This trip consisted of three treks. First, John, David and
I approached Everest from Tibet, then John, David and Ilana and I
visited our Nepali friend Dhiren's village in Nepal, and finally John
and I continued exploring south of Everest as we had in the Spring.
The weather was fine most of the time and I took a huge number of
photos. This is a small subset.
We gathered in Kathmandu, flew to Lhasa and spent several days there
acclimating to the 11,500-ish feet altitude before driving south to
start the trek.
The Dalai Lama's Potala Palace dominates Lhasa and the entire
valley. Tibet's capital looks increasingly like any other Chinese city
and the newly completed railroad brings even more Chinese
tourists. There's now in effect an Old Town in Lhasa like those in
European cities, a small enclave outside which Tibetans in native
dress look like people coming home too late from a fancy dress party.
Just off the main route through the old town, however, people worship
and perhaps live much as they always did.
Last time we were in Tibet we visited Sera, one of the three
monasteries near Lhasa that used to be home to more than 20,000 monks,
and I wanted to see the others. Drepung was very little
damaged in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution while Ganden was
almost entirely destroyed like most of Tibet's 6,000-ish other
monasteries. Some are now being rebuilt with Chinese approval as
tourist attractions but each is allowed only a very small number of
monks so they can pose no threat to the regime. Drepung is my favorite of the large monasteries, which are in effect
small towns; it feels much less like a museum or Disney attraction than
the others. This is a view from one of its rooftops.
Like most monasteries, Ganden is set high up on a mountain side and has
a spectacular view. This view is from Ganden's "upper kora" (a
spiritually beneficial path) over some burning incense, down to the
rebuilt monastery complex, over the valley, and away to the distant
mountains. These valleys that drain into the Tsang-Po river (which
becomes the Brahmaputra when it reaches India) are pretty much the only
places in Tibet where agriculture is possible. The majority of monks
did not spend their lives in worship, learning or good works but as
agricultural laborers, and most of Ganden's monks lived on the plain
below.
The drive from Lhasa to Southern Tibet took a couple of days. There's
a good road to Shigatse where we spent a night and re-visited
Tashilumpo, the Panchen Lama's equivalent of the Potala Palace. I
hadn't noticed this mural of one of my former incarnations the last
time we were there.
South of Shigatse is a dirt road over which we drove for many hours
with all the windows closed against the dust. Here's our first view of
Everest from a high pass on that road. Vendors of picturesque Tibetan
tantilleries are at all the best viewing spots.
Close to the start of our trek is Tingri, capital of one of Tibet's
original principalities. This picture was taken from part way up a
steep mountain spike that dominates Tingri and the surrounding plain.
The harvesting involves a remarkable range of technologies. Here a tractor is being driven in circles over
straw to thresh the grain. The straw is brought from the fields on
pony traps. Many other tools are also in use in this scene.
This is looking back toward the mountain from which the
previous picture was taken. A fan mounted on a two-wheeled tractor is
being used to winnow the grain.
Meanwhile, worship continues. This old woman is turning prayer wheels. In her younger years she'd have been turning straw.
These younger women are in traditional dress with the large
silver waist ornament worn by married women. I was concentrating on
getting a good shot of them and didn't notice the man relieving himself
in the background. It's such a common sight that you don't notice
after a while.
Most likely, the man had been refreshing himself in this establishment
across the road, outside which is a pony trap. The front pair of
wheels stays harnessed to the horse while the cart hooks onto the front
axle with a sort of ball hitch.
A river runs through the town next to this road and goats were being butchered there.
Their carcases were carried up to the road for sale at an impromptu butcher's shop. Just down the road is the internet cafe, which I didn't photograph because it looks much the same as they do everywhere.
The mountain in the background of the butcher's shop has the remains of the old fort and battlements. Fertile valleys like this one were originally ruled by regional princes. After Tibet was unified under the rule of the Dalai Lama and regional administrators were put in place, the forts fell into disrepair.
Our trek was in the mountains close to the border with Nepal.
Tibetans use yaks for transporting goods instead of porters as they do
in Nepal. In fact, they're dzoes, a cross between yaks, which are well
adapted to high altitudes but ornery, and cattle, which are docile, but
everyone calls them all yaks.
Our yaks were managed by two men. This one was known as rinpoche,
which means "precious one" and is usually associated with especially
holy men. He showed no signs of holiness and constantly refused to
take the yaks where we wanted to go, but he does have a delightful
smile.
There was a larger group of trekkers on our route with many more yaks
and several yak handlers, three of them women. The one below has a
surprisingly powerful throw. Our two crews socialized one day and
after a while the women suddenly left. When they were far in the
distance, this one grabbed a large clump of dry yak dung and hurled it
at our crew. It landed just in front of them, burst into shrapnel and
the three women laughed uproariously. I now know what the three
witches in Macbeth were like when young.
Our trek toward Everest followed the same route as an
early British Everest Reconnaissance Expedition. Being British men of
that time, they imagined how fine it would be if the beautiful stream
in the next picture was stocked with trout. The summit of Everest is
directly above my head.
Snow fell the next day and our yak men refused to go on. If their yaks
got snowed in they would lose their livelihood. We thought it unlikely
that much additional snow would fall in the next few days but the yak
men were obdurate so we had to turn back.
At mid-day we met a large group going our way. They had enough yaks to
force a passage through a great depth of snow and we managed to get our
yak men to turn back again towards Everest.
Here's our first sight of Everest at dawn. Lhotse is on its left.
And here's Everest near the end of the day a few days later.
There's nothing special about these mountains west of Everest except their beauty. Don't ask me why they're beautiful; it's in the eye of the beholder.
We drove back to Kathmandu and visited Rongbuk on the way. It's the
world's highest monastery at about 17,000 feet and is on the side of a
valley that leads south towards Everest. The Tibetan Everest base camp
is further up this valley.
This picture of Everest is from a few hundred feet above the base camp. David and I walked up there with Dhiren.
We were very quiet and were extremely lucky to come upon a dozen or
more blue sheep (that's what they're called although they're really
brown goats). They're very skittish and well camouflaged and I've
never before been closer to them than a few hundred yards.
Earlier on the trek we encountered other wild animals. These angelic specimens distracted David and stole his water bottle.
Life is hard for the village women. This one is going to dig turf that
she'll carry to her house in her doko (wicker basket) to dry it for
cooking fuel because there isn't enough wood.
And life doesn't get easier as you get older.
It was a spectacular drive through the mountains to Kathmandu. We
then drove and trekked to Dhiren's village in the Okhalunga area.
Southern Nepal is only a few hundred feet above sea level but most of
the country is a rapidly rising jumble of rock smashed by the collision
of tectonic plates. At Okhalunga's relatively low altitude of a few
thousand feet the mountainsides can be terraced for farming. Dhiren's
Papa's farm is unusually well stocked with a diversity of vegetables
and fruits. There's a separate slideshow about Dhiren's family and village.
We were there for one of the major Nepali festivals and participated in
the ceremony conducted by Dhiren's sister in the family living room.
She presented each of us with a garland of marigolds and applied a
tikka mark to our forehead. John has just received his in the next
picture. There's a separate slideshow about this.
We had brought books for the village school and Dhiren arranged for us
to present them. "Come here, Dhiren," John began, "and translate
exactly what I say." "Yes, John sir" "I have known Dhiren for many
years," he continued. "Dhiren has often spoken about his village but
now I've come here, I see he was not telling me the truth." Dhiren
translated that nervously and the villagers looked concerned. This
picture was taken just as John explained, "Your village is much more
beautiful than he said".
This lady was concerned about what young Dhiren's untruthfulness might have been.
But nothing would have surprised the lady sitting to the side behind her.
We trekked north from Dhiren's village and then John and I parted
from David and Ilana and went east towards the Makalu Barun
Conservation Area. We met this man in a Kulung Rai village where he's the nokshu.
Dhiren's father is nokshu for his Bahin Rai village. A nokshu is
responsible for the rituals when a villager dies, and for
preserving the tribe's history. The other religious role in hill
villages is the shaman, through whom the deities communicate and who
communicates directly with the dead. The nokshu and shaman wear a
special hat for their ceremonies and in the picture below, the nokshu
has placed his hat as a gesture of respect on a shrine he led us to.
Each tribe has a different hat. The white strips decorating this
Kulung Rai one are made from porcupine spines. His clothes are woven
from fibers from the stems of giant stinging nettles.
The view from just above the shrine is spectacular. Kanchenjunga towers over everything else despite being about
60 miles away to the east.
We continued exploring until the snows came. It was early December
then and there was only one way out from where we were. In that
situation, you get out while you can because you may not get a second
chance.
It took us a few days to get down to where this picture of three of our porters was taken.
And a few more days to get this far,
where we were now back among the villagers.
On our way to the airstrip at Phaplu from which we flew back to
Kathmandu we visited several more monasteries. At this one, there was
also a nunnery. The monks and nuns have separate living areas areas
but share the places of worship (not at the same time). Nuns seem to
do all the manual work - the ones below are pounding barley grain into
tsampa flour - while the monks perform spiritual labors inside.
By this time, John and I had been trekking for almost three months
and John's sunhat was very much the worse for wear. He gave it a
Zoroastrian send-off to celebrate the end of a splendid trip.
Back to Treks