In which the birthday boy runs smack into Tibet Sometimes it takes a jet to carry you somewhere over the rainbow, or maybe a train, a boat, a fast car or a powerful wish, but in my case all it took was three and a half hours of patience and a bus filled with happy-go-lucky passengers. We climbed upward, past amazing, terraced hills, planted with produce, the sheer ability to farm the precipitous heights was astonishing, and at one point I saw a farmer pruning his crops by means of a rope attached around his waist, dropping down, then down, and down---we blasted by too fast to know how he managed to get back up. Then we leveled out and entered a biblical zone of fertile valleys with mosques everywhere. Their signature globes and towers rose above the landscape, more plentiful than church steeples in New England. But what was odd to me was that I equated mosques with desert terrain—these rose above green fields bright with a summer’s growth. I stopped counting them after I reached a hundred and one. After passing through Linxia City, which has long been called the “Little Mecca of China” featuring 1,700 mosques and an important stop along the Silk Road, we started climbing up, up, up, then leveled off in earnest, the terrain changing, growing more austere, though still summer green, with stuttering Van Gogh fields absent of crows, then angling almost imperceptivity downward and eventually arriving in Xiahe. When the bus storage hatch was opened, people gasped as they viewed the mess caused by the shifting load, and I managed to grab my pack and disappear before blame was attached and the riot ensued. Which rendered me totally unsuspecting as I escaped the commotion and ran smack dab into Tibetan Culture. Holy, yeah—wow, the dress, the light, the faces, the climate turning cheeks permanently rosy, the ancient one’s faces carved with deep ravines, arroyos of worry, profoundly etched laugh lines, wearing traditional dress that would make rock stars envious, women wearing men’s hats, costumes spun with wool and silk, bands of color, fur lined boots, necklaces of stones gathered from the earth, skirts with leggings, patterned silk, earrings and scarves and eyes that knew life could be hard but reflected otherwise, all floating in a blissful panorama of cloud and sky. I was greeted with smiles and nods and carefree nonchalance. I wanted to take my camera out and snap away with abandon, but held back trying not to treat the people I encountered as if they were circus animals. Yet, to this day, I regret that as I would have loved to have shared the images I saw then, and afterward, until I finally said screw it, and snapped away, always politely, and asking permission, sadly turning away from wonderful photos when the subject declined. Xiahe is the home of the Labrang Monastery—one of the six great monasteries of the Gelug (Yellow Hat) Sect—over 2,000 monks live there, some attending one of the six Buddhist colleges, and it is a key institution of higher learning famous among pious pilgrims who travel from near and far in order to touch the sacred. Monks are everywhere, with shaven heads or crew cuts, walking in groups, pairs, trios, spinning prayer wheels, sipping tea, driving cars, hailing taxis, talking on cell phones, sitting cross-legged on hillside vistas, selling goods in sidewalk stores, bare-legged and wearing sneakers, flowing in their robes like scarlet rivers down the alleys of Labrang Monastery. People come to Xiahe following the wandering belief and the whole place is humming. No matter what time of year, pilgrims will be walking the kora—a sacred and holy route winding some 3 kilometers around the monastery, clockwise, wearing traditional costumes, some chanting, some saying prayers, some pilgrims prostrating their way round the entire course wearing knee pads and gloves. I immediately felt at home, and after the usual search for a hotel room, where I was told they had no rooms available even though the town was not crowded (see Jiayuguan: Beyond Lay the Barbarian Lands, Part 3), I settled for a room in a lackluster hotel, then stumbled upon a really great hotel run by Tibetans, ran back to the first hotel I’d rented and actually got some of my money back, then celebrated with some yak butter tea with milk along with a Tibetan yak meat curry in the great Nomad Restaurant.
I was 9,843 feet above sea level, on the cusp of my birthday, in a Tibetan Monastery town ringed with sloping mountains shouldering native pines, high up in the Tibetan Plateau, mimicking the wordless chanting of the pilgrims, as far away from anything I’d ever experienced before, wishing all my family and everyone I knew could somehow be transported here for just a moment to experience it all with me. But there is never the time and the moment and your loved ones all together. You will have to make due with my inadequate but sincere description.
3 Comments
Jude
9/17/2012 10:30:03 am
Thanks for taking me with you! I'm thoroughly charmed and am anxious for more. Lovely!
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moonmadman
9/17/2012 11:04:28 pm
Mango! Sa-weet! Don't worry; I think you found a way to bring us along for the ride.... nice writing, nice details, nice, nice... Please send yak butter and a portion of the curry...
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judith kent
10/1/2012 08:04:10 am
Just lovely Mike, thanx for including me in your journey
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