The Lung, by Keith

Well even the best laid plans often fall through. We had been in Derge for more than 3 days and as I circumambulated the Derge printing press where over 70% of the extant Tibetan Buddhist literature was stored, it became painfully apparant to me that 70+ year old ladies with canes and a severe limp were lapping me. I began to think maybe the altitude is getting to me (4,000m or 13,200ft). We were doing our best to rest before heading to our final destination in eastern Tibet, the mother monastery of Palyul. We were a mere 4hrs away by hired car but my head cold had progressed to a chest cold and sleep was getting more and more fractured. Jenn began to experience worsening breathlessness at rest and began to develop the early symptoms of the same respiratory infection I was trying to fight off. We were really enjoying our time in this cultural center of Tibetan Buddhism, hanging out at an elevation 1,500ft higher than the claimed rooftop of the world in Lhasa.
We went to bed planning to take a car the following morning to Palyul and I was sleepless with excitement. My excitement was superceded by Jenn's anxiety as she felt she was continuing to worsen with the head cold and breathlessness. I also developed a deep cough and awoke suddenly feeling short of breath and had to prop myself up in bed. We agreed to visit the doctor in the morning and decide from there whether we would be able to leave today for Palyul or continue to wait for the cold to pass before heading onward.
We got a real wake up call when we tried to find a physician and realized facilities were inadequate and english was non-existent. My rudimentary Tibetan had helped us with bus connections, hotel reservations and keeping ourselves nourished with food, but explaining complex physiologic processes and symptoms was not happening for me. (To hear more about the horrific visit to the doctor see Jenn's recent post)
Finally we were told not to continue onward and instead to head back down the mountain to Chengdu as quickly as possible. I was devastated I had travelled all this way and used every resource I had to get us this far and I was so close to Palyul I could almost reach out and grab it. I talked it over with Jenn and it was clear that continuing on would only put us in greater danger and further from any reasonable medical care. We decided we would have to head back and I had to give up my attachment to attaining this goal of pilgrimage to Palyul.
I was happy with what we had seen and how far we had come, with only my limited Tibetan skills and no outside help with regards to how to get from A to B, we had made it Derge some 30hrs drive from the nearest city. We had seen the Nyingmapa monastery Dorje Drag and several others along the way. We visited Derge and the priniting press and had seen an area of the world I had always wanted to see, yet I still felt something was missing, somehow I had not done what I had come to do. I felt I was just to fixated on the goal of reaching Palyul and practicing in our teachers home monastery. I had to let it go.
We decided we would hire a car and head 8hrs to Ganzi and put some distance between ourselves and the high elevation of Derge. I remembered that a 2hr detour from Manigango on the way to Ganzi would put us at the most famous Nyingmapa monastery in all of eastern Tibet, the famed Dzogchen Monastery. Through our previous practices in the Dzogchen lineage of Longchen Nyinthig we had a connection with Dzogchen Monastery and decided we should make the detour.
Unfortunately travelling back to Ganzi required another harrowing trip over the Trola Pass (5,000m surrounded by 6,500m peaks). This time in nothing more than a minature toy car version of a van with wheels that looked like they had been stolen from a wheel barrow. We decided this was what was meant to be and headed of with the driver up, up and up some more. It is clear that all roads in Tibet go up, even the one's that are taking you down, and you never go up just a little, you go up until you are all the way up. The driver spent most of the trip with his head out the window looking at the tires, tires I thought would never support this little van all the way up that pass. He didn't seem to think the tires would hold up either. Every time he leaned his head back in the window, I would say "Di Motar Ya Pon Min Dug" (This car is no good) and he would laugh, "ya pon dug" (Its good) followed immediately by sticking his head back out the window and staring at the tires.
We arrived in Manigango 4hrs later and visited the holy lake of Yilhun Lhatso. We trekked on horse back to the glacial lake and were surrounded by mantras carved into the stones. There was a large stupa and countless prayer flags fluttering in the wind. It started to seem like we were heading toward something instead of away from it.
It took quite a bit of convincing to get my driver to agree to the detour to Dzogchen but finally he conceded and we headed west into the mountains. To Be Continued.