Guest blogger Keith's Trip to Tibet

We arrived fine in Chengdu took about 5 days to get over the jet lag and get on schedule. It was exciting to be in an Asian city again. English is vitrually non-existent here and it is a lot different than Thailand or even India. The city was modern though and it was easy to get everything we needed for the trip to Tibet though a lot of gesturing was involved. My medical training came in handy at the drugstore as all the meds had generic english names and I got everything we would need for any kind of sickness. I large bag full of meds. With that we headed to tibet.
First we took an 8 hr bus to Kangding, straight up the most beautiful tropical mountains, shrouded in mist with a raging river in the gorge below. Kangding was a great city, modern but remote with two peaks hanging over and a fast moving river running right through the middle of town. The hotel was not all that but we did find good food and they had an ATM to get cash for the rest of the trip. We met the Dalai Lamas step-nephew in town and he was the first english speaking (all be it broken) person we met on the trip. He helped us get bus tickets for the next leg of the journey bought us Tibetan tea at a Tibetan tea shop and even bought us Dramamine for the next leg of the trip (I should have realized what that meant). We went out to dinner with him and so some traditional Tibetan girls siging, though it was for a bunch of chinese goverment officials.
Next we took a 12hr bus to Ganzi, a crazy ride up a high pass and into the most dramatic and beautiful scenery we had ever seen. Jenn was starting to get really anxious as we continued to ascend and go deeper into what seemed like nowhere but I remained blissfully ignorant. The bus was not exactly new and the road at times non-existent as we trundled through the grasslands surrounded by the highest mountains I had ever seen. we saw traditional stone tibetan houses and nomads living in tents and of course yak after yak after yak, we saw colourfully dressed Khampas on motorcycles with women in intricate stone studded headdresses. I really felt like I was in Tibet a dream come true.
Then we arrived at our destination in Ganzi a city, town more resembling India than China and I started to think, shit we are way the hell out here and it is getting more and more rural. The English language was completely unknown even at the so called tourist hotels but at least people spoke tibetan and I could get by on that, my chinese is now only a few words. That night I started to get a little anxious, where are we, where are we going and how the hell are we going to get there, a 12 hr bus ride through nowhere will give you time to think about these kind of worries.
Regardless Jenn and I mustered the courage to go for the next leg an 8hr megolith of a bus ride to Derge. The bus was late arriving to the station and I was sure we missed it, but it did arrive and they shoved us on the bus bags and all. Thats when we met little guide. Little guide was a scruffy crazy eyed tibetan boy who "loves americans" our second experience with an english speaker but his was even rougher than Nyima (Dalai lama's nephew) Little guide would utter creepy sentences such as "best friends, faraway friends, forever friends" and then go to sleep on Jenn's shoulder. Little guide said we must meet his momma when we reach Derge. It reminded me of a similar incident in India that did not turn out exactly well (another story). Little guide showed us his book of english that he had learned in preparation for the 2008 olympics, stories about the friendship between Tom Hanks and Wilson his volley ball, the ever wonderful coby bryant and other such nonsense. I practiced my Tibetan with little guide until we arrived in Manigango 4hrs later.
Manigango a collision of dramatic and beautiful landscapes, the famous Dzogchen Monastery and the most beautiful glacial lake of Yilhun La-Tso together with a swarm of relentless beggars and severly downtroden folk, just waiting for the next bus of passer bys to stop in for the obligatory lunch stop. Now I started to think wow, civilaztion is melting away and mountains and grassland will be our new home, at times inviting at other times completely inhospitable. Anyway I took my much needed bathroom break in an unspeakable "bathroom", "ah India all over again, here we go"
I should metion that I remained excited and very happy to be where I was and just tried to soak it in as much as I could but still it is what it is.
The next and most heroing portion of the trip is forever burned in my mind. As we continued to fill our seats at the very back of this old bus that continually lauched as three feet or higher toward the ceiling, we marched on. We approached the might Trola pass. This is nothing to take lightly. We climbed a "road" of mud and washed out cliff up 5,000m (16,500ft) with no guard rale in the snow, with a straight drop off of at least 10,000ft. It should be mentioned my bus driver had an urge to get there and was constantly passing these huge trucks taking supplies over this pass. At one point we were at an impass, a truck coming toward us and us pushing forward until we were both stuck. I kid you not at the very fricking top of this pass, dumping snow. We finally grinded our bus up against the side of the cliff and squeezed pass this truck some 20min later. Jenn began to freak out. Her worst nightmare realized passing an impassable pass and at an altitued that would make anyone cough up a lung. This all in a smoke filled bus (yes they smoke on the bus constantly).
I began to laugh, I really beleived we were not going to make it down this thing and some how it struck me as hilarious. Jenn had a different take and her white knuckles wrapped around my aching hand told me she was not happy. I laughed again and little guide slept like it was christmas eve. Finally we began to head down and as I looked over the edge and gave it a little though, "up was the easy part", "what if we skid on the way down, what if this blizzard whites us out, what if this nut of a driver decides passing on the way down is just as fun as passing on the way up (he did)". I took pictures of what may be the last thing I see, the Trola range over 20,000ft high and sharp like knives carving the skyline. It was awesome in the scary sense of the word, but strangely I liked it and this is what I had travelled out here to experience, Jenn not so much.
Then we arrived at Derge the cultural center of eastern Tibetan and it was an incredible relief the town in filled with what appear to be happy people greeting us with smiles, inquisitiveness and the traditional Tashi Deleg. My Tibetan continued to improve and we found a nice hotel, although expensive. And then we crashed, 4,000m (13,200ft) up and we couldn't move. Jenn was short of breath and I felt like I was made of lead. We dragged ourselves to a Tibetan restaurant and shoveled some thugkpa (soup) down and headed to the hotel. I caught a nice Jet Li movie in Chinese and slepted the whole night through. We were really happy to be in Derge it has a great feeling and we know we are only 4hrs from our much awaited destination of Palyul.
The next morning Jenn felt short of breath and anxious she learned for the first time we were at 13,200ft and began to have a freak out. I had been working on a head cold and it blew up. We were aching all over from that unbelievably bumby bus right. And the altitude had made us imobile invalids in bed. Jenn worried about cerebral edema, pulmonary edema and other catastrophic consequences of high elevation she had read about. I rushed through tissue after tissue and coughed covered in as many blankets as I could find. Yes we had arrived.
As the day progressed we adjusted to the altitude and slowly walked around town. We circumabulated the Derge priting press which contains over 70% of the written material on Tibetan Buddhism and chatted with the locals. We are feeling much better and getting ready to head deeper into the countryside tomorrow or the next (we will see how we feel). We will keep you posted.