Waiting for Kundun

Waiting for Dalai Lama to arrive for the teachings at the new Sera monastery in Kaza , July 10th.

always ask..

Beginnings are worst times. Which of the eleven trails , all heading in about the right direction, is the right one ? Or just run it staright from the map ..
Asking gives me everything I need to know from an old lady plus an offer of second breakfast.

Going up I have moments of doubts : why leave the green valley for another rock strewn pass. Lokking down at my feet i just see rubble. Lifting my head I se the shocking transformations from greay to purple to pink. Big rhubarby leaves hanging from sheer sides , with growths I suddenly realize are to become the white , round leaves that comes out so beautiful onthe Himachali hats. The smell of not quite mint , not quite juniper I associate with Spiti. Big bees with jet black wings, thumb thick bodies and narrow bands of yellow.

Around 3900, after it has started to get really steep , I gett buffed by high winds which I take as a good sign : surely the pas must be really near. It comes out as not 3950 as on my map , but 3986 according to the GPS. At the time it felt important.



Nice lhatse with prayer flags ... that looks off in some way. Coming closer I see flags with triangular form, no images and names .. european names. After a short moment of disbelief the knife comes out .





Later i bring it up in Rizong monastery and gets a friendly tap on the shoulder " Don't worry , this is not a problem. " This is of course right in the religious perspective : nothing becomes undone by covering the lhatse , but does remain a problem for the communities involved , both travellers and Ladakhis.

City Walk

Tanglang La

June 27th , 2009

Boyle´s Law

Chips bags are the unofficial altimeters in the Indian Himalayas, this time seen above Marhi (3300-ish ) , headung towards the Rothang La.




(Boyles´s law is the rule governing exploding shampoo bottles in Nepal , drinking champagne in deep mines and the care of patients with pneumothorax in airplanes : "For a fixed amount of an ideal gas kept at a fixed temperature, P [pressure] and V [volume] are inversely proportional (while one increases, the other decreases)" )



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Food package

I was walking down de road (actually , the narrow maze of alleys in Manju ka Tilla that put definite limits to your BMI and karma , or both ) the other day when I was blessed. It came in the form of a white polyethene bag being closed with a snapping move, handed over by one of the the guys in shorts and flipflops near the temple square.

" Here , you take this."
" ?..."
"It is a blessing."

I peer in to the mixed blessing , balloonish from the trapped air . The only thing I can make out is a two centiliter pack of Frooti Juice. No one else is being blessed at the moment , no clues in that way of how you actually handle white poly bag blessings.

Thanks is not the answer , shorts man clearly doesn't want the act polluted by gratitude : "You take it " is the only answer to my question. Move along.





Later , waiting for the bus to Manali, I break it open . First thing is a real blessing , a perfectly ripe sunwarm mango . One cut pole to pole with the knife , and a gentle tug makes a perfect bowl where the slices gently fall : that goes to the nun next to me. Less perfect deal with the kernel half : I've always been the messy one.

(Mundane matters : twentyfive minutes from the wheels hitting the ground at IGI airport in Delhi to loading my pack in the cab , ninety minutes to hitting the bed in Manju - including bucket shower. New glasses , a wool unchu for the cooler nights that probably won't come , bus out the next evening to Manali , some twelve hours. Sleeping in Vashisht, 2098 meters. )

Popology

Stay with me now : this is the Tibetan rap band Namchak , playing together with vocal trio Ache Tsendep. The later have a thing for elaborate hats , both traditional and white cowboy model.




The lyrics .. seems to contain some longing references to Lithang , which would point to Tsanyang Gyatso , the Sixth Dalai Lama. ( Edit : "white crane , borrow me your wings " - The Sixth talking of coming death , and home sickness )

On top of that there is a distinct Hindi accent breaking through in the body language , the famous head wobble going trans-himalayan.

The later may seem the fruit of my imagination , but Hindi and Nepali has been a part of the Lhasa street scene for a looong time. Bollywood films are a staple item in stalls around the Jokhang. The love songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama are loved by all sections of Tibetan society , and frequently republished. Bilangual editions easily found in Dhasa , Manju ka Tilla etc. Stallion On A Frozen Lake is one the most intersting new(ish) translations.

New and old friends

Sendoff

Last prayers today in Majnu ka Tilla for Dalai Lama´s elder brother , Thubten Jigme Norbu, who died in USA. Buttertea afterwards, always buttertea.

Norbu (also known as Taktser Rinpoche after their birth place ) wrote for many Westerners the first introduction to Tibetan self image , Tibet , it´s religion , history and people , together with anthropologist Colin Turnbull.

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Over the Rothang

Some decent snowballing at the top. Beautiful weather. Two weeks later : a lot less idyllic.

Kibber

Morning in Kibber. A mule train is being formed in front of the guest house , and the kids are singing a song of parting , and love : "If I had the money (i.e. the dowry) I would bring you with me.

The guesthouse has a coded ad saying chang served here : the low doorpost is padded with a piece of triple folded ground cover , nailed in place. Chang comes in to play in the evening , and more love songs : Kesang teaches us a drinking song where you present your dear one to the world.

Queue culture

After giving up trying to buy a bus ticket in advance I turn to watching the pack of another traveller. This gives me an outside view of my past experiences.
Ticket windows strategies include the time honored Indian classic : push hard until you can grasp the bars of the window ... and pull.
The ederly woman from Kaza is wise beyond years , and refuses to go into any conflicts and aggrovation as long as the response behind the window is basically go away , I'm not selling any tickets (until it's clear that the bus has made it to Kaza). She turns her back on the window , plants her feet wide apart .. and slids down to sit while others make grand gestures. Once in a while I catch a glimpse of her ,and she gives off a wonderful pealing laughter. Nirit stands a short distance behind her , feet also solidly planted on the ground , pushing as relentlessly back as the guys behind her, and not only maintaining her position but (this is the point where I really get impressed ) also holding out for a good seat after a good fortyfive minutes of push and shove.
Later I take a jeep to Kee monastery. The drivers cell phone calls out for attention every few minutes , with a sad , melancholy tune that could have been a Swedish folk song as well. Some hours later I stand on the monastery roof , the only sound being a faint inkling sound from the dishes being washed in the kitchen , a truck boring through the darkness with a load of girders , and the slow flapping from the prayer flag pole.

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Scary tourists

Goser scarecrows in Lalung, August 28th.

Only three

Angmo and I turn towards each other at the same time :
"Excuse me , I took a photo without asking ..."
"I have only three apricots.."

The apricots are sweet and plum.













The only thing that is more fun than taking photographs is to turn over your camera to someone else.

Clean and polite ..

Wash day

The hill side of Ki Monastery , seen from above, is dotted with red stylised figures on the ground : wash day , the clothes are laid out on the ground and on top of the bushes to dry.The whole thing gives associations to an art installation , or a crime scene.

History happens to us

Long but fun day in Shimla. Started with lightening my load by sending home a book parcel, nicest package in a long time , ended with a very short discussion on the price : " you decide, sir " .



Next stop ; Inner Line Permit.New office , clickety sound sound of printers, fans .. and a angrezi blowing of his head ( and any remaining respect ) : "I just want my ***** permit !. I have been wating for hours !"

The process totters on , delayed another half hour by a country too big : one of the students in a Spiti conservation project comes from the Republic of Macedonia , which is too long to enter on the computerised form.

In the end we are ushered in to a court like room , where the the Assistant District Manager presides behind a impressive pile of folders, and calls us up one by one, inquiring of our origins.

" Austria .. so you speak German in Austria too ? "

" Anna *** ... Macedonia. So you were a part Marshall Titos land. How many countries now , out of former Yugoslavia ? "

Anna counts them off m, one by one.

" Sad. If this would happen to India , that would mean thirty three countries - can you imagine that ? Impossible. "

" Well .. history happens to us. It was sad, but we move on . "

Interestingly enough , the example of Yougoslavia and the Soviet Republics was mentioned in the book I finished yesterday : Baba Phuntsog Wangyal , witness to Tibets history.

Wangyal is an interesting figure, a Tibetan communist that started in in ( literally) Chiang Kai-Sheks school and was thrown out after being inspired to Tibetan independence after reading ... Lenin.Later he became the translator between the Chines and the Tibetans at the forging of the the infamous Seventeen Point agreement. Political spine reflex translates this as collaborator , but he remained highly valued through his rocky carreer , from the sole Tibetan in the TAR goverbnment to eighteen years of imprisonment and torture. following shortly after Dalai Lama's escape to India. The foremost Western academic apologetic , Melvyn Goldstein, has recently published a bibliography on him , that seems to project a solid image of someone who from the start was committed to making Tibet a part of China - but his own words from the time seems to contradict this, pointing to the work of establishing a separate Tibetan nation , encompassing all of Tibet , not just the present TAR.

And his present stand seems to be the only politically survivable in present China : best for the Tibetans "under the present historical conditions " .. mentioning Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the next breath.


Chinese claims on Tibet have been dressed in terms of family ever since Mao welcomed Tibet "back" to the Motherland. Chauvinism comes out more clearly when Chinese cadres in Tibet are dubbed lao dai ge : bigger, elder brother. If this would be a marriage it was scripted by Lars Noren , and the point that the loyalist Wangyal makes is that only willing marriages survives .. , i.e. there has to a right to divorce.

After the ILP I went to Park Cafe to see Dhannajay : still in Delhi, but I got to know Dixit and Rakshim , big plus. Long nice chai , afterwards Dixit led me to a long search for a new burner for my stove. Lakka bazar afterwards for a new staff, and sharing the one tree available when the rains really got going.

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Photos to be posted later.

Manali

Tsa tsa's drying in the Nyingmapa Gompa , Manali. Room next to the gompa , Rs 200. Momos Rs 30 next door.

Tingmo At Last

Arrived in Majnu yesterday after midnight , and got out after a few hours sleep. Eerie , vacant feeling , nothing open : Olympic shutdown. New posters with detained/vanished in the March uprising.

I end up finishing Jiang Rongs Wolf Totem , a book that starts with his arrival as a Chinese cadre in Mongolia, presumably with a role to "enlighten" the people in the Chinese extreme periphery, and ends with the arrival of a huge sandstorm in Beijing , the inevitable consequence of the destruction/modernisation of the grasslands. Between that a long fascinating story of his tutors , the Mongolians who in turn are taught by the rulers of that realm : the wolves , who Jiang sees as the personification of what is missing in the Chinese society. This is a seeming parallell to Xin Rans Sky Burial : both books are descriptions of a Chinese traveling to the periphery in the sixties and being transformed by it. But Wolf Totem stands out in sharp contrast : this is a tale where you can feel the smell of wet wool and and hear the ice breaking under your raft. Sky Burial on the other hand is consitently lacking in that kind of detail and also in any real willingness to be changed : it is symptomatic that the the twin author/main character finds the names of the family she's living with too complicated , and renames them .

Train to Shimla tommorrow.

Mush

Spring is advancing on the high ranges , slowly turning the top layers of snow into mush, meanwhile the big mass remains unmoved, a thin line being nibbled thru the snow by the machinery of the BRO : Srinagar to Leh , Leh to Manali.

One of the last to walk in to Lahaul on the road was Vishnu Maya , who ( I imagine) became involved in one of the oldest cnversations on the planet :

"not now "
"now dear , this is not something I can decide on..."
Yes , their daughter was born at the top of the Rothang La ("The Plain of Corpses") ,altitude 3978 meters, with the help ,sympathy and blankies of the others present on the trail.

Maybe this is the time for us all to turn in to mush.

(More on the Manali-Leh road status on High Road to.. )