Phil's Fabulous Tibetan Journey: Part 3 --Bureaucracy

Arriving in Lhasa was not as spectacular as our traveler felt it should have been. But I have the feeling such places, already so famous, can never fully live up to the wild expectations visitors have. But Lhasa is a beautiful city all the same. Set in a river valley between large brown ridges which are still snowcapped this early in May, Lhasa makes the traveler realize that he is no longer in China. And whatever you would like to say politically about Tibet, it is no more Chinese than Nepal. As you walk around the streets of Lhasa, Tibet’s most heavily Chinese dominated city, all the street signs are still written in both Chinese and Tibetan. But what really makes you realize you are not in China anymore is the fact that Chinese is no longer the language of choice. Most Tibetans speak better English than they do Chinese, and not very many Tibetans speak English—if you get the picture.

But our traveler does not have the time to remark upon any of the intricacies of the cultural-political situation in Tibet for long, his first priority is to try and arrange some sort of transportation out to Everest. Although he does not plan on leaving for a few days yet, the word on the street is that arranging transportation can sometimes take longer than expected and a little preplanning pays off. Perhaps, though, the term “arranging transportation” should be clarified. Mt. Everest is a long haul from Lhasa and the roads are not all paved. Public transportation is not exactly available. Generally, travelers hire a land cruiser and driver (often with a guide tag-along) to drive to the mountain. The first order of the day then, is to pick one of the travel agencies which litter the streets of Lhasa.

Our traveler’s first attempt is somewhat of a failure. The people in this first travel agency speak a little English and a little Chinese and a lot of Tibetan, so not much of what is desired gets through. For some mysterious reason these first travel agents cannot help our traveler. While this is an ominous start to his as yet completely abstract plans for a visit to Mount Everest, he is an optimist and keeps on going. There are other travel agencies.

Unfortunately the situation is far worse than our traveler ever could have imagined. At the second travel agency, more English is spoken and the true horror of the situation emerges: a week before our traveler arrived in Tibet, certain other Americans had decided it would be a smart move to protest the Chinese involvement in Tibet. These fools chose for their location none other than Mount Everest. Before this, all the traveler had imagined he must do was pay some fees for the appropriate permits and passes and he would be allowed out to base camp. However, a new travel agent now tells our traveler that the Chinese government has shut down most of Tibet and is no longer allowing Americans out to base camp. The travel agent lamely suggests that our traveler go in person to the local police station and ask for a permit; until he has one of these, the travel agent says, nothing can be done.

This was the first horrible development in a serious of even more horrible developments which would eventually drive our traveler close to despair. While Tibet is all well and good, it was our traveler’s opinion that Tibet without Mount Everest was very much like apple pie without apples.

Being evening already and the police station closed, it is in a very sad state that our traveler leaves the travel agent’s office with the lame hope that tomorrow morning he can go to the local police and beg for a permit in person. Still trying to be optimistic, our traveler does not have much hope for this course of action.

Morning comes very slowly, our traveler being too worried about not being able to go to Mount Everest to enjoy what small night life there is in Lhasa. At the police station, a nice enough woman explains to our traveler that they cannot actually give out permits of any sort to a foreigner. If the foreigner would like a permit, the policewoman says, he must go to a travel agent. After twenty minutes or so of explaining that it was a travel agent who sent him here, our traveler leaves to go to yet another travel agency. This time he gets a little farther, the travel agents actually saying that they could arrange the trip, only they would need our traveler’s Tibet permit. This was the little piece of paper which Mr. Chen had originally acquired for our traveler. Unfortunately Mr. Chen was of the opinion that this paper was not at all important and never gave it to our traveler, assuring him that it would never be needed.

At the insistence of this new travel agent, our traveler calls Mr. Chen to see if his permit can somehow be faxed to Lhasa. Mr. Chen chastises our traveler for going to a travel agent in the first place and says he should merely go and talk with the Tibetan drivers—apparently this method does not require a permit. At this point Mr. Chen’s status as glorious travel agent has shrunken no small amount—more and more our traveler remembers him as a slimy little greasy haired bird who should have his yak head fall on him. But persistence is the name of the game when dealing with the Chinese bureaucracy, so our traveler tries again.

I realize all this is quite dry and confusing, so perhaps a clarification is in order: In Kunming, our fearless traveler approaches travel agent A to obtain tickets to Lhasa and permit. In Lhasa, fearless traveler approaches travel agent B to arrange transportation to Mount Everest; Travel Agent B refers traveler to Travel Agent C; Travel Agent C refers traveler to police; police refer traveler to Travel Agent D; Travel Agent D confers with travel Agent A, eventually deciding that Travel Agent E must be brought into the picture. Travel Agent E is our fearless traveler’s last hope.

This time he finds a travel agency where English is spoken in great profusion. The travel agent after hearing what they want to do, ponders our traveler in grave silence for a moment before saying that in his opinion the traveler should give up completely any hopes of going to Mount Everest. Since the American protesters, things have degenerated to such a state that there really is no hope for legally going out to base camp. But our traveler pleads with this man for quite some time and eventually leaves with the agreement that the travel agent will take his passport and student ID (for added veracity) to the police station next morning and see if they will give him a permit.

Leaving this last office in complete dejection, our traveler decides to see the sights of Lhasa while he waits for his verdict from the invisible forces of Chinese bureaucracy. Experiencing for the first time the full force of Chinese stonewalling, our traveler reacts rashly. He has heard that hitchhiking is much safer in Tibet than in America, and that may travelers have had success along these lines. What’s more, hitchhiking requires no permit. It is with a resolved mind that our traveler goes through the sights of Lhasa—if on the morrow this new travel agent fails him, he hitchhikes to Mount Everest.