Chinese guards...where is the Dalai Lama?

Ann and I are sitting in a Lhasa Restaurant eating Tibetan and Nepalese food. The music in the background is Indian or Nepalese. I can tell by the squeely voice of the woman. I feel much better in this region, much better than I did in China. And this is a Chinese restaurant? The Chinese, in their North Face parkas with their expensive Nikon cameras, look as foreign as Ann and me. This is the land of Buddhism and the Dalai Lama. He would in fact reside just up the road from where Ann and I now sit, at the Potala Palace. They have named this road Beijing Dong Lu. East Beijing Road. How fucking tacky...

Tibetan Buddhism is a religion in exile, as I do not think the Chinese guards that surround this city would much appreciate if the Dalai Lama came back to make his rightful claim to the throne. Might makes right, and the Chinese military has taken over this entire city. I think the Dalai Lama is in France right now, and he resides in India and has done so since the Chinese government claimed this entire area in 1959 with the PLA under Mao Zedong. Buddhism is so present here, however, and this all started in India but then spread past the Himalayan mountains and into Tibet and then China.

The beauty on this side of the country is striking, as I have said. I am sad for the Tibetan identity. I have not talked to any Chinese who have experienced Tibet; I have only spoken with ignorant ones who believe this land is China's --and has forever been. But I don't know Tibet either. I have only been here for one day, and I have all these high-minded Western notions mainly based on aesthetics and ideas of freedom I gained in the West.

On another note, I am a little sick from the drastic change in altitude and temperature. I'm used to 90 degree heat about 1000 feel above sea-level. Now I am cold and high. Everything is so different from what I am used to, and I like it.

I want to find some good Tibetan music and also new shoes, postcards, and mini-souvenirs for myself and my friends in the states. 

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway

I am on the most breath-taking train ride in the world. I am on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, and the scenery is absolutely spellbinding. No where in China would I imagine such an open area, free of pollution, enterprises & peddling people. This part of the country is untouched - the Southern Region of Qinghai on into Tibet. If Lhasa is touristy, dirty & dismal, only China is to blame. If Lhasa reeks of China, at least I will have had the experience of this beauty. I am in awe of this beauty. Google the pictures and no justice is given.

I am traveling with 4 people all together. Ann and I met the other 2 in Chengdu, at the Youth Hostel. The 4 of us signed up for the Lhasa "tour-permit" at the cheaper price of 1000 yuan, or 250 each. We all got our permits, but no one has asked to see them yet. I do not see anyone who would care. Foreigners seem to be no problem on this train. I have only seen one other foreign-looking person.

The scenery really is beautiful, and I do not believe even American can offer such beauty. This train-ride is 48 hours if you can believe it, and one of the chief concerns of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is altitude sickness. Oh, and minorities (non Hanzu) seem to be a majority on this train. I am seem Muslims, dark-skinned folk and people with different styles from the Han. Maybe the Han are in the sleepers? Ann and I paid for sleepers, but we are trading in-and-out with Kathy and Jason (the other 2 people we met at the hostel; they are British but their parents are Hong-Kong born). Kathy and Jason did not get as lucky...they had to suffer a long night in the the hard-seater section of the train. Poor Kathy has AMS and has already thrown up a few times. She and Jason just left to nap in our beds. Ann and I have a whole seating section to ourselves right now. We are filling out health cards saying we can adept to the 3000-meter altitude. I guess we can!

I am writing and trying to make my sentences go someplace exciting! This train moves slow, but at least the blue skies and green hills make up for it, and maybe it is the vastness that makes the train feel so slow-moving. In fact, there are faster trains than this one, I believe.

When I walked by a foreign man, he said, "Hello, very much!" Another man I walked past said, "Thank you!" when I asked to get by. Ann is studying Tibetean right now. What is the point? Nothing will ever be comunicated during this short trip besides things the listened already knows, Hello, Goodbye, Sorry, thank you.

I thougth I knew how to say, "Do you speak English" in Tibetean, but I already forgot. Oh well! I wrote a bunch of postcards - nearly the whole book, but I have no addresses. I have no way to get some of these addresses anyway, unless I have them written done in Suining someplace.

The train ride must be 5x longer than it should be. We are making a horse-shoe. Where is the logic?

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is a wonder of the world with startling views, high altitudes, and crystal clear views to free your wandering mind. I see snow-covered mountain peeks, blue American-like skies, winding streams of blue, and open plains of green and white. How I detest the Han as we slowly approach Tibet.

It was snowing when I woke up. We are now embarking upon the highest point of the journey, over 5000 meters high! I feel swollen and sore. The outside beauty is so striking, and that is because the beauty lasts and lasts. A beautiful nature that lasts for 40 hours. Earlier we rode past the prettiest lake I have ever seen - the lake with the highest altitude in the entire world. The water was this crystal blue-green-turquoise.

"Dear Passengers..."

"Dear Passengers..."

"Dear Passengers, you will never forget your journey on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The opening of the railway on July 1, 2006 is a date we will remember forever."

"Dear Passengers..." Ann and I had to laugh at the stupid announcements that kept coming on, spoken by a Chinese man with a British accent.

I hope something incredible happens. Not an iPod explosion (apparently that has happened, and Ann's iPod does not work in these high altitudes. Mine is smaller though.) No, but something incredible like the lyrics of my John Lennon album that I play...I just took a picture of myself to see if my ears are really bronze, as Ann said they are. How strange...

Traveling in Tibet

Notes from my diary:

Sichuan Route to Tibet

1) Pass the Chola Mountain

2) Somehow make it into Batang - this is the closest city open to foreigners

note: In Chengdu, for 720 yuan, you can get a sleeper. The permit for a foreigner entering Tibet is 400 yuan. The permit must be obtained through an agent

3) The Southern Route to Tibet - Litang

Chongqing to Lasa is a 2nd option.

Now, Ann and I have made it to the Youth Hostel in Chengdu, Sichuan. It's our 2nd night here. Everything is fine; nothing marvelous, but I am realizing the beauty of this countryside, and everywhere really, and especially where one would least expect it. You need not to go Golmud or far-off to find it. By the way, Ann Swanson is my friend from VCU whom I met when studying abroad in China at Fudan University in Shanghai my senior year. We were roommates, and we instantly got along (we discovered she is only 1 day older than I am, and that our birthdays were coming up the following week - July 3 & 4 - and the rest is history! She had already taken Chinese at VCU, and I felt constantly challenged by her and how well she could communicate with the locals). In 2007, after Ann and I had done one semester of Chinese thru VCU in Beijing, she took off for Tibet on her own; I on the other hand, spent my summer in Thailand. I'm lucky I was able to convince her to come to Suining, Sichuan with me to teach English at my school, Sichuan Vocational and Technical College.

Ann and I are now trying to figure out what to do when arrive in Tibet's capital, Lasa. We will be leaving from dirty Chongqing, Sichuan on Monday, August 17, and we will be taking a dirty, crowded train for 47.5 hours! Can you imagine being on a train for 2 days? Mired in uncertainty, I still feel a rush of excitement knowing we will undertake such an adventure.

Chengdu did not have tickets available for our trip to Tibet, and so we will have to take a train ride to Chongqing and depart from there. (Chongqing, China, the biggest city you have never heard of).

Actually, Ann and I have had to go through hoops just to determine our point of departure for Tibet. In Suining, we could have bought the Chongqing ---> Lasa ticket, a sleeper at that, but we feared we may need the permit. What we actually should have done is booked everything through here - our Youth Hostel, but we - being the experienced China-travelers that we are - decided we could cut the middle man, whom we assumed to be ripping us off left and right.

Well, we were wrong, and when it comes down to it, we are just westerners, stuck abiding the rules and regulations towards foreigners by the Government. Unfortunately, right now it is nearly impossible for us to get into Tibet without completely selling out - money for a guide and permit are needed. Some say neither of these things really exists. Some say that the money merely pays off the feds. Whatever it is - we abide. I'm no activist, although I feel more and more inclined to support the Tibetan government openly. FREE TIBET. Or at least, China, please go easy on the nationalization.

-----------------------------

Right now, I feel very cool and relaxed, which is near-impossible in one of the 4 furnaces of China. I am drinking vodka-sprite on the roof of our hostel, and it's night-time, not noisy, and everything is 平安。 Being here is great, but I do not feel like it is making me a "better person," the way my friend Amy had said that it would. I feel like my Chinese is good, and I like that I have prospects. I don't like that I am still alone in this world with no boyfriend. I don't need that right now, but I do not think it is possible to go through life without this. I invited him to China; does that not show that I care??

In 2 days, Ann and I depart for Chongqing, and from there, we leave for Tibet.

more on that later

Train Rides in China

Ann and I are on a train from Chengdu to Chongqing. It's raining. In the rain, a city is gross. The rain spreads the dirt and grime into a mixed mess like an oil painting. We are passing through the countryside and vast fields right now. The train is very crowded. People are standing just above us and people sitting on the ground. Not everyone has a seat, but I guess this does not violate any safety regulations. Ann and I do have seats, but we have no where to put our travel sacks. People are staring at us. We are studying Chinese and listening to our iPods. An attendant is standing in the middle of an aisle demonstrating a purple light you can shine over your Mao money. The light detects whether the bills are counterfeit or not. I think the light would be handy to have, as I have encountered fake money before. At that time, I was in Shanghai and my cab driver gave me a fake 20 note. I tried twice to spend it, once at a convenience store and once at a Wal-Mart. I failed both times, and I played dumb both times. "This bill is fake?? shi jia de ma?!"Fool me once...

 The countryside is pretty, but I would not want to live there. The people who live there are farmers, but unlike American farmers, they do not drive around in SUVs built Ford tough. These people plow fields and then sell their rice or produce in the markets. I am listening to music that reminds me of this past summer in Bristol. We just rode past a small town with the dirtiest stream I have ever seen. Brown much as a source of H2O.

Planning a trip to Tibet

Today, Ann and I ran into one of my students at the train station. Rainbow informed us of something known as a "Panda Card," available to non-natives of Sichuan province. Being from the United States and not even from China, Ann and I are permitted to access the Panda Cards. I am not even sure what purpose they serve?

Ann and I took an absurdly-long bus ride to a huge government building, where we had our cards activated by giving away our passport numbers. Bye-bye...Once we held the cards in our hands, we then understood we could enter certain places that normally cost money for free. Turns out we could have actually could have applied for the cards at our hostel and saved ourself the hour trek to the government building. At the time, we just did not trust anyone. I guess we assume the government to always be looking fora  way to get money out of clueless waiguo ren. Ann and I say "Nope, not this time," but we still end up forking over the Ca$h Money. We have not figured out a way to cheat the system.

Ann is laying down in the next room. I am still writing outside in my diary. Scratch what I said about a "cool night" in my previous post. I am starting to sweat, even though it is night-time. At times, I catch a breeze or a faint bit of air waft toward me from the fan from the next room.

Thinking about what it will be like in Tibet and if it will be anything like China...will it be as bustling? Will there be people all over the place? Dirty, mangy cities around the world - places like Mumbai, Deli and all the endless streams of people. I think I would get robbed in certain places and should never go there alone. The over-crowded buses, the bike lanes, the subways, the motorcycles, the long lines...I can't imagine a train leaving from one huge city for another huge city once every 20 minutes, but that is what is happening. How can I city like that breathe? Chengdu and Chongqing are huge cities, but are not quite on the scale of some cities I have read about in India. Each train is always full. The commotion goes on, and no one seems to even mind it! Can these cities even support us? You just suck up all the smog and pollution as you go about your day...you get a smoker's high just breathing. You develop breathers' cough. I do not like this. The West does not have this problem, but what if the environment continues to get worse? Chengdu is so polluted and dirty - being on the bus today and moving ever-so-slowly to our destination, I felt ever-so small and insignificant. I had scary thoughts about the world coming to an end.

 Now it is finally quiet, and I can finally breathe again. I am no longer on that bus. I still feel the city, though. It's everything I do not want. I stopped exercising. I'd like a more petite frame, but I might want a boyfriend even more. He may be right though; I am the decider. If I want to be with someone, then I would. I was not supposed to be the single girl, but suddenly that has happened. I graduated from college and I flee the country. I undid a lot of what I had had.

I forget that I had been praying to God.