greetings from Kathmandu! Happy Chinese New Year! Chun Jie Kuai Le! Today (January 25) I travelled from Tibet to Kathmandu, capital of Nepal.

Jan 21. A little about our group - Chris likes to use the F word for every third word he says. He is very extraverted guy who likes to be the center of attention. He is nice and spoke to Yuya a lot in japanese. Chris spoke Chinese very well too - he's studied it for 2 years (including currently intensive training in Beijing). Yuya had been in China 1 month - his english is poor but understandable. He has a large expensive camera and gets paid US $30-50 for every set of photos he takes. Very friendly guy, but he does like to smoke a lot - in the car, in the hotel room, etc. Finally, Or is a 27 year old Isreali. He joined the Isreali army at age 18 and served for 9 years. During that time he visited many countries. He says he's been to more than 100 countries! For part of that time, he was stationed in the US because the Isreali army did joint exercises with the US army. He's lived in Delaware and Idaho among other places in the US. He left the army about a year ago. Since September he's been travelling the world - Cancun, Wales, China, etc. He entered China at the beginning of November and will stay 3 months - until he leaves Tibet for Nepal. He has a flight in May from Bangkok back to Israel. He will begin his undergraduate degree as a 28 year old freshman in September. He is a very caring, thoughtful, intelligent person. He does describe himself as a left-wing socialist though.

We left at 8am and headed out for Yamdrok Lake. It was a beautiful lake with a big snow capped mountain behind it. Next we went to a small town to eat lunch. Everything on the menu was expensive. I picked out a dish for 6 kuai but believed it to be rice because the last character was mi (rice). I also knew the character before it sheng (born/life) but did not know what it had to do with food. Or decided to get the same thing as me. Chris and Yuya had dumplings (jiaozi) and their food looked good. Then we received our dish -- peanuts. That's all it was - a plate full of peanuts. We had a good laugh and then ordered a bowl of rice to go with our 6 kuai peanuts. We mixed the peanuts, rice, la jiao (spicy pepper sauce) together and had an interesting dish. Not bad. However, we could not finish - we were both sick of peanuts after eating 1/2 to 3/4 of them. Or then had some reaction - his nose started bleeding badly. He was ok, but a lot of blood came out of his nose. I was ok - no problem. Back in the landcruiser... We arrived in Gyantse in early afternoon and chose a hotel - the Wutze Hotel. We got dorm beds for 20Y each. However there was no running water or heat. It did have electricity at least - something I would later learn that not all Tibet hotels have!

After checking into our hotel, we went out to the Dzong (or city fortress). As we walked down the city streets, we saw no other foreigners. Our hotel had no other guests. It seems we were the only 4 outsiders in this city today. When we reached the Dzong, it was locked up but a group of women and a man ran across the street with a key to let us enter. They unlocked the Dzong, charged us 10 kuai a person, and showed us around a little bit. There were a lot of stairs -- the fortress is on top of a hill in the middle of the city. Then they left and let us roam the fortress by ourselves. It was really windy! We climbed to the top and the wind was very strong there - almost impossible to climb down the stairs. Then we started our descent to leave the dzong. As we were exiting, one of the women that had been with us earlier came out of the ticket office building and waved us in. We went inside. The 4 women and the man were all inside sitting on couches and eating food. They shared some tradititional Tibet food with us - almost identical to the food I ate in Mongolia. Tibet really does have much in common with Mongolia. The drink - Suk de cai (in Mongolian) and Yak butter milk tea (Tibet) tasted the same. The food - dried yak milk treats were the same as what they served guests in Mongolia. Two things were different -- one of the women had a big bottle of Pepsi and shared it with everyone. (Pepsi seems to have a huge market share advantage on Coke in Tibet - I rarely saw Coke available -- almost always Pepsi.) The second thing is that one of the women had a plastic bag with a bone sticing out. She pulled out the bone and it was a raw/uncooked leg of lamb - still with fur on it. She then took a knife and cut off several small pieces and gave it to everyone to eat. The Tibetans all ate it. Chris and Yuya ate it. Or and I looked at each other and then realized there was a lot of room in our pockets! But we reailzed they were staring at us and that they were watching us and kept telling us to eat. I ate a litte - but only part that seemed dried nd tough - not the wet juicy fatty parts. After eating a small bit, the rest found its way to my pocket. Of the 4 Tibetan women, the youngest was 21. She kept joking that she would marry me. An old 40 year old woman then joked she would marry Chris (who is 21). We think they were joking but then we were never quite sure. Who knows, maybe they were serious! :-) We stayed and ate Tibetan snacks and drank yak butter milk tea with them for 1.5 hours. Then we left and went back to the hotel and had dinner in a Muslim (Qingzhen) restaurant. Good food but a little pricey. It seems every place in Tibet outside Lhasa where there is a lot of competition has high prices. Then we went back to the hotel and tried to sleepin our cold beds. There was no toilet in the rooms - it was outside across a courtyard. And it was cold at night. But I was still able to sleep.

Jan 22. We left Gyantse in the morning and went to Shigatse (known as Rikaze in Mandarin Chinese based on sound). We did not want to pay to go into the monastary (it was free for Tibetans), so we walked around the pilgrim path around the outside of the monastary and then walked over to the Dzong (fortress). The Dzong was initially destroyed in the 18th century, but was completely destroyed during the 1950s. There is really little to see. Actually, it was under construction - lots of scaffolding in place - so maybe there are plans to rebuild it. The other guys left, but I walked around the construction zone to get a better view of it. After getting up to the top of the Dzong, a construction worker saw me and told me I had to leave (or at least that is my guess). I walked back and met the other guys. Chris was on the toilet with stomach problems. He guesses it was from the raw lamb meat from Gyantse. I ended up going into the monastary to take some photos and look around, the other guys didn't want to pay.

We left Shigatse on our way to a small town called Sakya - home of a monastary. We stopped for lunch in a small city between the two, and this time we ordered jiaozi (dumplings) and chow mian (fried noodles) - no hua sheng mi (peanuts). Chris was not feeling well - we all wondered who would be next! We found that most of the friendship highway (the road from Lhasa to the Nepal border) is not paved -- mostly dirt and gravel. Not much of a "highway" but we were able to go 50-80 km/hour (30-50 mi/hr) on it - so not bad. When we reached Sakya, our driver (a 50 year old Tibetan named Kika who spoke Tibetan, Chinese, and only a few words of English) took us to the Sakya hotel. It was the only building that resembled a hotel. We went inside and the man told us 35 kuai per person. However, again there is no heat and no running water! We argued for 20 and he would not budge. So we went outside and Yuya and I found another "hotel" -- it was a run down poor looking place. They offered 25 kuai per person. The room was a little dirty but not too bad. I told the man - no, we want 30 kuai for all 4 people. He went and asked his boss and his boss said ok. So that gives you some idea - they were willing to rent a room with 5 beds to 4 people for 30 kuai ($3.75). However, Or had been able to negotiate the other hotel down to 25 kuai a person by the time I got back. Chris was sick and wanted a nicer looking hotel than the cheap dirty one. I came into the hotel and was able to get them down to 20 Y each - the same as I paid in Lhasa and the same as we paid in Gyantse.

Chris decided to lay down and get rest because he felt sick. The 3 of us (Yuya, Or, and I) went out to look at the city. There are actually 2 monastaries in Sakya - one north of the river that was destroyed and lays in ruins and one south of the river (in the village) where you must pay 45 kuai to enter. We walked around and took lots of photos. The village kids came up to us and posed for photos and then asked for money. We gave them 17 fen ($0.02) in coins and they were happy. One thing to note about Tibet - nobody accepts Chinese coins here as money. So all of our 1 kuai, wu mao, 1 jiao, etc coins were not usable. After coming down off the mountain we went checked on Chris and then the 3 of us asked the hotel manager where to eat. He took us to the Dezin Family Restaurant - a small room with a stove in the middle. Around wooden pieces of furniture (used as tables) were couches. All the local Tibetan people stared at us. Yuya did not say much during the meal, but Or and I talked about US and Isreali politics. Or described Isreali left-wingers (peace at all cost) versus right-wing (fight the Palestinian terrorists and punish them for what they have done). Also described the religious makeup of Isreal, saying about 65% of the population is not religious - only Jewish by religious culture (people observe customs but are not religious) or simply by heritage. Also about race in Israel - 45% are white, 45% brown/MiddleEastern (but these two groups intermarry and act as one), and then about 5% are black (mostly Jews from ethiopia). He also said of the 6 million people in Israel - 5 million of Isreali citizens are Jews and 1 million of Isreali citizens are Muslim. The biggest conflict Israel has is with the Palestinian Muslims who live in the West Bank. Anyway, after supper we went back to the hotel. The hotel decided to have a karaoke party in the room near us so there was loud music playing late at night. And it was cold. And the bathrooms smelled because the hotel has no running water in the winter. (And this is by far the nicest hotel in
Sakya).

Jan 23 The next morning we decided to leave at 11:30 in order to let Chris rest and also so we could see the monastary. The monastary was not very big but did have some interesting things - but mostly just Buddhas. Our nickname for Tibet - A land without heat and water but full of mountains and Buddhas. Another way to describe Tibet - Africa meets the North Pole. Actually, during the day time the temperature was warm enough to walk outside in a jacket and feel comfortable. The problem was at night when lows were usually close to -10C (14F) and there was no heat in the hotels. We left at 1130 and ate lunch in Lhatse. All four of us felt fine now. After lunch, we saw where a truck had driven off a cliff and smashed on the ground below. It was near a bend on the mountain road so maybe it met a car and veered to far over and went over the side. There were probably more than 100 Tibetans on the mountain side picking up all the things that had fallen off the truck.

Around 4 pm we arrived in Shekar (Shigar) also known as New Tingri. The first hotel we went inside we met the 2 british guys (still wearing blue) and the Australian guy named Kieren. They had not seen as much as we had seen along the way and had gone to Everest that day. (We would go the next day). However that hotel was cold and expensive so we walked down the street and found another one. That one was cheaper 20Y but had no water, heat or electricity. Actually none of the hotels in that town had electricity! The one we chose had a generator which ran from 7-1130pm so we had electricity for 4.5 hours at night. Also, our hotel did have electric blankets - but they were not very powerful and did not work after 1130pm. We went back to the first hotel - which had a warm restaurant and met another group of people who had come from Lhasa headed to Everest the next day. It was 2 guys and 2 girls. One of the guys was 35 and kept talking about how he is in the Her Royal Majesty's Navy in Australia and that he is a navigator. Sort of annoying. The other guy seemed friendly but we aren't really sure. He was from somewhere in the UK and is teaching english in China but we could only understand 1 out of every 5 words he said. Strong accent and used strange/different words than we were familiar with. Went to bed and enjoyed the electric blanket until 11:30.

Jan 24 We left at 8am to go to Everest. An SUV behind us carried "the Navigator" and his friends. Chris was really annoyed by him and kept makeing jokes about "the navigator." After 3 hours of winding up and around and down mountains, we made it to Everest (Quomolonga in Tibetan) base camp - the start of expeditions to climb Everest and the point up to which you can go by car. After base camp, you hike up to camp 1 then camp 2, etc. The summit of Everest is 8844m (about 29,000 ft). Base camp is at 5,200m (or about 17,000 ft). In comparison, the top of Pikes Peak is 14,000ft. So it climbers must hike an additional 3644 meters up the mountain. It was very cold and windy but almost no clouds in the perfectly blue sky. Very exciting to be looking at the tallest point on earth. The Canadian biker had told me about a new sign which is a good place to take a photo - and so we walked over there (about 5-10 min walk). It was cold and windy! However, I took off my coat and hat to take the photo (see attached photo). We walked back to the Landcruiser and our driver. When we got back, "the Navigator's" landcruiser pulled up. We told them about the sign, but they just took a photo from there and left in less than 2 minutes at Everest. We probably stayed close to 30 minutes. Well, there were a lot of navigator jokes in our car after that. We stopped in a small town between Everest and the Friendship highway and then guess who joined us - the navigator and his 3 friends. Actually, I don't think the guy is so bad. But Chris almost spit his food out when the Navigator started saying "one time i was navigating..."

After lunch, we drove to Tingri to spend the night. Tingri had electricity all the time, but no outlets to charge batteries/cell phones, etc. That probably didn't matter a lot about cellphones - because most of the time in Tibet there were no cell phone towers. The next day, Or and I would go to the border of China and Nepal but Yuya and Chris would take the bus back to Lhasa. Chris inquired about the bus and the hotel told us there was no bus! So it looked like they would have to hitchhike (common in Tibet because there is little public transportation). But then another guy in the hotel said there was a bus but it does not come regularly. Or and I decided to leave the hotel at 7am so we could get to the Nepal border early enough to catch a bus to Kathmandu.

Jan 25. This morning we awoke around 630am and it was cold! Probably the coldest we had encountered in Tibet. It was difficult to get out of bed. We had a room with 5 beds in it for 20y each (which is what I paid for all 8 nights I stayed in Tibet). None of the hotels I stayed at (including Lhasa) had heat. Only the Lhasa hotel had running water and hot showers. The Tingri hotel had a shower - but it was only cold water (and outside) and you had to pay to take one. So we passed up on that. The driver tried to start the landcruiser, but it would not start. After working on it (using a burning torch to try to unfreeze the gas lines) for 45 minutes, he got it started. We said goodbye to Chris and Yuya who were planning to take the bus later that day. Poor Chris - this was his plan - Jan 25 take bus from Tingri (near Everest) to Lhasa. Jan 26 take bus from Lhasa to Golmud. Jan 27-29 take train from Golmud (Ge-er-mu) to Jinan where his friend lives. Three problems - 1 the money in his Bank of China account in Beijing was unaccessible so he had little money left - 2 he had to travel directly from one end of China to the other - and 3 he was travelling during Chinese New Year which makes it difficult to travel. I have not heard from him, but I did get an email from Yuya saying they reached Lhasa on January 25th.

Or and I left the hotel around 745am and got to the border around 1230pm China time (1015 am Nepal time). That's right - Nepal is 2:15 behind China. Why the :15? Because India is 2:30 behind China and Nepal wants to show they are different from India! Between Tingri and the border we passed some great views of snow covered mountains (the Himalayas). At the Nepal border we got Nepal visas on the spot by filling out a form and paying US $30 (240 Y). Interestingly, my cell phone had connection from a tower in China when I was just over the border but lost power as soon as we left. Instead of taking a 9 hour bus for 150 rupees (1 nepal rupee = 9 chinese yuan = 70 USD), Or prefered to take a taxi that would take only 3 hours and cost 750 rupees or about US$10. So that is what we did. Along the way we passed the world's tallest bungy jump - from a bridge above a canyon/river. We did not do that. We arrived in Kathmandu around 4pm. Our top choice - Kathmandu Guest House in Kathmandu's Thamel (do not pronounce the h) district had no cheap rooms available. So we went next door and rented a room at the Hotel Star for 200 rupees per night (100 rupees each which is 11 kuai or $1.4 per person). Warm room with 2 beds and private shower/bath with warm water. Not the nicest room but it is cheap. Nepal is poor like other Asian countries but much more developed than Tibet. Much do to the elevation. Lhasa is at 3700m, Base Camp 5200m, Shigar 4500m. From Tingri to the border and on to Kathmandu it was mostly downhill. Kathmandu's elevation is 1300m. The lower elevation makes it warmer and easier to breathe (more oxygen in the air). Thamel district in Kathmandu has a target market of Western tourists. Lots of businesses offering pizza, hamburgers, ice cream, internet cafe, etc. Seems like Gatlinburg or Branson meets Chinatown or Las Vegas meets Europe. Lots of touristy businesses crammed together with flashing lights in little tiny alleys. In Tibet I probably saw a total of 15 foreigners in 8 days. Right now I see about 10 foreigners in the Thamel net bar where I am typing this!