ta da tibet!

the moment we got into golmud we were approached about a jeep to tibet. we were planning on taking the bus, but as getting to golmud was a 4 day affair, rather than one day, we knew we needed to get there as fast a possible. as we talked, the price went up and up, and we finally agreed to pay almost a third of our monthly salaries, at 1000 yuan per person. ouch. lindsey, duff and i crammed in the back, i was in the middle, what luck, and a really nice chinese woman sat in front. the details of us entering tibet in this way are a little sketchy. there is a tibet permit that foreigners are supposed to need, but we have only heard of this in guidebooks, and none of our chinese friends mentioned anything. plus, with the qinghai-tibet railway opening, the regulations are all up in the air. we got a weird little man to be our driver, and we set off at 4:00 in the afternoon. they told us that we would drive all night and it would take about 16 hours to get into lhasa. i was not crazy about driving all night, i am super wary when it comes to the combination of asia and motor vehicles, but i figured if i stayed awake all night with the driver we'd be fine. plus, the road just climbs the plateau, it wasn't steep or curvy.

only a half an hour out of golmud our jeep broke down. i was convinced we were getting taken. i'd gotten a little suspicious of our driver in town when he ditched his uighur hat immediately after getting out of golmud. cultural thing, i guess, and not religious. still, it seemed a little weird. in the end the break down was actually a bad batch of gas and a fuse problem, but we endured 4 hours of stalls, slow hills, the driver poking under the hood and muttering, and repairs. we did return to golmud, but even after the repair the car didn't work all that well. it was only after we got new gas that we really started to move. not that i know anything about cars, these are all duff's assertions.

most of our drive was in the dark, it might have been boring but there were electrical storms all around us. we saw some of the most amazing lightening. the night was long, with the three of us playing games in the back to stay awake. at one point i was making up excuses to go to the bathroom because we were about to loose the driver to sleep. the woman in front helped a lot keeping him awake. the only time i dozed off all night was when the two of them were singing, quite loudly. sometimes they sang the same song, but most of the time they were both yelling different tunes at the top of their lungs.

after the sun came up, the driver was still pretty tired, and he continued to yip and howl all the way into lhasa. i have a video of him, wildly entertaining. i will put it up if i ever figure out how.

we drove into tibet from the north, through the amdo grasslands. i desperately wanted to stop and ride horses for a few days, but that will be another trip. as the sun was rising we could see snow capped mountains in the clouds. the mountains dropped down to an amazingly green plain, with lots of grazing animals. it was so refreshing after weeks in the desert. many tibetans are nomads and we saw white tents dotting the grasslands surrounded by yaks, sheep, goats, and some seriously large dogs. other people lived in small towns of mud huts. everything was so beautiful, blue sky, green grass....so often china has a reputation as a very polluted place, but after traveling the west, i realize this is largely a problem in the east. people were drinking tap water in xin jiang. there is very little industrial pollution, but where there is industry, like the towns we followed on the southern silk road, the area is destroyed. parts of yunnan, tibet, inner mongolia, qing hai, and heilongjia are truly pristine. sadly, i have no idea how long this will last. any time our jeep driver or the chinese lady in front had a bit of trash, it went out the window. duff's chinese nephew from the train to kashgar thought it was funny to throw trash out the window. everyone else thought so too, we were the only ones not laughing.

along the road were stupas, covered in prayer flags. the prayer flags are stamped with prayers and they are activated by wind. we say so many pilgrims along the road, prostrating themselves. they go from full standing to lying on their stomachs, foreheads to the ground. the motion slides, and the wear paddles on their hands to help with the slide. many also have their knees tied together.

we have a lot more to say about tibet, and the people and amazing spirituality, but we have to climb the steps of the potala palace (winter residence of the dalai lama) tomorrow. i am a little worried about that with the altitude. duff and i were running to get ready for tibet, but i think i have still been mildly effected by the elevation. yesterday we visited the jokhang, the holiest temple in tibetan buddhism, and the norbulinka, the summer residence of the dalai lama. posts to follow, after we get a good night's sleep.

thank you, mrs. duffy, for the wonderful tibet guides!! they have been very helpful.