Tibet and Home to Oregon

On June 25th, after completing our grades and packing for our return to the USA, we left for a final trip to Tibet and Nepal.  We met four other BYU teachers in Chengdu; Brad and Meredith Smith and Ron and Marilyn Bjorkman.  Most of the trips to this point were much larger groups.  This time there were only six and we didn't have anyone to help us with the language.  Marvin WU, however, arranged for the tour and we always had a local guide with us who was able to speak for us.

The trip to Chengdu was mainly to have us see the Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base.  This is an effort to maintain the population of the Giant Pandas.  We also walked through the old section of the city which they called Kuanxiangzi Alley.  This street was lined with businesses and local vendors.  Marilyn, who is from Idaho, had to check out one of the specialties in Chengdu, the spiral fried potato.  It was actually quite tasty but could be extremely spicy if you were not careful.  Chengdu is part of Sichuan Province and they are known for very spicy foods.

We also attended an evening performance "Face Changing Show".  (The face changing, known as "Bian Lian" in Chinese, is an important aspect of Chinese Sichuan opera. Performers uses "face changing technique" on the stage and transforms it into a special art with stunning skills. They are wave their arms and twist their heads, and their painted masks change again and again and again. (wiki))

Ron and Marilyn, Meredith and Brad, and us at Panda Reserve

 We were hoping to see the pandas outside of their "cage", but it was a very warm day and they like their air conditioning!

This is actually a red panda, but looks more like a raccoon!

 

This is the "alley" in old town

 Olivia, our guide and Marilyn with the special, "spicy" spiral potatoes.  Notice that our local guide had more red "hot" on her snack!

After Chengdu, we caught an early morning flight to Lhasa.  The city is located at 12,000 feet and we could tell the change in altitude immediately.  We stayed in a nice hotel very close to the center of town.  We were within walking distance of the main palace there, Potala Palace, and other major sites.  We ate in several local restaurants and enjoyed the food very much.  It was quite different than the typical Chinese food we have been having all year. 

We missed our flight to Lhasa because of a paperwork Tibet travel permit snaffoo, but we still enjoyed the extra 5 hours in the airport.  Our guide, Olivia, stayed with us the entire time until we passed through security.

We visited the Palace and saw hundreds of Pilgrims who had come to town for some special religious events.  Lhasa is an important place for Tibetan Buddhists.  We saw these pilgrims walking clockwise around the base of the Palace and stopping from time to time to pray (lying prostrate on the ground) and spinning their prayer wheels.

 

 

The Potola Palace is very famous and old.  Construction was started in 1645 for the 5th Dalai Lama. It was used for both religious and political purposes.

 The red part of the palace is for religious purposes, like a temple.  The white part of the building was more for political purposes and reception for visitors.  This palace is still considered the "capital" of Tibet.

Notice the blue sky?  We hadn't seen the sky so clear for many months.  The air quality in this 12,000 ft. capitol city was quite amazing.  Even though the air was thin, it went into our lungs easily.



 

Near the center of town is a Buddhist Jokhang temple and monastery.  It is considered the holiest place for Tibetan Buddhists and means "The House of the Lord".  It was originally constructed in 642 for a King and his two Chinese wives, one from Nepal and one from Tibet. It houses 800 metal scriptures.  Our hotel was just down the street.



 

 You can see Potala Palace in the distance

 Here are a few of the pilgrims who came to town for a special round of worship.  Notice their traditional costumes.  Aprons on the women indicate that they are married.

There was also a group of monks eager to have their picture taken

This flag pole is covered with "Prayer" flags.  You will see many hundreds of flags draped over the base.  We found these flags everywhere in Tibet.  There is a special prayer written on each one.  All over Tibet you will see these flags, hung even over one canyon to another.  The five colors are:

blue (sky); white (clouds); green (river or water); red (fire) and yellow (earth).

 

 Potala Palace in the evening

Across the street from the Potala Palace is a large park with this monument.  It is to remind the Tibetans that the Chinese "liberated" them.  We don't think they feel this way.

Potala Palace at night.  This park was a great place to gather and take some awesome photographs.

Not to far from our hotel was this bronze sculpture of a YAK.  We saw many more of the "real" thing on our trip to the west.

 When we left Lhasa, we drove through a valley for quite a distance and then headed up to our first major pass.  See the valley below?  That valley was still at 13,000 ft.

 

 This was near the summit which was at 17,000 ft. above sea level.  Notice the flags?

 On the other side of the summit was this lake.  It was beautiful but notice how barren it is.  We are far above the tree line.  Thus, there is no plant life.   Notice also that at 17000 feet there is no snow.  Mt. Hood in Oregon at 11,000 ft. has snow year round.  Why?  We don't know.

 We were trying to smile, but it was very cold and windy.  Plus we were feeling a little "strange" due to the high altitude. 

 This was our first big mountain and glacier.  I believe this is Mount Snow and it rises to 23,000 ft.  It was impressive.  Notice the flags again?

The bathroom facilities along this road trip were a little disgusting.  Check out the look on Nancy's face. 

Here is another summit at around 17,000 ft.  Notice the flags again.  About this time I had a headache nonstop.  The elevation was really getting to us.

In a city called Xigaze, we visited another Buddhist Temple and monastery.  It was raining that day. 

 We made a lunch stop and at the restaurant this woman was weaving.

This man was crushing "rape" seeds which eventually will be canola oil.  You see many fields planted with the yellow flowers.

 We went through a small town and had to wait for the cattle to move.

 Tibetan girl

Some of the local people were making mud bricks.

 

We pulled off the road when we could our first glimpse of Mt. Everest.  You can tell the wind was strong!

We made it to the Mt. Everest base camp on the Tibet side.  Notice the elevation....5200 meters, about 17,060 feet in elevation!  We managed to slowly hike to the top of the small hill behind us without any oxygen.

 

 The area of the Rongbuk Monastery, near Mt. Everest base camp

 The Rongbuk Monastery was founded in 1902.  A few monks and nuns still live there.

 This was one of the temples where we could take pictures inside the facility.  In most of the temples are many buddhas with various hand gestures.  The represent:  giving, taking, blessing, meditating and teaching.  There are also five animals that have symbolic meaning: 
Peacock: can eat poison and transfer to nectar, just like ignorance can be transferred to enlightenment.
Horse:  energy and effort for enlightenment
Lion:  symbol of power
Deer:  Buddha first preached in a deer park
Garuda:  Eaglelike bird



 Local residents at the monastery.

We thought this map might help orient you to where we traveled in Tibet.

These next two pictures were taken from the internet.  On a more clear day this is what you would have seen at base camp.

 

We went back to New Tingri or Dingri to spend the night
 

 Stan enjoying our comfortable surroundings in a little village of New Dingri.  We even had wireless!

That is a school in the distance as viewed from our hotel.

 On the way to the Tibet/Nepal border our guide saw a local summer festival so we stopped and mingled with the locals.

 Traditional dancing

 This was truly a trading mecca!  Those are painted yak skulls!  One of the BYU teachers bargained for some warm socks for the cold weather in Michigan and a bag.

This yak was ready for the occasion.

 

From the summer festival we continued our drive toward Nepal and along the "friendship" highway.  Our journey was all downhill and the scenery became more and more green as the elevation changed.  The road was good but quite steep.  Our ears were popping all along the way.  After dropping some 6 or 7 thousand feet we came to the unique city of Zhangmu.  It was built on the sides of cliffs and once we entered the city the streets became barely passable.  We had learned that this was the place where trucks from Nepal would met up with trucks from Tibet and they would exchange goods at this place.  They have a unique system where only during certain times of the day can trucks drive north and other times when trucks drive south.

 

 This is part of Zhangmu, the border town.

 You can see that the city was built in a very steep area.  Traffic was "nuts."

 This is Stan enjoying his first YAK burger.  It was actually quite tasty and he wasn't suffering from altitude sickness any longer.  We were at about 7500 feet.

 This is the border crossing.  We showed up 1 hour before they opened the doors.  According to our guide, there really are no published hours.  The border officials show up when they feel like it.

This picture was taken from the border crossing showing the Nepal side.

This was our first view of Nepal.  The roads immediately became quite different and were rough and unimproved.  We also felt that we had crossed the border into India.  Everything was different.  The people were different, the food was different and the surroundings were different.

The trip on down to Kathmandu was slow and tiring.  The road conditions were terrible, but the scenery was breathtaking and very lush and green.  This quite the contrast with the scenes on the Tibetan Plateau.

 Some typical scenes in Nepal

 

As we drove along we observed corn drying on tarps.  The chickens were enjoying the "free" meal!

 

We stopped for lunch outside of Kathmandu.  It was a very nice restaurant perched on a hill.  It gave us a chance to recover from the rough trip down.

View from the restaurant, just before entering Katmandu, Nepal.

Lord Shiva statue on the hill overlooking Katmandu.

 



 This is a picture of the Shiva statue off the internet.  This shiva is the tallest (143 feet) in the world and represents the Supreme God for the Hindus.  This God is:  creator, preserver, destroyer, concealer and revealer (to bless).  The cobra is also a symbol of protection.

 The government palace

 A street scene in Katmandu.

 There are shrines and temples placed throughout the city so residents can worship.  Nepal is generally a Hindu country, but there are many Buddhists also and both religions co-exist.  Some sites are considered sacred by both groups.

 This cute little girl is dressed in her school uniform.  Generally the children in the city will attend school until they are age sixteen.  About 20% of the children in Nepal do not ever attend school, generally in the rural areas.

 Rotary International has a presence in Nepal

 The school we observed just consisted of benches and each archway was a classroom for about 10 children.

Children playing a game with rocks before school started. 



 

 Pagoda temple

Buddhist Patan Golden Temple Katmandu

Vegetable and fruit market in Katmandu.  Notice the women dress in attire representative of India.

This is another school.

 

 

 

 

Secondary School.  Some schools are private and some are run by the government.  Teachers are highly respected, although underpaid.  Once a teacher is hired permanently and work for 20 years, they can receive a pension.

 Hope those plants are secure for anyone walking on the street!

 This is a young girl taking a load of rocks to another site.

 

 World Soccer Cup "Fever" in Nepal!

A woman worshipping.

 Making pottery

Bhaktapur Durbar Square is a plaza in front of an ancient royal palace.

 The palace had 55 windows.

 Golden Gate

 The remains of the royal bath.  In ancient times there was a pipe system to deliver water, but now the pipes have been torn up to make way for roads.

 

This was where we ate lunch and had a "rooftop" view.  Food was very inexpensive.  You could have a nice meal for $3 US.  We asked our guide about average wages for Nepal residents.  He said $200 US per month.  Hotel workers will make about $10 US per day.

 Monkeys were all around this sacred site.

This is a home for the elderly, who have no family, near a sacred Hindu temple.  The residents have a bedroom and are fed.  They come to this area because they want to die near the temple. 

 All these pigeons were at a sacred Hindu temple site.

Only Hindus are allowed in this particular temple.

 This river is where a lot of Hindus want to be cremated and have their ashes put in the water.

Cows are sacred to Hindus.  There are no McDonald's franchises in Nepal for obvious reasons!

Outside our hotel room we observed this car being decorated for a wedding.

 The all watchful "eyes" observe our actions at this Buddha Bouddhanath stupa, which may contain ashes of monks.  It is one of the largest in the world.

 Our Nepal guide, Dinish, explaining about this religious site.

 The black "roof" décor houses prayer wheels.  The faithful turn them clockwise as they circle the stupa.

 The gentleman on the roof is painting lotus leaves.  There is a story that the valley used to be a lake and out of the lake grew lotus.  The lake is no longer, but lotus leaves are painted on the stupa.

 Kathmandu and valley from the Buddhist temple

 

 365 steps lead to the stupa.

 Our guide insisted this was not the Star of David..it is called something else, but it is on the site of a temple.

 The streets are occupied by vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles, etc.!

 Notice all the wires!

 The Hippies came to Nepal in the 1970's.  This sign was found on "Freak Street". 

 Brad and Meredith Smith are waiting in the hotel lobby in Nepal for a ride to the airport and our return to China before returning to the US.  They are from Michigan where Brad teaches at the university.  He took a year's sabbatical to teach in China.

Ron and Marilyn Borjkman are from Idaho.  Ron is a retired attorney and has been teaching American law classes in Nanjing.  Marilyn is a retired teacher.  They are continuing with the BYU CTP group in Nanjing for another year.  This was July 4th and Ron searched the streets in Nepal for American apple pie.  As you can see, he was successful.  Every couple had a piece and it tasted great!

 

 

We left Kathmandu for Guangzhou, China on July 4.  Our plane left at 11:30 p.m. or so.  We arrived early on the 5th and then changed planes to arrive in Jinan early in the afternoon.  Lily and a friend picked us up from the airport.  Her friend had recently purchased a new Buick.  It was very nice.

 

That night we invited Lily to dinner to celebrate Stan's birthday and to say goodbye.

 

 It was very difficult saying goodbye to Lily.  We have enjoyed so much her kind and optimistic personality.  She has told us that she feels that we are  her parents.  And now, again, she will be alone.  She has several sets of BYU teachers who have become her "parents."  It was a tearful parting.

Stan really likes this picture.  Lily is such a sweetheart.

 

Sunday evening we were invited to have dinner with June and her boyfriend, Arthur.  We have written about June before.  She is a Law Professor at Shandong University Law School.  She also thought of us as surrogate parents and shared many personal things about her life and her concerns.  They wanted to serve us something special for our last night in China.  We helped them make dumplings.  They were actually quite good.  We started our experience in China eating dumplings and we finished our experience eating dumplings.

 

 

 

Monday morning we met Mr. Zhang at 5:15 a.m.  He took us to the airport just like he has many times before.  He speaks no English but what a nice man.

We arrived in Oregon, 30 minutes late, about 21 hours later.  Theo Ashby was waiting for us.  We were happy to be back on US soil and in familiar territory.  And yet, we felt a little apprehensive.  China had also become  familiar. Leaving those familiar places and people left us a little lost.  But not for long.

A few days after our return, we headed for familiar berry fields to replenish our supply of fresh fruit.  Our first stop, raspberries.