Tibet: Travels to the Roof of the World

Tibet. The very name conjures so much: mystery, bleakness, nobility, fiction, conflict and natural beauty. We have just completed an eight-day trip to Tibet during the Chinese National Day “golden” holiday week. I’m torn between writing a travelogue and writing about impressions of the land and people, and think I’ll do a bit of both because they can’t be separated.

We arrived in Lhasa and stayed the first three nights at a charming boutique hotel called the House of Shambala in the old town near the Jokhang temple. Now, be warned, we found this hotel of about 10 rooms comfortable and charming, but it is built in traditional (though modern) Tibetan-style with four levels using staircases. Rooms have showers and toilet amenities, but due to old Lhasa plumbing, they request that toilet paper NOT be flushed down the toilet. A very good (yet small) restaurant is on the 3rd floor, with an open 4th floor roof deck for drinks and/or food during warmer weather and with a lovely view of the Potala Palace and Jokhang temple in the distance. Because we were somewhat winded the first day from altitude adjustment, it was convenient to eat in the hotel rather than go out. (Despite taking altitude sickness pills, some of us still suffered from headaches the first day and later, again, at Mt. Everest base camp. I actually got a “hit” of oxygen each time and that helped me immeasurably to adjust to the thinner air!) (Photo: Inner courtyard of House of Shambala)

There are must-sees in Lhasa: the centuries’ old Potala Palace, of course; Jokhang Temple and the surrounding Barkhor square & circuit, where pilgrims prostrate themselves in prayer and/or circumambulate the temple while spinning prayer wheels and uttering prayers; and the Drepung and the Sera monasteries. Creepily, what look like young Chinese army recruits periodically march through the old town in groups of 6-8 holding shields and either bagged or open rifles. Upon rooftops near the Jokhang Temple, overlooking the reconstruction of shops burned in the March conflicts, there are one or two police keeping watch and the central square always has a police table set up. Some entries to the old town from Beijing East Road are guarded by at least two army guys in green, wearing helmets and armed with shields and rifles. (Photo: On top of Jokhar Temple with Potala Palace in distance)

Three days in Lhasa barely allow one to crack the surface of the town while adjusting to the altitude. I recommend more days if you can. Why? First, so that you may explore more leisurely the back alleys and neighborhoods of the Old Town. You’ll see shops selling large blocks of yak butter and craftspeople sewing window and doorway banners. Mask makers, Buddhist robe tailors and hat milliners ply their trades. Second, to have time to bargain with stall keepers along the Barkhor circuit who sell everything one could possibly imagine; to visit the Dropeling Crafts Center, run by the non-profit Tibetan Artisans Initiative to encourage and assist village craftspeople to achieve high quality articles and sell their products; and to visit carpet factories if you are interested. (See my forthcoming blog “The Tibetan Carpet Trail” for a list of the carpet "factories" I personally visited.) Finally, to see some of the smaller monasteries, nunneries and sections of town described in both Lonely Planet and by Immersion Media’s Lhasa, which I highly recommend. (We bought the latter in Beijing.)

From Lhasa we headed west on the paved Friendship Highway in the traditional Tibetan province of Tsang. Our itinerary included Shigatse to see Tashilhunpo Monastery, the seat of the Panchen lamas and one of Tibet’s important monasteries, and Mt. Everest, or Qomolongma, the highest mountain in the world at 8848m. As we drove (and drove, and drove, and drove some more) we saw a landscape that became more and more inhospitable the further west and higher we went. Along the Yalung Tsangpo River between Lhasa and Shigatse were valleys filled with mostly barley harvest activity, yet beyond Shigatse, toward the high mountains, the landscape seemed more like the Four Corners (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada) in America or the central part of Australia. Dry, with little industry, people eke out a living in herding or farming and, I heard, incidences of alcoholism and unemployment are high. (Photo: Faithful at the Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse, seat of the Panchen Lama)

You don’t travel to Tibet for the food. The diet is heavily based on barley products (tsampa, a roasted barley flour mixed with yak butter and usually eaten with some kind of liquid to make a porridge); yak products (meat, butter, cheese, jerky or yak butter tea); noodles with yak meat or tired vegetables; or momos, Tibetan-style dumplings. I even hear yak offal is choice in high-end Tibetan restaurants! Restaurants also often offer Chinese and/or Nepali dishes. The Lonely Planet guide gives good advice and restaurant alternatives around Tibet. I would add the following admonitions to those travelling to Tibet. First, in making arrangements with tour operators, ask about flexibility in eating. If you’ve prepaid your trip your operator will most likely have arrangements with certain restaurants or hotels for meals. After our third, greasy and relatively unappealing “banquet-style” Chinese/Tibetan lunch or dinner, we asked to eat at certain places in our last two days in Tibet. (Before that our kids seemed to somehow survive despite barely eating.) Second, have a few backups. One Canadian woman packed lots of granola bars and Lipton tea bags. In retrospect, instant oatmeal would have been a good back-up for kids. In fact, anything to which hot water is added would be easy, as hot boiled water is almost always available! Third, I warn you that being a vegetarian isn’t easy in Tibet, or China for that matter. (Our daughter is vegetarian.) Mutton, yak or chicken with bones are the main restaurant meats. At such high altitudes the usual vegetables were root vegetables; other vegetables were invariably overcooked or tired looking.

Seeing Mount Everest was a boyhood dream of my husband’s, and it was truly awe-inspiring. We left Shigatse at 8:30 a.m. and in our minivan drove until 6:30 p.m. to reach the informal Tent City near Base Camp put upby locals for overnight stays. We stopped at various mountain passes to look at the breathtaking views and also had a picnic lunch by a small stream, and also had to stop a few times for border control checks. (For the latter driver, guide and our family had to show permits and passports/identity cards to both go in and out of the Mt. Qomolangma National Natural Protection Area, as the national park is called. Now, our driving time was longer than that of the 4-wheel drive cars that roared by us on the last 100 kilometers of unpaved road to Mt. Everest, but on balance we had more room for ourselves and luggage (though we packed small and efficiently) than those in the SUVs seemed to have.

On Oct. 2nd near sunset it was already windy and cold near Everest Base Camp. We took the bus from the Tent City to Base Camp, where you can climb a bit to a cairn and no further (another way officials try to limit numerous cars from parking at base camp). There we looked, took pictures, looked some more, were blown by the wind, took more pictures, and caught the last bus back to Tent City. Our tent was heated via a small stove burning dry yak dung and while a little smoky, just fine. Our two hostesses offered noodles, coffee, tsampa, and jasmine tea; we had, however, brought instant noodles for fear of getting sick by accident. Six of us slept on carpeted daybeds under warm quilts in our layered clothes, but alas, both I and my daughter were affected by the high altitude. She threw up and then slept; I felt as though an inch of outer skull was pounding and my heart raced all night long. Ironically, just trying to move under the weight of the heavy quilts was more exercise I’d been doing all day and I think that contributed to my racing heart! So, another recommendation: If you go, bringing a warm but easily packable down sleeping bag might help you avoid my circumstance! (Photo: Our tent hostesses near Everest Base Camp)

After a glorious dawn, we reluctantly packed up our few things and headed down, down, down to end up at Gyantse to see the Kumbum, a multi-tiered structure filled with painted murals and small chapels, and the Dzong, or fortress, perched high above the town like a medieval castle in Europe. Inside the Dzong is a museum illustrating the 1904 Younghusband expedition which fought a major battle here and in the Kumba-la Pass. I must say, Gyantse was my favorite town, although the Gyantse Hotel’s food was also the worst I had in Tibet! Gyantse for me seemed to embrace the old and new, the good and bad, the modern and ancient of Tibet. I witnessed young people playing games at the internet bar across from the hotel, a tiny newborn infant being used for begging at the monastery, women carding wool and spinning it at the Gyantse Carpet Factory, a team of Tibetan restauranteurs making Yak burgers and pot au feu for backpackers at the Yak Restaurant, the worn staircases of the Kumbum showing centuries of faithful steps, and more. I wish we’d had more time to leisurely hike up to the Dzong and walk around more of the old town before we returned to Lhasa for our last night. (Photo: View from 3rd level of Kumbum, Gyantse)

On the way back to Lhasa, we passed the turquoise waters of the holy lake Yamdrok-Tso and through the Kamba-la pass, seeing glaciers. The latter have been receding quite distinctly over the past years; most agree it is due to climate change. (Photo: The beautiful turquoise waters of Yamdrok-Tso)

Tibet is a land rich in tradition and poor economically. It’s a fascinating land, and I can only conclude by echoing the wishes of the Dalai Lama in his preface to the Lonely Planet (7th ed.) that "... as more people visit Tibet, the numbers of those who support the justice of a peaceful solution (to the Tibetan problem) will grow."