Tibet

Friday & Saturday, 6/15-6/16: We had hard seat tickets for the train from Xining to Lhasa, which made for an absolutely hellish night. I ended up sleeping on newspaper on the floor between random strangers' feet with my heat under one seat, my legs under another, and my hips (too big to fit under a seat) in the air in between. I didn't fall asleep until about 4:30, and then everyone on the train woke up and started talking around 6 am. Once the night was over, it got better and we met nice Chinese people (conversation initiated because this middle-aged guy wanted to take a picture of me with my hair down), and then we played cards and ate and I read my book. I also worked on my scarf (turquoise and white and orange) but then this Tibetan woman saw it and wanted to work on it a bit, and then didn't give it back. I wasn't really in the mood for knitting so I didn't try to demand it back and about 5 hours later she brought me a completed scarf with fancy vertical stripes and checkers and things. I want to learn how to do that sort of thing. Charlie saw a family hold their baby girl out over the aisle with her pants down to urinate in the aisle. In the hard seat cars, pretty much anything is allowed (they never even checked our tickets), but when we tried to sit on the floor next to the soft sleeper car because there were no people or urine there, a lady in uniform kicked us out. We played spades for almost 5 hours. Forrest and I won both times, which is important. Christopher was sick from hotpot we had for lunch on Friday (he had lots of meat, whereas I had lots of veggies) and ended up lying in a sad ball on the floor all Friday night.

Sunday, 6/17: This was our first day in Tibet. In the morning we went to a 1300-year-old temple, built by some Tibetan king when a Nepalese and a Chinese princess came to marry him. I didn't like it that much because it was packed full of tour groups and it was too noisy and filled with incense smoke which was bad news because I'm not quite adjusted to the thinner air yet. Then we sat in line to get tickets to see the big fancy palace tomorrow, and then we ate lunch at a Tibetan restaurant. I ordered "sweet beans with butter" and "cheese dumplings." The sweet beans were like boiled peanuts soaked in sugar syrup, except that they looked more like roots. I ate some because I wanted protein, but I do not as a rule like sweet entrees. I was relieved when the cheese dumplings came but they were filled with this sour shredded stuff that was not really cheese and they were really sweet too! The waitresses were really nice though: they said they like Americans because America is Tibet's best friend and that they don't like China, which seemed pretty bold, especially since we were communicating in Mandarin because that was our only common language. They also wanted to know if there were many Tibetan students in the US, but I don't think I know any so I just told them "probably." Charlie and I left the restaurant and went and bought tofu and noodles at a small corner shop, which was much more satisfying. Then we went to a monastery which was really cool. The monks who spoke English liked to talk to us, probably because we're an interruption to their routine. In the first hall/temple we went to, the man speaking to us kept turning to this young boy for directions and answers. He said about the boy "he says you may take pictures here" and if we asked a question that he didn't know the answer to, then he would translate for the boy and get an answer from him. I thought that was really cool, that a boy who looked about 12 years old would be ostensibly in charge of a whole temple there. Then we went to a debate in a courtyard, where a whole bunch of young monks were shouting at each other. It was awesome! One would be standing across from another sitting cross-legged. The standing one would heatedly make an argument, and while making his argument he would take his prayer beads (which they seem to always carry) and string them over his left arm like he was drawing a bow. Then he would pull back his right arm all the way and balance on one foot like a martial arts position, then suddenly, as he finished his argument, CLAP his hands together, leaning in towards the sitting guy. The sitting one would calmly respond, and then the standing guy would do it all over again. It cost 15Y to take pictures in this courtyard and I was too cheap, but as I walked around I noticed two separate Chinese tourists taking my picture. This also happens on the streets. To them, I guess long blond hair is about as strange as an extra eye.

Later that afternoon, we went to the market. I spent almost 100Y on bracelets and a prayer flag and things. I felt kind of silly but bargaining was fun. If you didn't bargain you would get miserably ripped off because I paid 10Y for a bracelet that the lady originally said was 65Y, and I suspect that I still paid much more than it was worth. I wanted a cloth lantern but found no price better than 90Y, which is definitely not how much it is worth. My rule in Tibet is divide the price by two, then say, "Would you pay that many American dollars for it?" So I would pay $5 for a pretty bracelet, but not $45 for a cloth lantern.

Monday, 6/18: I woke up at 7:30 am and vomited. Never eat so much food that the buttons are your shirt are almost going to pop off. It was more than overeating, though, because within a few hours I had a fever. Don't drink the tap water, or water from sketchy scratched up bottles that look like they've already been used. I sprayed my sheets with OFF! in an effort to get the mini-flies to leave me alone (there must have been about a hundred cluttered all over my bed). Someone messed up the process of buying our tickets so we are leaving for Xi'an on Wednesday morning, not Thursday, so our trip to Namtsou Lake will happen all in one day.

Tuesday, 6/19: This is my last evening in Tibet. Today we went to Namtsou Lake and hot springs. The entire trip cost us 600Y a piece which seemed very pricey, but it was nice to see Tibet outside of Lhasa. I loved the drive because the Tibet countryside is very beautiful. It looks like the Land Before Time. You get these wide plains framed on all sides by mountains, and then the clouds are so low to the earth that you can see cloud-shaped shadows rolling across the sides of the mountains, giving the whole landscape a very ethereal look. Plus there are random yaks and sheep and babbling brooks wandering around. We passed a military convoy consisting of almost 75 green trucks (yes I counted). As we were approaching them, they just looked like this endless green fence winding off into the distance. Namtsou was very pretty. I rode a yak for about a hundred feet. It was definitely not as cooperative as a horse. Its owner sang a song to it and pulled on the string through its nose, but it would just randomly stop every few feet, and then he'd have to pull a bunch and push it and lecture it to get it moving again. I've never heard of anyone saying "I'm going on a long journey - I'll ride a yak" - perhaps this is why. At Namtsou Lake I accidentally peed in the men's side of the bathhouse. It's a mercy nobody else walked in, because there were no stalls, only holes in the ground with small barriers in between.

After Namtsou Lake we went to a hot spring. It was essentially a heated swimming pool with a faintly sulfurous smell, but it felt really good. I forgot to bring the swimsuit I bought in Shanghai (which was too tight anyways) so I bought one there for 30Y. We tried out my camera, which can take underwater pictures. The first moment I took it underwater was really scary, but it worked! My camera can see really well underwater. The only problem is that I can't, so it was really hard to aim the camera, so the pictures aren't that great. But it's still really exciting. There was also a 33-year old woman in an inner tube who screamed whenever anyone bumped into her or accidentally splashed her while they were swimming. She told us she had an 8-year old son. Then she told our tour guide, Sonam, that she liked Forrest and she gave Forrest her business card. I ate pizza for dinner tonight, and then I ordered "fruit salad" and got a green salad. Forrest is sick, so it went Christopher, me, Forrest. Charlie is the only one yet to fall.