Author: Darcey

The following post was written by Gerry Levandoski, a AsiaTravel client who traveled with us on a small group journey with Yosemite in September 2010.  This is the first of a series of articles he wrote detailing his experience.  We begin in Jiuzhaigou…

———

Daybreak added disappointment to the dread Esther and I already felt. Cold and rain had returned, and the day’s itinerary had us hiking and overnight camping. Hiking has become a favorite activity. If I have the proper clothes, I don’t even mind walking in the rain. But I will always choose a hotel bed and pillows over a sleeping bag on an air pad.

Park visitors need special permission and local guides to enter the Zharu Valley, our destination. The park zone contains a monastery, a couple temples and stupas or shrine, plus Zha Yi Zha Ga (“King of All Mountains”), a 14716’ peak sacred to local Benbo Buddhists. The Benbo or Bön is an ancient pantheistic sect with shamanistic and animistic traditions. Bön predates Buddhism in Tibet, but today’s followers combine Bön and Buddhist beliefs and practices.

The valley is a biodiversity treasure house, too. According to the park website, the valley contains 40% of all plant species existing in the whole of China. By the time we boarded the van that would take us to the valley’s mouth, the air was trending warmer and the rain had slowed to a drizzle. The van left us at Re Xi Village and proceeded to the campsite with the equipment and supplies.

Re Xi reflects the changes wrought by the area’s conversion into a park. The houses feature recent and modern two-story, stone and tile construction. One old style three story home remains as a museum piece for the tourists. Of wood construction, both the interior and exterior exhibit colorfully painted religious symbols and images.

Tigers on the exterior discourage evil spirits. Inside, the kitchen and living room are one. This main living space features Tibetan-style lacquered wood shelves and panels. The family altar, with a lotus positioned Buddha, a cropped peacock feather array and an incense burner, occupies a prominent shelf. Multiple teakettles sit atop the central wood-burning stove, ever ready to accommodate guests. Yak butter tea, anyone?…Adjoining bedrooms, workrooms and storage occupy the main floor’s remaining interior space. The top story serves as a hayloft.

Today, the villagers continue to wear traditional clothing and earn a living in the tourist industry rather than relying on hunting and subsistence farming. The few remaining farm animals find shelter in detached buildings rather than the traditional ground floor stables.

We did not follow the van up the road. Instead we proceeded over an easy rolling trail on the river valley’s right wall, first, through a temperate forest, and then past abandoned fields, orchards and crumbling concrete and wood farm cottage remains. When we began hiking the group’s mood was subdued, but the weather continued to dry and to warm, which lifted our spirits. Soon, our conversation and laughter proscribed any chances of encountering the local fauna. Even the birds kept their distance. John and Jay, two park rangers, served as our guides/interpreters.

On my own, I watch the trail for wildflowers, fruiting bushes and unusually-shaped leaves, but I’m no botanist. John and Jay’s powers of observation and knowledge of the local flora astonished me. They stopped us repeatedly to point out a plant or shrub, give us the English name and to tell us its value in herbology or cooking. Many wildflowers were in bloom including some orchid varieties. Ramon, an avid nature photographer stood beside himself with delight:

After a three or four mile hike, we reached the campsite, a piney flat beside the river and a teal-watered reservoir. To our delight, the tents were already up. The site provided clean pit toilets WITH tissue, and a ranger cabin where we could relax at tables and chairs.

Phillip, our Tibetan guide, was already in the kitchen making dinner preparations.

John explained that the Chinese have yet catch on to camping as recreation, but the national parks service hoped to promote the activity. Park management had originally intended Zharu Valley to become a campground as well as a horseback riding area.

However, the local inhabitants objected vehemently because of the valley’s religious importance, so future usage now stood unclear. Our hosts had erected our tents next to an enclosure that once housed giant pandas. For better or worse, the bamboo inside the enclosure died, so the pandas were released.

We had stopped for lunch along the trail and dinner was still a couple hours away, so when John and Jay offered us another hike, the majority accepted. This trail took us deeper into the forest toward Zha Yi Zha Ga summit. We passed a Benbo stupa and a nearby field strewn with prayer flags. In case you don’t know, Buddhist prayer flags commonly come in five color combinations, blue, white, red, green and yellow. While sometimes displayed as long banners, most flags I’ve seen are roughly 8”x12” rectangles with a prayer, and often a symbol, printed upon them. The flags are sold sewn to a cord so they can be strung up where they will flap in the wind.

Buddhists believe in something like a universal consciousness rather than a god. The wind waving the flag means the prayer is being continuously recited. The best analogy might be votive candles lit beforea Catholic church side altar honoring Saint Somebody or the Virgin Mary. Just as the candle burns until used up, so the prayer flags remain until they disintegrate.

I find the concept beautiful, but the practice far less lyrical. One sees masses of thin, faded and tatted cloth drooping toward the ground or, having already landed, lying in the mud. Yet, maneuvering through this chaotic flag array triggered a long-lost childhood memory of summer days when my mom had the sheets and clothes from our eleven-member household hung out to dry in the backyard. This vision lacked poetry, but I recalled the simple joy of walking between the waving sheets wearing nothing but cutoffs. In the moment I felt again the sheets’ cool, damp touch on my hot bare skin.

The rain restarted as we moved further along the trail. We passed the roofless walls and doorless portal of a claustrophobia-inducing stacked stone shelter. John explained that the builders/inhabitants had had an opium poppy plantation out here. A tiger carried off one of their children. They abandoned the homestead only after the same tiger carried off their second child. Everyone grew quiet and began paying closer attention to the meadow grasses and wildflowers around us…

Esther voiced the obvious questions. “How long ago did this happen?” (In the 90s.) “Are there still tigers here?”

(Maybe—butprobably not)

“I want to see a tiger.”

A drizzly mist enfolded us on the return walk and the trail was muddier and colder for it. We trudged into the ranger cabin to find the dinner tables set and Western beers and California wines set out for sharing. During a recent trip to California and Yosemite, John purchased these treats anticipating our visit and this meal. Phillip, our chef du jour, created the best meal we ate in China. Fresh vegetables rescued from the primordial cooking oil ooze, and meats spared a deep fryer plunge. Generally, our Juizhaigou hosts treated us like the VIPs.

While we were chatting over cookies and tea, Don pulled a bottle of clear liquor and several thimble-sized shot glasses from his pack. His actions raised a collective “Ahhh” from his group, which caused the rest of us to pay more attention.

I happened to be sitting on Don’s right. He set a thimble before each of us and filled them with liquor. I raised the drink to my nose and detected a faint soy sauce fragrance.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Mao Tai.”

Don raised his glass, and indicated that I should do likewise. “Ganbei!” he shouted and downed the drink. Why not? I thought and followed suit. Mao Tai comes from fermented soygum, not soy beans. Its alcohol content varies between 35% and 53%. At the state dinner during Nixon’s 1972 China visit, Prime Minister Zhou En-Lai touched a match to his glass demonstrating to the President that Mao Tai can indeed catch fire. A young Dan Rather called it “liquid razor blades.”

Despite all that, I found the taste experience surprisingly smooth (At least that was true for the brand Don shared with us). Even notorious tea totaling Esther enjoyed a second glass. Mao Tai first gained a worldwide reputation after winning a gold medal at the 1915 San Francisco World’s Fair, but I’d never heard of it. If you drink hard liquor, the next time you go to a Chinese restaurant with a bar, try Mao Tai and form your own opinion.

With a great meal in our bellies and good spirits to warm us, we were set for a long evening of stories and jokes. Our hosts, however, found it impolite to clear the tables while their guests remained seated there. It was only about 9:00, but they had to clean up before going to sleep. Zhao Bei politely told us we had a long day of travel tomorrow, and we should go to bed.. We had a good laugh over this, but obeyed.

It wasn’t my best night’s sleep. The sleeping bags were cozy enough, but in the middle of the night, my air pad popped and I laid across the uneven contours beneath the tent the rest of the night.

Did I mention that I don’t like camping?

———

This year, this trip departs September 14, 2011.  For inquiries, please click here: Hiking Yosemite Sister Parks in China or e-mail us at info@wildchina.com.

Image: Gerry Levandoski & Ramon Perez. See all photos on Facebook here.

The following is an excerpt from Jeff Fuchs’ Tea and Mountain Journals, a blog by explorer, photographer and writer Jeff Fuchs.  Jeff is the 2011 recipient of AsiaTravel’s Explorer Grant.  He and friend Michael Kleinwort are currently traveling through unknown portions of the Tsalam route in Qinghai.

Below is an update from their journey…

We have moved further southwest near Da Re, from Maqen towards the badland-borders with Sichuan province, less than one hundred kilometres from Serthar. We’ve arrived to a town that sits squeezed along the Yellow River wedged in between auburn coloured valleys. Our travel thus far has been the moving equivalent of the Russian Doll concept – one doll is opened up to reveal another smaller doll, and so on. In our case it is one small town leading to another smaller community, then onto a village until finally we will be completely embalmed in the open air.

Yet to reach Honkor as things go more slowly than we calculated (although in these areas we are well aware that ‘plans’ are only plans until some other plan is adopted) due to caterpillar fungus collection. Epic battles have been waged between Tibetans over who owns lands and who can access the springtime harvests of caterpillar fungus. We must abide by unwritten codes and land-crossing rules that are difficult and complicated to understand. Certain lands we simply cannot cross, even if these massive spaces appear to belong to the earth itself. While there are no actual laws, to presume anything in these raw and informal lands is a mistake. We must wait for counsel. Travelling over lands that belong to nomadic clans requires permission and this is especially true as fungus-picking season is upon us. The fungus is the one certain income generator many nomads have and one month of work can fill the coffers for the rest of the year. Nomads protect the lands and fungus with something bordering on violent desperation.  Our journey and routing through these lands must be carefully considered to prevent offending, or worse.

Another issue is that the old trader who was to come (and still may) and usher us along the Salt Road, is not in good health. Though he is adamant on joining us, his family is genuinely concerned with his health as the entire journey we are set to do will be above 4,000 metres and we will be in lands that are entirely cut off from communication, aid and access routes. If anything happens we are entirely on our own with the possibility of nomadic help. Our old trader’s health is ailing and, though Michael and I do very much want his company along the route, we will not for one moment consider risking his health or causing offence.  It may be that all we can achieve is an interview with him and others, but this will be enough. In such cases we simply must ‘hurry up and wait’.

Our morning begins ascending a 4,600 metre mountain heading up the twenty-degree grade to get a view of our intended route. Below, the Yellow River courses through a dozen channels wandering away and then reconvening. The water levels are down but vibrant green currents run deep and strong and the strands of water are visible from above creating white ripples in the sunlight.

Air moves in cold currents up at this altitude and the clean sharp waft of snow filters through the air. In the distance there are the comforting white peaks, which I’ve become attached to making daily eye contact with.

Yaks graze below and speck the horizon – the only dark marks on this sand-coloured earth, and once Michael and I reach the summit our sightlines seem infinite. Looking south-west we can see the valley we will travel through. It bends, widens, bends again and then simply funnels away into the mountain’s wedges. As the distances lengthen, the mind itself is wandering and wondering.

———

For the full post, please visit www.tea-and-moutain-journals.com

Images: Jeff Fuchs

The following is an excerpt from Jeff Fuchs’ Tea and Mountain Journals, a blog by explorer, photographer and writer Jeff Fuchs.  Jeff is the 2011 recipient of AsiaTravel’s Explorer Grant.  He and friend Michael Kleinwort are currently traveling through unknown portions of the Tsalam route in Qinghai.

Below is a tale from this journey…

———-

May 4, 2011

Sun (neema in Tibetan) blasts into the day as we wake to a reckless blue sky and a wind that hums. Snow capped peaks shimmer on the horizon and wind whips smoke and sand into mini-tornadoes.

All of Mother Nature’s elements are on display today in a show of force, and Michael and I both feel this bodes well for the journey. The city of Maqen (3700 metres) scatters for cover from winds that rip down the main street daring any to test it. Eyes burn from the suns rays and all of the goodies that the wind picks up and throws.

Much of expeditions or indeed any travel, involves waiting. Waiting for weather, for the right guides, for the correct directions…in this case we are waiting for word of our team, one member in particular, who can add a rare perspective on our journey.

One of my great desires is finally confirmed beyond a doubt today as we are greeted with the welcome news that one of the last of the Salt Road traders will in fact travel with us as our unofficial guide. Up until now this has been a slight question mark because of his health and age, but his desire has and is strong to accompany us. In his seventies, he and he alone, it seems, knows the ancient Salt Road portion that passes through the nomadic lands and that which we seek to travel. There is only one condition to him joining us and that is that he has a horse to ride during the journey. In his almost apologetic words, “my body, though once strong, is no longer capable of walking the route”. We are delighted as much of the younger generation has no idea of the Tsalam (Salt Road), and sadly seem to care less, and with him we are sure to get tidbits, tales and that crucial must, an innate knowledge gained from actually travelling the route.

Today I am also issued another warning about wolves. “They are out in great numbers in recent years, and they are far smarter than you”, a local tells me directly. I’ve no doubt about his information, as years back in this region I was to witness a site that remains in my memory bank still. Trekking through a remote portion near Golok, a friend and I watched a pack numbering almost two-dozen strong, rip into a flock of sheep with an efficient ferocity that was riveting. The act that unfolded was both brutal and impressive in both strategy and execution.

Michael and I are urged in the bright rays of the sun this morning to visit the local monastery, which sits as a tribute to another traveler: a monk who traipsed all over the Tibetan Plateau by foot with little more than a bag of tsampa (ground barley), some butter and a bit of tea (which of course set him high in my books).

We are told that to begin our journey through these stoic and staggering landscapes we should visit and appease the local deities and pay a gentle homage to the lands and beliefs that we now find ourselves. I’ve long felt that these little gestures set something in the mind at peace, a kind of genuflection of respect to local forces, however secular or otherworldly they might be.

The monastery is more a series of small monasteries sitting at the north end of town, stupas, and flat-topped homes. All of this surrounds a huge mound of dirt hectares in size, which still now, is only now rediscovering life after a brutal winter. Prayer flags (loong da) cover the entire northwest face, flapping and billowing in winds that gain strength the higher we ascend.

————

For the full post, please visit http://www.tea-and-mountain-journals.com/

AsiaTravel would now like to offer adventurers the opportunity to turn their outdoor visions into real advancements in China exploration through The AsiaTravel Explorer Grant.

The AsiaTravel Explorer Grant is a grant of USD 1,000 that will be awarded to adventurers seeking to push the boundaries of responsible, off-the-beaten-path travel in China.

AsiaTravel’s own story is one of exploration, self-discovery and challenge.  High up on the slopes of Tibet’s Mount Kailash, Mei braved the high altitudes and harsh landscapes to find true beauty of snowcapped mountains alight with the sunrise. The breathtaking view brought Mei a sense of fulfillment—yet she stood alone and exhausted from her journey. Disappointed by how little support was available for travelers looking to get off the beaten path in China, Mei was inspired to start her own travel company dedicated to offering stress-free and responsible travel to adventurous destinations.  The creation of the AsiaTravel Explorer Grant is a testament to supporting other explorers in finding authentic and life-changing travel experiences while protecting local cultures and environments.

In its initial year, the AsiaTravel Explorer’s Grant has been granted to Canadian explorer and writer Jeff Fuchs, with British entrepreneur and endurance athlete Michael Kleinwort joining him.  Along with local nomadic guides and the odd mule Fuchs and Kleinwort will attempt to travel the most isolated and unknown portion of the Tsalam route in Qinghai – a remote portion from Honkor to the Maqu area. The expedition in May of 2011 will be done entirely by foot leaving as little carbon footprint as possible. It will also access many of the last nomadic traders to document their precious recollections of travel along the Tsalam. The expedition is another in Fuchs’ desire to bring Asia’s long lost trade routes to light.

Looking to the future, AsiaTravel will be selecting winners based on the following criteria:

• Focus on bringing to light a long lost route, a culturally significant issue, promoting aid in a remote community or a trip dealing with discovery or rediscovery
• Passion and excitement for exploration
• Past/current involvement with exploration in China
• Risk management plan
• Incorporation of Leave No Trace (LNT) principles
• Low carbon travel
• Participant skill levels commensurate with proposed itinerary.

For more information, please e-mail us at explorergrant@wildchina.com.

The reconstructed wreckage of an American C-53 transport plane on display in Pianma, Yunnan

The C-53 Skytrooper’s battered fuselage is incongruous here in the small town of Pianma in one of China’s most remote corners. The transport aircraft is a relic of one of the Second World War’s most overlooked chapters – The Hump airlift.

World War II memorabilia on display in Pianma

Part of Gaoligong mountain range above Pianma

Discover the unexpected with AsiaTravel. Contact us to start planning your journey: info@wildchina.com

Sometimes when on the road, the past and present can collide in the most unexpected of places. We were reminded of this recently when on the road in the lush upper reaches of the Salween River in Yunnan, where the river is known as the Nu River.

It was a Sunday morning and we’d been enjoying the Tibetan-style Buddhist architecture in hills near the remote town of Bingzhongluo. The fresh, invigorating air filled our lungs as we headed down into the valley, where we came upon a rebuilt Catholic church that had originally been constructed more than a century ago.

It was half past ten and mass was going to start at eleven. A small crowd of worshippers from the Lisu ethnic group was waiting to enter the building. We walked around to one side of the church where we came upon a small graveyard with only one headstone.

Upon closer inspection, we made out the name of the deceased: “Annet Genestier”. The name rang a bell instantly, as just one night earlier we had  re-read some of famed botanist/explorer Joseph Rock’s impressions of traveling through the Nu Valley, which were published in an article in National Geographic from August, 1926 entitled “Through The Great River Trenches of Asia”.

In the article, Rock described the animosity between local Tibetan lamas and a French church and mission, led by a stubborn priest surnamed Genestier.

Relating what back then was recent history of the mission, Rock wrote:

“Twice it has been burned by the Tibetan lamas of Champutong, and twice intrepid Father Genestier, who still lives in the Salwin Valley… had to flee for his life and find shelter among the Lissu further south.”

In 1937, Pêre Genestier died and was buried in this remote spot far from his native France. Standing deep in the mist-filled Nu Valley, we scanned our surroundings. It was hard not to feel that Genestier had stood in the same place nearly a century ago and seen almost the exact same scene that laid before us.

Whenever we travel, we do our best to read, or re-read, books or other materials about the places we plan on visiting. This not only gets us even more excited about our upcoming destinations, but small, almost negligible information such as the last name of a priest can suddenly make a connection that spans decades or even centuries.

These kinds of connections are at the heart of the importance of travel to our understanding of who we are and where we’ve come from.

———

For more information about this remote and still unknown region, also check out the film Deep in the Clouds by Liu Jie, winner of the Sydney Chinese Film Festival for Best Director. Also, travel to this destination on our AsiaTravel journey From the Salween to the Mekong: Hiking the 19th Century French Explorers’ Route.

The following is an introduction to Jeff Fuchs’ Tea and Mountain Journals, a blog by explorer, photographer and writer Jeff Fuchs.  Jeff is the 2011 recipient of AsiaTravel’s Explorer Grant.  He and friend Michael Kleinwort are currently traveling through unknown portions of the Tsalam route in Qinghai.

Below is an announcement about their journey…

The Route of White Gold

When: May, 2011

Who: Jeff Fuchs, Michael Kleinwort

Where: Southern Qinghai (Amdo)

One of the ancient world’s great and unheralded trade routes was the eastern Himalayas’ Tsalam, or Salt Road. Known to many Tibetans as “The route of white gold”, much of its desiccated remains rest at close to 4 km in the sky upon the eastern Himalayan Plateau.

Traversing some of the planet’s most remote and daunting terrain, the Tsalam passed through the snowy homeland of the fierce Golok nomads, notorious wolf packs and beneath the sacred Amye Maqen mountain range of southern Qinghai province (Amdo). Largely forgotten it remains culturally, historically and geographically one of the least documented portions on earth. The memories of a few traders carry on its almost fabled tale.

The route itself has never before been acknowledged (nor travelled) by westerners, and much like the Tea Horse Road, the last remaining traders who traveled its length are passing away and with them too, the memories of what for many was the only access path into the daunting nomadic lands.

Leading the expedition and transcribing the tale of Tsalam will be myself, with English entrepreneur and endurance athlete Michael Kleinwort joining me. Along with local nomadic guides and the odd mule, our “0 carbon footprint team” will attempt to travel the most isolated and unknown portion of the route – a remote nomadic portion from Honkor to the Maqu area.

The expedition in May of 2011 will be done entirely by foot and will access many of the last nomadic traders to document their precious recollections of travel along the Tsalam. The expedition is another of the ancient Himalayan trade routes I hope to re-expose to some light. Articles in select publications will appear upon completion of the journey.

Jeff Fuchs

Lubden & Michael Kleinwort

———-

A disk of compressed Pu-erh tea for sale at a tea market in Yunnan

It’s not often that one encounters a tourist souvenir that lowers cholesterol, promotes weight loss and protects against cancer, vascular disease, cognitive degeneration and aging – not to mention providing important nutrients like amino acids.

But tea is believed to have these virtues and recent research shows that certain types of Pu-erh tea from China’s Yunnan province have particularly potent levels of beneficial chemical compounds.

AsiaTravel visits Pu-erh production areas in Yunnan on its trip ‘The Ancient Tea & Horse Caravan Road: An Expedition with Jeff Fuchs.’ Learning about the fascinating history of the ancient trade routes along which Pu-erh tea once traveled by horseback to Tibet is a highlight of many clients’ trips.

Another highlight is trekking in Yunnan through tea agro-forests and wild tea gardens where members of exotic ethnic minorities like the Bulang, Lahu and Akha have tended organic tea gardens for generations in the general area from which tea is believed to have first emerged.

In fact, it is believed to be these small-scale, natural growing practices which impart the best Pu-erh tea with heightened health benefits. Most tea in the world these days is produced in sprawling plantations, planted in neat rows in direct sunlight and often treated with chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other agricultural chemicals.

Not so with the finest Yunnan Pu-erh tea. To start with, it is not all produced from a genetically uniform crop. As we learned recently from the excellent book Tea Horse Road, Pu-erh is produced from a dozen wild cousins and hundreds of landraces of the Camellia sinensis plant – each particularly adapted to the climate of the particular hillside, or even grove, where it has traditionally been grown.

And instead of being grown in a tea monoculture, these trees (many reach an age of a few hundred years and a height of 50 or more feet) grow shaded from harsh sunlight in a natural ecosystem with hundreds of other plant, animal and insect species.

Thriving in their natural environment, agro-forest and tea garden trees produce higher levels of the beneficial compounds that first drew humans to start drinking tea, likely as a medical elixir, some three thousand or more years ago.

A study published last year in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology¹ compared Pu-erh from both terrace plantations and ecologically friendly agro-forests, measuring levels of tea catechins, flavonoid compounds that are thought to be beneficial to human health and are present to varying degrees in most non-herbal tea. The authors found that tea from the agro-forests had average catechin levels several times higher than the plantation tea.

So if you find yourself in southern Yunnan, relaxing after a day of trekking through ancient tea gardens and sipping on a cup of Pu-erh, you can feel good about the fact that a hike isn’t the only good thing you’re doing for your health that day. And don’t forget that a compressed cake packs great for the trip home.

1: See: Ahmed, et al “Pu-erh tea tasting in Yunnan, China: Correlation of drinkers’ perceptions to phytochemistry”, Journal of Ethnopharmacology 132 (2010) 176–185

Winner of the 2011 AsiaTravel Explorer Grant, Jeff Fuchs says, “Nice as it is to sleep within walls, I feel slightly claustrophobic and long to get out to the fresh air and unencumbered sight-lines again.”  From his Tea and Mountain Journals, here is the latest update from his journeys in southwest China…

———-
The kora, for Buddhists and Hindus, circumambulating in a clockwise direction follows the apparent movement of the sun. The sun in question is now hidden as we wake in the camp of Chube’ka. Tucked into the valley there is only cold air seeping out of the earth and into us. Sleep was touch and go, though there are no immediate reasons as to why – sleep isn’t always a comforting time in the mountains.

Another of the faces that stay with me. A nomadic pilgrim, having just dunked her head in a stream wipes the remnants off. Toughness in the mountains is a minimum requirement and it is never something flaunted…it simply is

Reke has slept badly and his normally patient face is tight and explosive looking. Michael wants a tough day and he is impatient to push the bodies into the redlines. Kandro looks at me over tea telling me that today will be “up, up, up”. Drolma is ever-smiling steering our morning with liquid, food and the kind of quiet care that women the world over can provide. Our big man Tseba sits quietly away from the fire with a bowl of tea with those big chocolate eyes straying into the skies. I find his moods a good gauge of the days to come for us.

With every day, new arrivals, new destinations and always new departures

Pushing the pace we make good time catching and then falling into pace with a large group of nomadic pilgrims, led by a slightly deformed young man whose strengths seem realized in the ascents. He is a mess of dust, disheveled hair and of magnificently wild eyes that flick everywhere in a moment. He wears a suit coat slung as only a Tibetan can sling a piece of clothing: loose, one arm out and tied in a casual knot at the waist. The young boy’s back is hunched and one arm appears longer than the other. His being looks like he has been hunted for his entire life. He moves with the uncanny smoothness of a cat. It is as though his distorted body has become his supreme vessel. I suspect he pushes himself to punish and purify his past and future lives respectively…karma, in his mind at least, may be to blame for his malformed back. I cannot stop looking at him.

he young man that made such an impression on me. Bent by disfigurement, his simian strength and agility ate up the kora in gulps

His chin seems perpetually puckered as though he has been engaged in the effort of simply living. And of course I am aware that I, in my way, I maybe creating an entirely different picture in my head than he really is. I cannot help but feel though, that every pilgrim group we encounter has a titan or self appointed guardian leading it. This face is one that stays in the mind long after the features have disappeared.

We make it up 1000 metres before lunch to Nang Tong La, lunching at the auspicious ‘Karmapa Spring’. Around us are entire clans feasting away in a yellow plastic enclosure…and there he is, the misshapen boy running every which way preparing, arranging and creating for his band of travelers. Our eyes meet and I smile and he doesn’t, but there is a millisecond of something from those haunted eyes before moving on.

Lunch tents became populated during mid-day and would empty out in minutes only to wait for the next day's hungry

———-

For the full account from Jeff’s journey, visit his blog Tea and Mountain Journals. To travel with Jeff on a AsiaTravel journey along the Ancient Tea & Horse Caravan Road, click here or contact us at info@wildchina.com.

All photos & post by Jeff Fuchs.

Continuing with the travel series written by AsiaTravel travelers Janet Heininger and Jamie Reuter, we move on to their next destination. Stop 2 – Lhasa, Tibet…

———-

On Tuesday, October 19, we flew 3,000 km to Lhasa, Tibet on Air China, changing planes in Chengdu.  Our Air China flight was just fine, even in economy class.  Leg room was barely adequate but people didn’t seem to lower their seat backs as much as in the US.  All internal Chinese flights advertise a strict weight limit of 20 kgs per checked bag and 5 kgs for a limit of one carry-on (plus a purse or small bag).  While we met these requirements on all seven of our internal flights, we ultimately decided that the rules weren’t very strictly or uniformly enforced any more than they are in the US.  The new Lhasa airport is way out of the city (90 kms.).  After being met by our guide, Nyima, and our driver, we went to our hotel and crashed.

Lhasa’s urban area is at 11,800 feet and has a population of around 300,000, up from around 10,000 in 1959.  It was one of our favorite places on this trip.  Due to the risk of altitude sickness, we both took Diamox as we had in Peru and had no problems with headaches or the altitude at all—even when hiking.  As an oddity, you should know that, in spite of its size, China operates with only a single time zone.  In any other county that large, you would expect to have 4 or even 5 different time zones.  But here, everyone is on Beijing time.  People in the western sections merely follow the sun more than the clock when it comes to scheduling things and routine work hours vary accordingly.

The political situation in Tibet is fairly complicated.  But in very brief summary, Tibet was founded as the religious and administrative center of Tibetan Buddhism in the 7^th Century.  Until 1959 when the most recent reincarnation (literally) of the Dali Lama went into exile, the Potala Palace was also the earthly home of the leader of the Yellow Hat branch of Tibetan Buddhism.  Tibetans clearly feel they should be independent.  China, with the backing of its armed forces, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), clearly has indicated that it has no intention of giving up its jurisdiction over the Tibetan plateau even though it has given it the cosmetic, official name of the “Tibetan Autonomous Region.”  With PLA forces clearly in evidence, China continues a not so stealthy take-over by sending ever more Han Chinese (the ethnic group most prevalent in Beijing and NE China) to live in the area.  Roughly 1/3^rd of the population and ½ of Lhasa’s population is Han Chinese.  It had one very good hotel, with a super luxury St. Regis Hotel to open just after we left (11/15).

Our hotel was the very good one, the Four Points run by Sheraton.  It was quite nice (4+ stars) but not spectacular: very comfortable, clean, modern, good service, quiet, good breakfast (the standard fare), good views of mountains, and walkable distances to main sites (although taxis and pedi-cabs are both cheap).  It had a spa (as did most of our hotels), but we never seemed to get around to using them.  Our guide, Nyima, was terrific.

The dominant characteristic of Lhasa is its spirituality.  To begin, there are simply all of the local monks, monasteries, nuns, and nunneries, and various temples and holy sites.  According to our guide, we happened to be there at a special time on the calendar – the first full moon after the harvest.  As a result, thousands of Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims and nomads, many in traditional, tribal costumes, were in the city and surrounded its religious sites.  Pilgrims had lots of traditional activities including:

• Circumambulations: walking clockwise around a religious temple (or site, or city, or monastery, etc.).  As an example, there was a huge crowd (6-10 people wide) that made a continuous ring of people walking around the Johkang Temple.  Always clockwise.  A few very rude tourists might go the other way, but Nyima (our somewhat spiritual guide) never would have let us do it.

• Prostrations: repeatedly stretching out face down on a mat, arms and hands extended out toward a temple or icon and then returning to a standing position, hands folded.  Repeat indefinitely.  This was like watching an aerobics show in slow motion.  Whole crowds would be doing it, each independently.  Old people.  Young people in stylish clothes.  Kids.  Nomads in traditional garb.  Sometimes they did this in place.  Sometimes they would embark on a circumambulation made up of repeated prostrations.  So while circumambulating, you might suddenly see this person stretched out on the ground, making their way around a holy site, one body length at a time.  The crowd barely noticed, and simply flowed around them on their own circumambulation path.

• Burning incense: Scattered around the holy sites were huge, white, 15 foot tall incense burners.  Actually more like furnaces, they spewed out clouds of white smoke and smell.  Once, one was so full that flames were shooting out of the top.  People constantly tossed in more incense as offerings.

• Burning Yak butter candles: mostly an indoor activity.  In and around temples, there would be these urns of yak butter with 10-30 burning wicks.  Pilgrims carried tubs of yak butter and they would periodically add a scoop or so to a candle as an offering as they passed through a temple.  Sometimes the floor was greasy with spilled yak butter and you had to be careful how you walked.

• Donating money: All of the local religious institutions survive on community donations.  So everyone is constantly leaving money behind.  Even our guide, Nyima.  While I’m sure that he visits many of the sites with tours 2 or 3 time each week, he still (very discreetly) would take a one Yuan note (about 15 cents) and stick it in a crack by a Buddhist statue, or drop one in a pile of other bills near a particular altar.  Sometimes he prostrated himself before a particularly important shrine.  Once, after we spoke with a group of nuns who were burying a new pipe (in very rocky ground) for the water supply for their nunnery, he walked out of his way to drop off the equivalent of $3 US to (according to his instructions) buy some extra food for the four hard-working nuns.

I could go on and on about prayer flags, monks and monasteries, religious icons and art, and so on.  It was never overwhelming at any particular moment (unlike the tourists in Tiananmen Square).  But after 3 days of being confronted with this stuff, it became a little awe-inspiring and deeply moving.

Food in Lhasa was just fine–nothing special but a lot better than in Beijing.  One of the hallmarks of Wild China is that meals are covered and they were mostly in local restaurants – generally ones not patronized by other westerners.  We really appreciated and enjoyed our eating experiences, even when we weren’t crazy about the taste.  They did have really good cucumber salads.  I had yak steaks a couple of times.  One night we went to a very tasty Nepalese restaurant.  One night we went to a small restaurant with an OK buffet dinner and saw an after-dinner show of traditional Tibetan music, costumes and dancing – interesting and worth while.

In spite of the altitude, the weather actually was warmer than in Beijing.  We had partially cloudy skies with some sun that provided stunning views of the surrounding, snow-covered mountains.  (Weather.com said 80% chance of rain daily for our entire visit to Tibet).  It would be quite cold in the morning and at night, yet warm up during the day so we’d have to roll up the sleeves of our travel shirts.

Our first day in Lhasa began at the Potala Palace.  This iconic red, white and gold building has over 1,000 rooms and 10,000 shrines, and sits atop a 1,000 foot tall mountain in the middle of the city.  The first palace on this site was built in 637 AD.  The most recent version was completed in 1694.  The white parts are a blinding white.  They were close to finishing the new, annual coat of white wash.  Apparently, they just pour it on (the walls angle out slightly) and it just runs down the side.  As a result, you have to be careful where you sit or what you lean against because white dust is everywhere.  The only way up is a long series of stairs which you share with pilgrims.  Pilgrims get in free, tourists pay and are limited to 2,300 tickets per day.  Pictures and words really don’t do this place justice.  You can just feel its age.  Once inside, you’re following a path through murky, dark rooms, up and down ancient, wooden stairs, through chapels and shrines, mixing with various pilgrims, while smelling burning yak butter and incense.  It has to be experienced to be believed.  2 hours after entry, we popped out on the other side and made our way back down a long series of stone stairways.

We then went to a very odd place known as Sanje Tongu–also spelled Sangye Tungu.  As far as tourist guide books or even encyclopedias are concerned, this place doesn’t even exist.  It’s tucked in behind Chokpori, one of the three “sacred” mountains within Lhasa.  After walking through several narrow streets lined with market stalls (too narrow to drive), you come to a small open space.  One side is a tall, flatish stone surface on the backside of Chokpori, 60 feet tall by 120 feet wide that is covered with sacred carvings and paintings of 1,000 Buddhas.  Nearby is a smoking incense burner.  There is also a flat surface for people who are doing their prostration rituals.  There is also a special new sort of pyramid.  It is made up of tens of thousands of flat pieces of slate on which special prayers have been carved.  This stack of slate prayers is 50 feet tall, and you can circumambulate around it (clockwise of course) while spinning prayer wheels and chanting a mantra – om mani padme hum.  (We did the walk and the spinning but didn’t chant much.)   It was a quiet, private place where people came to pay spiritual homage and a special place to visit and experience.  Apparently, this site is considered very sacred and used to be the location of a Tibetan school for traditional medicine which was destroyed by the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. But it is slowly being recreated by Lhasa’s devout residents.

Later in the afternoon, we went to the Sera Monastery on a hill at the edge of town.  The unique aspect of this place is its school for monks.  Every afternoon at 3:30, the students and teachers come to the “Debating Courtyard” for debates.  That is, they have a lesson in the morning.  They meditate on their lesson.  Then in the afternoon, they gather in little groups of 2-10 monks, some teachers and some students, and begin a question and answer style debate.  It was very loud and boisterous.  They speak loudly.  They laugh and obviously challenge and argue with each other.  And when they make what they think is their best point, they do this combination loud hand clap and pointing gesture.  It was very interesting to watch.  Some monks appeared to be playing to the 50 or so tourists watching with video cameras from the edges though that might merely have been our interpretation since there apparently is a set of ritual gestures used for these debates.  Others were clearly involved in serious, intense discussion and debate.  Our guide said that most of it was kept real by the teachers present who guided the discussions.  We found it fascinating to watch.

On our second day in Lhasa, we begin at the Pobonka [also known as Pabonka] Potrang monastery.  It was 7 kms outside the center of the city and up about 1,000 feet (12,800 feet altitude).  Its principal claim to fame is a small cave that was used by the founder of Tibet for meditation during the early 7^th Century.  Currently, it has only small number of monks.  After a brief visit, we hiked up a trail (gaining another 500 feet in altitude) to the even smaller Thasi Shu Lin [also spelled Thasi Chöling] hermitage.  While climbing slowly and steadily to avoid oxygen deficit, we saw thousands of strings of prayer flags hung across gullies to catch the wind.  The wind is presumed to spread the beneficial thoughts on the flags across the valleys below.  So, the more wind the better.  Thus, you always see collections of these flags in places with good wind, like the tops of mountains or across rivers, streams and gullies.  After crossing a ridge, we descended a winding path to the Bakhue [also known as Chupzang or Chubzang] nunnery.  Here we encountered the nuns burying a new plastic water main to bring fresh water down the mountain into their cistern.  This nunnery is also known for its political activism.  Many members were arrested during political demonstrations in the late 1980s against Chinese occupation.  This political activism may be due, in part, to the fact that the original nunnery was destroyed by the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution and was only recently rebuilt.

After lunch we visited the Jokhang Temple, the most sacred temple in Lhasa.  It was originally built in 642 AD.  By now, you can guess the drill: lots of pilgrims (some in native dress), burning incense and yak butter candles, crowds of people doing circumambulations and prostrations, dark shrines with statues of various protectors, each stuffed with one Yuan bills.  Inside, this temple has one of the most venerated statues of Buddha.  Outside is the Barkhor, a key path for the circumambulation around the Jokhang Temple.  It is also the central marketplace, lined with stalls selling a whole variety of stuff to the pilgrims while their do their walks.  For sale is everything from everyday clothes, to religious stuff, scarves, art, and even a few very high quality shops.  Jan and I spent some time shopping and came home with an original thangka painting of a Buddhist figure known as the “White Tara” (the bodhisattva or goddess of longevity, compassion and health), whose male counterpart is Amitayus.  We almost also bought a really fascinating picture of Jambhala, the Buddha of wealth and prosperity.  After some consideration, we decided that displaying it at home would be a little too much like creating a private altar to greed.  So we passed (although we probably shouldn’t have since it really was a cool painting).  We also shopped for a Tibetan rug.  However, it turns out that hand-made Tibetan rugs cost just as much ($2-5 K) as hand-made rugs in Turkey or Morocco – or Tibetan ones in NYC, and though we need a rug for the breakfast room, we don’t need one at that price.

During the morning of our last day in Lhasa, we went back to a couple of sites (Jokhang Temple, Barkhor and Sanje Tongu—) to complete some purchases.  We also took the opportunity to tie several long white scarves we had been given as traditional greetings around a pole near the Jokhang Temple to seek protection for the remainder of our trip.  Nothing bad happened over the next week or two, so it must have worked.  In addition, this was a most special, full-moon holy day, and so the pilgrims were out in huge numbers and the incense furnaces were belching smoke.  There was even a line of pilgrims doing a circumambulation of the entire city.

Given the density of pilgrims, the Chinese army had to make sure that their presence was obvious and noted.  Periodically you would see small patrol units marching to their assigned areas around the city.  They would just march down the middle of a busy city street, ignoring traffic and lights and basically expecting everyone and everything to get out of their way.  This is, of course, very rude.  But it probably also is very effective as demonstration of their literal dominance and control.

We drove back out to the airport around lunch time.  We had a great noodle soup with fried bread sandwiches stuffed with beef at a little dive near the airport.  It was the best meal of the trip so far.

———-

Janet and Jamie traveled with AsiaTravel in October of 2010.  For journeys to Tibet, check out our website here or contact us at info@wildchina.com. To read the other parts of their journey, see the following articles:

1. Thrilled with our tour company, but not seduced by China
2. It’s not rudeness; it’s simply cultural norms.

Photos & post by Janet Heininger & Jamie Reuter.