Lhasa-Nepal 1995

I spent early September- late October of 1995 in Tibet.

I traveled around Lhasa visiting various monasteries. Sera, Drepung, Ganden and the Tsurphu Monastery, home to the Karmapa rinoche.

I prayed at each one for my baby brother's departed soul.

Michael had died of AIDS that summer.

I especially liked the Jokhang.

There was no place holier on Earth.

Michael would have liked it.

He was spiritual in many ways and in my free time I taught English to monks and workers.

The People's Army were a big presence in Lhasa, but no Chinese soldiers were allowed inside the Jokhang.

The female cadres were good fun atop the Potala.

They never carried guns.

The men had AK47s.

The ARs had no ammo.

At the end of October my Chinese visa neared expiration.

The Friendship Highway to Kathmandu had been reopened after work crews had finally cleared a gigantic landslide covering a section of the Friendship Highway connecting China and Nepal.

It was time to say, "Kha-leh phe." to Lhasa.

My English class sang me farewell.

Their choice was SAILING by Christopher Cross.

I thought, "What a silly song."

Somehow dust got in my eyes and I wished my students well through a shimmer of tears.

Lhasa had been good for my soul.

I hoped my baby brother glowed in its holiness somewhere in the cosmos.

The next day I boarded a bus to Shigatze.

It was the last big town before the border.

I spent a day visiting the ancient monasteries.

I even climbed to the dzong.

The fortress was in ruins.

The Chinese had destroyed most everything Tibetan during the Cultural Revolution as had others like the Brisih and Mongols.

The next day I detoured off the main road to Gyantze.

In 1968 the Gang of Four had sent the Red Guard here to cleanse Tibet of the Old Ways. They obliterated the Jokhang and every other temple to obliterate the Four Olds 'old ideas', 'old culture', 'old customs', and 'old habits'. Buildings are stone. Souls are eternal.

The Tibetans were in the process of rebuilding the main stupa of Gyantze.

The inn at Gyantze was horrible. The noodles were greasy. The beer luke warm. Fleas ran rampant in the beds and the flies buzzed through the cracked windows of the dormitary. Every bed was overbooked. I slept about five hours and woke to a brilliant blue dawn.

The morning bus returned to Shigatze.

It truly was civilization after Gyantze, although packs of dogs roamed the alleys.

The Tibetans have a joke about these dogs.

Why do you need two sticks to go to the toilet? One to stick in the ground and hold onto and the second to fight off the dogs.

They were vicious creatures far from Man's best friend.

The paved highway ended at Shigatze. No buses ran to Nepal. I hitched a ride from a van heading to pick up backpackers in Khailash, the holy mountain. I gave the driver $20. Two other westerners were in the back. They were semi-conscious. High-altitude sickness. We grunted hello. Tsering was very happy with three westerners as his cargo and we set off south.

The high Tibetan plateau was like the surface of Mars.

No water.

No people.

Only dirt.

The dust plumes of transport trucks were the only sign of man.

We saw one every hour or two.

That afternoon dropped into a canyon.

Tsering pointed to the opposite slope.

"Landslide."

It was a mile across.

Workers cleared a road with eyes checking up the hill for tumbling boulders.

"You walk. I drive van with dead pepople. "He pointed back to the comatose backpakers. I wondered if they were high on opium. None of my business. Tsering motioned for me to walk. "No problem."

A large stone rolled down the slope. Workers scattered for safety. I ran to the end of the slide.

It was a bad road, but better after the landslide

After that road climbed into the high plateau.

15,000

16,000

The tourists barely moved. They were barely breathing.

North of Lhatze the van became mired in mud. A Tibetan herder's horse hauled it clear.

Tsering gave him $3.

Two minutes later the herder was out of sight.

Tibet was open to the sky.

My brother's soul was in the heavens.

I prayed for his happiness in the Here-Beyond.

He would remain thirty-five forever.

China National Highway 219 split off to Mount Kailash.

I asked Tsering how was the road."

"Very bad. Very dusty."

"Really." My eyeballs were grated red by the road dirt.

"Yes, # 1 bad." Tsering's eyes were red too.

We said good-bye.

Another van approached the t-intersection. Dorge was headed to the border. $20. I jumped in, the only passsenger. The others were Tibetans returning to India after a long pilgrimage to Lhasa.

This was the Roof of the World.

We passed a French bicyclist struggling uphill.

I shouted out the window, "Do you want a ride?"

"Non, merci."

I collapsed into my seat.

The road rose higher and higher.

After Tingri I spotted a giant snow mass to the south.

It was miles away.

"Chomolungma," said Tsering in reverence.

"Everest."

"Yes, to the West. Miyolangsangma, the Goddess of Inexhaustible Giving, lives on its peak."

I offered a prayer to her for Michael.

The icy summits of the Himalayas filled the southern horizon.

I had Tsering stop for a minute at the top of the Yakrushong Pass, 16,000 feet.

"Not long."

He was on a tight schedule.

I said a prayer for my younger brother.

We rose to 16,900 feet.

My words were few. Even to me.

The wind carried them to the swirl of Himalayan peaks.

The sun descended to the West.

We drove down to the border and arrived at Zhangmu in the dead of night.

I could breathe easy for the first time in a month. The tourists

Trees lined the valley.

I gave Dorge another $10.

We drank beer for an hour and then went to sleep.

It had been a long day.

In the morning Dorge was gone with his backpackers

I crossed the border. My passport had two days left on my visa. I boarded a bus to Nepal.

Tibet was behind me.

The Araniko Highway was good. I had heard that a restaurant served pizza in Kathmandu. My baby brother liked it with extra cheese. Tears dropped from my eyes. It wasn't from dust. I was back in the modern world.

ps the pizza was so-so, but it was pizza.

pps This was first written in 2014 New York.

Bad Road In Tibet

My visa for China was running out at the end of October 1995. My overland departure to Nepal had been delayed by a massive avalanche smothering Tibet-Nepal Friendship Highway, but the staff at the Snowlands Hotel in Lhasa announced that a rough track had been opened through the fall area and I bought a ticket to Kathmandu. The bus only went as far as Shigatze, where we switched to a van, since the makeshift road couldn't support the weight of a fully loaded van.

We reached the distressed stretch in the afternoon. The driver hadn't exaggerated about the condition of the road and he suggested that we walk across the freshly cleared half-mile path.

"Rock fall. Hit van. Die."

He wasn't joking.

Some of the stones were bigger than a house, although a few tourists complained about the walk.

I ignored their whining and hurried to the other side of the fall. The rest joined me a minute later, but a German tourist lingered, shooting pictures of the impressive chasm with his Leica.

Someone shouted and we looked up the steep slope. A gigantic rock had shaken loose the grip of the scree and was starting to tumble gathering speed. The tourist was in its path. We yelled to him, but he was focusing the lenses on the Himalayas.

"My husband," cried a middle-aged woman. "Hilf ihm."

Like what?" I asked, for he was too faraway from safety to help him.

"Something," pleaded a German woman.

"There is nothing to do." The Tibetan guide shook his head. The man's fate was in the hands of the Gods, but we continued to shout.

He finally heard us and waved with a smile.

We pointed at the bounding boulder and he realized the danger, running to the right. The rock bounced in that direction. He juked to the left and the boulder followed suit. The tourist froze in his tracks, as the stone bounced in the air.

His wife screamed.

Her husband was destined for death far from Germany, except the boulder landed twenty feet before him and caromed over his head to smash down the slope to the river below.

The German woman sobbed with relief, as her husband rejoined her. All the Tibetans touched him for good luck. The man laughed foolishly, knowing in another path of existence he was dead.

The van traversed the dirt track and the driver muttered to the guide about stupid tourists.

They understood the power of the mountains and fear fate.

We reached the Nepalese border at sunset. The van dropped us at a hotel. I stayed at a different one than the Germans, because he had used up his life's allotment for luck and being around him wasn't a risk for anyone other than the foolhardy. The Tibetans felt the same way and we drank beer, toasting the stars and heavens and the Himalayas.

With respect.

Because they deserved it.