Seven Days in Tibet

Finally after much reading, speculation and anticipation, we have arrived in Tibet. Tibet is intensely different from Nepal, or anywhere else - a unique land made fascinating by impenetrable Buddhism, Chinese occupation and the collision of the two.

Our entry into Tibet was not without incident. Mary and I hooked up with Ros and Paul in the Khumbu and after two days relaxing in Kathmandu, we crossed the border overland into the Tibet Autonomous Region, as it is called by the Chinese. The day of our departure from Nepal was marked by a Bund - a general strike called by Maoist insurgents. The Maoists have been waging a bloody campaign against the Nepali government and monarchy for many years, which has left over 10,000 Nepalis dead. Although they have been promised fresh elections this year the Maoists like to remind everyone who is really in charge by declaring a Bund and bringing everything in the country to a halt. The Maoists have never targeted tourists, since the main source of income in many of their rural strongholds is trekking. However, they are brutal to government forces and their favorite treatment of a captured Nepali policeman or soldier is skinning alive.

To avoid the makeshift Bund roadblocks we left at 3am but our driver still had to weave around a barricade of burning tyres and negotiate with local activists - often just kids. Once across the border our second day on the road started at 2am in order to traverse Chinese roadworks which are slowly turning the rocky, precipitous tracks though the mountainous border into paved highway. Our Land Cruiser had from only 2am until 4am to negotiate the tracks before work closed the road again.

Namhla was our Tibetan guide, a serene but earnest chap whose own story is a microcosm of Tibet itself. At the age of two Namhla was identified as the reincarnation of a high Lama in his home village and his parents risked everything to smuggle him across to the border to study with other exiles in Dharamsala, India (see our Dharamsala post). As an adult Namhla decided not to take his monastic vows and instead return to Tibet. He was immediately arrested by the Chinese and spent 12 months in solitary confinement in a Lhasa prison.

Tibet is a vast, high-altitude desert and scratching a living is a tough job. The desolate terrain reminds me of the American West and the land is just as dusty, lifeless and unforgiving. It's amazing that anyone can live here, much less build the fabulous monasteries and their great variety of beautiful religious artifacts. Everything - from buildings to religious icons - is literally made from dust and mud.

Difficult to describe, I'll leave it to our hotel in Shigatse to leave you with a lasting impression of Tibet:

"You come, letting you leave the fine recollection in snow the area plateau of the beauty".

'nuff said.


A Tibetan pilgrim with prayer wheel outside Sakya Monastery. Older Tibetans are never without their prayer wheels which they constantly rotate, sending heavenwards the printed prayers that are contained inside.


On Paul's advice we stopped at the *other* Everest Base Camp, on the northern side of the mountain in Tibet. The mountain looks very different and much more massive from here. Rongbuk monastery is in the foreground.


Welcome to downtown Tingri, our first overnight stop in Tibet. Towns got bigger as we neared the capital, Lhasa.


Although traditional Tibetan houses are rough-and-ready affairs, constructed of dried mud bricks, they are decorated beautifully.


Unlike Indians and Nepalis, Tibetans are very shy about having their photograph taken. Chinese border guards are even more reticent.


A gratuitous picture of Mary with a puppy! We stayed in a lovely house in the hills outside Kathmandu, owned by a friend of Paul where seven boisterous puppies occupied Mary and Ros' attention.

Mani Rimdu

Mani Rimdu is the highlight of the Buddhist calendar in the Khumbu. It's a festival celebrated at 2 monasteries (Gompas) at different times of the year. The Thami Gompa is favoured because of the abbots more liberal attitude to drinking and dancing in the evening. The second day of the festival coincided with a rest day we had on the way back from Gokyo (more in another post) and so I decided to go along.

A measure of our attitude to walking after 5 weeks of trekking is that although the festival was a five and a half hour round trip with some moderate climbs, this counted as only a 'medium' in our new trekking lives. So I decided to toddle along. I couldn't persuade Mary to join me. I suspect her vague interest in Tibetan Buddhism may have been offset by the 11 hours walking the previous 'big' day. No matter. Incomprehensible ritual and religion awaited and nothing could stop me!

The best way to describe Mani Rimdu was a cross between a dance festival, music recitation and pantomime act - complete with comedy sketches. The Gompa is populated with monks and lamas and it was the lamas who danced and performed for the excited Sherpa audience. Lamas are important spiritual leaders and set apart from the other monks by heaving been identified as the reincarnation as previous Lamas, so that the current Lamas are several generations removed from the 'original' Lama, while being exactly the same person. Hope you're following. I'll try and explain a little more about Tibetan Buddhism when we reach Tibet. Sherpas were Tibetans not so long ago incidentally, hence the practice.

I sat between two old Sherpa geezers during the performances who seemed to enjoy proceedings immensely, laughing and rolling around at all the best jokes. One of them took the trouble to explain to me the meaning of each dance and ritual in great detail. I'd pass on this wisdom as a detailed description to each picture, except that he was speaking in Nepali.

I stayed far too long at the festival which meant a moonlit walk home to Mary in Namche Bazaar. A moonlit walk alone though a Nepali forest is an interesting experience, but I've still managed to avoid becoming Yeti fodder!

On the horn - Mr Lama and the jazz man himself, Mr Lama!


On the triangle - Mr Lama!


Mani Rimdu celebrates the triumph of Buddhism over Bon, the ancient Tibetan religion. Confusingly, many of the Bon gods were 'converted' to Buddhism too. Throw in some Hindu influences and you have the most confusing array of gods, buddhas, bodhisattvas, demons, guardians and lamas. So this masked figure could be anyone. Sorry I can't be more help. I'm working on it.


This is definitely a bad guy, so probably a Buddhist demon or Bon chappy.

Gokyo

Gokyo was the second destination of our extended trek in the Khumbu. The Gokyo valley lies to the east of the Khumbu valley where Everest Base Camp is located. It is incredibly picturesque and home to 6 lakes which lie at increasing altitude above 4800m.

Gokyo Ri (5300m) was a local peak which we climbed for just stupendous views of Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyo - the works. The pictures are pale imitations of the view, but the best I can do until Google invents something better.

Mary at lake 4 (such a romantic name!) with a canine trekking companion we adopted for the day.


Mary and Cairn.


A mani stone and prayer flag (upon which both are inscribed the prayer "Um Mani Padme Hum") ascending the Gokyo valley.


From left to right: Matt, Mary, Everest (no. 1), Lhotse (4) and (in the distance) Makalu (5).


Mary descending from Gokyo Ri to lake 3. Gokyo 'village' is clustered on the bank of the lake. The Ngojumba Glacier, the largst in Nepal, stretches grey and rubble-strewn along the valley floor.

Everest Base Camp

Everest Base Camp was the turn-around point for the first half of our trek in the Khumbu. This is the end point for most trekkers - typically after more than a week of walking - but it's only the starting line for climbers. Mid-May is the traditional summit season and so there were many teams at BC and many climbers were on the mountain, including some who had just summited. Sadly, and inevitably, there were also deaths, including 2 Koreans killed attempting a new route. We watched a helicopter take their bodies away.

Base Camp is nothing more than a temporary village of tents setup on the Khumbu Glacier at the foot of Everest. We hadn't expected a warm reception since climbing expeditions don't generally welcome trekkers, who can bring germs into camp and scupper the most elaborate and expensive of summit attempts. However this year a *bakery* had opened and we snaked on delicious apple pie and almond shortbread and had the chance to talk to camp inhabitants as they dropped by for a bite.

Mary enjoys apple pie at the Everest Base Camp bakery.


The view approaching Base Camp. The Khumbu Glacier covers the valley floor. The Base Camp tents are the small collection of coloured dots at the far left in the middle of the picture. The climbing route and flank of Everest begin on the right as the glacier makes a turn and ascends the mountain as the Khumbu Ice Fall.


The Khumbu Ice Fall from Base Camp. This is the first obstacle climbers must traverse on the way to the summit. There are 4 camps above the Ice Fall and a typical acclimatization plan means spending several days at each before an attempt on the summit. This means many dangerous trips through the Ice Fall between Base Camp and the high camps before a summit attempt. The safest time to move through the Ice Fall is early in the day when the seracs of ice, some as big as houses, are cold and less likely to move or fall. The glacier is in constant motion and makes groaning, cracking and splitting sounds all the time.


An old Russian-built helicopter lands at Base Camp. We learned this pilot was not popular since he flew too close to the tents and made too many circles - ruffling many tent flaps and risking avalanches.


Everest from BC to summit. The Khumbu Glacier stretches along the valley floor and Base Camp is the small collection of dots at the outside of the right hand turn the glacier makes onto the flank of Everest. The Khumbu Ice Fall can be seen as the glacier climbs the mountain from left to right. The summit is extreme top right, shrouded in cloud.

Sherpas n' Yaks n' Yetis

We're on the last leg of our extended trek in the Khumbu region of Nepal. The Khumbu is home to some of the highest mountains on earth, including Everest (number 1!), Lhotse (4), Makalu (5), Cho Oyu (6) and Manaslu (8) - of which more in another post. The local people are Sherpas, world famous for their physical ability in the mountains and an essential part of every trekking and mountaineering expedition. Just like the Gurung people we met in Annapurna, the Sherpas are an industrious and fun-loving lot who run great 'teahouse' lodges under very difficult conditions - everything here must be transported on foot by Sherpa porters or by Yak.

Yaks are the other famous inhabitants of the Khumbu and also a big part of mountain expeditions. Mary and I found an abandoned little yak calf one afternoon, only a day or two old and with no sign of its mother. Wondering what to do, we eventually decided to carry the little chap to the nearest village hopeful that yak calves were sufficiently valuable to elicit help from the locals rather than laughter at the sentimental, impractical westerners. Feeling a little like Billy Crystal in City Slickers, we eventually came across a Yak herd and shepherdess. On seeing the calf, the yaks started calling to it and fixed me with a menacing stare. The calf called back to the big, shaggy beasts, which only seemed to agitate them further. Feeling like an accused yak-napper, I attempted to reunite the calf with its kind, but the other yaks were less than happy to accommodate the little chap. Eventually the shepherdess carried the calf herself. I couldn't help think about the little guy as I lay in my sleeping bag that night, listening to the wind outside, wondering if he was OK.

Yaks can carry more than Sherpas - but only just. Sherpas smell worse than Yaks - but only just. Actually, that's an injustice to Yaks and most Sherpas. It is specifically Sherpa porter's feet that smell worse than anything dead or alive and can strip the paint from the interior of a teahouse in the time it takes to remove a pair of fake Teva sandals and warm your feet by the stove.

Fortunately, we didn't meet any Yetis.

All aboard - the yak train. In the background is the Lhotse-Nuptse ridge and our first view of the Everest summit, peeking over the top.


This little sherpani was the center of attention at our lodge in Dingboche.


Sherpa porters carry building materials on the trail to Gokyo. Spare a thought for these guys next time you're loading up at Ikea or Home Depot.


Tengboche Monastery, the largest in Nepal.