Gyangze and the Pelche Monastery

Then we went to Gyangze one of the six Tibetan communities in Tibet aside from Lhasa. We passed by Tibetan farms where the yak roamed and lived liken to a dog at each house, except these yaks plow the field. The houses and fences were built on yak pies. Corn was hung to dry from the roof. It was all very neat to see. I think these images are western images of Tibet and not the modern tourist convenient Lhasa.

We went to visit a monastery called Pelche. I don’t believe I’ve got the proper spelling on this. There is the Chinese spelling and the Tibetan spelling on the names of places and things here. In Pelche monastery, I walked around. There were 77 alters, or halls. I honestly got sick of them. They were repetitive. I enjoyed the images of 8 great Bodhisattvas the most. I went up the Stupa that was round and each level was designed in rings and within rings, each had halls and stairs that led to up or down. But 1st floor entrance to 2nd didn't mean it led to the 3rd. So I lost track of what stair was in what floor and in what hall and got lost on the way down and ended up doing things twice or more. I kind of got dizzy afterwards too. I really felt like I could not see another monastery after this. Nate was so Tibetan monasteried out that he went shopping outside the monastery and took photos.

My insights after this monastery was,… boy am I glad Ven. Hsuan Hua set up things so our monks and nun don't have to sit at the door and collect tickets or sit at the alter and sell trinkets for a living. Glad the system works and the community is well supported. In fact, I think we've got it well and anyone who's got nothing better to do than fight should try to check out other conditions around the world.

Everything is Sacred in Tibet

We passed by a beautiful river. I am learning everything in Tibet is sacred, each river, each lake, each hill, each mountain is sacred. This river had a beautiful scenic backdrop. I was told by Lang that in this river, when Tibetans cannot afford funeral ceremony, they send their deceased down the river. So no one eats the fish because they believe the fish eat their deceased loved ones. So our driver told us, those who sell fish along the road for meals are not Tibetans and that we are not stopping for fish meals. We did pull over to walk on the sand banks off the river to enjoy the beauty.

Yamzho Yumco Lake

We went to a lake, might have been the Yamzho Yumco lake. I cannot recall exactly, it is south beyond Lhasa. It was beautiful and it was turquoise in color. I really enjoyed it. It would have been a great place to picnic but we had to hit the road. There was a man with a yak who charged tourist money to get photos taken with the yak. It only costed 10 yuan per photo. Since I wasn’t taking the picture with the yak but only of the yak, I figured that price did not apply to me. I wanted to use the toilet there but a person stood in front of the open pits and decided to charge 1.5 yuan for usage. It stank and people can see you from above. I decided to wait for another beautiful scenery where there is open flow of fresh air, complete privacy of the open space in the wilderness of Tibet. Infact this became our group agreement that the car would not stop for pee break unless the view was first class.

Lost in Translation

We set off for our trip on Saturday morning. We met at 8am to load up the car. I got to sit shotgun first. That was fine because I was very tired and since we would spend a week together we would all rotate. Our driver Lang looked decent he was in his early thirties who spoke mandarin with heavy Tibetan accent. He did not speak English and was very glad that I could communicate with him. Lang was a nice, good safe driver who has no record of accidents.

There were plenty of fun stories coming from the back row. Everyone in the car had plenty of travel experience and stories to share. They were pretty outrageous from traveling all over South America on public buses with the chickens and shotguns to breaking the back in three different places. On this trip so far I have come across people who are young and have traveled all over the world for months to a year at a time. The most I’ve traveled was two and half months in Europe on trains and ferries. All their stories and experiences seems so much more monumental than my very comfortable backpacking trip in tourist friendly Europe.

Rupert shared his story of having a sleeper berth ticket from Beijing to Xi’an but the train service person at the dock would not let him on. He had the right train, right time, right cart number but he was not allowed on. So he went back to the counter to inquire and they said he should have been let on. So he decided to take the next train figure that there would be one in a few hours. Well, that turned out to be 12+ hours of waiting. He didn’t sleep because he didn’t want to miss the train. He finally boarded the next train but it was full. He was not allowed onto the sleeper berth cart because he no longer had a ticket that was valid. He ended up as a traveler with a standing ticket. He stood the next 8+ hours to Xi’an. On the train he hung out with locals who slept in the toilet because they too had a standing ticket. He complained of the spitting and other disgusting things he saw on the train. Finally he made it to Xi’an during the National Holiday week and was just too tired and bummed out by the whole experience that he decided he didn’t like China and would try to at least make it to Tibet on the next available flight. When he left Hong Kong he left all his winter gear in his friend’s place thinking he wouldn’t go to Tibet. But he made it in and was totally unprepared for the cold etc….His story shed light on his terrible experience with the train that it was tempting to feel sorry for him but all and all it was so funny in the same time that we laughed the whole time. We encouraged him and supported him by saying that if he had not been through all of this, he wouldn’t have such an unique story to tell and the story was worth the suffering he went through.

I kept the driver company by chatting with him in Mandarin. He told me many things about the Tibetan culture and his tour guide stories. He was so happy that I could communicate with him and be a translator for the rest of the group. He said often he would give tourist instructions and make arrangement but then they would disappear. One time he told a tourist to not wonder off but he did and he got lost. It took Lang 6 hours of driving around a small old town to find him at sun down. He attributed all of this to miscommunication on both ends.

I bought lots of car snacking kind of food. No one else prepared a supply of fruits, crackers, nuts, dried fruit, and candy. There was no Seven Eleven to stop at or drive-throughs, I was very hungry and so was everyone else in the car. I decided to share, things tastes better shared anyways.