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April 27, 2005
Tashilhunpo - The Great Hall
For the first time during this trip while looking at these buildings I realised that there is something special and magic about this region. Something that I've never seen or experienced before. Something that quite possibly I would never ever feel again in my life.
Posted by Konstantin at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)April 23, 2005
Tashilhunpo Monastery
A town by itself in Shigatse. A spread of buildings, built in 1447. There used to be more then 4000 monks in the 1950s living and working in the monastery. Well we all know what happened in 1950 and 1951 and since then the population of Tashilhunpo dropped dramatically.
Posted by Konstantin at 04:47 PM | Comments (0)April 18, 2005
The Next Morning
We did arrive, eventually. Of course we did. Shigatse, with a population of around 40,000 people the second largest city in Tibet. Erm, 40,000 people during the mid eighties of course. Have a look at those two Tibetan girls at the right hand side. Within a few days it turned out that many Tibetans were curious and unbelievably friendly. They laughed at our strange skin colour, some kids even wanted to touch us, we got invited for tea, food while traveling was shared, friendliness that just blew your mind away.
Posted by Konstantin at 08:06 PM | Comments (0)April 13, 2005
A Village In The Middle Of Nowhere
Was this what I was looking for? I takes a whole day to travel from Zhangmu to Shigatse. After approximately five thousand potholes and eight hours on the truck my head was killing me. I gave up eating headache pills hours ago. My body was so not used to the altitude and I had serious doubts about this trip. The trucks don't stop for more then ten minutes so even eating was totally out of question. It turned out that while I was seeking cover on the truck we passed Mount Everest. There is a section of the Friendship Highway, where you can see the mother of all mountains, sort of relaxing at the horizon. Never mind, the weather was bad anyway.
Posted by Konstantin at 07:40 PM | Comments (1)April 11, 2005
Cold Cold Cold
Gravel and dust. That's all we thought was there in Tibet. And even more dust. Oh and I loved Japanese trucks. They were much more comfortable than the Chinese ones. I found out later about my deep and utter love for Japanese trucks. While taking this picture I was wearing a t-shirt, a sweater, a down jacket, gloves, a silly but warm hat, under trousers, a pair of trousers and a pair of down trousers on top of it. And I was freezing my arse off. And the Tibetan drivers made jokes about me. Fair enough. Bloody wimpy foreigners. Still no sign of Shigatse. No glorious Potala Palace. Just dust and gravel.
Posted by Konstantin at 09:44 PM | Comments (0)April 06, 2005
On The Road To Shigatse
No, it is not early in the morning. The weather is just bad. Back in 1987 there were two ways of moving from one place to the other in Tibet. Bus (not possible for short distances) and truck. Officially it was not allowed for tourists to hop on the back of a truck. I suppose Chinese officials didn't like the thought of foreign embassies complaining about tourists falling off trucks. The solution was simple. You would negotiate a price with the truck driver. Then you would walk half a mile outside of town and the truck would pick you up. Or you would climb on the truck, hide under the canvas, if there was one, until you're out of town. Well, you would continue hiding anyway, because of the cold, the wind and the dust. If the truck gets checked somewhere on the way, you pay a shall we call it additional fee to the Chinese soldiers. We've never heard any rip off stories by the way. The truck drivers were all completely reliable, friendly and honest.
Posted by Konstantin at 07:56 PM | Comments (0)April 04, 2005
Hangover
Altitude hangover to be precise. Do you like tea? I don't. You better like tea, when you go to Tibet. Drink gallons of tea. You can't do very much about the headaches. This was one of the worst nights in my life. I did have experience with this kind of altitude before but shooting up to 4000 metres in less then five hours is not healthy. It was bloody freezing during the night. My guess was minus fifteen (Celsius). Or five (Fahrenheit). And when we woke up snow had fallen. Not enough to shut down the highway though. It needs a lot more snow then that. The hotel where we spent the night was a stone building with ten rooms or so. No toilet, no hot water, no shower, no heating, no nothing. You sleep in your own sleeping bag. And you better make sure it's a good sleeping bag. This is the main road of Nyalam. The High Street so to say. Time to move on is what I thought.
Posted by Konstantin at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)April 01, 2005
Nyalam
Roughly four hours later. Nyalam, a tiny village on the brink of the Tibetan plateau. 4,000 meters or 13,000 feet high. The altitude hits you right in your face. The lack of oxygen rather. The bus continued its way to Lhasa but we decided to stay overnight. Just in case, just in case. You never know. I've seen big guys suffering from altitude sickness and I won't share any unpleasant details with you. We, by the way, that was Anna, a dutch girl that I met in Zhangmu, and me. We decided to do the trip together. No, no, just a travel mate. Nyalam was also, and I guess still is, the starting point to climb Shishapangma, the only 8000 metres mountain totally within Tibet.
Posted by Konstantin at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)