Revisit our original posts on the Yushu region here:

Yushu

She’s Fancy

Mani Mani Everywhere

Old Nomad

After the traumatic conflicts between the ethnic Tibetans and the government, the area is now being challenged by this catastrophic natural event. We hope that our friends in Sichuan are safe. To help our readers better understand this area and its people, we have linked into a small collection of postings on the region. Just click on the thumbnails above, to read the posting.

French Thomas just left a comment on our blog that monks from Dargye Gompa have been arrested while protesting for their freedom, and he left a link with photos from an online source.

This is terrible news, and we hope the Chinese government will end this nonsense and release our friends.

Many of you followed our adventure through Tibet and the Tibetan regions of Sichuan and Qinghai, so you know that it is a region we both care deeply about. We commented on tensions in the area in the following posts, which you might want to check out: Blowing Up Buddha, Attack on Serthar Monastery, Kham and the Khampa, and Facades.

Even during our travels in Tibet, certain individuals indicated such protests were on their way. We did not relate this news in our blog because we were worried that Chinese officials would leap to conclusions about who had suggested the protests to us. The people who told us this are in no way referenced in our blog. (This may seem paranoid, but we discovered while using the Internet in China that even personal blogs were being monitored and blocked. How they manage to censor so much I will never understand.)

Our friend Oscar sent in the following link to bloggers in Lhasa at the moment. Also check out International Campaign for Tibet for the latest news.

As in many third world countries, trash management in China, and even more so in Tibet, is a huge problem particularly outside the tourist areas where there don’t seem to be any centralized places for disposing of trash. The more organized municipalities have random piles of trash distributed throughout the town while less organized places are evenly littered with garbage – it is just like living on a dump.

The most shocking examples of trash mismanagement, we encountered in Tibet. Many small settlement do not have any toilets so people relieve themselves by walking a few meters to squat between a herd of sheep and a pack of stray dogs.

But the worse practice of all is to use the rivers as dump. All the plastic bottles and packaging materials, of which there are an abundance, go straight into the river and get deposited downstream along the riverbeds. This is a major problem and since China is so concerned about making money with occupied Tibet, they had better cause environmental awareness quickly in Tibetans and Chinese alike.

We finally got our Lhasa permits and train tickets – Xining adieu!

After all the news reports and documentaries we had seen on TV about the new train line to Lhasa, we were very eager to get on the train and see it for ourselves. The whole train business could, after all, come to a sudden end. Scientists and engineers have predicted a bleak future for the train whose tracks were built on ever-shifting permafrost. There have already been reports of damaged train tracks due to the thawing and freezing of the ground. At least, after buying warm clothes in Xining, we’d be all set if we got stranded.

The train to Lhasa is controversial for another reason – it brings in an estimated 6000 people a day. Many of these people are Han Chinese moving to Lhasa and other Tibetan cities taking advantage of economic incentives meant to encourage Han relocation to Tibet. The Chinese government realizes that as Tibet fills with Han Chinese, Tibetan independence will become even less of a possibility. Han immigration to Tibet makes the Lhasa line a major target for pro-independence attacks.

The overnight train arrived exactly thirty minutes late at the Xining train station. We had been standing in line with all of our luggage much longer than that shoving and pushing old conniving ladies out of the way. When the train finally came to a halt, the doors onto the platform were thrown open, and we quickly showed our tickets before rushing to secure our seats. Frankly, I was disappointed to say the least. I had imagined the car being much fancier with cushy window seats and chandeliers (perhaps, I have watched “Murder in the Orient Express” one too many times.) Instead we got a hard aisle seat on a three-seat bench. Once we settled in, we sat there uncomfortably trying to figure out how to claim more space. This was not going to be fun.

The night was as rough as we had expected. There was no way we could get any sleep, and even though Tony was trying to nap on the floor between the cars, he soon returned after he was hit by flying spit that had landed right next to him on the carpet. Tony being Tony woke up half the car screaming at the spitter, “You’re an animal, how can you be so disgusting?!” This, in return, guaranteed us hateful stares for the next nineteen hours.

We “woke up” the next morning to a beautiful sunrise over the snow-capped mountains far in the distance. As the train moved over the high, snow-covered grasslands (with the highest point being 5200 m – 17,160 feet), we moved to the dining car from whose picture windows we could spot animals much easier. By the time we had eaten lunch and walked back to our hard seats, we had seen herds of Tibetan antelope, foxes, Eastern Kiang, and even a lone wolf.

The closer we got to Lhasa, the more the landscape changed. We soon left behind the rolling hills of the grasslands and drove through gorgeous valleys and by sharp, ice-covered mountains. When the first Chinese settlements appeared we knew, we were almost there. After 25 hours, we finally arrived in Lhasa, greeted by a spectacular rainbow over the mountains. (Our pot of gold was Lhasa itself.)

Everyone got out of the train in a rush. One thousand people were suddenly moving through the new, bizarrely huge train station toward a single exit. We all pushed through the tiny door out in the open, and there we were – Lhasa.

True adventurers at heart, Jon (British) and Becca (American) have set out to tackle the world by bicycle. The met each other while teaching English in Japan, which is where their bike tour started. After testing the waters biking in Japan, their thirst for adventure led them to China, where biking is much more of a challenge.

Biking through China has had its ups and downs including getting sick while crossing a mountain pass in Inner Mongolia and having to recover in a Chinese truckers’ cafe.

But the flip side is being able to enjoy the landscape and villages along the way at a slower pace. Jon talks of one destination, Bilingsi, which he especially enjoyed. But as he talks, you realize how much of his enjoyment was just biking. Certainly the bikers vision of China is much more complete and in many ways more rewarding.

But before you jump on your bike and head out, Becca and Jon warn potential bicyclists to do a test run first to see whether or not they like traveling by bike. They warn that you often feel exhausted when you reach your destination. And, Becca reminds bikers how much food they need to eat to fuel all that biking.

As for costs, you save on transportation, but then you have to factor in bike repair and bike transportation costs for sections that you don’t want to bike. All in all, it is probably about the same as backpacking.

After biking Tibet, Becca and Jon want to end up in Thailand, but their route still isn’t set in stone. Perhaps, they’ll bike across eastern Tibet and then on to Southeast Asia via Yunnan, or possibly they will cycle the Friendship highway through central Tibet and on to Nepal where they then catch a flight to Thailand.

After freezing our butts off in Sichuan and the Qinghai plateau, we realized that we had to get better clothes for Tibet. Luckily, there is a huge selection of fake brand names floating around Xining. If there is one thing China does well, it’s pirating goods and producing the best knock offs. I have purchased a complete North Face mountain climbing collection including a fantastic Goretex jacket ($35) that should keep me warm and toasty.

Is it as good as the real thing? Probably not. But in the States, I would have paid well over a thousand dollars for what I got here for around $100. At least the jacket should keep me warm. I’ll keep you updated on how the fakes hold up.

Christine is only the second western Buddhist nun I have ever met. The first nun, who we met a couple of weeks ago at Dargye Gompa monastery, was a standoffish, German woman who had no interest in talking to us. Christine is different. She would always have a smile on her face and say hi when we passed each other in the hostel. This was my chance to talk to her and satisfy my curiosity about who she was, so I approached her to find out.

I think, she was surprised that I came up to her because many people, as she told me later, shied away from talking to her maybe out of fear of asking the wrong questions. I wasn’t afraid and asked all the wrong questions anyway. “What color is your underwear?”, “Didn’t it feel weird to cut your hair off?”, and “Why did you choose THIS new career?” She patiently answered my questions with a great deal of humor and did not seem to be insulted at all.

Christine became a nun only two weeks ago. Her excitement about becoming a nun is so contagious that we can’t help but feel completely happy for her. While talking about her past, she eagerly showed us some “before pictures” of herself with long hair and western clothes taken only a few weeks ago and admitted that she had never had short hair. She looks totally cute, though, with her buzz cut and her red nun outfit which she recently bought in a clothes store catering to nuns and monks.

Christine, who grew up in Alberta, Canada has been a Buddhist for many years and has wanted to become a nun and live within the Tibetan community for quite some time. She was really looking forward to this change and to leaving Canada for good. I admire her a lot for making this life-altering decision with such confidence and certainty. While she was visiting her Lama during this trip, he told her, somewhat unexpectedly, that she was now ready to become a nun. And so Christine became Yeshe Lhamon.

Nunhood is still new to her, and she is still figuring out what is acceptable and what is not. At one point, she told us a story about a medicine lama who healed her knees by touching them and actually burning the skin with his fingers (this, of course, is a simplified version of the account.) While she was telling the story, she slowly pulled up her robe to show us the scars. Half way up, she stopped, wondering if this was an appropriate move for a nun, but then she reconsidered and pulled up her skirt exposing her pretty knees. When asked about the financial aspects of being a nun, she told us she has saved enough money for a couple of years but then she needs to find a sponsor to pay for her living expenses. So, all the Buddhists out there looking for someone to sponsor, contact us and we’ll hook you up with Yeshe Lhamon.

If you are still wondering about the color of the underwear – sorry, I promised not to tell.

Waiting for someone to arrange our Tibet permits and train tickets is not so bad after all! Only a day after arriving in Xining, we discovered this amazing market place close to our hotel with all kinds of exciting treats. We’ve had a lot of very plain food lately, so finding this food market was a fantasy come true.

After exploring the market’s delights for a couple of days, we are now settling into an eating routine. Our day starts out with a light breakfast while reading or talking to other travelers on the hotel’s roof terrace. A couple of hours later, we are already circling the market’s food stalls. For brunch, we wander about picking this or that. From the stand with homemade fresh potato chips dusted with chili powder, we move on to the table with fried squid, where we stuff our faces. Our eating frenzy continues with delicious pancakes and is topped off with soft serve from KFC just opposite the market.

Early dinner is a bit more extravagant. Even with all the choices, we know exactly what we want. Peking Duck! Who can blame us for $1.50 a pound including plum sauce and wraps (I don’t know how many pounds of duck we’ve devoured, but I’m sure it is quite a few.) Our night always ends the same – with tasty moon cakes filled with a red bean paste.

What a great way to spend your days waiting. We are beginning to wonder if it would be so bad if the permits came in a day late or two.

In typical Chinese fashion, you cannot buy train tickets without the permit, and you cannot get the permit until you can show the date on your train ticket. (The whole country functions like this.)

Luckily, we found Jamin, an American who has set up a business here in Xining helping foreigners get permits and train tickets for Tibet. He has Chinese contacts who can buy the train tickets and then he takes care of all the permit paperwork. And we just sit back and relax – I love it.

But there is always a catch. We wanted to get sleeper tickets for the train, but we can’t because the Chinese mafia buys them all up so that they can scalp them for a huge profit. Don’t you just love this country? Instead, we have a five day wait for “hardseats” for our 25 hour train ride to Lhasa. Bummer.

But at least we are doing it by the book. We’ll have permits and train tickets. Mount Kailash, here we come.

What sounds like a wonderfully luxurious way to travel was actually a filthy hell on wheels. Imagine a bus with three rows, front to back, of extremely narrow bunk beds with blankets that haven’t been changed since the Ming dynasty. Now add a safety belt that straps across your upper chest (I wasn’t sure if it was a safety belt or a noose). Top it all off with some patches of strategically placed dried vomit and 30 pairs of putrid Chinese feet and you are starting to get the picture.

To add insult to injury, Thomas and I got top bunks, and I, at 6 foot 1 inch, was placed in the shortest bunk in the bus. It was like being strapped to the back of a runt bucking bronco for 16 hours.

But the trip wasn’t all bad. We passed through some stunning scenery. We crossed hundreds of miles of grassland wilderness with occasional nomads herding yaks and goats. Marmots and pikas popped their heads out of their holes as the bus rolled by. We saw herds of Tibetan gazelle and Eastern Kiang (species of wild Tibetan donkey) in addition to the endangered black neck crane. Seeing any wildlife in China means you are WAY THE HELL OUT THERE! We also experienced a beautiful sunset over the Kunlun mountains.

So, in spite of the stinky feet and chunk-covered blankets, we made the best out of the trip. Give us some wildlife and we can tolerate just about anything! And, it turned out that having top bunks has one big advantage – vomit doesn’t fly up.

“What are those?” I asked myself when I noticed the brown, shriveled-up things being sold in the market in Yushu. I’m always curious when it comes to food, and I was hoping to have discovered some exciting new fruit or vegetable. After talking to the local vendors, I quickly opted for the bananas instead – I was just not willing to pay $1,000 for a pound of dry, knobby things.

I soon discovered that the thing in question was known locally as yartse gompu, “half vegetable, half caterpillar.” The vendor went on to say that harvesting those vegetable-caterpillar things was no easy task. Apparently, people spend considerable amounts of time digging at high altitudes during the monsoon rains. No wonder – with prices like that. Yartse gompu means big business!

I had never heard of such a vegetable-caterpillar combination and was looking at this whole thing quite suspiciously. How could there be a vegetable-animal or an animal-vegetable? A little research revealed that yartse gompu actually is a caterpillar-fungus combination with the very scientific name of cordyceps sinensis and is widely used in Tibetan and Chinese medicine for all kinds of ailments (there is also research being done in western medicine.)

So how does this thing come into existence? The fungus is a parasite that attacks caterpillar larva which feed on the roots of plants in the Himalayas. The fungus spreads throughout the caterpillar’s body eventually killing it off. The fungus-caterpillar combination is then collected, dried, and sold by weight at horrendous prices. Maybe I should have tried one just to be able to say, “Once, while I was chewing on a cordyceps sinensis…”

The opening ceremony for the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing is going to be spectacular – and absolutely perfect. I am completely sure of that! The Chinese leadership seems to be trying very hard to make this a showcase for the country’s economic development.

Beijing 2008 Olympics is everywhere – billboards, news, T-shirts, stickers, vases, flags, pillow cases and even toilet paper. Alright, I get it! Everyone is getting ready for the big event – sometimes against their will. Taxi drivers in Beijing are now forbidden to smoke in their vehicles and are instructed not to encourage their passengers to light up. During the Olympics, traffic in Beijing will be reduced and many power plants will be shut down to reduce air pollution. This, of course, is all great. But get this, the Chinese government even goes as far as to control the weather. Local rainmaking teams will be closely watching the skies. If storms approach the city, the clouds will be seeded with silver iodide to force rain fall outside of Beijing. Blue skies and dry athletes are guaranteed.

This may be your only chance to enjoy Beijing without much air pollution – except maybe the silver iodide particles clogging up your nostrils. But be warned! According to a Dutch tour guide we met in Tibet, hotel prices will skyrocket. A 20 $ room with a shabby bathroom will easily cost you 400 $ a night. Is it really worth staying in Beijing during the Olympics or is it worth considering taking the money and buying a flat-screen TV on which you can watch the games from your couch? Not a difficult decision for me.