Author Archives: Laura

Mountain moments

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There are just a few little things I’d like to share that aren’t really sufficient for individual posts but also don’t flow as a single concept, so I’ve grouped them together here:

Tibetan toilets
I’m sure most of you are familiar with the concept of the squat toilet, however I doubt many of you have experienced the group bonding variety that appears the higher (and thus more remote) you get in Tibet. I’ll just make it clear at the outset that these toilets were at least thankfully single-sex. At first the toilets lost their ceramic surrounding and became the literal ‘hole in the floor’ – fine, it makes little difference. They then become holes in the floor separated by low partitions with no door – oh well, since you have to squat anyway you can’t see your neighbour and you just choose the one furthest from the main door. Finally you lose the partitions along with any sense of privacy, ah group bonding at its finest! At least these are sometimes accompanied by fine mountain views.

Diamox the wonder drug
So people say that you will naturally acclimatise to altitude, give it a few days and drink plenty of water. These people clearly have not experienced the hammering headaches and sleepless nights of altitude sickness. Although it probably is true, when you’ve only got a few days and you want to enjoy yourself rather than feel like a zombie, diamox is the key! I thank the scientists who formulated this wonderful drug, I have never appreciated the blissful feeling of sinking into a peaceful sleep quite so much. My advice: don’t stick it out, bow to western medicine, those scientists have worked hard to make your life easy! (You may experience sporadic pins and needles in your hands and feet but the pros definitely outweigh the cons).

Yak dung
I realise I have already mentioned this in passing but as I lay here with the sweet smell of burning yak dung wafting past my nose I am reminded just how useful it is. Yak dung is an essential antidote to the cold mountain evening. The six of us in our guesthouse huddled around the iron stove last night, cheering as the lovely Nepalese lady who runs the place lit the yak dung (a feat that eluded the three western guys in the group) providing us with warmth for the night.

Earthquake
Shortly after writing the previous paragraph we were once again lounging around the iron stove when everything around us began to tremble. As the fixtures on the wall began to shake we hastily shoved our feet into our boots and escaped outside. Thankfully there was no damage done in our vicinity (Kyanjin Gompa in the North of Nepal) and a slight rumble is as scary as it got for us.

Simon’s birthday night out

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As previously mentioned Simon’s birthday began with a singsong followed at breakfast by a birthday cupcake (supplied by another member of our tour group) with an improvised toothpick candle.

It seemed that after the beautiful views of Everest, and another long bus journey (with a lunch-time frisbee game), Simon had had all the excitement he wanted for his 29th birthday. You’ll be pleased to know that the others in our group and I did not let it end there, and thus we entered our second Tibetan nightclub.

After Simon’s description of Zhangmu you may appreciate that we were a little skeptical of what sort of nightclub this town would offer up. We were pleasantly surprised, this club was a far cry from the heaving modern establishment in Lhasa. Zhangmu’s nightclub was small, beer was bought by the bottle and shared out in glasses a little larger than a shot, and the walls were oddly decorated with small Christmas trees and cardboard rabbits (not easter bunnies as we first thought but in recognition of the Chinese year of the rabbit).

In many ways the club was reminiscent of a village disco, with most people seated at tables around the club perimeter and a few groups of each gender (not mixing) dancing in the centre. I think they were a bit bemused by our western style of dancing (it may have been a bit energetic). At one point as Simon and I approached the dance floor the music switched from western to Tibetan and we fled back to our seats as the locals began their traditional circle dance (a dance similar to line dancing that slowly rotates in a circle, we failed to establish who the leader was or how they knew when to do what).

The night ended with our entire group jumping around to the ‘Summer of ’69’ before vanishing back to the hotel, leaving some relieved locals to circle dance the night away.

Lhasa and the versatility of the yak

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Lhasa and the versatility of the yak

I’m writing this on the winding mountain road from Lhasa to Gyantse. It’s a seven hour journey and we’re only a couple of hours in but have already seen some stunning lake views and prayer flag strewn mountains.

During our stay in Lhasa we visited the Potala palace, the Jokhang temple, the Sera monastery and attempted some more geocaching (unsuccessfully-too many people around).

The Potala palace, former home of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan government, is a stunning 13 storey red and white building set in the hillside overlooking Lhasa. Tours around the palace are time-limited due to the number of visitors but inside you can see endless rooms of Buddhist statues and the tombs of the 5th-13th Dalai Lamas.

The Jokhang temple in the centre of Lhasa is the most revered temple in Tibet. Around the temple is a pilgrim circuit known as the Barkhor. Buddhist pilgrims walk this market stall-lined circuit with prayer beads or perpetually spinning prayer wheels in hand. Prayer wheels come in a variety of shapes and sizes, all containing a scroll with a prayer written on. The idea is that the spinning of the wheel releases the prayer into the world. Whilst most pilgrims walk the Barkhor circuit some, wearing aprons and with paddles strapped to their hands, launch themselves to the ground in an act of prostration with every step.

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At the Sera monastery you can watch monks debating the finer points of Buddhist philosophy. On our visit, rather than the usual debating, some young monks were being examined. This appeared to consist of (from what we could gather since we don’t speak Tibetan) the young monk stepping up to a microphone in the middle of a hall of seated monks and answering the questions posed by three elders. The young monk paces back and forth in constant motion while answering and clapping his hands together in an exaggerated manner after every few words, presumably to strengthen his point. Occasionally when the young monk is taking too long to answer or has perhaps said something controversial the watching monks all jeer in unison. Not all that unlike the houses of parliament. All I can say is I’m glad my viva wasn’t like that!

All of the Bhuddhist sights are beautifully decorated with colourful fabrics covering walls and ceilings and thousands of statues of different Buddhist deities and their various manifestations. They are also filled with the atmospheric burning incense and yak butter candles.

Yak butter is an incredibly versatile thing; being used for candles, yak butter tea, and probably all of the things you would usually use butter for. Yaks themselves in fact appear to be used for everything, I can tell you now that yak steak, curry, stew and enchiladas are all very tasty, as are yak cheese and yoghurt. Yak wool is also in common use, or failing that you can buy a nice warm looking yak skin jacket or hat. Yak dung can be dried in the sun (complete with hand print if you so desire) then used on walls or roofs for insulation/structural integrity/decoration. Yak dung can also be used as fuel for your stove. I think it’s safe to say that no part of the yak goes unused – as James on our tour (who even ate yak lung) said “the yak is the Swiss army knife of the bovine world”.

We ended our time in Lhasa with a visit to the local nightclub. It was actually a pretty good club, it appears that the done thing is to buy your beer in bulk at the beginning of the night, I’m talking about 30 bottles to be shared by the group, and find yourselves a table as a base for the night. Occasionally in clubs or restaurants in the UK you may get people trying to sell you a rose. Well in Tibetan nightclubs you can buy electric glowing roses and hearts, giant stuffed teddy bears or even candyfloss! What was quite nice was the tier of fruit we had for the table. I also managed to make friends with a Tibetan girl who made it her task for the evening to keep taking me (and sometimes the others in our group) to the dance floor. The only dodgy thing about the place were the squat toilets with mirror doors…

Bare-bottomed babies of Beijing

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Following on from Simon’s ‘bellies on show’ post I thought it only right to bring to your attention the phenomenon of Beijing’s bare-bottomed babies. It would appear that about 3/4 of the parents in Beijing have decided that rather than cladding their babies’ backsides in nappies it is better to either leave the lower-half naked or to dress their babies in bottomless trousers. While this might be cooler in the heat of the city, when you’re standing next to a dad holding his baby on the metro you really hope that it doesn’t have an ‘accident’. Admittedly we haven’t witnessed any such incidents so far, maybe they just toilet train their children at a very early age?

Laura

Further notes on beating Beijing’s public transport

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Once you have bought a new can of deodorant to replace that which was confiscated on an earlier metro journey you may again face ejection from a station when your bag is scanned. If this happens cross over the road to the other metro entrance where the security people will not recognise you, place the offending item in your pocket, and walk through security with a big smile on your face.

We’re not sure the same techniques will work in Tiananmen Square though, caution is advised for future travellers!

Laura