The number of Tibetan pilgrims in the are is extremely high, and this is due to the presence of Barkhor Square and Jokhang Temple, the center of Tibetan Buddhism. Traditionally, pilgrims travel from clear across the country in order to circle the temple. Some of the more intense pilgrims you’ll see wearing a kind of kneepad and leather hand guards. They use this to prostrate themselves on the circle, then pull themselves forward that one body-length, stand up in place, and repeat. In this fashion, they do a sort of “inchworm exercise,” slowly making their way around the circle one body length at a time. I’ve even heard that some pilgrims make their way clear across the country in this fashion, on a months (or potentially years) long journey.

The Jokhang Temple is a fascinating place, with huge kilns that constantly burn incense, and a large number of pilgrims standing outside praying and facing the main entrance. We spent tons of time just wandering around this area and people watching. At night, A small room in front of the temple is filled with hundreds of candles, which made for some very interesting and solemn photographs.

Lhasa’s altitude isn’t necessarily something to be worried about though. While going up a flight of stairs or two definitely took the wind out of you, we spent a day lounging, drinking water, and trying some of the local food and had no problem. If you’re truly concerned, then be sure to discuss with your doctor if Diamox (Acetazolamide) is appropriate for you. It’s easily available by prescription here in the states, but frankly I don’t think its necessary. In fact, many of the places we stayed at in Tibet had “Diamox bins,” where people had ditched their medication because they ended up not needing it. You were welcome to help yourself if necessary.

*Note* this is not medical advice, and I am definitely not a doctor

I spent most of my time in Lhasa in or around the Tibetan side. We had dinner that evening at a restaurant that served the traditional Tibetan Yak Butter tea, as well as other goods. Tibetan Yak butter tea turns out to be exactly what it sounds like; I’m not sure about the secondary ingredients but it’s mostly made up of hot water with a stick of yak butter melted into it. Apparently Tibetans have trouble with heart disease, and its not wonder why.

The altitude contributes significantly to the strange feel of Tibet… The air is so thin that it holds no heat and filters out no UV. Sunscreen is important, as there’s just not that much atmosphere above you. Stepping into the shade from the direct heat of the sun can mean a 20-degree drop in temperature. Not to mention that even a thin breeze just sucks the heat out of you. I don’t mean to imply that it’s “cold,” but simply “different.” Your body immediately realizes that the environment you’re in plays by different rules here.

Then there’s the sheer number of Tibetan pilgrims walking around with prayer wheels and incense. I’ve often heard that smell is the strongest sense, and that scent (a mix of pine, I think) and other ingredients is something that I’ll recognize forever. As you wander the city, old Tibetan women pass you, spinning their prayer wheels and chanting mantras. It almost sounds cliche, if for the fact that the legitimacy and the weight of where you are and what you’re doing simply does not connect with any cynicism. We are in Tibet; We are in Lhasa; we observe, and we are quiet.

We arrived in Lhasa, and unceremoniously disembarked the train. I was so caught up taking pictures out the rear window that I didn’t have much of a chance to look around until we were left standing there on the platform. For mid morning, the wind was surprisingly cold, and had quite a bite to it. This was mostly due to the thin and dry air, which sucked the heat out right out of you.

The land was mountainous and rocky, and reatively barren looking. Having grown up in a dry, brown desert region (far west Texas), I felt right at home. As we stepped out into the sun, we warmed up immediately. The thin atmosphere doesn’t have a chance to suck the heat out of sunlight, so there’s a remarkable difference in temperature between shade and sun.

There were…8-9 or so of us at this point, and somehow we all fit into two taxis. As the train station is also inconveniently located in regards to the city center, taxi rides are fairly expensive.

Lhasa is roughy divided into eastern  “Tibetan” and western “Chinese” sections. The famous Potala Palace, traditional home of the Dali Lama, sits roughly in the middle. Almost all the culture and history is contained within a few small blocks on the Tibetan side, while the Chinese side simply resembles any other large Chinese city.

I actually stayed at MOST of the hostels in Lhasa over the course of our trip, and have varying things to say about each of them. The first night we didn’t all stay together, so we found a nice hostel room with 4 people,  meaning we had a de facto “private” room.

after nice hot showers for the first time in days, we ate. Due to the altitude, going up a flight of stairs was a tiring affair, and we spent the rest of the day lounging around, drinking tea, and planning our next move.

The first thing I noticed is how CLEAN this train was. It was built by GE, and it’s new, and its nice. The hard-sleeper I was on was significantly better than any of the other hard sleepers I’d taken so far. Which in general wasn’t really saying much, but still it was appreciated.

An interesting thing is that this train had a carpet runner down the walkway, and windows that were sealed shut. This had the added benefit of keeping people from smoking inside the train car, although they still did in the connecting “cabins” between cars. Despite rumors, the train cars were not sealed and pressurized like a plane, however they do have small oxygen outlets near each bunk that just contribute to the ambient oxygen levels.

The initial part of the trip was at night, which was a good thing. until you get to the 2nd day, you’re not really in the picturesque part of the country. While it’s still pretty, I’d seen enough Chinese countryside by this point and was looking forward to snaking my way up into the mountains.

I was a little worried, because I was almost completely out of reading material, and in fact spent a good part of this trip reading my 1000 page Chinese guidebook. An odd side effect of this is that when you hear about “flooding in Shanxii  province,” on the news, I know where that is.

Anyway, I spent most of the time on the train playing cards with the friends I’d made, reading my guide book, and watching the countryside go by. For food, I brought a few meals of these large Chinese Ramen things that recently have started to show up on shelves here in the US. We did eat in the dining car, and that experience was made much easier because of Eddie and Lily.

We met this couple in line at the dining car. Eddie is a redheaded American from Florida,  and met lily while she was studying abroad at his school in Florida. They hit it off, and he flew with her to Beijing a few months ago to help out with the business that her parents ran. Lily, being Chinese, was able to cross the language barrier and REALLY made things easier. They had a soft-sleeper cabin, compared to our hard sleepers, and I can tell you it was a night and day difference. Clean, quiet, it even had a small LCD TV (although I don’t think they were working at that time)

Anyway, we ate, slept, took photos, played cards, and watched some stunning scenery go by. The train was beautiful and uneventful, and after 48 hours of climbing up on to the Tibetan Plateau, we crossed an elegant bridge over a river, and arrived at our destination:  Lhasa

Seriously. An actual catch 22 in it’s wild habitat. I was delighted.

The trick then is to get a Chinese national to purchase a ticket for you, as they’re doing whatever they can to encourage Han Chinese to migrate out west and thus don’t require a permit. Then you use the ticket to get a permit. I don’t know what the word is for a “Catch 22″ breaker, but there should be one.

Some friends from the hostel were leaving shortly for Tibet and had arranged for their travel before I met them, and I was a little unhappy that I wasn’t on that train. One night I was in the common room with everyone, and someone mentions they’re not checking for permits at the train station. I had 20 minutes, so I had one of the employees at the hotel write down “Chengdu-Lhasa Hard Sleeper” and rushed to the station.  I scouted the train station and chose the ticket window with the most bored-looking girl, and walked away 3 minutes later elated and on my way to Lhasa.

The station was so close to the hostel I was back with time to spare, and probably 7 people darted out to go catch cabs after they saw I was successful. They all got tickets too, although a different train.

So now I was committed, I was moving, and I had a 48 hour train ride ahead of me. Our little group was made of some Dutch, Polish, Americans, and myself, and we were going to snake back and forth, over the highest train pass in the world, up into the Himalayas and finally the Rooftop of the World.

I want to stay roughly chronological with this blog, but there are a few stories I’m chomping at the bit to get at, so Chengdu is probably going to get the short end of the stick. I had a blast there, meeting people and wandering around, but it’s hard to describe most of it.

One large mistake I made was at the Panda reserve. The hostel arranged for our tour, which unfortunately wasn’t the most… Organized.. trip. The door of the minibus fell OFF the bus as it shut, so they TIED IT BACK ON WITH A ROPE. At the time I thought it was hilarious, but in retrospect I probably should have protested a little bit. That wasn’t the mistake, however.

At the reserve, I got to see the whole exhibit, which while cool, doesn’t really need explaining. It’s a bunch of giant and red panda’s in enclosures. Definitely a neat exhibit, but that’s where I made a mistake.

No, not that. You see, these pandas print money for the Chinese. Entrance fees, plush dolls, and photos cost a ton. For a good amount of money you could have your picture taken with a Giant panda, probably about $50 or so (I’ve forgotten the exact amount). For an even larger amount, which at the time was ludicrous (around 150-200 USD I think) you could have your picture taken with a BABY panda. When you’re spending about 10 dollars a day for a hostel bed, it throws off your entire perception of how much things cost. Although it would definitely have been splurging, in retrospect I should absolutely have taken a picture of myself holding a baby panda. I gotta admit they were cute, and I could have gotten some mileage out of it with the ladies

By this point,  the sheer amount of stuff that I’d had to deal with had begun to overwhelm me. Not just the culture shock of being in multiple Chinese cities, big and small, urban and rural, but handling all the logistics was really taking its toll on me. While I wanted to press on, I ended up spending a good amount of time in Chengdu just sleeping and wandering around. As I mentioned before, in Chengdu is where I finally learned to ride the public transportation and walk around like a local. I went shopping, I visited some museums, ate in restaurants… I stopped off at the US consulate just to hang out on US soil for a little while, ate lunch at a expat private library/bookstore/coffeeshop (EXPENSIVE!).

Street Sign in Chengdu

One day, while at a bus stop trying to decipher a particularly confusing route back to my hostel, a young kid about 21 or so came up to me and said, “Hello, my name is Mr. Happy. Can I help you?”

Mr happy spoke perfect English, and went well out of his way to use some pretty complicated idioms for a non-native speaker. When he forgot a word, he would say things like “I’m drawing a blank.” He offered to take me around the city and help me do a couple things (purchase a new MP3 player in a store, for example). We went to eat at a local cafeteria, and even drove around in his car. He was in college, and was the closest look at modern middle class life in China. Their apartment had a western-style toilet and a plasma screen tv, and was the most “normal” setting I was in at any point of my trip. Later I found out that China’s middle class is over 300 million people and growing, all with cars, dogs, plasma TVs, etc.

The reason Mr. Happy (I eventually told him that “Mr.” was a formal term, and I felt a little uncomfortable calling him that. He resented my attempt to just call him Happy, as his name was OBVIOUSLY “Mr. Happy.” C’est la vie)  was so good was that he watch CNN, and anything they said that he didn’t understand he would go google. He had a notebook FILLED with English idioms he’d heard on TV and had looked up.

However, there were 2 that he didn’t understand, and he asked for my help. The first, “Don’t cha worry chief, we’ll stick to the perp like a wet fart”

I’m not making this up. YOU try explaining that across the culture gap. The 2nd wasn’t much better. He had heard a speech given by George Bush in Tennessee, and it didn’t make sense. You’ve probably heard it too.

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — [pauses] – shame on you. Fool me — You can’t get fooled again.”

So I helped Mr Happy with his English, and went back to my hostel to sleep

Mr Happy

Before we begin, let me remind you that at this point, I had no idea what I was doing.  Just a week or so earlier I had never even heard of Chengdu, much less planned on visiting (and in fact,  spending almost as much time there as I did in Beijing).

Chengdu, a city of 11 million people, is the capitol of Sichaun province (where the earthquake later would be). Coming from Texas, I’m a huge fan of spicy food and this is the center of Chinese spicy cuisine. The women in Chengdu are supposed to be “fiery” due to the food there

As it turns out, Chengdu became my “Chinese graduation” ceremony. When I arrived in Beijing, I was nervous about taking a taxi, while in Chengdu I began riding the buses around, making transfers, talking to locals (sort of),  etc. I walked a huge portion of the city, and generally got involved on an intimate level with the town.

I have enough stories in Chengdu to make a few blog posts,  so I’ll go in no particular order.

Right in the center of Chengdu is a huge statue of Mao, and while wandering around it one day I realized that there was a science and technology museum behind it.  I decided to go check it out, and it turned out to be an absolute blast.

This was a state of the art, first class, billion-yuan museum, with all sorts of hands-on exhibits and attractions.  Absolutely one of the more enjoyable museums I’ve ever been in. The hundreds of Chinese kids running around and enjoying themselves didn’t have the slightest idea how much they were secretly learning.  This place had biology, puzzles, robots, magnets, electronics, mechanics, just an amazing and enjoyable experience.

If you’re familiar with the famous “Towers of Hanoi” puzzle, they had a huge one there. I happen to be pretty good at it, so I had the unique experience of spontaneously being applauded by about 15 Chinese children who were watching me after I solved it. Just doing my part to represent the USA

I’m going to avoid discussing the Terracotta Warriors, as you can find better descriptions of the various Chinese attractions on other sites.

We did visit the warriors, which is… another example of the unbelievable scale  they use for their works in China. I highly recommend visiting.

me at one of the pits at the Terracotta Warriors

Anyway, Simone’s schedule was tighter than mine, and unfortunately she had to catch a flight on to Chengdu later that day. I wasn’t planning on leaving for a couple days, so I said goodbye and booked another night at the hostel.

I got the phone number of a Chinese girl from the club the other night, and we had made plans to have her take me out around Xian the next day. In the morning, I met her at a bus stop down the street from the hostel, and we basically rode around stopping in shops and restaurants, etc. In a funny bit of cross-cultural communication, the waiter at the restaurant where we ate lunch snuck around behind her and gave me a big thumbs up and a grin after taking our orders. Her English was excellent, and it was funny watching her get mad at the street vendors because they doubled their prices for her when she was with me, assuming she was a foreigner.

One of Xian’s attractions is the Big Goose Pagoda, where they have a spectacular water and light show on certain evenings. We got lucky, and managed to see most of the show. This picture doesn’t do it justice:

At the end of the day, however, I had a train ticket to Chengdu leaving in the morning, and so I said goodbye and went back to the hostel

By this point, I’m beginning to feel much more comfortable with the trains and my ability to get around in China, so by the time I got to Xian I was beginning to feel like a rockstar.

We took a ride to the hostel and relaxed. After showering, we ate at the hostel and picked up some drinks for the common room.

The common room is by far the best part of a hostel. If they get the atmosphere right, the cheap drinks, different people and fascinating conversations are by far my favorite part of travelling. We played card games, arm wrestled, and joked around with people from just about everywhere.

About 10 pm someone mentioned that there was a club a block away, so about 12-15 of us headed out to go dancing. Clubs in China had so far failed to be fun, but that night was an excellent mix of music and people. We all ended up dancing with a bunch of Chinese who were out that night (a Wednesday, if I remember correctly, so I guess they didn’t have anything better to do in the morning), and made some friends. At about 3 am, everyone retired back to the hostel and went to sleep to prepare for our trip to the Terracotta Warriors in the morning.