Tibed in Tibet

Air Bag

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Fast facts:

• At 13,000 feet, Lhasa, capital of Tibet, is the world’s highest city

• Only has three or four snow falls per year.

• Temperature surprisingly moderate most of the year, although no school on Nov, Dec Jan because too cold (also another month near the end of August.)

• Population of Tibet 3.1 million.

• Yak burgers are bigger than lamb here.

This is going to be a sad surreal little saga.

We catch an early morning flight from Beijing. Have to change plains in Chengdu, a dot on the map. We fear worst for our two hour layover. Find that the airport is nicer than Halifax. (This is truly a different society. People are pushy. For example, even though we have seat assignments on the plane, people begin to queue even before boarding is announced. And not just line up but jostle to move up a space or two. We see the same thing when retrieving luggage even when the conveyor hasn’t yet started. It must have something to do with necessary survival skills in a country with so many people.) Also, don’t think Air China will win Airline of the Year award. We’ve been lucky enough to have comfortable seating on our long haul flights but even domestic flights in Vietnam and Thailand have been a refreshing change from modern American and Canadian airlines. Lot’s of leg room, a meal served regardless of the duration and courteous service. Air China was cramped, and the food that was served was inedible. First time I’ve felt homesick since we left, it so reminded me of Air Canada. Also strange in-flight entertainment. The television broadcast was played on loud speakers whether you wanted to watch it or not. I guess if Air China says you’re going to watch, you’re going to watch.

The final 30 minute flight into Tibet is breathtaking (a feeling that will reappear frequently) as we fly over the Himalayas. As we look down it is as close to what I imagine the moon to look like. Flat plains without vegetation nestled in among the mountain peaks. We’re met by our guide and driver. It’s about an hours drive from the airport to Lhasa (pop. 150,000). The drive is extraordinary. The topography is strange. Housing, dress, development is all so different than we’ve seen before. Rugged but beautiful. We know we’re going to find the next two days to be fascinating.

We look forward to learning more about the religion, the country and the politics. There is much political tension in Tibet for a couple of related reasons. The first is that Tibet was invaded and occupied by China in 1950. Tibet has ached for independence ever since. Although China argues that the region has autonomy, they have yet to have a Tibetan in any position of power. (Tibet is forced to use Chinese currency, postage etc. They even have to stay on the same time zone as Beijing even though Nepal to the south is 2.5 hours time difference.) While not the founding place of Buddhism, Tibet is its spiritual home with the 14^th Dali Lama as its leader. The second contentious issue is that in 1959 the Dali Lama, fearing for his life, fled the county. He now lives in exile in India.

I had wondered how or if I would be able to broach this with the guide. But as we drive into town while providing some Tibetan background, he referenceds the Dali Lama and went on to say something like “But you probably know more about him than I do”. I thought he meant something to the effect that most people simply know a lot about this story. What he really meant was that news was suppressed and censored in Tibet and most in the country got little news about their most important icon. He was hoping to get as much information from me about the Dali’s activities and pertinent world views as possible. He went on to say that we were welcome to ask any questions but they should be done only in the privacy of the car and not to worry: the driver could not understand any English. If we all didn’t get arrested or shot, this was going to be fun.

We arrive at Lhasa Hotel. While it’s not as cold as we expected, it is around 6 degrees. We learn that there is no heat in hotels. Literally. Check in staff all have winter gear on including winter jackets. (Meet a family of five from Hamilton, Ontario checking in at same time. What are the odds?) We get our keys, agree to meet the driver at 7:30 in the morning and proceed to our room. The room is on the third floor, so decide to take the stairs. Then it hits us. After the second flight we can’t breathe and we have to sit down to rest. After two flights of stairs! We’re dizzy, short of breath and weak. After about 5 minutes we manage to find just enough energy to climb the third flight and stumble to the room, exhausted and feeling queasy. We’re beginning to feel the effects of the thinner mountain air. After a half hour or so of pretending this is cute in a sick perverse kind of way, I announce that as the hunter-gatherer, I need to go out and get some local currency in order to buy some bottled water. I’d be right back. The Bank of China with an ATM is about four blocks away, which under normal circumstances would take me about 10 minutes each way. Two hours later I return with our water, feeling that I’d climbed the Great Wall of China… twice…then fell off it. Claire is feeling worse than when I left. Doesn’t look good.

We start to go downstairs for dinner (on the elevator) at the Yak Café (not kidding, the specialty was “the world famous yak burger”) but Claire decides she can’t eat. I go down and get a pizza and a couple of beers and bring them back to the room. (Can this be Friday again already? Apparently not because she doesn’t touch it. We notice that you can buy bags of oxygen from the hotel and decide to order a bag for her. Provides only the slightest temporaty relief. By ten o’clock we call looking for a doctor. The front desk agrees to locate one.

About 30 minutes later a Chinese lady with a white coat who can speak only a word or two of English arrives. She spends 30 minutes doing an examination and advises that Claire has High Altitude Sickness. She prescribes and supplies Chinese medicines to treat symptoms. I’ve started to deteriorate by now and she checks me as well. She suggests I’m just suffering from too little oxygen and advises me to keep those bags coming. As she gets ready to leave she says “Now you pay me” (More English than I suspected). This is when I thought I might really be sick. What would a night time 60 minute house-call (hotel-call) including drugs for two days cost? $200? $500? $1,000? The answer was 250 yuan or about $35 Canadian. True, we only got a woman doctor, but sometimes all you really need is a nurse anyway.

I won’t go into gruesome detail but for the next two days and three nights the only time we left the room was for me to go downstairs to a temporary clinic. In fact the only time we got out of bed was for the necessities and to answer the door delivering either more oxygen or chicken soup from the Yak Café. We call the doctor again the next day. She treats Claire for high and increasing heart rate and me for low and decreasing heart rate. She insists I go with her to the first floor (on the elevator) where she feeds me pure oxygen for an hour and gives me more Chinese medicine. The cost today is $45.00. It’s cheaper to be sick here than to have breakfast in Singapore.

There is no radio in the room and only one English channel on TV. The only diversion we have is listening to CNN non-stop, or listen to the drills, gun fire, and military marche music at the installation next to the hotel. (When our guide had told us of the population of Tibet he went on to say that that didn’t include the Chinese military stationed there and no one had any idea how many there were. A military presence was quite prominent in order to avoid any dissension from within or any external activities.)

We agonize about what to do on Thursday when flight out was scheduled. On one hand we both feel too ill to walk down stairs, never mind to travel back to Beijing via Chengdu and then on to Hong Kong. Our worst fear is that we’ll get started and the symptoms will persist. On the other hand we aren’t getting any better here and there is no guarantee we will any time soon. We decide we have to go for it. Up in the morning. Up 5 minutes to brush teeth etc,. back in bed to rest. Up for 5 minutes to pack, back in bed to rest. Time to go. I’m wheeled out of the hotel in a wheel chair and we’re hustled into the getaway vehicle. The guide asks that since we came all that way did we want to drive by the palace on the way to the airport. Sure..

Things we say in Tibet: (This won’t take long0

• The front of the palace from a moving vehicle. Seems nice.
• Room 314

Get checked in and after going through security I’m wheeled in for another 15 minutes of oxygen before catching the plane. Never so happy to get on the plane and do our runway roll. Within 30 minutes of getting in the pressurized cabin, our condition is improving. I love Air China. By the time we get off in Chengdu to change planes, we’re probably back to 60% good health. The outside air is rich and delicious. I never thought you could taste air (except in Saint John 20 years ago) But this air tasted sweet. Flight to Beijing and then a late flight to Hong Kong. By the time we got on the last flight we were feeling healthy and happy although we did feel like we’d been through a war. We’d learn that the residual effects took days to disappear, but the worst was over and we were on the way to recovery.

(Strange quirks at airports department. Leaving Beijing for an international destination can be interesting. One goes through a formal departure process, whereby you complete a form and then go through an emigration procedure, where they take the form and stamp your passport as departed, after which you move into a large hall containing nothing but check in counters for various airlines. The problem is that many airlines only staff the counters prior to flight time. We arrived three hours before ours would be manned. So you’re stuck. You can’t go back to the terminal entry area and you can’t move on through airport security to get to restaurants and lounges. So, tired, hungry and thirst and with seating for about 12 people we sit on the floor and wait three hours for our Cathay Pacific crew to show up.)

So what are our impressions of Tibet? Could we even have any? Well, first of all we don’t have that feeling that we had a bad experience and we hate it and don’t ever want to go back. Like say, Cape Breton. The territory is as strange an area as I’ve ever seen. (I’m talking about Tibet now, not Cape Breton.) Mysterious, mystical and full of curiosities. Not the place for a luxury holiday by any means but I’d love to go back. Perhaps spend a day or two half way up to acclimatize, perhaps get some medicine before leaving. But I feel we missed a wonderful opportunity to explore a truly different culture, probe a sensitive political situation and to learn about a spiritual source for millions. Claire had jokingly mentioned that she might find inner peace while we were there. It may not be that easy but I think we might have found a glimpse of an inkling of a hint of what inspires millions to keep the faith.

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:

Before 1950 nearly 1/5^th of the Tibetan male population were monks. In Lhasa alone, there were 20,000. (Since the 1990’s when Chinese tolerance began to be introduced, they have re-emerged but there are still only a fraction of the monks formerly in residence.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

Although we were led to understand the Lhasa is the highest city in the world, the guide said that he had been told that that is not true and there is one higher still. But he wasn’t sure where it was. Anyone know?