Round the World 9- Lhasa, Tibet, China

20 Feb 2008

It's been a while since I posted on here.  It's also been a while since I did other things, like washed (or at least this morning was my first shower since the 5th) or used a toilet which wasn't either a hole in the ground or well, simply put, the ground itself.  All in good fun.  To save on washing I hadn't changed clothes for all that time (one change of T-shirt was my one self indulgence） and since it gets down to minus 10 and below at night I also slept in my clothes。  As you may be able to imagine， I was， to put it mildly， fragrant。  It’s just that Tibet is still fairly underdeveloped in the countryside， and running water， let alone hot running water， just ain‘t happening。  Since it’s too high for trees， and the standard fire fuel is yak turd， asking them to draw a bath seemed extravagent。  To be honest it wasn‘t too bad， as long as I mouth breathed。

The last 3（nearly） weeks have been awsome， for two reasons。  The scenery， people and just everything in tibet has been fantastic， just wild and open （if a tad cold） and second， thanks to the Chinese government， we’ve had to employ a guide。  This has the advantages that our food, accomodation and route have been taken care of, so the last few weeks have just been about riding.  Also, we threw our bags in the 4x4, which helped!  Whilst this may seem like cheating I'd like to point out a few things.

First the altitude is just mental.  It's actually not so bad when cycling, since you expect to be out of breath.  It's normal things that get you, like walking fifty yards to the tibetan toilet (the nearest convienient (?sp) bush) or taking a long drink.  You don't expect to be gasping for breath.  Also, we've cycled up from sea level to the highest point, the top of the Gyatso La (i think) pass at 5300m.  Everest base camp is at 5200, and the top 8848. Climbers take a jeep to base camp before ascending the remaining 3600m (with sherpas to carry their stuff).  In effect we've more than climbed everest.  Thats my line anyway.

Reaching base camp was incredible, although breathing not so much.  coldest and windest pace on earth.  There's not much there at this time of year except a bunch of chinese army guys with a massive water cannon, yelling "no photo!" everytime a camera pointed in their direction.  Expecting a bunch of rebellious yaks?  Obviously I'm no expert (herin follows an opinionated rant) and I'll probably save the political commentary for Australia, but really, I don't know what the Tibetans are so upset about.  I'll probably be struck off actionaid for saying this, but Tibet under China, in Lhasa and Shigatse the second city, is a truely modern place, apart from the unintelligable writing, mistakeable for any new world country.  God's honest truth.  The countryside is fairly basic (see above) but all the houses we stayed in had tv, radio, and the people guzzled coca cola like there was no tomorrow.  Now it's all very well saying it's a terrible shame eroding their innocent way of life (blah blah) but surely to keep the system of feudal serfdom (which is, let's face it, slavery) which was under the Dali Lamas seems fairly unnaceptable to me.  Of course it's a value judgement- do the people want a comfortable, modern life, or a ridiculously overarching religious government.  Sounds like the Taliban to me.  My final word on the matter.  The Potala Palace, the winter residence of the Dali Lamas has over 1000 rooms.  Less than 3km away is a park, containing no less than 5 different Summer palaces built for succsesive Dali Lamas.  One of these contains a tomb with the ashes of a lama, I forget which, built of 7.3 tonnes (7300kg!!!!) of GOLD and countless precious stones.  Gold is over $600 an ounce, and i can't be bothered to do the maths but thats a lotta cash.  So maybe the people do miss the rule of the lamas, but the monastrys we've visited are still rolling in cash and chocka block with gold statues (these guys missed the part "thou shalt not worship craven images") anb, judging by the internet cafe i'm in right now, with (by counting columns and rows and timesing) over 500 machines, each with at least 16" flat screens, and nearly all full, the young people arn't that averse to modernisation either.

Like I said that was a rant.  anyway.  The raw facts: distance- about 750km, lame i know but see my whiney disclaimer above.  passes (ridiculous hills between valleys) cycled 5, highest 5300m.  Longest descent 1200m over 35km.  The road is fantastic, easily on a par with eurpoean roads and streets (haha nice pun) ahead of india, kudos to china.  We're now in lhasa, which is a modern but charming city, full of charectar.  look up the potala palace on google and that'll sort you out.  As to Whether I prefer india or china...  China.  Hands down.

The food isn't splosh.  I like indian food but enough is enough.  The chinese stuff it much better.  the people- there we're plenty of friendly people in india but there we're many, many annoying bastards who just laughed pointed poked etc.  there are still some here, but, similar to nepal, they just seem to share more western values.  Today it Snowed in lhasa, and there was a massive snowball fight in the main square, of course, everyone wanted to take a shot at the white guys, so i got properly pelted, but it was fun, and in a way i just can't imagin it being in india.  There are, of course poor people here, but in just nowhere near the same way as india, there arn't massive slums, or hundreds of people grabbing and doing the dirty fingers gesture, and as with nepal, the respect (and walk on) pavements, and don't treat them as toilets.  China seems like a country, which if not fully modernised yet is well on it's way.  the culture is far from homogenous, it's clearly china, not new york, but you get the sense all China needs is a few decades to be on par with western countries.  All India needs is a load of contraception.

I've just reread that and am sure action aid are gonna ban me... oh well.  We fly to Chengdu in a few days and from there it should be only 3/4 weeks to hong kong.  I'll keep you posted (if they let me!) xx