Mangoes

The fruit scene, unlike the night scene in Kunming, is amazing. Perhaps it is because we are sitting here "South of the Clouds" (Sichaun) and close to the tropical jungles of southeastern Asia, perhaps because the farmers in this vicinity beat the pants off American farmers, perhaps for a million other reasons the fruit I have beat stuffing in my face lately is of no ordinary quality.
Right now happens to be mango season, which fruit is the closest I have ever come to paradise in the form of food. I've been trying not to over do it though, you know, wouldn't want to make a pig out of myself or anything like that. I restricted myself to no more than four Mangoes in any one day, unless extenuating circumstances arise.
But you don't want to hear about my issues with mango addiction and the many serious problems which arise from this, the least of which is a tendency to make armed hold ups at all the local fruit stands, instead I know that the informed reader wishes to be taught by an expert how to go about consuming one of these heavenly fruits. No worries, an extensive discourse on this topic is about to slap you in the face.
There are many techniques for eating a mango. This is most likely because the mango has been the favorite fruit of monks throughout all those regions where one finds mangoes. Monks having large quantities of time on their hands devoted much of this to the research and discovery of the perfect mango-eating technique. Unfortunately this is still a work in progress, having not yet reached Nirvana, so we will have to lay before you the most likely candidates. In addition to this I would also like to include my own personal technique which I feel may yet be the truest form of eating mangoes.

1. The Aboriginal Technique. Perhaps the most simple and crude of all the ways to eat a mango, many would also contend that this is the most elegant because of its very simplicity. Essential the person desirous of eating a mango takes hold of said mango with his right hand, his or her thumb being placed towards the stem of the fruit and the other fingers fanned out behind it accordingly as seems most natural. At this point the eater moves the mango in his or her hand close to the mouth and takes a bite. The biggest problem I have found with this technique is that the skin of a mango is not at all delicate, being more like leather, and does not surrender it's delicious insides easily. Besides which the skin of a mango does not taste good at all, very bitter. The proponents of the Aboriginal Technique claim that this bitterness lends itself to the overall experience creating a greater sense of enjoyment when the eater finally comes to the fruit itself. I find this to be total bull.

2 . The Flower Technique. Very popular in restaurants right now, this method is bar far the most aesthetically pleasing, but not easy to consume. In order to eat a mango in this manner it is essential for the eater to spend quite some time in preparation. First the eater takes the mango and cuts it lengthwise above the pit. This leaving the mango more or less in halves, the eater then cuts below the pit in the same manner. Now the eater has two pieces of mango ready to be converted into miniature works of art, and one which is to be sucked on until the pit is left clean. Taking the two pieces then, one makes a series of slices in them creating a checkerboard pattern. Once completed, the eater can push from the bottom of these pieces up, turning them inside out as it were and leaving you with a wonderful culinary creation; the cubical pieces of mango stand out from the skin like so many large spikes on a porcupine. I find this technique to be a great waste of time however which also wastes quite a bit of the mango which could be otherwise consumed.

3. The Pulp Method. Less prestigious than its counterparts, this technique is the cleanest way to eat a mango which I have yet found. One simply applies firm but not over-oppressive pressure to the outside of the mango turning it into a shapeless bag of goop. Once the eater thinks it is liquefied enough on the inside, he or she makes a small slit on the end opposite the stem and drinks the mango out of its skin like water out of a water-bottle. The hardest part of this process is not breaking the skin before it is ready to be consumed.

4. The Phil Approach. As you might have guessed my method is especially good because it involves knives. It is a simple process and not difficult even for those who have never even held a knife. The knife-wielder simply attacks the mango with the same sort of fervor a wild barbarian from the Siberian step would have attacked a fat Roman senator. Chop it to bits, slice it to shreds, consume most of it during the process. Easy, convenient, and clean.

I'm sure there are other ways to eat a mango, but none of them are as good as these laid out before you. So, next time you get your hands on a mango, take the time to peruse these directions and tell me which method you go with.

Chinese Showers

Although this may surprise some of you, particularly my sisters and other family members who choose to cast aspersions upon the state of my person's sanitation, but I have taken many showers in China. Indeed, I might even lay claim to some sort of expertise in this realm. And since I have been making this study of the nature of showers in China, I felt the need to enlighten the rest of the world on the off chance that someone might decide to take a trip to China. So take the following as an exact and scientific description of the shower facilities in most of China.
First of all, showers are only considered acceptable if in China’s largest cities, elsewhere they are strictly forbidden as anti-communist propaganda and criticism of the government. If you plan on venturing into the smaller and lesser known villages in China do not bring your shower cap.
Secondly these showers as a rule do not allow for shower curtains. The general mode of things is to allow the water to create a miniature lake on the bathroom floor so that the forgetful traveler will soak his socks and spend the rest of the day with miserably cold feet. If you have any sort of aversion to damp feet, forget traveling to China.
Third, when in the actual shower-taking process, it is the policy that hot water takes at least 15 minutes to make an on-scene appearance. This usually involves the highly risky process of “testing the water” (看一看水热不热) where the traveler dashes into the bathroom, barefooted of course, and shoves an arm under the stream of water. The traveler always emits a loud, primeval scream at this point either because the water as recent as half a minute ago was in its glacial form, or because it is boiling. The especially savvy travelers begin to learn how to tell the temperature of the water merely by the mistiness of the bathroom’s atmosphere. This last trick is invaluable.
Fourth, Chinese showers believe in a clear-cut form of temperature control. While Chinese showers do have knobs which offer almost 180 degrees of variance from right to left, usually the only place which results in a change of temperature is somewhere around 80 degrees if 0 is all the way left and 180 all the way right. To either side of this “sweet spot” (最好的地方) is one extreme or the other. The result is that the traveler must constantly and sometimes rapidly jiggle the knob back and forth over the sweet spot so as to moderate the temperature. This exercise results in an interesting rhythmic series of sounds from the traveler which has become known as “Chinese Opera” (京剧).
Finally, China firmly believes in the practice of having no standard direction for hot or cold. One place may require a knob turned to the right for hot water, another to the left. Since the water takes so long to heat up, the traveler often spends many anxious moments waiting. Half of him believes the heated water merely hasn’t made its way from whatever depths it resides in yet, while the other half is convinced that the knob is turned to the cold and so it won’t ever heat up. The worst course of action however for any traveler is to indulge in petty indecisiveness which involves turning the knob one way and then the other at intervals of five minutes. The only result this achieves is cold water.
But I am confident that you, armed with these priceless facts, will find no difficulty in conquering the intricate system for keeping oneself clean which has developed in China.

Umbrellas: A Serious Threat to Humanity

Kunming, being situated where it happens to be situate on this lovely little globe, is subject to the monsoon climate. This means that the wonderful weather of late winter and spring which gives Kunming its title as the "Spring City" vanishes with the arrival of May. From May on out well into summer, the weather in Kunming turns unpredictable, leaving few days without at least the threat of rain. The sun goes off on quick, unannounced leaves of absence and the residents start walking faster than normal to dodge the big raindrops. I would have said this caused everyone to whip out their umbrellas, but the truth of the matter is, they already have them out. I have known few people so attached to shelter. When it is sunny, they carry their umbrellas to avoid a burn or even a light bit of color in the face; when it is raining they bring them along to avoid the moisture, and for all the times in between, they keep them out just for consistency's sake. Kunming's populace is very attached to its umbrellas, and if any one of youu happens to be an umbrella salesman or manufacturer, I might suggest you move to Yunnan to make your fortune. Of course there might be a small hitch in all your dreams of riches: everyone in Kunming already has an umbrella, sometimes two or three.
But I didn't bring up Kunming's weather so I could talk about how many umbrellas everyone has; my main point was to draw attention to the great threat all these umbrellas pose to my life. See, the Chinese are not generally a tall group of individuals, actually I'd say they are shorter than not (and I'm short myself). And when these short people go walking around in great big crowds with their umbrellas it is no doubt some one will get their eye poked out. The Chinese do not even need Red Ryder beebee guns to de-eye themselves. As you walk along the crowded sidewalks, and every sidewalk is crowded in China, you have to dodge right and left to avoid the sharp little metal points on the edges of the umbrellas. If you have never taken the time to think about it, you will be surprised to learn that umbrellas are expressly designed to pose an ocular threat to the human race. The metal wires which are the umbrella's skeleton also happen to have just enough metal sticking out past the cloth to give your eye a good, sharp gouge. My personal feeling is that umbrellas are not a human invention at all, but a product of malicious green aliens from Mars who have eyes out their butts and so are not threatened by these new weapons. I caution everyone to think twice before purchasing an umbrella and contributing to the dominance of a race of little green Martians with eyes in their butts.
Can you imagine these new weapons in the hands of short people who want to get out of the rain? The way the population wields its umbrellas, swinging them around as if they were little harmless daisies, I am not surprised Kunming no less than five eye hospitals. Perhaps you have seen a certain film entitled Singing in the Rain? I have evidence that points out this is actually a piece of propaganda by the butt-eyed Martians to encourage wanton and careless handling of these dangerous weapons.
To date, I myself have managed to avoid any damage only by constant vigilance and having the reflexes of a cat. I encourage all of you to do away with your umbrellas before the Martians take us all over.

The Moral of the Story

Perhaps some of you are familiar with the verse, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.” Matthew 25:35-36 as well as the follow up verse, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” –Matthew 25:40?
My adventures in Tibet brought me to a new understanding of this verse, though a painful one. The first and obvious connection is that I often saw the hungry, beggars who wanted food. Tibet, according to statistics a friend gave me, is one of the poorest nations (I guess I should say places) on earth, with an illiteracy rate more than 70%. And when you combine this with Tibet's being a major tourist destination for very rich tourists, it's not surprising that there is an entire culture of begging. In Lhasa they were on the streets, making supplicating gestures at you, because obviously you were white and had money. On the road, at the places we stopped they would come up to the windows of the car if we didn't get out and would point at the food we had sitting on the seats. They'd point to the food and then their mouths, making an eating motion. Besides a few rolls, I didn't give them any of my food. Some person huh? But people asking for food weren't the only ones I encountered. A young man asked me for my coat. Now he had one of his own, but it was old and worn, and he was living on one of those high passes we went through where it was always freezing. Now I'd like to tell you that I gave him my new coat, which was really something I'd only use a few times at Everest and maybe once or twice more back in the States every year. But I did not give him my coat. I wasn't a jerk about it, I made some lame excuse and sort of ducked my head and ran away. So it seems I failed on two counts, first the hungry and then the naked.
As bad is this is sounding for me, perhaps you would like to know if I have some purpose in telling you all this, perhaps you would like to understand how I could be so unchristian? Unfortunately it was easy.
I mean, when a person comes up to you asking for food, how do you know they aren't someone who is just making their living off begging when they could be earning money some other way? How do you know? Often we would arrive at some pass with a tremendous view and there would be all these people begging. But the pass is way out of the way from civilization, and if there were no tourists, these people would never have tried to spend time up there. Do they count as the starving? There wasn't anything particular about these people which made me think they were about to die from lack of food, (besides their voices.) And the guy who asked me for my coat? He wasn't shivering, he didn't look ill or anything. He was a strong young guy, there was nothing about him crying out cloth me! (Nothing except for his voice...).
So armed with these great weapons of reasoning, I never deigned to help these people. I had my dinners, slept in my warm beds, saw my mountain and came home. Out of sight out of mind, problem solved.
I'm not sure what else to say now. So maybe some of you can be of some help; what are we to do beyond actually sucking it up and helping the people who ask for it?

Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey: Part 14-- 67 Hour Train Ride

As unfortunate as our traveler's early return from Mount Everest, things actually work out better this way. You might remember there being some problems with the idea of our traveler's triumphant return to Kunming--mainly that he had no clue how this was going to come about. Our traveler was now going to be in Lhasa on the 4th of May which is a Friday. He decides that it would not be a bad idea to simply head out the train station on the 5th and try to catch the Saturday train (which leaves around 10 in the morning).
After the first good meal he has had in more than four days, he confers with his companions who are returning by airplane Sunday morning. It is decided that our traveler will awake as early as possible Saturday morning and make the journey out to the train station. There he will try and get on the train but if this doesn't work he will return and try to meet up with his companions again. To this purpose he asks them to give him a call around nine or ten o'clock that they might know whether or not our traveler will be trying to meet up with them again. Our traveler would have used his phone to call them but it is currently on the fritz and only able to receive calls.
Morning comes, our traveler heads to the train station where he boards with incredible ease. It seems that in a few minutes all of his traveling uncertainties are gone, he has a bunk on the train to Chengdu which will leave in a few hours so everything is just a waiting game now. He waits for a call from his companions. It never comes. Are traveler later learns that his phone is on the fritz to such an extent it cannot receive calls either. So our traveler, as far as those in Lhasa know, simply vanishes from Tibet--next to deportation, a fitting way to leave.
The train ride ahead of him is longer than any he has ever taken. He has never taken a train for more than an hour or two. This train will be going for some three days before he arrives in Kunming. The first leg, 49 hours from Lhasa to Chengdu, is almost pleasurable with wonderfully stunning views and only one surprise. In a conversation with a Dutch man our traveler meets on the train, he is shocked to learn that he will be going through Lanzhou which is a city far in the north of China. For a few ghastly minutes our traveler imagines he has gotten on the wrong train and is headed into far off parts of china which he has never had a plan of visiting. This misconception however is cleared up when he learns that the train will be turning south after Lanzhou down to Chengdu where he can change for a Kunming train. Though you may find it hard to believe this was the only shocking event in the first 49 hours of our traveler's train ride.
The next 24 were entirely different however.
Arriving in Chengdu at 8:30 in the morning, our traveler sprints off the train to purchase a ticket for the 9 o'clock train to Kunming. The lines in the ticket office, our traveler immediately gives up all hope of catching the 9 train. After some twenty or thirty minutes in line, he reaches the counter and asks for the soonest train to Kunming. The woman behind the counter tells him 5 in the afternoon is available. Our traveler feels this to be a little later than desirable and asks for the earliest train again (stressing the earliest). She tells him there is a two o'clock train. Our traveler repeats this process, saying the same thing each time and the woman always working closer to the desired near departure. Eventually they settle on a 10:15 train and our traveler sprints back to the station, since this train is about to depart.
The Kunming to Chengdu train is entirely different from the Lhasa train. The Lhasa train, being a new addition to the Chinese railway system in the last year, was clean, comfortable and populated mainly by classy tourists. The Chengdu train is the antithesis of this. It is old, dirty, and populated by the lower reaches of society. Now our traveler has nothing against those people who are less privileged than others, but this was not quite the issue at hand.
He arrives at his cabin to find a small member of the slit pants crowd crawling all over his bed. If you are unaware of who the slit pants crowd are, I will take the trouble to enlighten you for our traveler's sake. The slit pants crowd are a group of more traditional Chinese who believe that all children up to the age of 5, 6 or even 8 should wander about with a slit in their pants rather than a diaper. While this does have many advantages in the realm of convenience, it is disgusting when one finds a little child rubbing its naked butt all over one's pillow. But these were simply the beginnings of our traveler's woes.
Another notable aspect of the Chengdu train's clientele is that everyone smokes horrible cigarettes. There are no laws against smoking in China and sometimes these patrons of the train can be seen smoking two cigarettes at once, such is their state of addiction and indulgence. When added to the general smell of feet which have not been washed in several years and other nastiness, our traveler was quite happy when his sense of smell committed suicide and gave up the good fight.
But the worst was yet to come. Our traveler had gotten up to visit the dining car (which wasn't bad considering the rest of the train) when upon returning was startled by something he had thought the Chinese not even capable of. The small child, member of the slit pants crowd as already stated, was being held in his mother's arms out over the small walkway between the beds. Here upon urging from the mother in the form of some sort of child-like imitation of a gun firing, the child was being induced to pee. Our traveler does not consider himself a overly sensitive person, nor someone who is terribly bothered by filth and squalor, but small children peeing on the floor only a few feet below where our traveler sleeps is something else.
The shocked expression on our traveler's face must have awoken some sense of decorum in the mother's heart for she smiled awkwardly and after her child had finished ran to grab a mop with which she rubbed the little kid's piss all over the floor to ensure that the coat was even. Around this point, our traveler crawled into his bed, turned to the wall and whispered calming things about how nice America was. In such a state he arrives once more in Kunming, thankful that the train ride is over. And such is the ignominious end of Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey.

Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey: Part 14--The Yeti

In general our traveler feels that restrictions on where he is allowed to go are not so much legal precedents or compulsory regulations, instead he general finds such laws to be challenges. Such was the case with the taunting "We will Punish you" sign. Who was the Chinese government to tell our traveler where he could and could not go in China?
Looking around, he notices some gravel hills to the east of Base Camp which rise some 200 or 300 feet above the level of the plain. Our travel notices that the several folds of these hills would definitely hide him from the view of base camp and so would, barring any sort of patrols, allow him to keep on going. Decided, he follows the road back towards tourist base camp for a half mile or so, not wanting to draw attention to his move to the eastward. In a hollow with no one around, he cuts off the road and scrambles up and over the gravel hill. Out of sight and in comparative safety he slows down and heads further up the valley. He is on a sort of sunken shelf between the cliff sides of the larger valley and the small ridge created by this row of hills.
He is presented with a stunning view of both the full magnitude of base camp and the awful power of the mountain. Looking down from this new height base camp has a whole new order, remarking its human origin. The tents are geometrically laid out, their bright colors forming neat rows, circles, and other pattern and this order is offset against the earth shifting disorder of the tumbling hills of dirt pushed before the glacier. In the sun Everest shines with an almost cruel brilliance, and our traveler averts his eyes for lack of sunglasses. Turning away from this awesome sight then, he begins to head up into the ravine. It’s mouth is guarded by two steep cliff walls which force the ice choked remnants of the stream up and into a chaotic bristly mass as it passes through. Our traveler clambers down one side of this cliff face, slipping and sliding the last portion until he is on the rocks sticking up and out of the snow over the stream. From here on it is up, through this canyon valley until…
The only sounds are the gushing wind and the rushing of the stream beneath the snow. Choosing ease over safety, our traveler begins walking his way up the snow covered creek, trusting in his vision to spot those portions of the ice which are rotten and unsafe. At points the stream pops out above the ice and froths about over the snow and between rocks until it vanishes again beneath the half-glacier.
For a while the going gets steeper, but is still not too difficult since there are plenty of layers of snow over the ice giving out traveler traction. The ice even begins to form giant steps which our traveler sometimes resorts to all-fours to climb over. As he pushes his way up, the valley opens some—cliff walls giving way to steep rocky hillsides, topped with snow. The weather also begins to change; the sun fading beneath ominously heavy gray clouds. It being almost 1:30 in the afternoon, our traveler sets a 3:30 turn around time for himself, claiming no matter where he is, he begins his return then.
As small bits of snow drop fitfully from the sky, our traveler meets with the first genuine forms of glacier he has yet touched near Everest. One of the giant snow steps he is climbing, made of more ice than normal, sends him sliding backwards, tumbling down the steep slope. After coming to a stop on some rocks in a more level portion of ground, he slowly works back up to this slippery place and finds blue ice where his footprint drew off the thin layer of snow. He decides to stick to the rocky hillsides for a while, whether it be slower or no.
This sort of hiking is steeper as well as more energy consuming since he must jump from rock to rock or do an endless version of a stairstepper. Our traveler begins to notice that he must often stop for water and breathing. His faithful water bottle, having served him all-day, is beginning to show signs that its supply may not actually be inexhaustible. Our traveler decides to ration himself.
It is on one of these rests that, looking up at the high mountain sides all around him, our traveler remembers that there are still snow leopards occasionally seen in the area. Imagining this would be quite a sight, our traveler ponders the ridgeline for longer than normal.

But the subject of wildlife is not only limited to snow leopards. While the thoughts of such mystical beasts as the Sasquatch and Yeti may be entirely ridiculous to you in the comforting safety from the wild which civilization affords you, when alone in a ravine more than 3 miles high with mountains still towering over too high to see above your head, one’s sense of what is ridiculous and what is not becomes impaired. At least such was the case with our traveler. As he continued on, once more on the semi-rotten ice over the stream, he comes upon large footprints. Logic tells him these are the tracks of some snowshoe shod hiker, doing the same thing our traveler is, but logic is not the kingly personage it once was in the oxygen impaired mind of our traveler.

He cannot help but think of the Yeti; afterall the tracks are larger than any human foot should be. Although our traveler can reason out many objections as to how the tracks are of human origin, the overriding feeling within his mind is the illusion-like sense that the tracks are more paw-like than shoe-like. Now, given these already insane thoughts on the part of our traveler, you will no doubt forgive him the added lunacy of following these tracks up the valley.

From this point on, his course is determined by the footprints. He follows them sometimes at a distance when they seem to cross impossibly dangerous sections of ice, he searches almost frantically for them when they vanish into the rocks. But eventually, in a wider more snow-filled section of the valley, they vanish. Spending quite some time, our traveler comes to the conclusion that the tracks could not have made it to any rock surface—they are all too far away, and that they must remain a mystery.

Nearing the turn-around time, our traveler decides he will continue until the next bend in the valley to see what there is to see, and begin the long haul back. His steps are slower now, and he stops to breath almost every 20 yards. Also he begins to feel a headache building up in his skull.

Our traveler notices a tendency of his person from afar as it were, of his focusing entirely now on each step, each single movement up. From rock to rock, across the snow and ice, through the occasional sand banks, he steps slowly up. Finally he comes around this last bend. Before him the valley opens up into a giant bowl, filled with snow. Straight ahead are two ponderous rounded peaks, with lower rolling hills at their base. These hills are tiger-striped with snow as if the sun has been working a wave-like motion in melting them.

All thoughts of Yeti’s and snow leopards are gone form our traveler’s mind; only the consciousness of his now splitting headache and the sense that he should return soon. Perhaps he did not spend adequate time admiring the beauty of this scenery he worked so hard to reach, but his lack of water contributes in such a way to his state of mind that he simply stumbles back down the ravine. He does stop briefly to look out from the ravine at the ridgeline on the opposite side of the massive Rongbuk valley to see how high he is. By the marks on the side of the other ridge, he judges that he has climbed at least 1,000 vertical feet if not a bit more from the valley’s plain. It is my guess that he reached something close to 18,500 feet or higher at this point.

Dizzy now, with a head that aches at every jarring step from rock to rock, our traveler resembles some drunken reveler, weaving carelessly through the rocks. He remembers that he planned to bring back stones from Everest for his friends and family, so he begins to at random stoop over and grab some colorful pebbles to shove in his pockets. Upon his return he does not find these stones to be near as colorful as they seemed at the time.

His chest begins to feel constricted too, a strange tightness in the very center of his chest which feels like someone has bound up his lungs with a heavy rope. It is as if there is a horribly wracking cough coiled up inside of him, but which he cannot cough. His eyes also are in a sad state, seeing as he forgot his sunglasses and has been beneath the high-altitude rays of the sun reflected off the glaringly white snow all day. He wonders if part of his headache is not due to this glare.

But our traveler continues bravely on despite all of this, staggering often misplacing his feet and only avoiding bone-crunching falls by divine intervention. Almost to the cliffs he scaled down to enter the ravine, our traveler spots another human-like form. Instantly the yeti tracks pop back into his mind, and our traveler thinks of flinging all his colorful rocks at this monster to fend it off. However clarity wins out and our traveler realizes the figure is actually a fellow hiker, but only after he has screamed wildly to frighten the not-yeti away.

With a silent wave they pass each other in the icy canyon and our traveler stumbles back into the fake base camp. At the supposed site of residence in this tourist’s base camp, our traveler finds his companions looking dour. They claim they are very uncomfortable and feeling the effects of the altitude. This apparently because they sat on the rocks in the sun all day, like so many cold-blooded reptiles. They announce that they have decided to return all the way to Shigar that night, and be in Lhasa the following evening.

Our traveler, weary from his over-ambitious hiking, concedes to their foolishness and climbs into the car after only a small cup of tea to refresh himself. To say that the return trip was morbid would not be accurate, for in a way our traveler also was finished with the mountain. But it is with a heavy heart that he leaves, watching the massive peak fade slowly into the masses of clouds which once more wrap it up. As he leaves the valley, he catches one last glimpse of Everest and the whole range.

Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey: Part 13: EBC

Our fearless traveler heads to bed after darkness settles in and clouds blot out all sight of Everest, but only then. They have received accommodations at the Rongbuk Monastery Guesthouse which is not bad at all, as far as buildings above 17,000 ft. go. The rooms have four couch-like beds with two blankets per and are small enough to heat up a little when fully occupied. If you are looking for splendid architecture or beautiful interior decor, you might want to close your eyes. The guesthouse consists of three long concrete bunkers, two of which are rooms for the travelers, while the third is a small restaurant of sorts--very dark, very smoky, very loud, very warm. But the general attitude among the traveler's companions is one which desires sleep. Unfortunately the light (a bulb hanging from the ceiling) has no switch. Apparently when the power to the compound shuts down, the light will go off. Not waiting for an electrical malfunction, our traveler slips off into sleep beneath the yellow glow of his light. Excitement works its simulating effects on our traveler. Normally a later riser, he rises with the sun this morning in the hopes that he might catch a sunrise over the mighty mountain. But looking out the window, he is saddened because he cannot see across the monastery courtyard; fog has socked in the Rongbuk valley. Rolling over, the traveler tosses and turns for quite some time, waiting for both the clearing of the atmosphere and the awakening of his companions who are obviously not effected by the same excitement as our fellow.

Finally, after some immoderate length of time which might even have exceeded half an hour, our traveler’s companions begin to get up. In a flash he is out of bed and putting on his shoes (such was the cold, our traveler was obliged to sleep in all his clothing). The general plan of action for the day is to eat breakfast and move up the road a few kilometers to base camp, where the traveler hopes to find accommodation for the evening.
After a tasteless breakfast, our traveler’s companions decide they are too tired, lazy, weak, unmanly, pathetic, and even lacking in the general spirit of adventure to hike these paltry few kilometers, not more than a mile, to the next camp. They vote to take the land cruiser. Our traveler, his sensibilities severely outraged by this, spurns their land cruiser and declares that he shall walk.
The air is cold with a freezing breeze that seems to cut our traveler’s ear form his head. Unlike some others, he is thankful at this point for his longer than not hair. He decides to follow the river which flows out of the massive Rongbuk glacier further up the valley. His breath while not coming easily, is not as taxed as he thought it would be above 17,000 ft.

Since it had been snowing for most of the night, the going among the rocks and boulders of the creek bed (which are all made slippery by a sheet of snow) is difficult. Also the road which leads to base camp, situated further up on the hillside east of our traveler’s path, at times moves close to the river, pinning our traveler between a cliff face and an icy blue-green creek. Our traveler thinks of crossing the river by hopping from boulder to boulder, but a search for a adequate path across is not found. He decides to continue on the best he can while looking for a better spot to cross.

He eventually finds this in the form of a large chunk of unmelted ice sticking out from the far bank. Our traveler figures he can leap most of the creek and land on the ice. But being the prudent soul he is, he chucks a few sizable rocks onto the ice just to make sure it is solid. Not a creak or crack is heard. in these sorts of maneuvers thinking generally is a hindrance and often a danger, so our traveler throws whatever caution he may have to the wind and hurls himself out towards the ice. He clears the water with more distance than he had hoped for, but this extra distance is converted to force upon his landing and the ice demonstrates a traitorous nature: it cracks. Fast feet and some ignominious crawling move our traveler out of danger as a large portion of the ice breaks free and slips off down the creek.

But the obstacle is passed and onward he moves. He quickly comes in sight of a dingy huddle of outfitter's tents across the creak which is billed as "Base Camp." Crossing back over he realizes in a bit of shock that this is nothing more than a seedy tourist post. The real Everest Base Camp is further up the road. In disgust our traveler shakes the dust from his feet and moves on. This hike lasts a bit longer, ranging over hills and ravines and generally shaping up to be a good deal steeper than the morning’s exercise. Only several minutes into this jaunt, before our traveler has lost sight of the road, he spots his companions resting on a stone in the now-shining sun. They remind him singularly of some form of lizard sunning itself in the warm, high altitude sun. Their excuse is that they are collectively not feeling well and are waiting for one of the many tourist horse carts to ferry them up the hill.
Continuing on, our traveler finally reaches a point on one of the gravel hills near the river bank from which he can see the real beginnings of base camp. This giving him new energy, he trots in the last bit and finds himself standing in Mount Everest Base Camp. The traveler has heard rumors that hiking past this point results in a beefy fine, but as yet having seen no sign, nor been told to stop, he decides to continue on as far as he may go. He passes a large bathroom on his left and a guy sitting on a chair to his right. As our traveler passes, the man in the chair makes a strange whispering noise which reminds our traveler of some horror film he has seen years back. Feeling it to be the best course of action to ignore these noises, our traveler forges on. This time he is brought about by a very foreign “Hello."

Through the broken English our traveler eventually comes to the understanding that he is not allowed to go any further. This is sad.

Our traveler begs in his bad Chinese to be able to go a little ways further “just to have a little look.” The whispering fellow consents to this and our traveler walks a few hundred yards down the road and around a small knoll. This is the closest he ever gets to Everest Base Camp proper. For, the small cluster of tents which he just passed near the whispering man is merely the outskirts of the much larger base camp. Before him extends a large plain, butting up to the chaotic mounds of dirt and gravel being pushed down the valley by the glacier. This plain is covered on three of its corners with large encampments of the various Everest expeditions this year. Their bright yellow and orange tents stand out sharply against the steely brown of the crushed rock plain. The whole scene gives our traveler an oddly majestic feeling, as if all these tiny bits of color somehow amount to the conquering of the mountain before them. And in the sun, the snow covered mass of Everest leaves the tents as oddly insignificant despite their aims. After standing around and gawking for a bit, like most tourists, our traveler turns his back on base camp, and walks back towards the unrestricted area. On his way back in he spots the warning for tourists which states in very broken English that all tourists without “climbing contracts” who venture past this sign are in trouble, literally the sign finishes: “We will punish you $200 US Dollars.” Punish however is begun with an ‘R’ and has the word “fine” scrawled under it. Our traveler has not yet given in to defeat. Not yet fatigued, he decides to try his luck further up on the hillside. As of yet nothing he has done can be considered "hiking," but perhaps the further up he goes, the better the terrain will get.

Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey: Part 12--Everest

I thought about beginning this with some timeless description of the epic efforts to conquer Mt. Everest, but the whole notion that this mountain has been conquered is like saying man has conquered the moon--Everest and the moon are both unaware of small flags pegged into them, and most likely don't give a crap anyways.
Our traveler arrives at Rongbuk Monastery just around dinner time. The traveler's choices for eating in this locale are not extensive. There is the monastery guesthouse which serves yak milk based dishes, and there is the new government hotel which serves crude oil based dishes. Both cases are not at all what you would consider delicious. Then again, who ever came to Everest for a culinary experience? Weren't our traveler.
But ignorant of both places' specialties, our traveler unfortunately heads towards the new government hotel--a large, multi-tiered concrete travesty which looks more out of place than a Brazilian swimsuit model would. After ordering, the traveler and his companions survey the scene: mostly there are Chinese tourists and perhaps a few Europeans--but all of them are comatose with oxygen tubes sticking out their noses while they sleep. Apparently the elevation does get to some people. Rongbuk Monastery is something above 17,000 ft. high.
As time passes though, the traveler notices that the elevation does not only affect those unprepared tourists, it also seems to affect the staff of the restaurant who move so slowly and are so reluctant to do anything, he wonders if he will get his food before the next month. But the wait for food is made even more agonizing by the sudden appearance of a beam of sun. Shooting down from the northern end of the valley, it plays about the valley slopes. As the hours tick by, the sun slowly creeps its way further up the valley towards the mountain. Our traveler who had been one minute fearing that he would never even get a glimpse of Everest, is ecstatic.

The clouds slowly begin to draw back from Everest. First only a little portion of the left shoulder is visible, but suddenly in a majestically ponderous movement, almost all the clouds withdraw from the mountain, leaving the world’s tallest mountain shining in the sun. Our traveler had worried perhaps that the view of the mountain, if he ever got it, would be anti-climactic—he needn’t have.
Unlike other snow capped mountains our traveler has seen, Everest has all sorts of lesser peaks (which would have been famous if isolated by themselves) as foothills. As our traveler watches the clouds withdraw, each peak seems to be the highest, until he realizes the true nature of Everest and sees its massive pyramid and north ridge towering above even the mightiest peaks before it. Our traveler stood rooted to the spot for more than ten minutes No words in his mind could do it justice. So pictures will...

Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey: Part 11--Spicing it Up

I am a little worried that of recent the journey has not been as exciting as you would like. In fact, I worry that it's been boring. If that be the case, weary not, for now is when the story really gets exciting! We're talking more mountain passes with accurate altitudes, more odd Tibetan names, more monasteries which are exactly like the ones already described, more of everything! Actually that is just a joke, from here on out its danger, excitement, yetis, tragedy, death, Rambo, and middle of the night flights from angry government officials--so buckle up.
The first obstacle our traveler must face is that long-dreaded threat to all of his chances to make it to Everest: the government checkpoint. The building is unassuming, not large at all. The guards seem relaxed and the general feeling of the place is relaxed--for everyone who is not an American. Our traveler cannot help but remember not more than a week ago, three American protesters were led into this building in handcuffs.
Above you can see our worried traveler approaching the checkpoint. Unfortunately they do not allow pictures of this building, so you can only just see the edge of it on the left there.
There is quite a crowd in the building, various Chinese tourists all taking care of the pointless necessities of the bureaucracy. After an agonizing wait of several tens of minutes, our traveler's turn has come. He stands before the guards, doing everything possible to resist the shaking and looking as innocent as is possible. Unfortunately it would be that our traveler's conception of what it is to look innocent is a sick smile that generally arouses strong sensations of anger and irritation in all who witness it. He hands the guards his passport and permit. The guards do not even look at the passport, keeping their eyes locked on our traveler's. Without looking, they flip carelessly through our traveler's passport, pausing here in there, to squint meaningfully at our traveler. The guards close the passport, setting it aside for the time being and finally look elsewhere. There are a few brief words in Chinese, from what our traveler could catch, mostly harsh criticisms of our traveler's passport photo. The guards press a button and summon several more guards who all gather around his passport. At this point, some of the other tourists are getting interested, even Samdim the guide has gone around the counter to join in the general brouhaha developing around our traveler's passport.
Finally, the biggest of the guards, who is also wearing the largest hat and obviously has the most important position at the checkpoint, points at the passport and lets out the loudest guffaw ever heard. In an instant the entire room is in tears of laughter and the guards, half choking, manage to put the miraculous stamp on our traveler's permit. He is free to go, with only his pride hurt.
Leaving the checkpoint behind in a cloud of dust, our traveler heads off with hopes that by the end of the day he will have seen Everest. But of course, nothing is ever perfect and hopes will be dashed to pieces every once in a while.
Once more the road continues up. The road seems to be mounting into the sky itself as it curls sharply up towards the Pang-La pass (16,896 ft.). About halfway up the traveler finds that it has resumed snowing, however after a few minutes he realizes that this is no snow but large hail which being blown in the heavy wind is flying sideways. As he looks out over the void behind them, he sees the large clouds of hail floating in the wind. Up and up the car goes, passing other cars coming down, sometimes precariously perching itself on the edge of the cliff to allow these others by. Our traveler’s excitement grows as they near the pass. The final bulge of the hillside blocks out all view of what might be on the other side or what the weather may be like over there.
The thickness of the clouds and the general nastiness of the weather is our traveler's primary concern now. He is already having difficulty seeing back down into the valley from which they have just emerged, how much worse will it be looking up and across towards the great mountains to the south? In an instant they pop over the pass and are in view of the most famous range of the Himalaya. Or at least they would have been in view if it had not been entirely socked in by heavy clouds. As if to taunt our traveler, the land cruiser stops at a sign which has the outline of all the famous mountains he could be seeing if the clouds were not there. Cho-Oyu, Malaku, Everest and Lhotse--all are hidden.
Our traveler, refusing to give up, steps out of the car to stare through the clouds if he can. But of course, every land cruiser which passes through this area acts like a magnet for the impoverished Tibetans who often make their living off travelers. In a few moments there is a small cluster of Tibetans who have emerged from old-looking tents to crowd around the traveler. They are not begging, at least not as openly as our traveler has seen in other places. Instead these people show a freedom with the traveler and his companions not often seen in America or other civilized countries. A young man, who is 19 as later discovered, walks up to our traveler and throws his arm about him in a familiar embrace. The Tibetan speaks better Chinese than our traveler, but it is still quite clear that this is not his native tongue.
After talking for some time about mountains, a conversation which was by no means fraught with intellectual value, since our traveler finds it hard to convey the simplest of thoughts in Chinese, the young Tibetan asks our traveler if he wants to trade coats. For the first time, our traveler notices the Tibetan's clothing; he has a Mountain Hardware coat which, although old, still looks quite warm, a wool hat, and wool pants. Apparently our traveler's coat is better than this Tibetan's, for the young man is quite insistent on this point and keeps suggesting that a trade would be good for both of them. Our traveler awkwardly declines, giving lame reasons in English and makes his way back to the car. Remember this moment, for I will talk more about it later, when the story is finished.
Through the falling hail and bitter wind, they continue on down into the last valley. Going down is always faster than going up and it seems to be only a matter of minutes before they are once more in the valley and rolling their way along towards that final destination. After waggling their way, weaving between high hills and cliffs, they finally turn out of this main valley into a smaller, glacier formed rift which leads almost straight south. In a few minutes our traveler realizes this is the famous Rongbuk Valley, at the top of which is Everest Base Camp.
Eagerly craning his neck, our traveler prays that he might catch even the slightest glimpse of the mountain. No such luck. The clouds remain thick and impenetrable, a wall between our traveler and the mountain. Following along the small creek which flows out of the glacier, they finally come to Rongbuk Monastery. The monastery would be of no note at all if it were not the highest in the world. But this is where our traveler will spend the night and where he will first see Everest if he ever sees it. Looking at it yourself, I do not doubt you will be a little disappointed.

Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey: Part 10--Clouds

Rising early, our traveler sets off once more towards his eventual destination. The stopping point for this day is Shigar, a tiny pit-stop on the side of the Friendship highway where the turnoff for Everest is.The journey to Shigar is supposedly almost as long as the first day’s drive, some 5 or 6 hours. The drive starts off from Shigatse in a normal sort of way; open brown plains with large hills rising out of the valleys. These plains are populated by yaks or the bastard yaks which are half cow and half yak. Our traveler lest this scenery slip by without too much attention. Soon, almost without noticing it, the traveler climbs up and over the very gentle Tso-La pass (14,850 ft.) which does not offer any particularly exciting views.

Dropping back into another valley full of farmland, small villages, and yaks (there are also of course a few Tibetans) the scenery once more slips by with liquid speed.He next comes to a marker with a giant “5000” written on it. Apparently this sign proclaims the traveler’s distance from Shanghai to be a whopping 5000 kilometers. This somewhat odd, since the poor village around the sign doesn’t seem to be particularly aware of the importance of its location. Indeed, living under the shadow of a ruined dzong and monastery, these people seem to be much more aware of the power this sign has over travelers. Although it is a guess, the traveler figures that a goodly portion of the village’s economy revolves around this mysterious black sign (written in languages they do not understand and referring to impossible places). But the sign does not hold our traveler for long, and he is quickly on the road again.

They next come to the much higher Tropu-La pass (16,335 ft.) which despite its height lacks any particularly beautiful vistas. Our traveler is disappointed to learn that he cannot yet see the mountain he came to see. Dropping down again through brown hills and brown plains, the cars traveling along the long, straight highway leave clouds of dust behind them as they move along—small dots in the large landscape.

In what seems only a matter of minutes, but what must have been much more, the traveler finds the car climbing again, this time to the steepest and highest pass before Shigar, Gyatso-La (17,226 ft.). As they go up, it begins to snow lightly and the scenery takes on a particularly ominous feel. The ground turns black with light brown and gray stones and boulders studding it as far as the eye can see. The land is desolate, nothing is growing and there are very, very few yaks—less people. At the pass itself a small group of darkly tanned Tibetans beg for food from the cars which stop, knocking on the windows and pointing at whatever exposed food there might be in the car. With the falling snow and the chill wind, the traveler wonders how desperate these people are to be waiting for passing cars in this desolate pass. To judge by the rewards of their begging, it is not an un-lucrative job.

Our traveler had hoped that there would be some views of the great mountains in this area, but heavy clouds sock in the pass and the traveler can see nothing of note. They continue on, descending now, but never so much as they have ascended and are in Shigar by 2 in the afternoon. Shigar is a mostly dead town, with one large street and stupendously ugly buildings ringed by lackluster brown hills. In this dismal environment, our traveler finds himself in a serious argument with deeply important consequences. It being only midday, the group wishes to continue on, but the big question is where to. It would be possible to continue on and make it in to Rongbuk Monastery (A Monastery at the base of Everest) before night, or as some of our traveler's companions wish to do, head further towards Nepal along the highway to Tingri. While the views of Cho-Oyu (one of the world's tallest mountains) are beautiful from this city, it is not the same in our traveler's mind as Everest. Not at all the same. After a discussion which lasts some thirty minutes perhaps, in which our traveler sees some of his worst fears begin to materialize (weaker members of the group chickening out), he finally prevails over cowardice and fear and the group heads off for Rongbuk Monastery and Mount Everest.

Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey: Part 9--Shigatse

Our traveler having seen the sights in Guyantse, such as they were, he decides not to spend much more time in that locale. Besides from the impressive dzong and the magnificent kumbum, there really is nothing else to see in Guyantse; by nothing else I mean Guyantse consists of one road which runs from the monastery to the dzong and has the town clustered around it.
Without much more ado than eating breakfast, our traveler once more boards the vehicle to continue on with his journey. The day’s drive is not long, nor is it remarkable, sticking to the flat plains of the valley all the way into Shigatse. These plains are by far the most fertile plains our traveler has yet seen in Tibet; you might almost call them green.
Shigatse, the second largest town in Tibet, is on the friendship highway proper, not the Southern branch. As far as town’s go, not especially remarkable, but Shigatse does have several claims to fame. First is the Tashilhungpo Monastery, which is the seat of the Panchen Lama, second is Shigatse’s dzong which more remodeled and refurbished than Guyantse’s is practically the same as the Potala, only smaller. The dzong stands on one hill and the monastery rises up another. There are also several markets in Shigatse but these are disappointing and our traveler spends little time there.The Tashilhungpo Monastery, on the other hand, is a wonder befitting this grand land. The monastery is, as our traveler expected, large, covering a goodly portion of the hillside. It’s golden roofed monuments stand out against the dry brown of the hillside and the pale white construction of normal monastic buildings. Our traveler, despite his inherent reluctance to spend money, pays the entrance fee and begins to wander around the monastery.
Walking through the narrow streets of the monastery flanked by the high steep walls, our traveler gets the feeling he is in some medieval fortress. The walls are almost all white-washed like those of the Potala. But there are occasional portions of the monastery which are still tan-colored and in ruins—these are the parts of the monastery which have yet to be refurbished.
As our traveler makes his way through the monastery following signs which tell him to “come this way” he finds himself moving through chamber after chamber, darkly lit and smelling of incense. Each room has its own little sign which informs the visitors “For to take picture in this room, is x kuai” the traveler soon discovers that he can judge the importance of a room by the size of the fee to take pictures there. Our traveler finds himself before a curtained door. He debates for a few moments whether or not he should enter, but eventually decides, it couldn’t hurt and pushes his way through the heavy curtain.
The first thing which meets his eye is a picture of one of the panchen lamas. Not a particularly astounding sight—looking past this picture though, our traveler sees something more intriguing. It looks to be a massive foot. This massive foot is attached as it happens to an equally massive Buddha. In fact it is, as the nearby sign proclaims in very bad English, the world’s largest guilt statue. The Buddha is a towering 87 and a half feet tall, covered from head to toe in a thin coat of pure gold. While this picture does not really do the statue justice, for reference you might imagine that his hand was as large as our traveler's 6'7" traveling companion. The Buddha’s half closed eyes stare down from their lofty height at our traveler, and he thinks this Buddha looks as though he were stoned. When our traveler comes to think of it, most Buddha have a distinctly "under the influence" look—half closed, red-rimmed eyes. Perhaps this was yet another way to attain enlightenment.
Among the other sites of the Tashilhungpo Monastery, are the various tombs of the panchen Lamas, huge golden stacks of metal with intricately carved characters on top. These dominate the buildings which house them, which is saying quite a bit since these rooms have 1000 golden painting of Buddha as their wallpaper. The view from the highest point of the monastery is stunning, with the golden capped roofs framing the sprawling city of Shigatse and being framed in turn by the looming mountains far in the distance. To the left of the monastery rises the dzong of Shigatse, not quite as high and seemingly unimportant compared with the majesty of Tashilhungpo Monastery.

Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey: Part 8--Guyantse

The story obviously continues, you will no doubt have guessed that our fearless traveler does not perish in an explosion. Indeed, it will come as no surprise to you that the "bomb" of Samdim's somewhat poor English was not some terrorist plot to rid the world of freedom and prosperity. Not at all. Instead this "bomb" was a stellar example of the Chinese method of road construction. The general way of things if you happen to be a Chinese worker building a road through the Himalaya, is that the landscape should change to fit your road and not the other way around. So there we have Wang Peng the Chinese worker, building a road through all these annoying mountains and hills and rivers and lakes. He comes to this incredibly annoying hillside which simply would be right where he had planned on putting a nice flat road. Now it is unthinkable to Wang Peng that he would change his plan to go around this large mound of rock. Instead Wang Peng, a person with a little bit of vindictiveness in his nature, decides that he is going to make that mountain pay for it's inconsiderate location. Wang Peng's Solution? Dynamite.

This was the nature of the bomb our traveler came upon high in the mountains. And as he waited uneasily not yet understanding this, the worker's triggered their bomb. The explosion was strong enough to shake the car and turn the general atmosphere into a dusty, smoky mix impossible to see through. The driver, intrepid explorer that he was, does not require sight to pilot his land cruiser and so before the just has any chance to settle, our traveler finds that they are once more on their way.
In very little time he finds that they are out of the mountains and on the long straight stretch of the road which leads into the town of Guyantse. Guyantse itself is perhaps the third or fourth largest town in all of Tibet and is not big. Situated 13,000 ft. above sea-level, it is not that much higher than Lhasa. However it feels nothing like the capital city. The massive dzong (fortress) rising high above the city, this fort is situated on a rugged hill, more suitably described as a pillar of rock. Like the Potala the Guyantse dzong is white washed with deep red trim. You can see it perched on top of the hill above the city.
The Guyantse dzong, as opposed to the Potala, has not been restored at all and is entirely open to visitors. In the first moments our traveler is there he sees no other living souls. Eventually he does stumble upon someone who extracts the entrance fee from him. Despite this 30 kuai sadness, the dzong is still impressive. After ascending a lengthy staircase which switch-backed up the hill, passing through various gates and guardhouses, the traveler finds himself in the dzong proper. Below him stretches out a view of Guyantse’s old town and the new town slowly building itself up around it. To the west of the dzong, the traveler can see the walled in Pelkor monastery with its squat, but massive kumbum (a round monument called a chorten with 100,000 images of Buddha in it).
After taking some time to survey the surrounding area, our traveler continues up, hoping eventually to reach it’s highest point, more than 500 ft above the town. On his way he sees such sights as the Dungeon, the Chapel of the Righteous King, and the cannon platforms complete with rusted cannon (mostly on the west side of the dzong). Just a ways up the path from the cannon the traveler sees a sign which reads “this way to jump off cliff” Feeling this to be a sign worth investigating our traveler hikes along the way indicated by the sign. In a few moments he comes to a small battlement, literally perched on the cliff. Looking over the edge, the ttraveler can see broken rocks hundreds of feet below. A large memorial reads “Eternal glory to the jumpers of the cliff.” A smaller explanatory note below this says that the dzong was attacked by the British in 1904 and being overrun, many of the Tibetan defenders jumped off the battlements at this point, rather than surrender.
Continuing on up the rickety iron staircases inside the dzong, the traveler after making his way through the many dark and barren layers of the dzong, finds himself on top. A large brass thing (for lack of better word, perhaps a chorten) covered in prayer flags dominates the small 10ft square space. But the traveler is afforded a panorama of the entire valley with its guardian mountain ranges, the small city of Guyantse, the Pelkor monastery, and even a smaller monastery far back in the hills, supposedly only inhabited by 8 monks. Two large birds of prey, perhaps hawks, soar around the top of this tower, close enough for the traveler to see the sun glinting from their eyes. Large, ponderous rain clouds move down from the north along the ridgelines, and the descending sun casts long shadows throughout the city far below.
When looking at the picture of the Pelkor monastery to the right, you will notice a many-tiered building capped with gold. This is that kumbum which was mentioned earlier. Our traveler did get a chance the next morning to explore this interesting little building. Between it's seven levels it has 77 little chapels, each filled with various statues and paintings of Buddha or one of his companions. It is a famous aspect of Buddhism that the Buddhas' hands have various postures which imply certain meanings. Our traveler is largely unaware of these meanings, but there was one gesture which he understood. Imagine his surprise as he steps into yet another one of these chapels, perhaps in the thirty-seventh or so, and finds himself looking at a statue which is flipping him off. He conjectures that this is a more recent addition meant for the many pesky Western tourists, a sort of "here's what we think of you" sort of thing.

Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey: Part 7 --Yamdrok Tso, the Scorpion Lake

So the first day of traveling out to Everest arrives. Our fearless traveler leaves Lhasa while the sun is still shining, heading south and west on the Southern Friendship Highway towards Guyantse. Our traveler was slightly unsettled by the otherwise "girly" name which this road was unfortunately plagued with. When one is cruising through the highest mountains on the world, over snowy passes and unbelievably isolated landscapes, one does not generally like to imagine that one is on the "Southern Friendship Highway." Something like "Road to Death in the Sky" or "Stairway to Heaven" would have been much more fitting to the present mindset.
But our traveler did not worry about what ever nominal woes the road had, for it quickly became the highway of his dreams. Not twenty minutes out of Lhasa, our traveler finds himself in long valley with stunning mountains snow-capped mountains at the far end. But what really elates our traveler is that he is heading towards these mountains. Valleys are not what our traveler came to Tibet for, though, and soon they are climbing their way out of the valley up into the heights of the Kamba-La pass (15,820 ft.). Working their way up towards the top of the pass, the scenery is not especially majestic. The valley they are leaving behind, looks very much like the Lhasa valley where our traveler has spent the last three days. And the steep hillside which they are climbing is merely more of the same brown dirt hillsides which are so common in Tibet.
Our traveler does remark with pleasure that every passing moment brings him higher than he has ever been on earth. But all these thoughts are banished from his mind in the moment they cross over the pass. The road, which has until then merely been along and up brown mountain sides, suddenly reveals a huge drop into the Yamdrok valley where the brilliant blue Yamdrok lake twists.

The lake is shaped like a huge scorpion, and so clear that it perfectly reflects the surrounding mountains. The Kamba-La pass rises up at the far northern end of what would be one of the scorpion’s pincers, and just past the end of the southern pincer can been seen the corniced peak of Kula Kangri (24,928 ft.) which marks the border with Bhutan. Not only has our traveler been higher than he has ever been before, but he is also looking at the tallest mountain he has ever seen.

As our traveler drops into this magnificent valley, dotted with tiny villages and ancient ruins, they keep close to the shore of the lake, wrapping around it for almost an hour, before they come to the largest village on the lake, Nangartse, where he eats lunch. Nangartse is nothing special to note in his travels, as it half resembles a small, but beginning to develop Chinese town, and the other half a Tibetan city. Although during lunch our traveler is treated to a spectacular form of Tibetan cuisine. Samdim the ingratiating guide brings our traveler a curious string of irregular white-gray cubes. Our traveler has seen various Tibetans selling these things, but always imagined them to be something connected with religion, since they clearly were too ugly for any sane person to purchase. After several minutes in which our traveler awkwardly thanks Samdim for this new gift, the guide clears up what confusion there might have been by saying, "It's cheese. Very good to taste." Well, with this revelation, our traveler suddenly knows all--string cheese! But our traveler is slightly reserved since this cheese has the consistency of concrete as well as the appearance. But our traveler is an adventurous fellow and tries this local product. Much to his surprise, the food actually tastes like concrete (the powder form of course). After eating enough to be sure he didn't just get a bad piece (as well as to entirely remove his appetite) our traveler chucks this horrible travesty to cheese into the nearest garbage can. Cheese in Tibet can be good, but if it comes on a string, run!

As he leaves the Yamdrok valley, he begins to rise again heading towards the Karola pass (16,632 ft.). Just past the pass the glacier covered peak of Nojn Knagtsang (23,730 ft.) causes him to momentarily stop and gape in awe. After finally turning his back on this ice covered wonder, he continues on the road towards Guyantse (his final destination for the day.) The road from here on is under construction so the going is considerably slower, not to mention much rougher. The land cruiser and driver handle all obstacles well tough, fording rivers and climbing cliffs with incredible ease and nonchalance.

But even the driver must suffer some defeats. The coming around a bend, the car pulls to a stop and the driver gets out. There has been no explanation offered for these strange actions, but it seems as though something is not right. There is a small camp of construction workers here, and the driver saunters over to them. He chats with them for what must be ten minutes, at least long enough to rule out the stop as an emergency bathroom break. Finally, getting frustrated, our traveler asks Samdim why they have stopped. Samdim says with complete frankness and almost no emotion, "There is a bomb planted ahead."

Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey: Part 6 --The Unwanted Guide

I am tempted to draw out the tension and darkness surrounding how our traveler manages to get to Everest, but I too have a heart. So, here it is: when last we were concerned with this issue our traveler had left his passport with Tenzing the travel agent (if you didn't know his name, it's that). Our traveler returned to Tenzing's office a little before Tenzing arrived and so was made to submit to a traditional form of Chinese torture often referred to as "waiting." Horrible thing this "waiting," makes the victim feel like their heart is being torn out with a pair of red hot tongs. Not at all pleasant. But our traveler, being made of the tough stuff he was, endured.
Tenzing arrives, making a grand entrance--he bursts into the office, a radiant smile on his face. He proudly tells our traveler that he has succeeded. In his hand he has permits to go to Mt. Everest, permits which will pave the road to our traveler's dreams. The actual permits look pretty unassuming. Just little bits of paper with the all important red stamp (a thing which lets you know you have really gotten official in China). Tenzing explains that everything is set, only there is one slight catch: our traveler must take along a guide. It had originally been our traveler's plan to avoid this pesky annoyance--guide's being the sort of people who make you go do things you do not want to do, talk to you when you want no one to talk to you, and point out all those stupid little cliche things which everyone sees when traveling. But, sacrifices must be made. So for the sake of Mount Everest, our traveler reluctantly agrees to drag along this guide person.
You might imagine that a guide being brought along under these circumstances might prove to be the source of many awkward situations. Our traveler resolved to ignore him, shove him in the back seat, and leave him in the hotel at every stop along the way out to Everest. Yes, this may be a heartless attitude, but such a person is our traveler that he finds this whole idea of a "guide" bugging him to no end. Our traveler had images of himself crawling around Everest discovering all the mysterious wonders of this place on his way--now these images were shattered by the picture of some touristy guide popping out from behind rocks to point out that this was the place where such and such a climber fell to his death and that tourists could now order small dolls to toss off the cliff in remembrance of the climber.
Arrangements were made that the traveler should return at 8 in the morning on the following day (Monday) to begin the great journey out to Everest. But before our traveler leaves to go about his business for the night, Tenzing suggest that he meet with his guide. Our traveler agrees to get this bit of unpleasantness over with and so he meets Samdim. Samdim (his name is pronounced like you might pronounce Gandhi's) is a Tibetan who lives in Lhasa, he speaks fair English, but his Chinese is, in his words, 100% and of course he speaks Tibetan. Samdim is a young guy, our traveler eventually learns that he is the same age as this guide.
Over the course of the coming days, our traveler learns that Samdim is not so bad as he thought he would be. Indeed, Samdim seems incredibly happy with the idea of just relaxing on his own at every stop, letting the traveler go around to explore on his own. As a person, Samdim is actually quite interesting. He is infatuated with hip-hop music, although he has problems with some of the artists since in his words, "They use too many bad words." Of course, his favorite artist, a fine strapping young African American fellow by the name of "Nellie," has some of the most profanity laced songs our traveler has ever heard. Samdim finds great pleasure in playing these songs, (mostly concerned with such topics as killing policemen and doing other scandalous things...) and he has a peculiar way of bobbing his head to the beat which makes him look like he has a strange disease. Much of this might have been the rough roads too, though.
Samdim, in his capacity as a guide, was quite good, although in his own words very inexperienced. He would bring the traveler various gifts at every stop along the way: brownies, little trinkets from the local population. Our traveler and his companions, while they knew that these expenses were covered by the original fee, still found themselves being won over to Samdim by them. Above is a picture of our traveler's fearless group of adventurers. The fellow in the bright yellow coat is Samdim, the short Mexican guy on the left is the driver, whose name is completely impossible to render in English. The dirty hippy next to him is our fearless traveler, and the giant in the middle is the original mastermind of the adventure. The two girls on the left are classmates who came along for the ride. In the back, you can just see the Land Cruiser in which our traveler has much faith.
After having chatted aimlessly with Samdim, our traveler left to pack up his things at the hotel and purchase some food stuffs for the journey. Traveling along these roads, stops for lunch are not always guaranteed, so travelers after bring along a large supply of edibles. So it is that our traveler goes to bed that night with completely revolutionized hopes in his trip to Mount Everest. No more does he worry about hitchhiking (lame, I know), no more does he concern himself with bringing down the local government that he might escape through the confusion. He is at peace.

Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey: Part 5--Plot Thickening

There was one other slight piece of business our traveler had on his mind. There are several ways to travel to and from Tibet, most commonly people take a train in and leave by airplane. Our traveler planned to do the opposite of this and leave by train, the train ride supposedly quite the trip. But it is the way of things in China that one cannot actually purchase a train ticket more than a week or so in advance, so our traveler had gone to Tibet without plans for escaping from that country—blindly hoping that he could purchase a train ticket in Lhasa.

This would prove much harder than he had imagined. Our traveler asked around Lhasa and found that he could only purchase a train ticket in two locations. One was the official tourism office in the western part of town and the other was the train station about 5 miles out of town on the other side of the river. Our traveler made his first attempt in the evening and so found the first location closed and was forced to go across the river.

At the train station he waited through an stupendously slow line until his term came. Confusion ensues. Our traveler, as fearless as he might have been, was also slightly foolish. He was not actually sure of the date on which he wanted to leave, knowing only that it was the next Sunday. When he tried to convey this idea to the woman behind the counter, she somehow misunderstood him, suggesting the 8^th of May as a date of departure. It turns out that the 8^th is a Tuesday. Our traveler did not have a calendar with him and so didn’t know this. He agrees. Lady behind the counter tells him that while she suggested this date, it was actually some form of rouse and that he couldn’t actually purchase a train ticket for this day.

Still laboring under the misunderstanding that the 8^th was Sunday, our traveler is heartbroken. He had counted on being able to leave on Sunday, but if the fates were against him (the fates being the Chinese government) well then he would do what he would do. He asks for the next possible day of departure. Lady behind the Counter suggests the 9^th which would actually be Wednesday, although our traveler imagines it to be Monday. He reluctantly agrees. With a cry of triumph she reveals that she has tricked him yet again, telling him that he can’t actually purchase this ticket for three more days. (China’s lovely can’t purchase ticket more than a week in advance policy).

Feeling that the woman behind the counter is too much of a comedian, our traveler looks at her with loathing, and departs from the line in failure.

This leaves him in no pretty situation. Train tickets in China generally sell out two or three days in advance. If he does end up traveling out to Everest, he will not be back until the day before he would like to leave, possibly the evening before. This would make it incredibly difficult for him to purchase his ticket, and in all probability he would end up being stranded in Tibet.

Fortunately he has a chance conversation with another person and discovers the evil joke the woman behind the counter had been playing on him. He could actually leave Tibet on the 7^th which was Monday, not the 9^th. This wonderful thing cleared up, he returns to the train station, this time a different window and purchases his ticket for the 7^th. Life is much better now, although the original woman behind the counter might step in at any moment to challenge our traveler to mortal combat.