Shigatse to Lhatse

Monday 3^rd July 2006

Shigatse to Lhatse

The Maitreya Chapel with its 86ft high sitting Buddha that's decorated in gold, copper, pearl, amber, coral, diamond and other precious stones although sadly many of these have been stolen.

Breakfast this morning was in the hotel’s restaurant. On most days we have gone out for breakfast, as it is cheaper, usually open earlier and being out in the town presents more opportunities for meeting different people. But today we ate in-house. This hotel restaurant was over-the-top with Tibetan (and Chinese) motives and patterns all over the walls and ceiling - even chandeliers. The buffet breakfast included lots of very traditional things but as I don’t have a cooked breakfast by choice at the best of times, the 50 yuan seemed a little steep in the scheme of things. I did manage to get yoghurt without cornflakes or muesli. It wasn't that I didn’t want cereal – there just wasn’t any to be had. This was followed by 'two pieces of toast', presented as two pieces of toast and two slices of untoasted bread. Jam and yak butter accompanied the feast. I gave up waiting for the fresh fruit that I had ordered with the yoghurt …it just didn't come. But no, not so! It actually turned up after everything else was finished! All this was washed down with complimentary green tea and the all up cost for breakfast, including the confusion, was 25 yuan – AUD 3.85.

I had to change some more USD into yuan and had been told that the shop opened at 0800. I was there and ready at 0800. I waited as 0800 rolled around, and 0830, and 0900 and still no open shop. Then I discovered that the front desk at the hotel would also change money at the same rate as the shop …so they got the business.

The business centre with its 12 computers did open at 0900 so that gave me 30 minutes in which to kick the system into order only to find out that what I’d written last night had bounced back. However, and I don't understand why, my message was still there - even though I'd deleted it! Strange, very strange indeed! Still no chance of sending it so I had to give up the quest and leave.

At around 0930, drove to the Tashihundo Monastery. This is one of Tibet's six big monasteries of the Gelupga sect - the yellow hat sect. (I bought one of those yellow hats back in Lhasa.) Also called the "Heap of Glory", this monastery was built by the First Dalai Lama in 1447, so it is a tad old. It was then expanded by the Fourth and successive Panchen Lamas. One of it's main buildings is The Maitreya Chapel with its 86ft high sitting Buddha that's decorated in gold, copper, pearl, amber, coral, diamond and other precious stones although sadly many of these have been stolen. It took 900 craftsmen 9 years to make this one statue. A wooden staircase allows visitors to reach higher levels to see the statue in all its glory and appreciate the skills of the artisans. Nearby to this chapel is the Stupa-tomb of the Tenth Panchen Lama which, when built, was covered in 614 kg of gold leaf, 868 precious stones and 246,796 jewels (but whose counting). The Stupa-tomb of the Fourth Panchen Lama is also nearby, built in 1662 and covered in gold and silver. Both are quite a sight.

Also part of this monastery complex are the grand white palace of the Panchen Lama, not open to visitors, and the very large Kelsang Temple. The Main Chanting Hall is a place for lamas to learn the sutras and out in the Great Courtyard is the place for them to carry out their debates. The wall around this courtyard is covered by literally thousands of images of Sakyamuni shown in a huge variety of postures and with many different expressions. Together with other buildings, this great monastery covers 300,000 square metres. Its special ‘thanka' wall, built by the First Dalai Lama in 1468, is also big at nine stories high. Huge images of Buddha are displayed on this wall on the 14^th, 15^th and 16^th May each year (as counted on the Tibetan Lunar Calendar).

Unfortunately I don't have much film of this monastery. I was all ready for camera action, but because this monastery is important, as the seat of the Panchen Lama, you have to pay 1800 yuan (AUD 277) to use a video camera or 125 yuan for a still camera. Needless to say I didn’t pay up. It was permissible to film outside, just not inside the temple. The real problem was that you couldn't even buy a postcard to remind yourself of the inside as there just aren't any available and neither was there a book like the one I bought at the Potala Palace. As I wandered with the others in our group, all the usual images, sounds and smells assailed us. We climbed up and down tortuous stairs, some wooden, some metal but mostly of rough hewn stone, sticky with butter grease and walked hollow and smooth by generations of people. It was quite an experience, a reminder of the old Tibet albeit in a very Chinese town.

We left Shigatse at around 1130 and headed out of town. There was more of Tibet to see and apparently not just what could be seen from the road. Just before we got to a checkpoint on the outskirts of town, our convoy dived off the main road onto a dusty sidetrack that bumped its way around some fields for at least 5kms before rejoining the road on the other side of the checkpoint. I’m still not sure why we did it because there will be other checkpoints we have to negotiate before the Nepalese border. Maybe it was just a challenge for the drivers or maybe they were avoiding a "fee" spot, a well known ploy at many check points in many countries in the world.

Lunch was again a 'picnic' where we consumed some more of that food we had lugged all the way from KTM. I had a tin of fried sardines in chili sauce which brought on a runny nose and watery eyes! This was mixed with dry biscuits, dried apricots and cashew nuts washed down with green tea made from a tea bag I had snitched from an earlier hotel. Yes, lunch was most enjoyable. We sat in a grassy meadow beside a braided stream in the middle of nowhere.

The rest of the day passed rather uneventfully. We crossed one pass, Tra La, at 4,050m, without even knowing it. It was, after all, only 200 m higher that the town of Shigatse. Further along the road Yulong La was slightly more impressive at some 4,950m. Again, as at every pass, prayer flags fluttered in the wind. With each flutter prayers are sent to the gods. At each major pass we, too, added more prayer flags to the colourful array of red, green, blue, yellow and white.

The end of the road for us today is at a place called Lhatse (Chusar). By staying here and leaving by 0630 sharp, we hope to get through the checkpoint before it closes at 0700. The road will be closed until 1900 and we don't want to here all day.

The hotel itself, the La Zi is very ‘local’. My room is very basic with no running water but it does have a large bucket of water, two Thermoses full of hot water and two enamel wash basins. It is decorated with Tibetan style patterns and colours, two beds, two chairs, a TV and a Tibetan alter complete with small denomination notes poked into cracks and left on ledges by previous occupiers of the room.

The loos are even more basic! Down stairs, one for the gents, one for the ladies - two-stall, squat jobs. Both have running water which alleviates the poo smells a bit! But yes, I'd have to say, very basic.

After settling in, we walked the streets looking for a reasonably clean place to eat dinner. We actually bypassed the only one that looked spotless with chairs all neatly placed around equally clean and spaced tables. Why pass by such a gem! Why, because there wasn’t a soul in the place! What does an empty restaurant tell you?

A little further along we found a small, cramped and dark Tibetan number absolutely full of Tibetans. Something must taste good in there as there were so many people in it – but, on the other hand, it did look particularly grubby. So the final choice was to go for the one mentioned in the Lonely Planet Guide.

I decided I'd like some potatoes, especially as I had seen a cream-coloured variety back in Lhasa, so I ordered Fried Potatoes. They turned out to be a ‘julienned’ and partly steamed white variety. After managing about half of the plate full, I helped Lynette out with her large plate of vegetable fried rice. Along with a large bottle of Blue Ribbon beer, the meal cost me 25 yuan, AUD 3.85.

Back at the ‘hotel’, we sat out on the long upstairs balcony to watch an electrical storm display its might and fury over a range of mountains. It finally got dark around 2100. So, to the sound of rain on the roof, for the edge of the storm had reached us, I wrote my diary before putting my head down to attempt a night's sleep in this rarefied air at just over 4,000m.