Visit to China, Tibet and Japan

September/October 2016

An Adventure Getting there!

It is midnight.   My husband and I are stranded at a small town China airport.  No one speaks English.   Slowly the crowd is dispersing.   He goes inside the airport again to enquire while I am standing alone out there with four suitcases.   It did not hit me then, but it may have been a situation with scary consequences.   I had full faith in Chinese people.  In fact the young man sitting with us on the plane had been nice enough to let us borrow his phone as we did not have a local one.  But their police?  Maybe not!   Especially when I did not know a word of the language.

Anyway, the story that had started to spin out at Shanghai did end on a happy note and we were able to visit Lhasa after all.  But the starting had the signs of safe travel all gone wrong due to a small error.   We had completed the China part of our long travels in the Far East and were excited to go to Tibet.   Reaching Shanghai airport after breakfast, I found that during check- in I was rejected because my name, first name, had been spelt wrong on the visa list held by our group leader.   I had wondered at a young age why my name had so many “a’s” in it!   So some kind Chinese visa person decided to leave out one! Unfortunately, it did not match my passport.   The last name was fine, the passport number was fine on the list, but not my first name.  I had made it through other local flights with the same spelling on my boarding card, but when it came to Tibet, it was another story!  Everyone else checked in, our group leader used every last resource to convince the airport authorities but to no avail.   She herself had to run at the last minute to catch the flight and escort the rest of the group while me and my husband (so kind of him to stay with me!) were left behind.  Of course she had left us in the able hands of the local Chinese guide.   She got in touch with her superiors, took us back to the hotel, got us back our old room and got busy on the phone trying to straighten out the problem.

In a very short while we were headed back to the airport, armed with a new visa list, got upgraded seats and headed for Chengdu to get our connecting flight to Lhasa.  At Chengdu Thomas Cook had again arranged for a local agent to meet us and take care of us.  Got on board the 2 hour flight to Lhasa:  we were almost about to land, the weather seemed fine, but suddenly the announcement came that the plane was returning to Chengdu!  That’s when we were at a loss as to what to do.   They announced some gate number to wait for a bus that would take us to a hotel, but failed to mention that it was on a different level.  We barely understood!  Eventually it was all God’s grace that Shankar found some English speaking seminar attendees who had just landed, they took him to an airline official who, though not so conversant in English, understood the situation.   Imagine this, he personally took us and our luggage in his car to the hotel 15 mins away as all the buses had left.   We reached at 1 a.m. got a free room, caught the bus again at 4 a.m. and came back to the airport.   All  this time the other passengers had a nonchalant attitude, like they did this every other week!   Turns out the air base at Lhasa is also used by the army and their exercises get priority.  They did run two full planes and we got our seats.   What an adventure!  When it comes to Tibet, the Chinese authorities are extremely strict.   Every visitor must travel with a recognized group with valid visa and the name spelt correctly!

Since we made our second flight in the morning instead of night, we got excellent views of the snow clad mountain peaks and even took some pictures from the plane window.   Of course we had to keep our fingers crossed till we were safely out of the airport and in our tour van!    When we got to Lhasa we  joined our group straight for sight-seeing!   They were lucky to have a day to acclimatize, but we did okay.   The high altitude medicine we were  taking, seemed to work well and we were able to handle the steep climbs on day one.   We did get a very warm welcome from the rest of the group who were waiting outside our first destination, Potala Palace.

The Fabulous Potala Palace

The long drive into town from the airport had given us a glimpse of the stark beauty of the region.  We were surrounded by mountains on all sides with sparse vegetation.  Just rocky peaks, not much of a population or farming activity around.   The small town of Lhasa itself, in contrast, was lively and colorful.   The amount of religious activity going on here is amazing.   One would think that everything would be suppressed!   But no, it is in full swing.   In fact basically all we saw was Buddhist temples and monasteries.  The crowning glory of course is the Potala Palace.  It is worth going to Lhasa just to see this wonder.

  Since the dawn of the 7^th Century, this had been the winter residence  of the Dalai Lamas as well as the royalty of the area.   In 1959 all this came to an end when China took it over as its autonomous region and the present Dalai Lama fled to India and sought asylum.  In the past, part of the palace had been handed over for religious activities as expansion continued over the centuries.   It is a gorgeous red, white and yellow huge building complex, perched on a high stony hill, the Red Mountain,  in  the center of Lhasa.  The altitude was stated to be 3,700 meters. The climb was quite steep but slowly most of us were able to make it up the steps and ramps.   All along we got a grand view of the town below.  Inside the building itself it was amazing, many parts of it preserved over the centuries.  We had to negotiate small steep steps with low ceilings and uneven floors.   No photography was allowed inside.   We actually saw the room where the present Dalai Lama prayed and slept, his private quarters. As we walked the marked route, we saw many beautiful gold and other precious stone encrusted Buddhas and statues of spiritual leaders, scrolls, historical documents all well preserved, sculptures of jade, objects of gold and silver.   It was a veritable museum which we covered in silence and reverence.

We had more sight seeing scheduled that day.  We checked out Barkhor Street, surrounding the Jokhang temple.  All this was reminiscent of India, crowded, small shops, but clean streets.   The spiritual aspect was evident, we saw some people doing an offering by circumambulating a temple with “shashtanga namaskarams” (full length prostrations).   The only difference here as compared to India was that they had small wooden pads in their hands so as not to get scratched.   I have heard this kind of offering being done even around Kailash mountain by the  local people.    Our guide told us that  the Chinese government take-over had alleviated poverty to some extent.  Previously only monasteries provided education to the poor, but now children can get free schooling and even go to mainland China for further education.  They learn both Tibetan language and Mandarin.  Vegetables are grown in the greenhouses.  They beat the cold in rural areas by housing  animals in the lower level as they produce natural heat!   Solar heaters are popular  here in Lhasa also to warm up water and even cook rice.  Still, the winters must be rough on the people.

  After a nice dinner at a Tibetan/Indian restaurant, we went to our hotel for some well deserved rest.   The hotel was a big surprise with emphasis on the word BIG!   It was huge.   Newly built, it is next to a conference center.   In fact we needed ten extra minutes just to leave our rooms, cross the huge lobby and reach our bus outside.   It had great modern fittings, fabulous floors and ceilings and even a hot tub in the room, not to mention a built in- heater which would probably be very nice in the cold months, but served us for drying washed clothes!   This is the Inter Continental hotel of Lhasa.

Local Animals and Cute Children and Mo Mos!

The next day was more leisurely. We visited the a small monastery in the nearby mountain range,  not too far from where we stayed.   It was so very relaxing to walk around and see children women and dogs all around and giving us friendly poses for pictures.  We even saw two yaks!   Yak fat is used for burning lamps in temples and no doubt used in the cuisine as well.   Set amidst the mountains, it was a picture of serenity.  Everything was natural, including the bathroom, cleansed by a running mountain stream!  It was our group leader, Ameeta”s  birthday and we celebrated by lighting candles in the monastery and singing Om Jai Jagadisha Hare.  She loves animals and had her fill of puppies and kittens who were being fed like royalty by the monks.   Later we had lunch at a five star hotel restaurant and one of our popular co-travelers, Urmila, insisted on paying  for the cake we had ordered and among other things we tasted some well made vegetarian mo-mos or dim sums or in more familiar terms, dumplings!  Other highlights were tomato soup, rice with saffron and vegetables, sautéed veggies like corn and cauliflower and French fries!  Quite a feast!

                                         

Finally we were taken to see old world Tibet in the center of town, a huge complex with temples,  parks and a  town square.   We walked around a lot, entering several small temples, admiring the golden wheel of dharma with a deer on either side.  The legend is that when Shakya Muni gave his discourses, even deer would come and sit. We were surprised to see many Indian goddesses like Sarasvati and Parvati being venerated along with Buddhas.  Saw a couple in their wedding finery!   The area provided us with some local shopping, like good luck charms.   The lovely red Chinese lanterns added to the festive atmosphere.    The shopkeepers were nice, often selling imported items from neighboring countries and quite willing to satisfy our urge to bargain!

Lovely temples and a Grand hotel

Later at dinner at the hotel, we were served local cuisine that would take getting used to, we exchanged e-mails and took more pictures.   Some of the group was going back, other new travelers were joining us in Japan.    But we had forged unforgettable memories with each other and the magical land of Tibet, so high, so far away and a place that had only existed in imagination for us,  till now.