Trip 1 -- India, Nepal, and China

The Korean and I left the airport accompanied by our new travel agent. We climbed into a station wagon in which family members of the travel agent also rode. Just outside the airport a sign in English read, "Welcome to Lhasa." How ironic that sounded! The 90-minute ride to Lhasa was beautiful - mostly barren mountains, and at one point we stopped to observe the large Buddhas painted on one of the mountain rocks. Not until we were in the immediate vicinity of Lhasa were there buildings; they began as one-story edifices and gradually grew as we entered Lhasa. As our driver left he said that because of increasing restrictions, I'd need a permit to visit anywhere outside of Lhasa.

There were no single rooms available at the Banak Shol, so the Korean and I were to be housed together for the first night - but later that afternoon he found another place to stay and I had the double to myself. In theory I was going to switch to a single room once one became available, but I asked the hotel management each day whether I should change and I was always told to stay where I was. The hotel entrance led to a courtyard from where I had to climb two steep flights (the staircases were more like ladders) to get to my room; the bathrooms were down the corridor. Far from glamorous, but the hotel had a friendly travelers' haven kind of feel to it. And besides, the five or so dollars a night were already included with my $150 Tibet permit. A bulletin board at the hotel's entrance was a communications center for travelers - people posted notices when they wanted to arrange planning meetings, trade travel guides, or share rides to the airport, the border, or the western part of Tibet. While I was there a particularly sarcastic notice appeared: "Going to Nepal! Two easy going guys looking for three cute girls (Japanese?) to share the slow ride down." Not many people showed up for that meeting.

How long I'd stay in Tibet depended on when the Potala Palace was open. I wanted to take the bus out to Golmud on Sunday, but seeing the Potala - the residence of the Dalai Lama until he fled into exile - was a priority. Guidebooks differed on when it was open (I had checked plenty in Kathmandu), so I made it my first stop in Lhasa. It wasn't open that Thursday afternoon, but I was assured that it would be open the following morning. So that afternoon I walked around the Barkhor Square area, where half the population of Tibet displays trinkets for sale, and eventually I toured the magnificent Jokhang temple. Here I had my first glimpses of Tibetan Buddhism, and I was extremely impressed: monks in purple robes chanted in quick rhythm; the rooms contained enormous ornate statues of various forms of Buddha and other deities; the place smelled sweetly of burning ghee.

When I left, I wandered around the city aimlessly for a while, and eventually I realized I'd better have dinner soon: from what I remembered the Chinese dined early. It was only 20:00, but it had been dark for quite some time, since all of China runs on Beijing time. I found a respectable-looking building that looked like a restaurant (for me the distinction between respectable-looking and not was determined by the presence or absence of a door - not necessarily a fair distinction, but more accurate than not) and went inside. It was a restaurant, and the staff spoke no English but were helpful, especially when I pulled out my Chinese take-out menu (courtesy of the Westside Cottage on Ninth Avenue). They studied my menu and, amid jubilant conversation, pointed to dishes that they could make. I'm not sure exactly what I asked for, but dinner ended up being pork with something-or-other and egg soup. I also asked for "Coca-Cola" - a universal request. It was very tasty, and I had my option to pay $10 or CNY 60. I chose the latter and tried to tip - they had been exceptionally helpful - but the tip was refused.

I arrived at the Potala just as it opened the next morning at 8:30, and I paid my foreigner's fee of CNY 45. (It could have been worse - I think it was CNY 80 on weekends.) I had barely begun to get used to the altitude, and as a result it took me 44 minutes to climb all the stairs to the top, including my frequent rest breaks. For another CNY 10 I bought a permit to climb to the roof, but there wasn't anything open up there. Still, the view of the city was amazing. When I had seen pictures of the Potala, with its magnificent magenta and white trapezoidal towers and gold-topped roof, it never dawned on me that it was in the middle of Tibet's capital. But as I looked out I saw the traffic passing below; directly across the street was a large public square; and at eye level, of course, were the mountains.

I walked back down to the interior and browsed. Some rooms contained (literally) hundreds of miniature terracotta figures. Most rooms contained Buddha statues at which the observant prayed and to which they offered money - I decided this was why the entrance fees were much lower for them, though it's probably not the real reason. Those rooms also contained the sweet burning ghee found everywhere in Tibet. But the most impressive rooms contained tombs of Dalai Lamas. The tombs were enormous and decorated with impressive amounts of gold. And in one room was a mandala; a sign said that the mandala was 12 meters in circumference but my guidebook said it was "over six metres in diameter." From this I deduced that pi is less than two in Tibet.

Climbing down to the street took much less effort than the trip up. Nearby was a telecommunications building where I called home (only about $2 a minute - half as expensive as Nepal!). Across from the Potala is the hill Chagpo Ri, on which sits a temple, Palha Lupuk. The temple is really a cave; Buddha pictures are carved into the rock. They are quite remarkable. Next door is another temple; it was less interesting in itself, but made more interesting by the ten-or-so-year-old who was practicing his chanting as people came in to worship.

From Chagpo Ri it was a short walk to Lhasa's main bus station, where I wanted to buy a ticket to Golmud. Finding the bus station was no problem; getting inside was another matter, since the only open entrance was the only one that looked as if it wouldn't be open. A sign listed the few places where buses went; there were not many, and I decided that the one called Gomo was probably the one I wanted. The biggest clue was not the name but the "mileage" (or should that have been "kilometrage"?), which was a much higher number than anything else. It would be a long trip - 1165 kilometers according to that sign. I copied down the Chinese characters for Gomo and wrote the date on which I wanted to travel - two days later. The lady who sold me the ticket wasn't particularly friendly, but she understood what I had written. I gave her my pen so she could write down what the fare should be. She wrote down two numbers: 314 and 1104. This was a no-brainer - I chose the former. (What could the other number have been?) I handed her the money and in return received a ticket that indicated the fare as CNY 304 - but there was no time written on it! I tried to convey that it would be useful to know when the bus left, but she had trouble understanding my problem. Eventually she got the idea, wrote down 7:30 on the ticket, and indicated the bus would leave at 8:00. She also gave me two white tickets that seemed to have nothing to do with the bus - I had no idea what their purpose was but figured I'd find out eventually.

North of the bus station on the same street was the Holiday Inn. At least, it used to be the Holiday Inn - it's now the Lhasa Hotel. A sign inside pointed to various rooms in the hotel, and underneath it read "New York 16756 km," with an arrow pointing in the appropriate direction. Although the hotel's name has changed, the Hard Yak Cafe is still there, and I tried the famed yak burger. It was ludicrously expensive - CNY 64 - but good; yak meat, I discovered, is sweeter and less dry than beef. The whole meal, including two Fantas and strudel, came to CNY 120.

Across from the hotel should have been the CITS office, where I wanted to reserve a train ticket to Beijing if I could. I saw no sign of such an office; indeed the whole block seemed to be under construction. I went into a couple of fully constructed buildings (one of which turned out to be a bowling center!) and no one knew anything of a CITS office. I eventually found a CITS truck, but the adjacent building was all but abandoned - a chalk-written sign said something about June and I understood nothing else. I went back into the Lhasa Hotel and tried a couple of travel agencies there, but it turned out to be impossible to reserve a train ticket in Lhasa.

Very close by was the Norbulingka Palace. I had to wait until the 15:30 opening time to visit the buildings, but the grounds were pleasant enough. The buildings, however, were impressive - the main building contained several rooms whose walls depicted various events in Tibetan history. A few other buildings were open; inside one was a collection of horse-drawn carriages used in the past. Outside this building I talked to a traveler from Ohio and his Chinese girlfriend - I showed her my bus ticket, hoping to find out if I'd bought a ticket to the correct destination. She looked at the destination on the ticket and said, 'I've never heard of this place.' I didn't ask her about the two mysterious white tickets. On the roof of a nearby building some Buddhists sang; I watched for a while and then left.

On the way back toward the hotel, I stopped at the square in front of the Potala. In its center stood a flagpole, at the top of which was a bright red Chinese flag. It seemed fitting how the flag's color clashed against the deep magenta of the Potala. At the southern end of the square was a fountain and a line of people who'd take a picture of you for a fee. I sat on the fence in front of the fountain and a few minutes later a kid selling nuts offered me some. I made it clear I didn't want any, but he persisted. I calmly declined. This went on for a few minutes. Didn't he get it? He kept poking me with the bowl of nuts, and I had no choice but to shove it back at him, sending a few nuts flying. He ran away and we both laughed - he more amused than I. Then two Chinese asked if I'd pose with them for pictures, and I agreed.

Dinner at the Tashi restaurant was cheap - CNY 21 for an enormous meal of steamed apple momos and vegetable bobis with cream cheese. It was much more than I wanted, but the menu looked interesting and both dishes seemed worth trying. Back at the Banak Shol I sat in the Kailash restaurant, where I sampled tasty banana-chocolate crepes and listened to more country music than I'd ever heard. The Kailash is a popular place for travelers, even those not staying at the Banak Shol; there are often people discussing their experiences and plans, looking for traveling companions, and passing the time in a city otherwise uneventful at night. On the short walk from the restaurant to my room - they were on the same floor - I happened to look up. The stars were magnificent and even the Milky Way shone in the kind of way that usually happens only in books and planetariums. When you live in Manhattan it's easy to forget what the natural night sky looks like.

The following morning I rode to Dreprung Monastery by minibus ("Dreprung?" "Dreprung!"). The monastery sits at the top of a hill about 15 minutes off the main highway a few kilometers to the west of Lhasa. I paid the entrance fee (CNY 15) and realized I was still not used to the altitude - even the few steps on the way up to the main building gave me trouble. At Dreprung I really had the sense that I was in an active monastery - it was more isolated than the monasteries in the city, and it had an impressive view of the mountains. It used to be the world's largest monastery, and several colleges still functioned. It had a few interesting chapels, though nothing seemed particularly impressive; the many dogs that I had heard were dangerous and vicious instead lay asleep on the ground. I followed a group of several Chinese tourists around for a while and eventually took the bus down - a ride that cost only CNY 2 (as opposed to the CNY 3 for the trip from the city), perhaps at the whim of the conductor or perhaps because as a foreshadowing of the bus's breaking down as we approached the Potala. Another bus came eventually, and we all transferred. Something I had eaten disagreed with me, so I went back to the Banak Shol to rest for a while; then I visited Ramoche, a monastery near the city. It had a few statues, a huge prayer wheel, and a long loop of smaller prayer wheels, but it wasn't worth the CNY 20 admission. The chapel next door, Tsepak Lakhang, was much better - the statues were beautiful and looked new, and admission was free. I walked south, visiting Meru Nyingba (another interesting monastery, though I couldn't get more than a glimpse inside) and the Ani Sangkhung (the only nunnery in the area; I entered the courtyard and heard the nuns chanting but I didn't venture further, in order not to disturb them). To reach the latter I had to wend my way through narrow alleys that took me through residential streets. On the way out a few small children followed me; we shouted 'Hello!' and waved at each other until I reached the main street. Near the hotel I bought an assortment of cookies and drinks for the bus ride, as I had heard there weren't food stops.

I had dinner at the Tibet Special Food Restaurant. I don't know that the food was that special; I was the only one eating there at the time, and the place didn't look as clean from the inside as from the outside. Had I trusted the hygiene better I might have tried the fried lung; instead I had the fried onion and yak meat - much more of the former than the latter -, and my meal was accompanied by music far too obscene for me to consider including a sample of the lyrics here. I went back to the Kailash for more banana-chocolate crepes; this time I also had chocolate cake. Four of us, from four different countries (the others were from Tokyo, Belgium, and Berlin), started talking. The Japanese traveler had managed to sneak into Tibet by land from Chengdu - a very dangerous proposition these days, but he managed never to be questioned on the way. Three of us were in the financial business (though I am only temporarily). We all lamented the recent restrictions on travel into Tibet.

Two people in China had taught me the universal signal for sleep: the conductor on the bus, who used it to try to force me into my sleeper berth, and the passenger on the train, who had made the signal to indicate that I had bought a sleeper ticket. It's pretty simple: you cock your head, hold both hands together (a pillow), put them under your ear, and close your eyes. So I walked up to the receptionist and made the signal in order to ask if this was a hotel. She shook her head.

I wasn't giving up that easily. I pointed to the sign above me and made the sleep signal again. She shook her head again, and then a man came out of her office. I repeated the motions for him, and he tried to show me outside. I asked, "Why?" He got a piece of paper and wrote down the names of two hotels where I could stay. Then he escorted me outside and tried to get me a taxi. But I wasn't going to leave. I followed him back in, made the motions again, and asked, "Is this a hotel?" He didn't understand any English but he nodded. I pointed to myself and then to the floor and said, "Can I stay here?" He shook his head. I asked again, "Why?" He pointed outside, and he went back into the office.

But instead of going toward the street I went into the hotel's courtyard. If it was indeed a hotel, it looked pretty nice. And it was near the train station - that was my primary reason for not wanting to stay elsewhere. A police officer approached me, and I mimed, "Is this a hotel?" Yes. "Can I stay here?" Yes. He escorted me inside, where he spoke with the hotel receptionist for a few minutes. He pointed to the sign, indicating which rate I'd be charged: CNY 80. I had to fill out a hotel registration form, which was all in Chinese. The man from the office helped somewhat - I took out my passport and he indicated what numbers I should write where. I left most of the form blank. He wrote on the form that I should pay CNY 80 - but as I was getting out money he added, "+ 50 = 130." It must have been a foreigners' tax. Oh well - I wasn't going to complain about that as long as I was allowed to stay there.

I was never given a key for my room; instead, I was given a pass that I had to show to the third-floor receptionist every time I wanted to enter. The room had a television and a very comfortable bed, and except for the strange-looking insect on the ceiling the room was very clean. There was a thermos of hot water and a travel kit containing a toothbrush, toothpaste, a comb, and various other things. The bathroom wasn't very clean, but it was adequate and private - a welcome relief after the Banak Shol and three days in transit.

Now for dinner. I walked back to the train station and took another road - the one perpendicular to the one I had taken before. This was much more promising. It took me through a public square in which small carnival games were set up (the Xining County Fair?) and then across a river. I passed a much nicer hotel and then came to a reasonable restaurant, where I had pork with scallions and egg soup. I walked around the city for a bit - it wasn't very exciting, but it seemed friendly: whole families were outside until rather late at night. Someone tried to sell me a fur coat, and then I stopped to watch people on the street play a game that seemed to be a cross between chess and checkers. Back in the hotel I planned the remaining nights of the trip. I didn't want to go through that whole hotel-finding experience again, and I was just as happy sleeping on a train as anywhere else. Looking at my Thomas Cook Overseas Timetable, I discovered that I could take overnight trains until I got to Beijing, stopping in Lanzhou, Yinchuan, and Hohhot, and I wouldn't have to stay in another hotel.

Early the next morning - so early that I had to get the hotel staff to let me into the courtyard so I could leave - I checked out. There was a different receptionist, to whom I gave my pass. I was about to leave when she handed me my CNY 50 deposit back. I nodded and said, "Thank you," as if I had been expecting it all along.

What I needed most was a bank - I had only about CNY 30 left. I found one bank, where I was directed to the Bank of China. And I visited five branches of the Bank of China before I was able to change money. The first didn't change money; the second had been torn down; the third was closed; the fourth directed me to the fifth, where I arrived at just after noon and was refused service until after the lunch break. Fortunately I had enough money to have lunch; for CNY 23 I had pork with scallions (how did it end up being pork with scallions so often?) and mixed rice. Then I went back to the bank.

Lanzhou didn't have much that was interesting, but it was a prosperous city. I checked out a couple of department stores and discovered that the big technological gizmo for sale was the video CD player. One building consisted almost entirely of about 200 video CD and video CD player stores, almost all devoid of customers. On the second floor of one store I bought some snacks (including a wolfberry drink - very tasty). And as I crossed one street I was cut off by a bicyclist, even though the traffic light timer indicated that I still had nine seconds to cross. I growled, "A little early" - was I re-entering Manhattan prematurely?

On a side street I stopped to watch two small boys play pool outside. Eventually the owner of this establishment came outside and had me sit down. His daughter came over to me and started practicing her written English; we wrote a few things to each other and somehow it was said that her father spoke Russian. We tried to speak, but his Russian was very broken and we couldn't understand each other very well. Then his son, Cheng Zhi Peng, spoke to me in English. We talked about universities for a while, and after his father and I exchanged the words "Do svidaniya" Zhi Peng took me to Lanzhou University, where he was a student. His classes had started the day before; he was studying computer communications and will graduate next year. We visited his dorm (building 8), where he and seven schoolmates share a single room. There was a table in the middle, and a few of us crowded around, talking about life, the United States, my attitude towards Tibet (I remained as noncommittal as possible), and various other things. They offered me tea. One student had been studying Japanese and we practiced it a little bit (mainly talking about how neither of us speaks Japanese very well). Zhi Peng and a friend took me for a quick dinner at a small restaurant, where we had a filling meal of beef, vegetables, rice, and soup. I asked Zhi Peng to write down the characters for "Hohhot" so that I'd be able to buy my next train ticket. Then they walked me to my train, coming aboard to make sure I was settled.

The next day was one of the most boring I've ever spent. Across from the train station in Yinchuan a street looked as if it went somewhere interesting, but after I passed the Yinchuan Railway Hotel there wasn't much. I took a right turn and soon I was in rural China. Farmers of both sexes tended to various crops; the only traffic was bicycles. A few residents stared at me, particularly the youngest children. After a couple of kilometers the road curved around, leading me back to the station. I spent most of the day reading: first my China guide, and then I finished Annapurna. I realized that because I've been making a living proofreading, my reading speed has decreased considerably. For lunch I went to the Yinchuan Railway Hotel, hoping that even though the prices would be high, there might be an English menu. Instead I found that the prices were high, there was no English menu, and the staff were remarkably rude. I had shrimp with cashews, lamb smothered in oil, and two giant shrimp. Repeatedly the staff offered me a fork (the ultimate insult), and they had the habit of giving me food and saying "Please," as if I didn't notice the food or wasn't going to eat it. Then they hovered over me until midway through the meal, and even when they left they watched me from afar. After lunch I walked to the other side of the train station, found nothing interesting, went back to the station, and resumed my reading. For dinner I tried a Muslim restaurant near the station, or at least it seemed from the outside to be a Muslim restaurant. The food was quite Chinese. I was given a room by myself and had some egg soup and a dish of lamb falling off the bone. Then, back to the station; I watched the Yinchuan County Fair for a while and heard "Memory" (from Cats) played over the loudspeaker - now and forever, everywhere, indeed! Then the 44 from Lanzhou arrived (19 minutes late), and I was off to Hohhot.

My primary concern in Hohhot was to find a decent restaurant where I could try the area's most famous delicacy, bear's paws. I decided my best chances of finding a nice restaurant with an English menu would be in a hotel, so I had lunch at the Zhoujun Hotel. Indeed, there was an English menu, but despite mentioning many other delicacies it did not mention bear's paws. I stayed anyway and sampled the camel's paws (the next best thing, right?). In hypothetical future meals I might have tried the snake, bullfrog, and camel's hump; I could not bring myself to try the ox penis. The camel's paws were pretty good, but they were slimy and sometimes hard to chew, and they got boring quickly.

Back outside I walked around the city some more, stopping atop an overpass to gaze out across the city. Hohhot was huge, prosperous, and clean. There were five-star convention hotels and well-stocked department stores. I wandered back toward the train station and found a supermarket, where I bought some jujube juice - or at least I thought it was. It turned out to be jujube juice concentrate, and once I had opened it I couldn't close it securely. I tried adding some to half a bottle of water, and I tried adding water to it, and I tried all sorts of things, but it was always too sweet, and eventually I gave up and had to throw it all away. There wasn't much else to do in the city, so I waited at the station until my train.

Nearby there was a subway station, and I took the subway two stops to Qianmen Gate. I thought there would be a hotel near there, but found none, so I walked south and eventually ended up at the Dong Fang Hotel. I asked the receptionist if there was a restaurant and received no answer, so I walked off to search on my own. There was a restaurant, with a decent buffet of dumplings, sausage, vegetables, and almost tasteless orange juice, for CNY 26. Back in the lobby I asked the receptionist if there was a bus to the airport (I had heard that there was). She pointed outside, where I was shown a taxi. Not what I wanted at all! I asked her again, and, annoyed, she showed me a map and pointed out the route to the airport building (no, that's not the same as the airport) where I could get the bus. And with a little pleading she even told me the name of the street it was on. Frustrated, she wrote the Chinese characters for "airport building" so that I could find the bus. As I left the hotel one of the taxi drivers cursed at me. I shouted back, "The same to you." Premature New York, indeed!

The airport building was easy to find. I bought a ticket for CNY 16 and was told the bus would leave at 10:00; it actually left at 9:40. The airport was crowded, partially because of a group from People to People - the organization with which my mother and I had come to Beijing two years prior. But checking in was a simple affair, and not surprisingly, there were no passport problems with my leaving China. Our gate - Gate 22 - was a smoke-filled room downstairs, which made getting on the plane even more enjoyable.

"Yes."

"How long have you been away?"

"Thirty-three days."

"Do you have a change of clothes in there?"

"Yes. Three."

"You did your laundry while you were away?"

"Yes."

He looked at my arrival card. "You were in India and Nepal?"

"Yes."

"You could do your laundry in India and Nepal?"

"Yes."

He seemed skeptical. "Okay. Go ahead."

Ah, the American obsession with clothing! I certainly hadn't missed it. I thought it amusing that I received this interrogation about my dressing habits and not a word about the fact that I had indicated that I had brought food into the country. (I still had some cookies from Lhasa.) I waited about 25 minutes for a bus to the subway. During that time, four buses connecting all the terminals came by, but none that went to the subway. Do that many people make inter-terminal connections?