Archive for November, 2007
Stress, Stress, Stress
By Thomas on November 25, 2007 | No Comments »
We are scheduled to leave tomorrow on our 17-day trip to western Tibet and the permits are still not here! I guess, eight days of paper-pushing is just not enough time. If we wait any longer, we either have to cut our trip short or overstay our Chinese visa (which would cost us $100 a day in penalties). It’s infuriating!
How are We Doing This?
By Tony on November 24, 2007 | No Comments »
I am sure a lot of you are wondering how we are actually managing to submit so many postings while traveling through such remote locations. The truth is that there is a buffer time between where we are traveling and the postings on the blog.
Clearly, we have not had Internet access on every mountain top or in every monastery where we have stayed. We write the postings as we travel and then load them into the blog software when we find an Internet cafe. The postings are gradually automatically being posted as we travel to our next destination.
The big challenge is correctly guessing where we will next have Internet access. If the postings suddenly stop, you’ll know we chose poorly.
Tibetan Mother
By Tony on November 23, 2007 | No Comments »
Secrets and Yak Butter Lamps
By Tony on November 22, 2007 | No Comments »
The monasteries here in Tibet are filled with more than Buddha statues and yak butter lamps. There is tremendous anger and bitterness.
Unlike Kham and Amdo where anti-Chinese sentiment seems to have cemented into a healthy cultural pride, the monasteries of the Tibetan Autonomous Region seem unhealthy. There is a palpable sense of paranoia, which seems to be eating away at the monastery culture itself. Monks whisper warnings of » Continue reading this post »
Carla and Richard
By Thomas on November 21, 2007 | No Comments »
Carla and Richard, a Dutch couple from Utrecht, are taking an unpaid leave from their jobs as surgical nurse and IT professional to travel the world for ten months. The amount of time was a compromise of Carla’s 6 months and Richard’s 12 months they had wanted to travel, so, I guess, Richard won.
Their trip started out in Russia where they soon had to face their biggest challenge so far » Continue reading this post »
