Ten Days in Tibet

by Helen Krasner 

I had wanted to go to Tibet since I was ten years old. That was when I read Heinrich Harrer's bestseller, Seven Years in Tibet, in which he tells of escaping from a prison camp in India, walking across the Tibetan plateau in winter and finally being one of the first Westerners to reach Lhasa, the Forbidden City - where he eventually became friend and confidant to the young Dalai Lamna. I had childishly yearned to follow in Harrer's footsteps. But times change. In the 1950s, the Chinese invaded Tibet, bringing roads and machinery and other trappings of "progress", destroying temples and monasteries and changing the age-old culture forever. In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India where he set up the Tibetan Government in exile. Tibet was closed to foreigners for many years and my vague plans for walking across the Himalayas to get in were hardly practical. But, since 1986, tourists have been allowed in on a limited basis and I finally scraped together the cash needed by Chinese-inflated prices for a trip to "The Roof of the World".

"Are you going trekking?" I was asked continuously when I told friends I was going to Tibet. No, I told them, it was a cultural tour. I hoped that I was right and that Tibetan culture still existed. At first, at least, I was not disappointed. On the drive to Lhasa from the airport, we stopped at a small temple, where I was surprised to see photos of the Dalai Lama on display; I believed they had been outlawed. The Tibetan tour guide shrugged. "When the police come they take them down; when they go, the monks put them back," she told us. Perhaps things were not as bad as I'd heard.

But in Lhasa? It is slowly becoming more Chinese, with wide roads, modern buildings and a huge square in front of the Potala Palace (built in 1994) epitomising the Chinese mania for hugeness and open spaces. Only the centre of Lhasa, the Barkhor, is still Tibetan. There were weird and wonderfully dressed pilgrims from all four corners of Tibet prostrating themselves in front of the Jokhang temple; stalls selling lumps of turquoise, yak fur coats, prayer wheels and carpets; and everywhere the smell of slightly rancid yak butter and a steady hum of the devout chanting "Om Mani Padme Hum" ("Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus").

Yet, even in the Barkhor, the Chinese army are everywhere in evidence, stationed every hundred yards or so, watching. I had heard that Tibetans live in fear, afraid to talk politics or fraternise with foreigners. This was confirmed by a political discussion with an English speaking Tibetan outside the Norbulingka, the summer palace. He confirmed that Tibetans trust nobody but close family; the Chinese pay informers well and people are poor. They can be jailed for little or no reason. Nevertheless, he assured me, "I believe that ninety per cent of Tibetans have courage." When alone, they do not use the Chinese language and do what they can to keep their religion and culture alive.

But they can do painfully little. Chinese Immigration increases yearly, with high salaries and bonuses promised to those Chinese who will relocate to Tibet. All education is in Chinese and jobs for Tibetans are hard to find. My conversation with this brave man - who was taking an incredible risk - ended when a van appeared. Hearing all this is a great shock, even if one has read about it.

In our few days in Lhasa we visited the Potala palace, ransacked by the Chinese but now restored, the two largest monasteries - where the monks are now back and practising their religion - and a number of other sights. We ate Tibetan food and drank the famous butter tea - quite palatable if you think of it as soup rather than tea and, I'm sure, excellent in winter. We talked with people and bargained for trinkets and took innumerable photos, for it is an incredibly photogenic country. Then, on the fifth day, we piled on to our bus for an overland trip back to Nepal, via Gyantse and Shigatse, Tibet's other two cities.

Tibet is a land of superlatives, with the highest mountains, deepest gorges, driest climate - the list is endless. Virtually the whole of the Tibetan plateau is over 10,000 feet. Llasa, at 12,000 feet, is in a valley, though this did not prevent mild symptoms of altitude sickness - suffered by almost all visitors. Our trip took us over a pass, down multi-coloured mountains to a huge turquoise lake, up through a number of over 17,000 feet passes, past villages, nomad encampments and farmers with their yaks. We were on the main road, the "Friendship Highway"; it is a dirt track often blocked by rubble and landslides. Fifteen miles an hour was our best average and I was reminded that Tibet didn't even have the wheel until the Chinese came. We took photos of Everest from three different places. It was dry, dusty, exhilarating, exhausting, but never boring.

On the last day, we drove through a gorge with sheer drops into endless nothingness, where both the river below and the tops of the mountains above were almost invisible. We dropped over 10,000 feet in twelve hours from dry dusty desert to humid rain forest and our bodies and lungs protested. 150 people had died building this road. It is narrow and dangerous and frequently impassable due to landslides. It is incredible simply by being there at all.

We spent our last night in Tibet in Zhangmu, seven kilometres from the border. The town clings perilously to the side of the mountain, its roads permanent mud from the rain every afternoon. Its people are both Nepalese and Tibetan, its atmosphere felt like neither, I thought - and yet....

Next day, we crossed the Friendship Bridge to Kodari, the first village in Nepal. Kodari is a dusty collection of huts, a village whole sole raison d'être appears to be to serve the relatively few travellers across the border. Its people are poor, its buildings decaying and it has nothing to recommend it - except freedom. The change in atmosphere from Tibet to Nepal was almost tangible - the feeling of relaxation, the lack of fear, in a poor country which was being allowed to grow or decay at its own rate, in its own way. I felt horribly guilty about having enjoyed ten days in Tibet.

 I have changed my mind since last writing for VISA. One can learn from travel with open eyes and an open mind. I would like to think that going to Tibet has changed me and that this fact can do the Tibetan people some good. My Tibetan informant had told me how people in Lhasa could seem so happy: "They're happy to see you because they know that Westerners who come here are sympathisers." I wish I could do more than just sympathise.

First published in VISA issue 26 (autumn 1997)