Lhasa, Tibet, 03 September 1987:  Ni hao!  (Hello)!  This card (referring to the first postcard above) does not reflect my current location, Lhasa, Tibet.  Rather, it is a leftover from a show I saw in Xian (pronounced shee-ahn) 2000 miles and 10 days ago.

It's been a long, interesting, beautiful, but sometimes frustrating road since then.  From Xian I have come by bus and train spending time in Lanzhou, Xining and Golmud, passing from the green agricultural Yellow River valley, over huge terraced hillsides, across semi-arid and arid regions of mountains, sand dunes and featureless plain, and finally over the high Tibetan plateau crossing from the north over tundra and permafrost where only lichens grow (some thousands of years old), past snow covered mountains higher than I've ever seen before, and over and through gorges of gushing rapids.  I've seen people living in mud huts, nomadic herdsman living in tents, dromedary (two-humped) camels, and hairy half-ton yaks, all of which seem very far removed from what you see on this postcard.

Peace and love,
Marco Polo

Lhasa, Tibet, 03 September 1987:  Toshi dili! (Tibetan "Hello"!)  Ever since I was a child and I saw a raised-relief map of the world, I wondered what that protruding area of Asia was like.  I tried to flatten it out with my hand.

For centuries, this area was closed to Westerners.  It used to be the most expensive place in the world to visit.  At one time, the price was probable death -- dished out by the elements or by bandits.  Prior to the 1980s, only about 1200 Westerners had ever made it here, most of whom were members of an invading British army in 1903.  In the 1980s, it was first high-priced tour groups that were permitted to come.  It's only been three years this month that Tibet has been open to individual travelers.  Now, the price has been significantly reduced from probable death to $8 a day.  In the short span of three years, transient foreigners have become a measurable share of the population.  I'm staying at the Yak Hotel, an enclave of perhaps 150 foreigners, many of whom are hardcore travelers who've been out on the road for a year or more, some of whom have holed-up here in Lhasa for that long.

I came to Lhasa from the north by a highway recently completed in 1985.  It is currently the world's highest paved road, passing over the Tibetan Plateau at between 12,000 and 17,000 feet.  Lhasa itself is at 12,000 feet.  Adjustment to these altitudes takes time, up to a month for full adjustment.  Most people experience some symptoms of altitude sickness -- headaches, dizziness, nausea, etc.  Some get very sick.  I've been mostly okay, but I'm taking it pretty easy so far.  I know others who have not been doing so well, and have been layed-out in bed for several days.

The Tibetans seem to be a very warm and cheerful people, and most foreigners would claim those characteristics to be in noticable contrast to the generally more serious, less warm Chinese.  What happened to the Tibetan people and culture in the 60's and 70's was not history, but a horror story -- the obliteration of their history by the Chinese.  Even though much aid has been pouring in from the Chinese government since 1979, significantly increasing the living standard of the average Tibetan, the Tibetans still hate the Chinese and feel their territory is occupied by them.

I'm content to hole-up here in Lhasa for a few weeks, a break from the rigors and stresses of long-term travel.  It has a great atmosphere ... exotic, yet relaxed.

Kelichoo (goodbye)!
Dalai Lama (alias Deano)

Lhasa, Tibet, 08 September 1987:  Other than the spectacular Potala Palace and the surrounding mountain scenery, Lhasa is quite an ugly town; but what an absolutely wonderful atmosphere it has -- very relaxed, very cheerful, very warm, and in some areas, very, very spiritual!!!  The Tibetans love to laugh and joke around.  They seem pleasantly childlike.  The children fly kites.  Adolescents and even adults sometimes playfully wrestle or tickle each other.  Twice I've had different Tibetan women pinch me or pat me on the behind and then giggle.  Everybody smiles, which is such a contrast from the much more sober Chinese.  Even the many dogs, considered to be reincarnations of monks, are well cared for and seem to be very happy here.

Visiting the Jokhang Temple, the center of Tibetan Buddhism, is one of those rare experiences that cannot be put to words.  The colors, the movements, the smells, the sounds ... everything seems designed to overwhelm those who have not before witnessed such an outpouring of religious fervor.  This is not a sedate religion.  Everybody participates.  Pilgrims come from many miles to visit the temple.  They begin by following about a half-mile pilgrim circuit around the temple.  Some will prostrate themselves (say a prayer, kneel, bow, lay down on the ground completely, pull oneself forward, and stand up) repeatedly for the entire distance of the circuit.  In front of the temple from morning to night are dozens of chanting, prostrating pilgrims dressed in bright colors.  At various locations around the circuit, and at the temple, pilgrims hang up colorful prayer flags or put juniper branches into open fires that make the whole area smoky, creating an even stranger atmosphere.  Inside the temple itself, pilgrims continue to follow a clockwise movement around the temple and up three floors, stopping to say a prayer and chant at each of the many buddha statues -- each of which is different.  It is very dark inside the temple, and each person carries a yak butter candle, which gives off a strange odor and lights their way.  They pour off some of the yak butter into large yak butter candle dishes in front of each of the major buddhas.  The walls of the temple are greasy from years of burning yak butter candles.

None of this describes the feeling of the place, the faces of the Tibetans, the enthusiasm.  It is very spiritual, but certainly not somber.

Anyway, I'm very much enjoying myself here in Lhasa.  Everything's pretty easy going and cheerful.  There's always something interesting to observe at the open air market.  There are many interesting and very experienced travelers to talk to; and the food is very good (with no added parasites at this high elevation -- 12,000 feet).

Kelichoo (goodbye),
Panchan Lama

Lhasa, Tibet, 13 September 1987:  Toshi dili (Hello)!  I spent a couple of days outside of Lhasa in a small village with a very old and important Tibetan monastary (lamasary).  Getting there required a half-day bus ride (during which the bus got stuck going both directions to and from Lhasa, requiring all of the riders to push and pull it out of the muddy ruts).  We also had to cross a large river in a very crowded and small motor boat, and take a rather rough ride in the back of a truck among sand dunes.

The village was so relaxed and pleasant!  I could have easily been content to spend five times as long there.  About 20 travelers pay 60 cents to stay in the local guest house.  Among the options for the daytime, one might pay a visit to the monastary in order to watch and listen to the monks chanting and reciting their scriptures, or take a walk through the village among the unpenned farm animals to watch the villagers thrashing barley or to watch monks carving and painting buddhas, or take a longer hike to climb a sacred mountain overlooking the whole scene, to bath in an ice cold mountain stream, or sunbathe on large and beautifully contoured sand dunes.  In the evening, Europeans, Americans, Australians, etc. gather at the Happy Restaurant, an 8 by 12 room with one communal table at which everybody crowds to eat Chinese vegetables, drink Chinese beer, and swap stories of many months (or years) of continuous travel.  Staring at us through the window for absurd lengths of time are infinitely curious Chinese and Tibetan children.  To impress us they say "Hello", and sing the French song "Frara Jacque" (Bother John).  Outside the dorrway, within five feet of where we are sitting and eating, moves a steady procession of pigs, sheep, donkeys, cattle and peasants carrying incredible loads on their backs.

At a similar restaurant in the village (which serves great pancakes), there is usually a pig or two slopping up their food at your feet while you eat.

I met a Swedish guy while I was there who had been on the road for nearly seven years!   He funded himself through the sale of what he called "cheezecakes" ... that is, hashish brownies.

I met two women who were at least in their 60s carrying heavy backpacks and roughing it in their travels.  Lhasa is full of all kinds of interesting and eccentric travelers.  There may be 300 or more travelers at any point in time, and eventually, it seems as if you know most of them by face, if not in greater detail.  Some people hang out here for months.  Some stay longer and teach English.  Information transfer about changing road conditions (particularly since roads are opening and closing all the time), changing black market rates, alternative means of getting from place to place (transport being hit and miss), the best restaurants, and other things to see and do is accomplished by reading what travelers post on notice boards at the budget hotels (the $3 per night type of hotel) or through word of mouth.  Rumors spread wildly here, and sometimes it takes time to sort out the misinformation.

It's funny how often I meet travelers that I have seen in other places.  Perhaps, it is not so strange that I meet somebody in Tibet that I had seen on the Trans-Siberian railroad; but it was really a coincidence that I ran into a young woman at the Lhasa post office who had been on my study/tour of Hungary ten weeks earlier.

A month in China cost me $360, about $12 a day.  Some people get by on as little as $8 a day.  My big expenses are film, processing and postage; and I haven't been skimping on restaurant meals.

Peace and love,
Dalai Lama

Lhasa, Tibet, 16 September 1987:   Toshi dili (Hello)!  Here is just a smattering of interesting facts that I've learned about Tibet, the people and their culture: 1) The wheel was not introduced here until  relatively recently, perhaps within the last century or two, so most construction materials had to be borne on the backs of donkeys or on the people themselves. 2) A person may still have more than one spouse, and two brothers may marry one woman, or vice versa.  Bigamy and polyandry are still condoned.  3) There are five types of burial -- earth, air, fire, water and wood -- and an astrologer determines which type is appropriate.  Sky burial is most common.  It is where the body is blessed and taken to a site on a mountainside where it is systematically cut up as food for the vultures.  Burial and cremation are rare.  Water burial is reserved for small children and paupers.  A wood burial requires a corpse to be put in a hollow tree trunk. 4) The yak, a common animal in Tibet, can only survive at high elevations, and since it is against Tibetan religion to take the life of such animals, the butchers in this area are almost entirely Islamic. 5) The Tibetan's very low birth rate is attributed to the large number of celibate monks.  6) 75% of Tibetans are illiterate.  7) The life expectancy here is 40 years old. 8) There are 3 million Tibetans.  They estimate that around 2 million died since 1959 at the hands of the Chinese.  Many of these deaths were from starvation when the Chinese told the Tibetans to grow wheat instead of their normal staple barley, and then shipped off most of the wheat crop to the rest of China.

There is a sizable number of beggers here.  Most beg for food rather than money.  They come into restaurants when we are eating, and if we have something we don't want to finish, we give it to them.  Hunger is not so common, but sometimes people who have made the pilgrimmage to Lhasa from other parts of Tibet have underestimated how much food they should bring.

The one gift that Tibetans want from foreigners that they go absolutely nuts over is a photograph of the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader since he was discovered at a very early age in the 1930s, and who has been exiled to India since 1959.  Monks, other adults, but especially children are forever calling out "Dalai Lama picture" to all the foreigners.  It's not that the pictures are not available -- in Lhasa, at least.  It just must have some very special significance if they receive it from a foreigner.  You wouldn't want to give a photo to someone in the open.  You'd be mobbed by people.  You would only want to give it very discretely.  After that, the best description I know to describe their reaction is to use American slang -- they go absolutely "ape shit"!  You'd think that they would kiss your feet.

I'm amazed!  Just arrived at my hotel is another woman with whom I spent time in Budapest, Hungary.  It's been four months since I saw her there when we both spent a week troubling over how to get Trans-Siberian railroad reservations.  I was very luck and got mine.  She wasn't lucky and had to fly from London to Hong Kong to get to China.  I may have mentioned her before in one of my postcards.  She's an Australian of Chinese descent, who worked as a television announcer and a clown on a children's program.  She is the second person I ran into here that I had previously known in Budapest.

My second camera, the cheap one, seems to functioning now after only pulling the batteries out and putting them back in.  Crazy!  I have lost some excellent photos.

If it comes down to it, between St. Louis and Minnesota, my allegience is with the Twins.  The China newspaper gives American baseball standings.

Peace and love,
Dalai Lama

Shigatze, Tibet, 22 September 1987:  Toshi dili (Hello)!  The route between Lhasa and Kathmandu connects two of the world's most romanticized places.  In practice, going between them is not always such a straightforward task.  Nepal has suffered the worst monsoons in 80 years -- Tibet in 100 years -- this summer.  The first 150 miles by bus took us 9 hours, since we had to drive through shallow river beds, bypassing over a dozen bridges that had been washed out.  Two weeks earlier, at the end of the monsoons, there were several places along this road that were unpassable.  The road should be mostly better between here at Shigatze and the border, but on the Nepal side, there are several landslides and road washouts that we will have to walk around.  Hundreds of locals and many foreign travelers do this each week.  During the heavy rains of the monsoons, there is some risk involved getting from place to place.  Now that things have been drying out and the path has become well worn, getting through is becoming much easier -- so say people we've met who recently have been through it.

It is still 10 days before we will get there.  First, Jeff Edwards (Nevada geologist and gold miner) and myself will trek for a week to Mount Everest base camp (17,000 feet).  My pack is loaded to the max with food.  Luckily, I won't have to carry it much of the way, since we will have a donkey or two doing the work for us.  We hope to stay with the Tibetan villagers along the way, as others have done before us.

The other day I had my first chance to try some of the Tibetan staple called tsampa (barley flour).  While I was taking photos of farm workers cutting the barley out in a field, a farmer sat me down and gave me a spoonful to stick in my mouth.  Ithough I was going to choke until he gave me some yak butter tea to wash it down.  The two mixed together are almost palatable, but certainly filling.  It's about all that the villagers and nomads outside of the cities have to eat.

The monastary you see on this card is the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, second in power to the Dalai Lama.  Unlike the Dalai Lama, who is in exile in India, the Panchen Lama was likely tortured (or reeducated) by the Chinese to tow something closer to the official government line.  He's been relegated to a desk job in Peking.

The monastary itself is a huge complex with dozens of temples, each containing anywhere from one to literally thousands of different representations of Buddha ... from hand-held clay sculptures to wall size paintings or carvings to brass and gold plated Buddhas that would fill a room.  One brass Buddha is 90 feet high.

The monks and pilgrims are always interesting to watch.  I saw one young pilgrim today who was in the process of prostrating (praying, bowing, lying completely flat on the ground, and pulling oneself forward like an inchworm) the entiremile pilgrim circuit around the monastary grounds.  Much of the ciruit is over steep, rocky terrain and most pilgrims prefer to walk.  The entire process must have taken him six to eight hours.  When he was near the end, I gave him a Dalai Lama photo, for which he was ecstatic.

There are plenty of rich tour groups here who are spending several of their appendages to do Tibet as comfortably and hassle-free as possible.  You can pay from $1 to $3 a night like me, or $110 a night at the Lhasa Hotel, with not many options in the middle range of prices.  You can walk and take a series of busses from Kathmandu in 5 days for $20 ... or you can fly in 2 hours for $300.

I wish you could see this place!  It is certainly among the most culturally interesting places that I have been.

Peace and love,
Deano

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