Planet Tibet

When most people talk about a country they love, they usually make it a point to say "If you want to see REAL (country's name), you have to get out of (country's capital city)." Lhasa was already a whirling head rush of the fancy and fantastic. Getting outside the divine city was gonna be, at the very least, otherworldly.

My crew and I had 2 days around rural Tibet booked in the tour. Early in the AM, our car and guide afforded us breakfast then took us away. It didn't even take long to get to the rural expanse. A river wound by the road we traveled, and then it was up up up up, a neverending zigzag of roads that went progressively higher into a mountain, but never seemed to reach the top.

We broke the cloud cover and leveled out at a small outpost. We were overlooking Yamdrok Lake, a large and sacred body of water, and a common stop on tours, by the look of the surroundings. Lots of locals were hanging around trying to get some money from tourists, a practice I have no problem with provided its something I'm keen on spending money on. One lady had a baby goat all done up like a gypsy priestess and she was charging about a dollar to let you hold it. Another guy was giving yak rides for about the same price. I wanted all the Tibet, so I negotiated an amalgam of the two.

We drove down for a closer look at the lake. Little rock piles were carefully arranged by the shore, either the product of some traditional Tibetan spiritual practice, or the result of long stretches of boredom between tour buses. The guys that made them tried to get money out of everyone who tried to take a picture.

A lot of time and not a lot of scenery went by. It was like a blank template of a computer generated landscape before all of the vegetation, wildlife and buildings got rendered in. Simply devoid of anything at all but shape. Most of the roads went by a flowing river, many of which were clear to the point of being almost unnoticeable. The source of the flawless water lay further ahead. A massive peak capped with a glowing white glacier. We stopped the car to take photos of the sight. At 5020m up, I can say it's the highest point I've ever been elevated to on the planet Earth.

It took a look around to get a bit more of a candid image of Tibet. Some shoddy stone dwellings sat at the foot of the glacier surrounded by yak and prayer flags. Sounds quaint, but there were some pretty disquieting images. Namely a shivering family begging and a young boy openly urinating into the doorway of his house.

We kept on rolling. Occasionally fields of green would punctuate the landscape. Sometimes they were yellow. Sometimes the yellow fields, red hills and blue skies would combine to form this streak of primary colors. Sometimes the surroundings took on this over-saturated look, like I was in the Black Hole Sun music video. I was in the back of the car with the two girls who had fallen asleep in a tangle of arms and legs. The ride took hours and hours.

A few more lakes, a few more stupas and a lot more prayer flags later, we were in Gyantse. The midday weather was sunny and clear. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I explored the biggest chorten in Tibet, the Gyantse Kumbum. It was a multi-storied aggregate of Buddhist temples. A Buddha beehive. A reason to stop in Gyantse. Afterwards it was onwards to Shigatse, Tibet's second biggest city.

We stopped and found cheap lodging. I don't recall much from my time there other than a few things. One, the toilet was disastrously filthy, and two, I found a PC cafe with some pretty ripping Internet connection. I remember video Skyping my parents and thinking "well shit if I'm not making a video call across the planet from the middle of goddamn nowhere".

In the morning it was one more monastery then back on the road. I was already finished with monasteries back in Lhasa, and I apologize to anyone put off my how jaded I'd become. Monasteries sound really cool in theory. You no doubt imagine these hallowed grounds, nestled in the mountains and completely still aside from the slow deliberate movements of a few noble monks. The reality kind of makes you go "oh". The places are usually crowded with Chinese tourists and a lot of the monks are just a bunch of bored teenagers. Camera clicks drown out the solemn incantations, and the few really interesting people you do see, spoil the illusion by either asking for money or being kind of crazy (like most other religious devotees).

We took a different route back to Lhasa, one that looked like someone had made a conscious effort to plant trees alongside the road. No one wanted to be in the car anymore. At one pee stop, I saw two men having a conversation. One man, feeling the need to urinate, did not feel it necessary to break the flow of conversation, so he just turned sideways and peed into the open wind.

Back in Lhasa we all had a good final night at a bar with some friendly song-singing locals. Lykke got dressed up in some kind of local garment and we took a creepy looking group shot.

The next day we all got driven to the Lhasa Gonggar Airport to be separately deposited back into our own respective normal lives. Siri seemed to have come down with something pretty nasty as she could barely keep her head up. Our goodbyes were pretty subdued as a result, but the girls and I did extend offers to meet again in the future. My plane took me to Chengdu then to Beijing. As I flew overtop, I could see where the Tibetan plateau dropped steeply to the Chinese mainland below. I was leaving the seemingly unobtainable heights I aimed for when I got off the plane in Bali. Tibet was my goal and my reward for making it that far into the journey, and now that it was over, there was nothing more to do than to feel the slow descent back into my absolute reality in Canada.

 It only goes up from here.

A Tibetan man is rolling his eyes somewhere.

 A the top of that endlessly winding road. 

 

At the foot of the glacier.

Not a Windows screensaver.

 Water on Mars.

 Plenty of room to stretch out in Gyantse.

 Gyanste again.

The Gyantse Kumbum: The beehive of Buddhas.

 That creepy group pic I was talking about.

 

After skirting through the highest points on Earth, this seemed like cheating.

Lhasa will leave you breathless!

At about 3500 meters up, Lhasa is one of the highest cities in the world. Now as I mentioned before, there are a number of things one notices about being that high in the troposphere. First of all, the sky is impossibly blue and impossibly bright. In fact, there's far less atmosphere blocking the sun's rays, so if you're not generous with the sunblock, your husk will cook! Secondly, the vegetation is sparse because not much can grow at that altitude. Whatever trees there are seem meticulously planted in an attempt to spruce the place up, but everything else resembles a Martian planetscape. This also means that any foods that grow on trees are out, so tubers and potatoes hold sway! Finally, and in reference to the title, altitude makes it really really hard to breathe! It's especially noticeable after climbing a flight of stairs, and every gasp to regain your breath is dreadfully insufficient!

So I was in Lhasa, Tibet, the very final stop on my crazy journey, and the reason I scrimped and saved all throughout other, less stimulating locales. I absolutely wanted to go to Tibet. It seemed like it would be a crazy climax to a crazy journey, and the prospect of actually making it there would waver between likely and no-chance-in-hell. I did one credit card advance and even used the insurance money I got from my stolen ipod to keep the journey going on longer. Now that I was there and the bulk of it was already paid for, I could ride out the rest of my journey in satisfaction.

There were a few guides waiting outside the train station to pick up their designated foreigners. It was a stipulation to being in Tibet; a guide must get you from the train station and direct you to a hotel. Otherwise, who knows what kind of subversive havoc an errant tourist could wreak! Our guide found us quickly. His name was Jia Bu and he was an ethnic Tibetan as we had hoped. I say that because often enough, tour groups get a Han Chinese guide who spends the whole time spouting off propaganda about how Great China tamed the Tibetan savages etc etc etc. That would have been miserable. This guy seemed like a pretty docile chap. He loaded us all into a car where we met our prickly driver.

Everyone in the group was hair shy of being broke, so we strongly urged our guide to take us to the cheapest place he knew. What we got was a room at the Yak Hotel with four separate beds at a very reasonable price. It was about 3pm when we checked in, and thankfully our guide knew we all needed to unwind after the cloister that was the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, so he let us have the rest of the day to do as we pleased.

Walking around the streets of Lhasa was unlike anything else I had encountered in China. It didn't even seem like China. The people were different, the language was different, the writing was different, the clothing was different, the music was different. Honestly, it was unlike anything else I had seen on the trip thus far. And everything seemed like it was steeped in a layer of the divine. Pilgrims and monks walked the narrow streets with charms and other holy implements. Incenses which carried the palpable solemnity of an Old World rose up and seemed to occupy every house in every alley.

We were in the Barkhor, a district of streets and alleys which surrounded the Jokhang Temple, the most sacred and important temple in Tibet. Pilgrims moved in a wave, circling the temple in a clockwise manner. The more devout faced the temple and prostrated gravely after each step. Directly in front of entrance was a huge public square that was scorched under the bright sun. Barkhor Square. It was filled with tents of locals selling trinkets and souvenirs, but oddly enough, nothing about it seemed tacky or unbecoming. David suggested a game in which we would try and find the oldest, pruniest looking Tibetan possible. Each one kept topping the last.

We were hungry so we found a small wooden-benched hovel of a restaurant to grab some food in. I ate yak meat, rice, potatoes and carrots with gravy and yak butter tea; hands down the heartiest meal I had eaten since Canada.

The second day in Lhasa was spent touring its many holy sites. First off was the aforementioned Jokhang Temple in the center of the Barkhor. It was another sunny day and I made sure to layer on the sunscreen. Getting into the temple was easy. There were separate lines for tourists and pilgrims, the only difference being the fact that we had to pay. Oddly enough, the entry ticket was a credit card sized CD-ROM, a gimmick perhaps more suited to a science museum or an Expo pavilion rather than a hallowed Buddhist temple. Inside, I felt like a huge waste of space. There were hundreds of ornate statues of Buddha, all draped with the finest adornments, being worshiped in turn by throngs of pilgrims. Many brought thermoses of yak butter which they poured into the candles. Clearly this was a very big deal for them, and my gawking ass was just getting in their way. We couldn't take pictures either, which is understandable, so we just followed the queue and looked.

We trudged further around the Barkhor, this time with the guide who did a good job pointing out things we may have overlooked. I think he had a list of places that paid him to bring in tourists cause he kept leading us to these expensive restaurants that played up the whole "exotic Tibet" angle.

That evening all four of us went out for a drink. Finding a place to drink is never hard. Walk along alleys until you see a light on. Walk in the door and nine times out of ten it'll be a place that'll serve you. The local brew was Lhasa Beer. It was only 3% ABV, but the effect of the altitude probably carried it well above 5. We didn't know that so we got hammered almost every time.

Sleeping at high altitude is also something worth mentioning because it's really really hard! You literally have to remember to breathe sometimes, and it's not unheard of for people to flat out stop breathing while they sleep, only to wake up a little and sharply resume. My first night there, I couldn't sleep for a good 3 hours. By the second night I was doing better.

Day 3 in Lhasa brought us to the biggest baddest attraction in town: the Potala Palace. It was a former residence of the Dalai Lama (the real one) until all that shit went down and he had to leave. Now it's a massive towering compound in the center of the city that carries a strong significance for Tibetans and Chinese alike (it's on their money). It was also a lot of stairs which is probably why we waited until day 3 before tackling it. If we did this after getting off the train, we would have been useless wheezing masses. The whole place was like a maze following no kind of typical layout whatsoever. It was kind of interesting really. Some rooms served no purpose other than housing a really sacred Buddha (not uncommon in Tibet I would come to learn). A really nice old man gave us each some cool looking scarves. We exited out the other side and met with our guide.

The next attraction was the Norbulingka, the summer residence of the Dalai Lama (the Chinese one, not the real one). I have to say it was pretty boring. I mean, I have been seeing ornate palaces the entire trip and nothing about this one stood out. It was just a lot of walking, and with the thin air, that was a tough sell. Our guide chirped in with tidbits here and there. He remained surprisingly neutral on the whole China-Tibet issue, which is good I guess. Six days with some vitriolic dude would have probably worn me down.

That evening we found a sweet restaurant/bar filled with Chinese tourists. One guy was working the room with a guitar singing all kinds of Chinese ballads. When he got tired, the owner fired up a karaoke machine for more merriment. Being the only foreigners there, we garnered a bit of attention, which at no point was unwarranted. Lykke tried on some Chinese dress while I was taught a ridiculously complex drinking game involving cups, dice and betting.

The next day Jia Bu met us in the lobby as usual. He had a whole laundry list of things he wanted us to see and they were all temples. The first one we went to was so boring, I forgot the name entirely. I mean, it probably wasn't actually boring, but the problem starting with the Jokhang and the Potala Palace was that everything else that followed was kind of meh. The weather took a turn for the gloomy as well. And we may have been hungover, I don't remember, but either way the morning was kinda lousy.

So I guess he sensed we needed to see something new. I don't think we could've just run off for a whole day, so he opted to take us to the Sera Monastery. It was in the far north of town and edged up the side of a mountain. Inside, hundreds of monks in red robes meandered about. We had shown up just in time for a lively debating practice. Apparently this was what these guys did on the regular. I was told the subjects were pretty much philosophical, but when we showed up, they seemed to be practicing a technique where they would slap their hands together, lean forward and point in order to "drive the point home" I guess. Other tourists flanked the area and it got a bit claustrophobic after a while. We left at about suppertime.

That evening, Lyyke and Siri were determined to find a club. It didn't take much asking around, but eventually all four of us got into a cab and found ourselves outside of an extremely modern looking nightclub with a huddle of dressed up lads and girls in miniskirts in front. Being backpackers, we were woefully underdressed, but that didn't stop security from letting us jump the line and get in for free. The lighting inside was pretty intense, and the DJ played your typical David Guetta housey hiphop stuff while the masses crowded the dancefloor. The bulk of the crowd was Chinese with only a few Tibetans here and there. Drinks were pricey, but every so often, some random guy or girl would pull one of us aside, give us a beer, take a few pictures with us and their friends and that would be that. I played the really complicated cup dice betting game a few more times with a table of girls and lost horribly. They had probably about 30 to 40 bottles of beer in ice sitting on their table they seemed pretty intent on giving away. This beer was also of the non-Lhasa variety, so it kicked like a mule.

The night spun quickly out of control, what with the free drinks and all. We all split up and between the four of us, probably ended up at every table in the club. Honestly, the attention was out of hand. I felt a bit guilty being singled out and getting free drinks just cause I was white, but I just told myself it was the upside to all the gawking, pointing and nose-touching I endured all throughout Yunnan and Sichuan. Twice during the night, the music stopped and security circled the bar, as some fresh faced young Tibetan MC got up and did a song. The crowd went nuts each time it happened too cause apparently this guy was like the T.I. of Tibet or something.

So yeah, that was to be our last night in Lhasa before heading out on a 2-day roadtrip around rural Tibet. I have to say that the club was a pretty hilarious way to cap off the Lhasa experience. I guess we spent the entire time walking around the Old Town, so we never really got a chance to realize that Lhasa is a living, working city. Seeing the more modern side was kind of interesting. Like skiing in Iran or something. Anyways, we would be back to Lhasa for another day after the roadtrip, so it wasn't goodbye or anything.

At 4am, getting back to the hotel was a shambolic affair. The only thing I remember was Siri, with her chirpy Norwegian accent, begging me to go help her find a hamburger. It was hilarious and became a meme for the rest of the trip.

The energy of the Barkhor

 Here's one of the many characteristic stalls you see lining the alleys of the Barkhor

 Tibetan mother and child. Most Tibetans develop cataracts at a young age because of the sun.

 David and Siri eating that hearty feast I was telling you about.

 Bakhor Square. Note the sun!

 Chinese police keeping a vigilant eye on everything at all times.

Lykke & cat

 This childhood could beat up my childhood

 David, Siri and I in the evening.

 The entrance to the Jokhang Temple. Prostrating masses.

 Rooftops of the Old Town.

 Barkhor Square from on top the Jokhang Temple, day 2. Note the Potala Palace looming ominously in the background.

 Potala Palace: Hope you like stairs!

 Burning piles everywhere in Lhasa.

 Conviction meets incredulity. Monks engaged in a lively debate at the Sera Monastery.

 Grandmother and grandchild at the Sera Monastery.

Skyward on the Tibet-Qinghai Railway

Boarding the train was easy. It never usually is, but we bought our tickets in advance and showed up early to ensure that we got our bunks. Missing this train would've been a disaster. A week in a smog oven of a city waiting, an ambiguous bartering procedure for tickets, a hefty reduction in funds for permits and whatnot, all would have been for nothing. So Lykke and Siri, the two Norwegian girls, David the Brit and I all cabbed together and arrived at the northern railway station a good hour in advance. We loaded in at around 7pm just as the sun was setting.

Examining the tickets, I noticed that I was placed in a completely different car than the other three. Inconvenient, but hardly worth groaning about considering I almost didn't get the tickets in the first place. Thankfully, an old man in their cabin had no qualms with swapping tickets so I could be with my travel companions. He gleefully sauntered off, probably thrilled at the fact that he just avoided having to spend 2 days and 2 nights in a cabin with a bunch of foreigners. Since each cabin had 6 bunks and there were 4 of us, it meant that the other two were gonna be taken up by randos; a familiar crap shoot when traveling extensively. They were claimed by two teenage Tibetan girls who looked like they had taken this train many many times before.

So, why the train? Well, first of all, if you've been following this blog at all, you know that I only travel by land so as to truly appreciate and get a sense of the distance I'm covering. Secondly, a quick wikipedia search will tell you that the Qinghai–Tibet railway is the highest railway in the world and boasts some of the most breathtaking scenery in China. Finally, Lhasa, our final destination, is a crazy 3600 meters above sea level, meaning the air is thin, and a 2 day train journey would be an excellent way to acclimatize. There have been stories of people getting off of the plane and their bodies flipping out because they can't deal with the altitude. Altitude sickness is a very serious thing and affects a very large percentage of people, so taking the train was a good way to reduce the chance of any of us having to be evacuated (evacuation is for the most part, the only cure). Still, I was worried that my ridiculous corpus, with its SCUBA woes and whatnot, would refuse to cooperate. This final leg was meant to be an epic climax to an already epic trip, and if something dumb happened, I would curse the sky with everything in me.

Once the train got rolling and everyone took their bunks, it became fairly jocular. It was a good group. David was an English teacher in Chengdu on holidays while the girls were friends from back in Oslo on a massive tour of China together. The two Tibetan teens didn't speak English so I have no idea what their deal was. They didn't speak at all actually and spent most of the time either listening to music or staring transfixed out of the window.

We toured the train together, hoping to locate the dining cart, or maybe some other travelers. The sun was down, so there wasn't really much to see out the windows. Past a few cabin cars we came to the proletariat seats. If you'll recall a few entries back, I described what was probably the most sanity stretching train ride of my life; sandwiched in with a bunch of hot, breathy, noisy, spitty people for 12 hours. This was the same thing, except for the entire 2 day journey. What a goddamn nightmare! Now, I fancy myself as someone who can endure hardship and discomfort, especially compared to some of the entitled yuppies back in Canada who complain when an escalator is broken. But this would have been impossible for me to endure. Part of me also wonders if I would have been insane enough to buy a proletariat seat if I had not won the bidding war for a bunk.

We tiptoed around the bleak, huddled masses sprawled about the floor to reach the dining cart, a rather unimpressive set of seats and tables. It was getting late, so nothing was being served, although snacks were an option. We brought our own and chatted. Lots of chatting to be done. We were three people who would be spending a week exclusively confined to one another so the comfort barrier was gonna get broken fast. Lykke was an extrovert and a cynic, Siri was humble and good-natured, David was wry and a bit guarded. I was just tired.

So day 1 on the train was not even a day. Just a pace up to the dining cart and back. I got top bunk which actually is the worst bunk. I had to Cirque de Soleil my way up every time, especially difficult when you're trying not to wake anyone else up. The top bunk also had way less headroom than the others meaning I would spank my head constantly.

Day 2 was really the only full day on the trip. We all brought our own food meaning we didn't have to rely on the meal cart for sustenance. It had already made its way through the proletariat seats meaning the cobbled mush of rice, chicken and vegetables being served was well molested. Plus it cost a lot.

Everyone on board had a book. I dug into Blink, a Malcolm Gladwell book about the value of impulses and split-second judgement. Kinda fitting for the whole trip. When not reading, we would eat and look out the window and eat and occasionally walk a little bit around the train car. There was nothing to see out the window, just a bunch of dry landscapes riddled with machinery and industrial discard.

Next door some spoiled fat kid kept kicking up a fuss with his mother. The kid looked about 8 but acted like he was 3. "Little prince" perfectly exemplified. See, China has this problem with the whole One Child Policy, in that families usually prefer to make that one child male, then spoiling it to all hell. What's extra scary to think about it what's gonna happen years down the road when all of these fat, entitled boys grow up and start assuming important positions in society. First off, 30 million won't find wives. Many more will discover that real life is quite unlike the comfy bosom of their mother. The speculation can go on forever as to what effect that will have on not only the country, but the world. So needless to say, we all took an immediate dislike to this kid, especially when he opened a bag of snacks and dumped it on the floor just to watch his mother scramble to pick everything up again.

At one point a few kids from nearby cabins swung by to chat with the foreigners (us). They knew no English but David had an alright grasp on Mandarin. We played some cards and whatnot. I broke out some old ECC tricks to make em laugh. The little prince wandered over and started stirring up trouble, helping himself to our snacks. David took an exceptionally strong dislike to him.

The toilets started breaking around mid afternoon. Only 50% would be in working order at one time and they didn't always lock the doors on the ones that weren't. It was kind of a crap shoot. They were all squat toilets too meaning whatever poor aim anyone had was essentially all over the floor (literal crap shoot, hey!). The ones that did not flush became ghastly. No one dared go in barefoot. And demand for toilets was HIGH.

It started becoming very claustrophobic soon. There weren't any stops thus far, and the most open area was in front of the sinks near the bathrooms. And by open, I mean you can stretch your arms and legs and that's it. We all walked to the front of the train, then to the very back of the train. The proletariat class looked like they were poised for an uprising. Seriously, like any moment they would storm the cabin cars, throw us off the caboose and claim a few bunks. In the dining car we met a few more foreigners. One guy was Austrian and had just come back from a tour of North Korea which I thought was really really interesting.

The day blended into night which blended into sleep. I myself remember nothing of that night except wailing my head hard on the ceiling right before I was about to make a joke that I thought would be very funny. Me wailing my head proved to be much funnier.

Day 3 was disgusting. Inside the train anyways. Outside it was gorgeous. We had just passed Golmund and were officially on the Qinghai–Tibet railway up into the clouds. The scenery outside was nothing but rolling green hills and insanely blue skies. No trees or shrubs anywhere, which you think wouldn't be that impressive, but it actually looked very very surreal. We were pretty high in the sky, too high for any kind of complex shrubbery to survive really. Most of this day was spend peering out of the window in awe.

So yeah, as I mentioned, the inside of the train had become a hamster cage. Garbage piling up, crumbs and spit on the floor. The garbage bins were full so loose garbage bags were tied to the outside. And don't even get me started on the bathrooms. For some odd reason, everyone had to pee like every hour or so, so the bathrooms were getting overclocked and functioning at about 25% capacity. Lines were a pretty common sight. I caught little prince pissing in one of the loose garbage bags, his mother standing beside him idly condoning this wretched display. I retreated to my bunk now and then when I felt I was starting to lose my sanity. I could only imagine how gruesome the proletariat seats had gotten.

The train was making semi-frequent stops. At one stop, they let everyone out to stretch their legs. It was at a pass about 5000 meters up. Crazy! Beside us, little Tibetan villages rolled by, with yaks grazing in fields and prayer flags draped over bucolic dwellings. The excitement was building, partly from the scenery outside and partly from the desire to get the hell off the train.

Finally we arrived, and a palpable excitement rose up amongst the passengers. The train station seemed very new and very empty. It was a terrifically bright day.

Here's how much hallway space we were dealing with.

And the cabin.

And the dining cart. Getting a whole table here was neigh impossible!

Hello hard-working man!

Middle of nowhere Tibetan village. Insane scenery!

Those are glaciers. Is this real???

Thanks for putting up the infrequent blog entries guys!

Chengdu. Waiting.

Now, I spent a long time in Chengdu. A long, uneventful time, so breaking it down day by day would bore anyone to tears. Instead I'll merely gloss over the trivial things like the time I spent an afternoon watching 2012 in the guesthouse commons area. In my defense, someone else had thrown it on, but seriously, what the hell Jon.

So LOFT was pricey, but it was nice. But it was also pricey, so I got out quickly and found Mix Hostel, a cheaper place whose name I knew after seeing it plastered all over other parts of China. No seriously, I even saw "Mix Hostel Chengdu" spray painted on rocks in Tiger Leaping Gorge. Regardless, the place was great, albeit a little crowded. The internet was free, but the two computers were always in use and loaded with viruses, one which infected my thumb drive and wiped out the program I used to get around the Great Firewall of China. Dammit. The staff was friendly despite being visibly overworked. Food was so-so. Amenities decent. I got a dorm bed for half the price of LOFT and set up for the longest time I would spend in one place this whole trip.

Why? Well my next stop was Tibet, which was to be the cherry on the sundae of this whole trip. However, one cannot just stroll on into this political hotspot, oh no no no. First you need to organize the proper permits and join a "tour" so the government can keep tabs on you. See, they don't like people sympathizing with the Tibetans' desire for independence, a trend frequently observed amongst us wacky Westerners, so they make us jump through all kinds of hoops first before they'll allow us in. The permit and tour is one. Money is another. Getting in is expensive, so you'd better be ready to spend your hard-earned Maos. Finally, booking a train ticket to tibet is no easy task. A train leaves Chengdu bound for Lhasa every second day, so as soon as tickets become available, they immediately get bought up and resold on the black market, meaning if you're not there on day 1, you're buying from scalpers with a $40 commission fee.

Now, what hung me up and kept me deadlocked in Chengdu was both the money and the train ticket. Because tours are done in groups, I would've had to spend twice as much as anyone traveling with somebody else. My bank account was beginning to run on fumes so this would not do. Instead, I joined up with a group of 3 other people looking to depart on July 4, seven days from when I checked in, for a third of the price. Not to mention the fact that train tickets were unavailable for any date sooner. The choice seemed pretty clear. Seven days in Chengdu. There'd better be a lot to do.

There wasn't. Chengdu was a hot, muggy city with bland architecture and ugly construction blocking roads and snarling traffic. A far cry from the cool splendor of Kunming. Going out into this mess was frustrating, so I only really left the guesthouse when there was something I really wanted to check out.

My first day trip was to arguably the biggest sight of the city, the Giant Panda Research Base. I've never seen a live panda before so it could've been interesting. I had to wake up early to make it there in time for the 9am feeding. The weather was muggy and I couldn't tell if the sky was blotted out by overcast or pollution. The base was a little outside of town on a sprawling mass of land that had been fashioned into a kind of zoo. Lots of tourists of course.

The big guys all sat together chewing bamboo and lying on their backs. Such slow creatures. The bamboo is their only source of food and it's horribly low in nutritional content meaning they have to eat and sleep constantly to stay alive. I couldn't help but think that these things would have gone extinct naturally anyways had we not found them to be so damn cute and worth saving. The time I was there was apparently the only time in the day that they're actually somewhat active.

Further on, the base had a collection of red pandas who more closely resembled raccoons. Not too many people as interested in them sadly. It was a lot of walking and the occasional sight of a panda eating for the next hour. A Texan man and his very large family (in every possible interpretation) dominated the scene at one point. "Trip, Runner, John Michael Jr., scooch in close to your mother, I'm gonna set the timer."

Next we watched a very graphic movie about every aspect of breeding pandas, and I will say that it did a superb job of robbing those creatures of all their mystique. An Enya song kept playing during every interlude, sometimes overtop hilariously inappropriate footage. And the things they go through to breed these pandas. The success rate is like, 10% apparently. What the hell?

So did I leave with a new-found respect for pandas? NO. But it was funny and informative. Took up half of the day. I believe I spent the rest of that day hopping around the city to different flea markets trying to find another Rollei. Absolutely no luck. Big surprise.

I remember at some point during my time in Chengdu I discovered Sichuan barbeque. Kind of like the stuff I had in Shangri-La, but with a lot more ingredients. Pork, chicken, eggs, corn on the cob, cauliflower, green beans, rice cake, eggplant, whole fish, tofu, sausage, almost anything really. So good and so cheap, my nightly ritual consisted of heading out to the street corner and grabbing some before watching the World Cup game.

Things went rather routinely at the guesthouse. I got to know the staff and a few other travelers. I sampled most of the menu, watched a couple of movies. I raided their book collection and plowed through some easy reads (Island of Doctor Moreau, you didn't even last an afternoon). I got a fleeting taste of permanence and even made a few friends. Times at Mix became enjoyable rather than a wasted day.

One interesting excursion I went on was to People's Park. I don't quite recall why I went, but when I arrived, I was greeted with full on Commie anthems performed by several large groups of people, none under the age of 50 it appeared. Chinese flags were waved with aplomb and some even wore full military regalia. This wasn't just one big rally though. There were several of these talent shows going on all over the park. Some were hilarious while others were a total train wreck. The patriotism was so over the top. I couldn't help but think of a parallel event happening somewhere in Tennessee or something except with American flags and country music.

My next big excursion would be a full day affair. I joined a tour out to Leshan to see the biggest Buddha in the world. The group was good. Two Texans and three European girls, all mid-20s. The ride there was two hours along a foggy arterial highway and into a restaurant parking lot. Admission was 90 yuan, 50 with a student card; a discount I was determined to capitalize on at any cost. So I showed them my health card. Yep, University of Ontario. Worked like a charm and the others lamented the fact that they didn't try something similar. 90 yuan is a lot anyways (about 14 bucks).

The big Buddha was just that. A big Buddha. The stairs down towards the optimal viewing angle was choked with tourists. I'm not sure exactly how big the guy was, but I heard an arbitrary fact that he equaled around 32 Yao Mings. Each toe was about the size of a Buick. He ever so slightly resembled Krang's mechanical body suit from Ninja Turtles, an observation that the Texans enjoyed but was lost completely on he girls. Again, it was a muggy, overcast day, so the pictures didn't turn out terribly well. We walked around a bit more afterwards taking in a lovely temple and a lonely bridge. We all shared a late lunch before heading back. On the way back, the Texans and I made plans to have Sichuan hot pot for dinner.

Now, Sichuan was the province I was in, and the name might sound familiar, probably because you've read it on menus in Chinese restaurants. Sichuan is well-known for its food! Particularly its hot, spicy food, and I picked up on the reputation of Sichuan hot pot as soon as I got into Chengdu. The staff of Mix kept asking if I had tried it yet, and the bathroom stalls upstairs were scrawled with warnings of the damage hot pot wreaked the day after. "Hot pot = hot squat" was my favorite.

Nevertheless, the three of us charged in and ordered the hottest damn broth on the menu. When it arrived, it looked like Satan's bathwater. Deep red with hot peppers and Sichuan peppercorns floating on the surface. The waitress turned on the burner and it bubbled menacingly. Now, the idea is you order ingredients and cook them in the broth before mixing them with other ingredients in a bowl, then consuming. We got some meat here, some vegetables there, a few noodles. In they went, out they came, mixed a little the down the hatch. The heat creeped up slowly but reached fever pitch after about 5 minutes. We were dying and trying to put the flames out with beer. In fact, near the end, the sustained heat put everyone in a daze. Verdict: 5 out of 10. The heat far outweighed the taste of the dish, but the experience was worth it. A table of grown men weeping.

Like every other time, my new friends had to leave, but I befriended a pair of Israelis. I was in Chengdu for so long, I was beginning to notice the turnover. These guys loved soccer and made good conversation. We united in indignation towards the circumstances which caused Ghana to become eliminated from the World Cup. What would have been the winning goal was blocked by a Uruguayan player's hand, leading to a missed penalty kick, and a shootout which saw Uruguay emerging victorious. I decided that I did not feel the same way about soccer afterwards.

More days went by and the Israelis left. I couldn't wait to leave Chengdu and all but gave up on trying to do anything other than read and eat barbeque. The funny thing was, I had no idea IF I would even be going to Tibet, because despite the fact that I had already booked the tour, there was a chance that I would not be able to get a train ticket. As I mentioned, every ticket is pretty much sold on the black market, and when I booked the tour, I had the hostel bid on my behalf for a ticket, which was not always guaranteed.

On the last day, I received the good news that they managed to get me a ticket. However, the bidding war had gotten pretty fierce and I ended up paying DOUBLE. Didn't quite care though. I had come this far and there was no way the final days of my trip would be spent stewing in limbo and watching terrible bootleg DVDs. I was going to Tibet.

So I met who would be my travel companions for the next six days: a Brit named David who taught English in Chengdu and two plucky Norwegian girls, Lykke and Siri. The girls were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and seemed to be pretty seasoned travelers. It's a bit nerve-racking meeting complete strangers who you'll have to live in close quarters with for the next six days, but no one gave off any crazy, creepy or annoying vibes. I was trying my best to do the same.

My last night in the hostel was spent packing. You know you've been there for a long damn time if you have to spend a night packing before you leave. I struck up a few conversations with some new arrivals, but my brain wasn't wholly into it. I was finally leaving Chengdu for what would be the coolest part of the whole trip.

Giant Panda Research Base. Look at the pandas!!

Some serious noms in effect.

Nice try guys! That's a soccer ball!

People's Park. Uncle Ho waved the hell out of that flag.

Y'know what, screw it, I would totally do this if I could.

The big Buddha of Leshan rests stoically in his enclave of rock and tourist.

Eyes fixed on horizon, he ponders new ways to get those blasted turtles once and for all.

The dodgy steps down to Buddha's feet.

Our server brings the Sichuan hot pot. That there, on the left, is the face of incredulity.

Yeah this totally won't be a problem at all guys.

32 Hours to Chengdu. Really negative entry here.

And so began what would be 30 hours of grueling, sanity stretching transit. The bus wasn't particularly uncomfortable, but it wasn't particularly comfortable. A few unpleasantries struck me here and there; a man screaming into his cel phone, loud, drawn out loogies and the pungent smell of cheesy snacks mixed with dank upholstery.

We wound back down the mountains towards Lijiang where we would veer east and continue through more mountains towards Jinjiang, just inside the borders of Sichuan province. On a particularly narrow stretch, the bus slammed on the breaks and I looked up just in time to see a baffled sheep disappear under the front of the bus with a very audible thump. The bus stopped on the shoulder of the road so the driver could get out and follow whatever protocol there was to follow when one hits a sheep. Dozens of other piled out to have a smoke/survey the carnage. I stayed on board the whole half out it took to sort the mess out and get moving again.

We took a rest stop and I ate while local bumpkins gawked at me. Three hours later, after sunset, the bus passed through Lijiang. Everything after that was winding roads and darkness. There was a baby on board in the bunk beside me that would awake in a screaming rage every 20 or so minutes, so getting any sleep seemed neigh impossible. This went on forever. I think I may have slept.

Jinjiang didn't quite look like a city of any kind. I was confused. Where was the train station? I was to continue on to Chengdu, but how? Some taxi drivers showed up and yelled something at me in Mandarin. It turned out they were just asking where I was going (they yell everything here). I said "Chengdu" and they lit up and began hauling my bag into the cab. Now, that could have been really bad had I not clarified and said I wanted to catch a train to Chengdu. So they took me to the train station.

It was 6am and the train left at 12. Too much time to kill. Too tired. I slept for a bit in the train station, perched guardedly over my bag.

At noon I shuffled on board with the masses. My seat was more of a bench shared with a few stoic Chinese men. They would be the perfect travel companions. Quiet, polite, courteous. The complete opposite of the bedlam that slowly developed around me.

The train rolled through mountains. Many many mountains. In fact, I'd say at least 60% of the first leg of the trip was through tunnels. Every stop more and more people were getting on while no one seemed to be getting off. Two-person benches became three-person benches out of necessity. People started curling up on the floor. The aisle became horribly congested. before long it was a cattle car. The baby from the bus was a few seats down from me. The piercing wail was unmistakable.

Now, some jackass told me that the train ride was six hours, so I mentally prepared myself for a six hour train ride. At around the nine hour mark, I was getting very anxious. And cross. A food trough wheeled through the mess every so often to feed the hungry masses. Garbage and spit covered the floor, and everyone was shouting as loudly as they could. Every time I used the bathrooms I had to hold my breath. Men slept across the sinks and moved only slightly if somebody wanted to use one. I can't imagine anyone in Canada with the audacity to do something like that. But this was China.

Ten hours in. A kid who was too old to be cute regarded me with fascination. Nothing new until he started touching my nose and stroking my arm hair. Onlookers watched and grunted out laughs. When was this train ride going to end?

Eleven hours in we reached Chengdu, but we weren't stopping. I was standing in anticipation to get the hell off, but the train just kept going. For a whole other hour! I swear we were entering the city via a giant spiral cause it took forever! Finally we stopped and everyone surged off.

It was hot and rainy in Chengdu. It was midnight too, so the public buses had stopped running. Finding a hostel was going to be tough. Of course, every cab driver I showed the address and a map to made that Tim Allen "eeugh?" noise until finally some lady in a scooted cab picked me up. This was actually worse because she too had no idea where she was going, so it ended up being and aimless tour around town in the bumpiest, sketchiest thing the Chinese would consider road safe. I stopped her when I realized what was happening and took to guiding her manually from the back. Eventually I got fed up and had her drop me off a mere block away. At this point she began screaming at me to no end. I was so tired and furious, and I figured she wanted extra money for the wild goose chase that was her own damn fault. Seriously, it was a Chinese map and I was navigating it better than she was. I lost my temper at her, and I seriously regret it, but at that time, my sanity was bled dry. She got the last scrap of money from my wallet and I wasn't even at the hotel.

I wandered around for about 45 minutes until a kind soul with a good head on his shoulders led me exactly to where I needed to go. Why is finding a guesthouse in China always so damn difficult? Idiot cab drivers, renamed streets, hidden entranceways.

LOFT was the name of the place. The beds were a ridiculous 45 yuan, up from the 20 yuan quoted in the Lonely Planet. As always, one mention and the prices go through the roof. I was in no position to argue though, so I had to settle. At least it was very nice.

From Kevin's Guesthouse to LOFT, it was about 32 hours of stress, frustration and discomfort. Nary a wink was attained the whole time, so my first order of business was to sleep like a lazy piece of trash until my body was once again ready for the outside world.

No pictures because I was in such a terrible mood.

Shangri-La. Seriously.

It was a great busride. Swirling up the sides of towering mountains that overlooked roads that we had been on only moments before. Upon reaching the highest visible point, like magic, everything leveled off and flatlands spread out before me. No more mountains, just rolling hills and fields. It was this sudden change that came with the new altitude. Also, the Naxi architecture was replaced by this distinctly Tibetan aesthetic. Chortens draped in prayer flags, short, wide, trapezoidal houses, yellow crops. You'd think it was thousands of miles from the landscape we were driving through only minutes earlier.

The sun went down as the bus approached the urban fringes of Shangri-La. Lit expressways deposited the bus into the city and before long, I was alone on the side of the road, trying to get my bearings. None of the street names were on my map, so I figured I must be on the edges of town. "Time to play this game again" I thought. Walked forever.

My map was very poor and there seemed to be no end in sight. I was exhausted as you can imagine. Remember, this was the evening of the day I did my brutal gorge trek. When I surrendered and took a cab, the driver was completely useless and couldn't even recognize the map of the town he made a living navigating. I actually had to point him in the direction I wanted to go and have him drive, figuring things out as we went along. Where the guesthouse was supposed to be, there was only a black space. I moaned in frustration, ditched the baffled driver and tried to find someone else who maybe could help me.

All the street names had changed since the publication of my map, I learned. Kevin's guesthouse was what I wanted, but where was it? It wasn't closed down because Sanjay and Mark had just stayed there only days earlier. I found Kevin's Bar, which was annoying because I did not need any false finish lines in my tired, breathless state. Some locals spotted my frustration and pointed me down a dark alley. I was apprehensive. Did they even know what I was looking for? Were they going to rob me? I peered into the darkness and caught a faint sign: Kevin's Guesthouse. Holy effing crap what a godawful place for a sign. Could they not have stuck a sandwich board or something somewhere even close to the main road? I thanked the strangers with the last drop of my politeness I could squeeze out of myself at that moment and walked towards Kevin's.

I was wheezing when I got in at around 10:30-ish. The owners were so unbelievably friendly, my mood instantly recovered. I got a dorm bed, puddled around on the computer for a bit then got some sleep.

Now about the town of Shangri-La. When you hear the name, you ask "really?", and the only answer I can give is "maybe". The words "Shangri-La" first appeared in the novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton, as the name of a fictional south-western Chinese town poised high up in the mountains. Well, the Chinese tourism authorities took notice of this and renamed the town originally known as Zhongdian. A heavy facelift followed, then an airport and inevitably, throngs of tourists. The star attraction, a dazzling Tibetan old quarter, ripe with chortens, monasteries and culture, all accessible without the hassle of having to get the permits to actually enter Tibet. You see, Shangri-La lies right on the border, still technically in Yunnan province. For many, it is the only taste of Tibet they can have. So really, the name is only part of the attraction.

I awoke at a responsible time. It was very cold. At an altitude of about 3100 meters above sea level, the town is perpetually chilly. My wardrobe of shorts and t-shirts was not going to cut it, so my first order of business was buying a sweater. I explored the old town next. Much much more different than Lijiang. Everything screamed Tibet. Prayer flags draped overhead, yak skins sold in shops, old men and women in nomadic attire. The sky was mottled with clouds, but the parts that poked through were a striking blue.

I came across a temple atop a hill in the center of town. The stairs were a rough climb due to the altitude, but up top it was a pleasant view. Many other Chinese tourists walked about. It's highlight was a massive revolving chorten that took the strength of about seven or eight men to get started. When it got going, it was a sight to behold. 20 meters tall, all gold and strikingly ornate. Everyone had a good time with it.

Back in old town, I grabbed some barbecue in the town square. Skewers of meat, vegetables and miscellanea, all cooked and seasoned over a specialized charcoal grill. Cheap and damn tasty. I tried yak meat for the first time. A little tough, but not bad overall.

There was a monastery on a hill that was visible from every part of town, so naturally I made my first order of business finding a way up there. My first attempt led me down some narrow alleyways in the wrong direction. Chained dogs were throwing fits, lunging at me with futility. Around one corner, a dog darted out of a dilapidated shack towards me bearing teeth, it's chain stopping it only a few feet short. I almost had a heart attack. I decided to try another route after that.

Eventually I made it up and took in the view. I could see the surrounding mountains looming over the town. On the other side of the hill, flatlands with the faint and distant shapes of horsemen galloping across. Yellow fields. Prayer flags flapped audibly in the breeze. Beside a pavilion, someone had fashioned a bunch of them into a colourful tent. I took a rest inside. The monastery itself looked more like someone's house, and I didn't feel like barging in (it was dinnertime after all), so I headed back down the hill.

That evening, I went to a soccer bar to watch the World Cup and eat. Aside from trying cold yak meat and yak yogurt, nothing happened.

Now originally, I had a pretty ambitious plan for getting to Chengdu, my next destination. A three to four day journey through rugged mountains. Xiangcheng, Litang, Kangding then Chengdu. I didn't want to backtrack, but my guesthouse mum informed me of a sleeper bus to Jinjiang in southern Sichuan province, where I could then grab a train north to Chengdu, all in half the time for half the cost. Sold. I got a ticket for 7pm the next day.

I didn't do much until then. Read and wrote. There was a big monastery north of town, but the admission price was around $20, so I stopped short at the gates figuring I'd see much bigger and better monasteries when I actually got into Tibet. The weather was crap too.

When I boarded the bus, I made myself very comfortable. I had no idea how long the trip would be, but I knew I wouldn't hit Jinjiang until the morning. The sleeper bus was only the beginning too. My only concern was whether or not I would get any sleep, and I wish I could say it didn't take long for that to happen.

If you were wondering what the hell a chorten was this whole time, it's this.

This is the old town. I have a similar pic taken in Lijiang and I chock that up to the fact that there are so many old men on bicycles in China, it's like one big deja vu after another.

The stairs leading up to the temple. Yeah, with the altitude, even this was a grind.

Shangri-La from on high.

Here's the awesome spinney chorten. You have to spin it clockwise or else it's BLASPHEMY!

Street BBQ. Goddamn this stuff was good.

The view from the monastery high above the city. The flag tent and pavilion are on the left.

The flag tent from the inside. It was a windy day too.

Not sure who these tree trunks are, but if I missed the opportunity to see a Tibetan Medieval Times, I will be seriously pissed.