Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost [110]
It was my cross to bear on the backpacker circuit, to be the guy traveling with the Republican, that oddity. I’d met the two Australian couples in Dali, where we’d shared a meal and beers and had all sorts of convivial fun.
“His politics are a little daft,” said Lachlan. “But he’s all right.”
High praise indeed from an Australian.
It was a short flight to Lhasa, a short flight over the greatest mountain range on Earth. There were, however, snacks served on board. Shalom, said the package, which further informed me that I was eating a Hot Pickled Mustard Tuber and that it was a Ningbo Special Product. As I ate this Hot Pickled Mustard Tuber, I gazed out the window and was surprised to see that even though it was early October, all but the very highest mountains, the ones that stretched to tickle the fuselage, were barren of snow. Here and there I could see glaciers distinctly retreating, leaving huge barren half-pipes, a skate park for giants. This was not good, of course. Three of the world’s great rivers begin in Tibet: the Mekong, Indus, and Yangtze Rivers all find their source here in its high mountains and glaciers. Those rivers are born of snow. But there was little snow now, and as I stared at the austere wilderness below, I couldn’t help but feel that here, in the forbidding mountains of Tibet, was compelling evidence that the planet was changing, and I tried to squelch that gnawing feeling that we are on the cusp of unsettling times.
And yet, in barren valleys and clinging to precipitous mountains, there were scattered villages. I could see terraced brown fields. I could see no evidence that anything actually grew in Tibet, but there were, in any event, terraced farm fields. Rarely, however, did I see anything resembling a road. The isolation of these Tibetan villages must be unforgiving. But that, presumably, is how the Tibetans prefer it.
But Lhasa is no longer quite so isolated. As we rode a bus from the airport over the lunar plains of central Tibet, a flat, rocky expanse surrounded by lifeless hillsides, I noticed that nearly every building, every home, was festooned with the Chinese flag. Subtlety, clearly, was not a strong suit for the Chinese government. But on the dusty hills there was Buddhist graffiti and thousands of prayer flags, little celebrations of color in this world of brown. And there was a sky so blue that you’d swear you were no longer on planet Earth, but elsewhere, far away, in a place with a different sky. But, alas, I was still technically in China, and it manifested itself in the outskirts of Lhasa with the bleak clutter of an ever-expanding Han city of drab apartment buildings, noodle shops, and karaoke bars. Surely, there was something more to this place. This was Lhasa! The fabled city on the rooftop of the world. Isolated for centuries. And yet there were car washes? Billboards?
At the bus station in the center of town, we were soon besieged by beggars—hunchbacked beggars, burned man beggars, monk beggars, women beggars, child beggars—but strangely, they were all jolly. I had not encountered happy beggars elsewhere in China. But here in Lhasa, the beggars couldn’t have been more mirthful, even though the Australians were not particularly forthcoming with their kuai.
“Well, if they had puppies, maybe I’d give them something,” Lachlan observed. He and his girlfriend had been traveling the world for a year. They’d become hardened by the road. And yet the beggars didn’t begrudge them this. They smiled and waved and said a little prayer for us.
I made arrangements with the foursome to meet them later and took a pedicab to my guesthouse. I couldn’t imagine a more grueling job up here at 12,000 feet than biking a heavy pedicab full of people. And not only was the driver shuttling me onward in the thin air of Lhasa, he smoked while cycling, a dazzling feat of lung power that left me awestruck. But I, too, was feeling fine with the altitude. Clearly, this was the upside to our brief stay in Shangri-la. A few days at 9,500 feet, and suddenly 12,000 feet just