Nick had always wanted to visit the Tibetan Plateau, to view the Himalayas from the highest passes on Earth and explore the unique Buddhist culture that developed in isolation from the rest of the world. Indeed, one of the great transitions of world travel is the flight from Kathmandu to Lhasa. The Air China flight circles out of the congestion and haze of Kathmandu, flies east along the Himalayas with stunning views of Cho Oyu and Everest and then lands an hour later at Lhasa’s 11,710’ airport in a starkly beautiful valley. The other jarring reality is the brutal efficiency of Chinese Immigration and Customs, slightly nerve-wracking when holding a new Irish passport with a lone Nepal airport visa in it. The efficiency, however, was for the locals; immigration was painfully slow, even with just ten European climbers ahead of him. It soon became apparent the authorities were icing visitors. After an hour in line he handed the immigration officer his Irish passport and Tibet Autonomous Region visa. His heart raced as the officer reviewed both before abruptly excusing himself. After ten anxious minutes the immigration official returned, gruffly handed back the passport and waved him to proceed. He realized later his US birthplace was the issue.
By flying into Kathmandu, where visitors are able to receive an airport visa, he swapped the US passport required to depart Thailand for his Irish passport to secure a multiple entry Nepal visa. When his EU passport was sent to the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu for a Tibet visa, the only evidence of his native country was his birthplace. After a day exploring the Hindu and Buddhist heritage of Kathmandu and Patan, nervously wondering if the application would be approved, he received word from the Chinese Embassy the Tibet Autonomous Region visa had been granted.
After passing the Lhasa Immigration hurdle, the gauntlet continued at Customs, where officers demanded to open his luggage after it was x-rayed. His heart missed a few more beats when authorities beckoned him to open his daypack then thoroughly inspected it: he thought his US passport was inside. Fortunately, the second passport was in his fanny pack and they never asked to inspect it. Immediately after Customs, there were more officials requesting baggage claim receipts, which he had misplaced during the inspections. After fumbling awkwardly for several minutes, he found them stuffed in a back pocket and they let him proceed. The last obstacle was a final thorough passport and visa check before finding the Tibetan guide he’d arranged in Nepal. When he found Karma in the cavernous arrivals hall, Nick was quickly ushered into the glorious thin air and deep blue sky of Tibet: it was Nirvana compared to crowded Kathmandu.
The four-wheel driven by Tenzing across the glistening Brahmaputra River (highest major river system in the world) and through modern tunnels along sere mountain valleys filled with yaks plowing barley fields, was serene. The high altitude Tibet Railway paralleled the airport road as it neared Lhasa, its modern track with tunnels neatly bored through mountainsides a shock after the decrepit state of Nepalese infrastructure. The beautiful terminal for the highest railway in the world prepares visitors for the modern “Chinese” capital ahead. There is only one problem with the scenario: the awe-inspiring Potala Palace (645 AD) dominating the valley.
Military garrisons lined the main road under the imposing palace, while random squads of camouflaged Chinese troops marched along the sidewalks of old Lhasa. After checking into a simple but clean Tibetan-owned hotel with a lunch of yak stir fry and vegetable biryani, Karma led him into the pedestrian labyrinth of old Lhasa, composed of ancient, white-washed structures surrounding bleak courtyards with shops at ground level. After weaving though the bustling maze of traditionally dressed Tibetans, they encountered a police checkpoint with an x-ray machine at the entrance to Barkhor Square. After presenting visa, passport and offering his daypack for inspection, Nick proceeded through the scanner to enter the heart of the old city: the sacred area around Jokhang Temple (642 AD).
As Buddhist pilgrims walked clockwise around the temple by the hundreds, spinning prayer wheels, whispering mantras and prostrating themselves, squads of troops marched in a counter-clockwise direction as police peered from rooftops. The Jokhang Temple with its gilded bronze rooftops and yak wool banners hanging over entrances, has hundreds of Tibetans from all walks of life making their pilgrimage around the sacred site demarcated by four large incense ovens wafting a mixture of artemesia, rhododendron and juniper. In spite of watchful eyes, the Tibetan people are focused solely on their quest. The spiritual energy of Jokhang Temple is palpable.
From 1911 to the Communist victory over the Nationalists in 1949, Tibet had been a de facto sovereign state due to the collapse of the Manchu Dynasty and the decades of domestic disarray that followed. Immediately after the Communist takeover of China, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) began asserting its presence in Eastern Tibet to return it to the motherland. After an unsuccessful appeal to the United Nations for assistance and with 40,000 Chinese troops occupying Amdo and Kham provinces, Lhasa had no alternative but to enter into direct negotiations with Beijing. The Chinese and a Tibetan delegation signed the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet in 1951 without the consent of the sixteen-year-old 14th Dalai Lama, formalizing Chinese sovereignty over the region. In 1959, from the safety of India, the Dalai Lama declared: “The consent of the Tibetan Government was secured under duress and at the point of the bayonet. My representatives were compelled to sign the agreement under threat of further military operations against Tibet by the invading armies of China leading to utter ravage and ruin of the country."
In 1954 the Dalai Lama had traveled to Beijing and met with Mao. The two leaders got along surprisingly well, but on the Dalai Lama’s departure, Mao famously declared: “Religion is poison.” When the Communists began closing monasteries and banning festivals in 1956 due to the illegality of religion, Tibetan guerillas began attacking PLA convoys. The CIA became involved in support of the guerillas in 1957, initially parachuting in a two-man radio unit trained in Saipan. In 1958, CIA arms drops supplied a 5,000-man rebel base in southern Tibet. Over the next five years, 250 resistance fighters were trained at Camp Hale in Colorado before being parachuted into Tibet. Approximately ninety percent of the Tibetan resistance air dropped by the CIA during this upheaval were killed by the PLA; many taking their own lives with US-issued cyanide capsules rather than being captured.
In 1959, the brutal PLA crackdown on Tibetan militants inspired a backlash of revolt known as the Lhasa Uprising, during which 10,000 Tibetans were killed. Fearing for his life, the Dalai Lama fled over the Himalayas on a nineteen-day journey to India, where he leads the Tibetan government in exile from Dharamsala to this day. The two radiomen trained by the CIA were part of his entourage and reported on the Dalai Lama’s journey over the Himalayas to Washington. Before he arrived at the Indian border the Eisenhower Administration had asked the Nehru government to grant him asylum. The two years immediately following the uprising, combined with the onslaught of the Cultural Revolution, saw the destruction and looting of over 6,000 monasteries across the plateau, including Ganden, one of the three largest, just outside Lhasa. During this traumatic period an entire society and its culture was destroyed. After the resistance fighters were driven from their homeland by the PLA in 1960, they set up a base with the assistance of the CIA in the Mustang region of Nepal. The last CIA airdrop occurred in 1965, but the Tibetan resistance continued sporadic raids on Chinese convoys until 1969. The U.S. abandoned its support of the Tibetan resistance as a precondition for Nixon’s rapprochement with China in 1972.
In 1965 the area was renamed the Tibet Autonomous Region, with the head of its government an ethnic Tibetan. The real power, however, continues to lie in Beijing with the First Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region, a Chinese Communist Party member. The large number of Chinese troops currently in Lhasa is due to the explosion of resentment that took place ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in the spring of 2008. During violent protests demanding greater autonomy, Tibetans attacked Chinese shops, burning many to the ground. Tanks were called into the city center to quell the disturbances and all foreign access to Tibet was halted. Since the unrest, 120 Tibetans have immolated themselves in protest. Due to a government-sponsored influx of Han Chinese, Tibetans are now a minority in Lhasa.
The morning after Nick’s arrival they awoke to clear blue skies and headed to the Potala Palace, where thousands of Tibetan Buddhists spinning prayer wheels make a continuous circuit around the sacred “Red Mountain” it rests upon. At the western end of the palace grounds is an ancient white stupa (a structure containing Buddhist relics) that once served as the entrance gate to Lhasa, while in a rock outcrop across the street a natural cave serves as a bustling tea house for pilgrims. The mass of humanity making the holy circuit is a manifestation of an ancient culture steadfast in its beliefs. Entering the main gate to the palace was a line of Tibetan pilgrims, Chinese tourists and a handful of Western visitors. The steep hike up the cobblestone ramp to the palace entrance is tiring coming from sea level, but each rest stop was a delight of spectacular valley views and 14,000’ peaks dusted with spring snow. At the massive wooden door to the Potala, its thick sloping walls and commanding view reinforce the palace’s stature as one of the wonders of the world: thirteen stories containing over 1,000 rooms and 10,000 shrines.
Inside the first hall, wooden ladders ascend either side of a large Shakyamuni Buddha to the White Palace courtyard under a balcony from which the Dalai Lama once lectured. The White Palace is where the secular government conducted business. Another ladder under the balcony ascends higher into the Dalai Lama’s living and study quarters decorated with frescos and Buddhist shrines. In a nook Nick conversed openly in English with a Tibetan monk. He said hundreds of monks currently lived and worked in the palace, but were a fraction of the former population. He whispered spies were among them, so they had to be careful. The monk’s eyes darted nervously at passing visitors when Nick asked if he had traveled to Nepal or India. He replied it was very difficult for them to travel, as the bureaucracy was intent on restricting their movement, even within Tibet.
The Dalai Lama’s living quarters led onto an open rooftop dominated by a large golden wheel of Dharma with two Lumbini deer framing the majestic view. Another set of stairs led off the rooftop into the Red Palace, the religious section of the structure where most of the exquisite shrines and relics are housed in sacred rooms lit by vats of yak butter candles. The thick walls of the crimson section of the Potala are made of bamboo in order to lessen the weight on the structure below. The remains of past Dalai Lamas are enshrined in numerous large silver and gold stupas in the upper section under gilded canopies. A cavernous universe exists in the bowels of the palace, filled with exquisite galleries, prayer halls, audience halls, libraries and even a Dharma cave in which Songtsän Gampo (who introduced Buddhism to Tibet) sealed himself off to study. The exit and long cobblestone descent on the south side offers extensive views over the valley of Lhasa and a cross section of the five to three-meter thick tapering white walls rising steeply out of the jagged Red Mountain. At its base Nick rejoined a multitude of pilgrims as they circumambulated the holy peak. Piles of yak horn with Om Mani Pad Me Hum (jewel in the lotus mantra) carved on their skulls and prayer wheel shrines lined the sacred path.
That afternoon he passed under the hanging yak wool banners and entered Jokhang Temple, filled with burning butter tubs and huge Dipankara (past), Shakyamuni (present) and Maitreya (future) Buddhas, along with prayer halls, libraries and murals that date back a thousand years. In 1966 Red Guards sacked the temple during the Cultural Revolution. Thousands of Buddhist scriptures were destroyed. In 1987, security forces stormed the temple and arrested hundreds of monks after rioting broke out across the city. One of the memorable sights from this ancient temple was the view of Barkhor Square from its flat rooftop under golden deer flanking the golden Dharma wheel. From his vantage point amongst gilded rooftops and wind chimes, Nick witnessed camouflaged squads at the ready atop buildings, while police in blue kept a close eye on worshippers below. In contrast the Tibetan people remained unfazed in their pursuit of Nirvana.
Wandering through the labyrinth of old Lhasa that evening, he discovered back streets full of fresh fruit, vegetables and freshly butchered yak meat and marveled at the appearance and dress so reminiscent of Native Americans: red cloth woven through braided hair for men and women, the use of silver and turquoise, as well as their textiles and sand paintings. The next morning they drove to Drepung Monastery, once the largest in Tibet, nestled in a rocky cleft between weathered mountains. Thousands of prayer-flag-draped outcrops and boulders carved and painted with the Buddha filled the valley. Founded in 1416, the monastery once housed up to 10,000 monks, but now supports only a few hundred. In fact, the ubiquitous blue uniformed police seemed to outnumber monks as they positioned themselves at strategic points around the monastery. When Nick departed, there was a line of police in the parking lot.
At Sera monastery (1419) on the eastern side of the city, he learned that hundreds of its monks were killed and three colleges destroyed by the Chinese in 1959, a major factor in the Dalai Lama’s decision to flee to India. He found the most intriguing experience at Sera to be the lively debating sessions between monks in a tree-covered courtyard. They posed philosophical questions to each other at a rapid pace while signaling with hand gestures whether the answer was correct or not. Lurking in the background were police with dark sunglasses and stern faces, casting a shadow over the engaging back and forth between monks wearing crimson robes.
Heading west on the Friendship Highway along the Kyi Chuu River the next morning the real Tibetan Plateau of infinite space and towering peaks was soon upon them. The valleys were filled with yaks plowing spring fields for barley between far-flung, whitewashed compounds flying multi-colored prayer flags at each corner. On the roads just outside the capital were police check points every twenty kilometers or so and every one hundred kilometers in the hinterlands. His visa along with identification was presented at each checkpoint, thus extending control across the plateau. If you were not issued a visa for a particular area, you are not authorized to proceed. They soon reached the northern shore of the wide and shallow Brahmaputra River, eight hundred miles from its western source at the base of sacred Mount Kailas. The river is eighteen hundred miles long and forms the Tsangpo Gorge, one of the largest and deepest on Earth, as it plunges to the Indian subcontinent through the Himalayas’ eastern end. It empties into the Bay of Bengal through the Sundarbans Delta, one of the largest Bengal Tiger refuges in the world.
They crossed a bridge over the Brahmaputra and began a steep climb of hairpin turns past brightly ornamented yaks plowing fields to the 15,744’ Gampa Pass above the turquoise blue Yamdrok Lake at 14,570’. One of Tibet’s holiest lakes, the prayer flag-bedecked view of this forty-five-mile-long jewel set amidst a sere landscape crowned by snow-capped peaks has to be one of the finest sights on the plateau. Atop the pass there were Tibetan mastiffs with their masters wandering the chilly, wind-swept landscape, likely awaiting photo opportunities with the many Chinese tourists that flock to this region. After a winding descent to the lakeshore, the road continues to the southwest along turquoise waters to the village of Nagarze.
On their approach into the decrepit village, the massive bulge of Gangkhar Puensum (24,836’), the highest peak in Bhutan, was glimpsed rising magnificently above the desert plateau. After a lunch of hot tea, stir fried pumpkin and rice, they began a gradual climb beside a shimmering river among the high peaks seen from the Gampa Pass: Noijin Gang Sang Peak the highest at 23,642’. Several stunning snow-capped and glaciated peaks set against the thin air and deep blue of space surround the top of the road on Karola Pass at 16,547’. At the pass is a large white stupa decorated with prayer flags beneath a gnarly glacier hanging from Noijin Gang Sang. The road drops steeply through desiccated terrain before reaching the Nyang Chu Valley. Tibetans and their yaks were busy plowing small sections of the valley to sow the summer barley crop in flat terrain among the hills and along the riverbed.
After skirting an impressive Chinese-built reservoir, the road descends into desert-like terrain for the drive into Tibet’s third “largest city”, the village of Gyangtze. In the spring of 1904 the British occupied the city and its spectacular hilltop fort. The impregnable looking Gyangtze Dong fortress (1390) perched on a rocky outcrop is truly one of the most impressive in the world. It was overrun and occupied by the British on an expedition to force a trade agreement with Lhasa and disrupt suspected Russian designs on Tibet during The Great Game. The British believed the Russians were consorting with the Dalai Lama in order to threaten their empire on the subcontinent. In response to this incursion, the Chinese Foreign Ministry claimed they had jurisdiction over Tibet, the first formal statement of its kind. Due to his substantial Central Asia experience, Captain Younghusband was chosen to lead the Tibet Frontier Commission expedition in talks with the Tibetans (he had trekked 2,500 miles from Peking to Srinigar). His force of 1,150 British and Indian troops was told by locals to leave the plateau immediately after entering Tibet from Sikkim, just south of Gyangtze. When the British ignored the warnings and advanced, they encountered several serious attempts by Tibetans to halt their invasion. The Tibetans, vastly outnumbering the invaders but with flintlock rifles, were no match for British artillery, repeating rifles and Maxim guns, and were mowed down by the hundreds in several high altitude battles.
When the British reached Gyangtse, even though the Tibetans occupied the impregnable fort and its high ground, they were again no match for British firepower and soon fled. When the Tibetans refused to negotiate with the British, Younghusband received permission from the British Cabinet to advance on Lhasa, because British influence “must be duly recognized in Lhasa so as to exclude foreign pressure.” When the Younghusband expedition arrived in Lhasa, they were the first Englishmen to march through the white stupa gate below the Potala palace in ninety years. They soon discovered the Dalai Lama had fled to Mongolia ahead of their advance, and so had to negotiate with his Regent, Ti Rinpoche. A treaty was eventually signed in 1904, opening Tibet up to trade with British India and forcing Lhasa to pay a 2.5 million-rupee indemnity, with the Tibetans also agreeing not to enter into relations with a foreign state without British approval. A British trade agent was placed in Gyangtze as a result of the treaty. China eventually paid the indemnity on behalf of Tibet a few years later, with Britain and Russia recognizing Chinese suzerainty over Tibet. The Tibet Frontier Expedition found no Russians in Lhasa and no evidence of their influence.
Gyangtze is also home to the Palcho Monastery, which contains the Kumbum multi-tiered stupa, the largest in the country, with 77 chapels on six floors. During the Cultural Revolution most of the shrines on each level were destroyed, but they have been restored and the view of the Dzong fortress from its top floor is spectacular. After a day of exploration at 16,000’, several hot cups of salty yak butter tea followed by a vegetable sir fry over rice was very satisfying.
The following day’s drive to Shigatze was exasperating due to the numerous police check points, which not only demand visas, but limited their time of travel between check-points. If a vehicle is too fast, it must stop and wait until the pre-determined arrival time. This makes for great roadside meditation: observing colorful villagers strolling slowly past while yaks plow surrounding barley fields. Shigatze is the second largest city in Tibet and home of the Tashilhunpo monastery (1447), founded by the first Dalai Lama and the successive ancestral home of the reincarnated Panchen Lamas, traditionally his second in command. The monastery looms over the skyline from a mountainside north of town, but the city is actually dominated by Shigatse Dzong, built in the 15th century as a smaller version of the Potala Palace. It was bizarrely dismantled in 1961 at the direction of the Chinese, but rebuilt from 2005-2007 to be a Tibetan Cultural museum. Two-thirds of the Tashilhunpo monastery was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution with statues broken and relics burned. Yet the Maitreya Temple still contains a golden Buddha statue that is stunning at 86’ in height, the largest in Tibet. There is controversy surrounding this monastery, however. It is currently home to Beijing’s proxy Panchen Lama, Gyancain Norbu, the authentic Panchen Lama (Gedhun Choekyi Nyima), chosen by the Dalai Lama at age 6, was abducted by the Chinese in 1995 and hasn’t been seen since. Since Beijing currently believes the Dalai Lama is a separatist trying to "split" Tibet from China, Karma warned Nick there were spies throughout this monastery as well, although the blue uniformed police of Lhasa were nowhere to be seen at the monasteries of Gyangtze and Shigatze.
The following day’s drive west through stark terrain and multiple check points from Shigatze to New Tingri (Shegar) climbed two high passes. On the descent from the second pass (Lackpa La 17,226’) just outside New Tingri, a stunning view of the Mount Everest (29,029’) and Cho Oyu (26,906’) summits appeared around a bend. Just thirty miles away, they pop majestically above the tan desert landscape of the Tibetan Plateau: Everest’s north face black from scouring winds while Cho Oyu’s snowy rounded top contrasts with the plateau’s desert foothills. The Himalayas truly are the Abode of the Gods from a northern vantage point, unearthly in their majesty. Along the main road were New Tingri’s few teahouses, shops and a single gas station, but off to the west amongst craggy mountains is an ancient Tibetan village under the dilapidated Shegar Chode monastery. Above the monastery is Shegar Dorje Dzong, a fortress of crumbling high walls defying gravity as they steeply ascend a gnarly peak.
After a meal of stir-fried yak with peppers followed by a freezing night in a spartan room with no heat at 14,268’, the final day’s drive to Kathmandu began. A few miles southwest of town a lone military check point secured the road to the border with a lowered barrier. Nick exited the vehicle and went inside the guard post to show his visa, passport and face. The border region with Nepal is highly restricted, with only climbers holding appropriate visas headed to Everest base camp at Rongbuk Monastery and the few trucks heading to the Nepal border at Kodari allowed to pass.
The landscape paralleling the Friendship Highway as they drove west can only be described as the highest desert on the planet. The landscape is about as desolate as this globe’s surface gets, but the gorgeous snow-laden Himalayan peaks to the south jutting above the plateau lift the spirit. The snow-melt-full Pung Chuu River (Arun in Nepal) paralleled their route, with Old Tingri village and its briskly flapping prayer flags beside freshly plowed barley fields the next stop. There he visited Karma’s dirt-poor family compound. While serving endless cups of yak butter tea, his family was excited to have their photos taken with an iPad and to view movie clips of a Potala Palace they’d never visited. The smoky kitchen was filthy but warm and was the social gathering place for Karma’s extended family, including a swaddled newborn. Even though it was a sunny spring day it was freezing, so it’s hard to comprehend how they handle long winters at such altitude.
After Old Tingri the road veers north, following the Pung Chuu around a desert spur of the Himalayas, and then heads south up a starkly beautiful valley with the occasional whitewashed village on the opposite bank. Around a bend halfway up this valley, 26,289’ Shishipangma leapt into view, dwarfing the surrounding terrain and giving Nick a taste of what lay ahead. This stretch of the Friendship Highway was once a southern section of the Silk Road, and along the road are weathered adobe forts and caravanserai. The headwaters of the Pung Chuu are a frozen lake just west of the Lalung La pass, in the same direction as the road to Mount Kailas that crossed the most severe looking high altitude desert on the planet.
Except for looming Shishipangma, the long hairpin turns on the climb to Lalung La pass hid the Himalayas from view. It had been a crystal clear morning with amazing vistas all the way from New Tingri, so when they summited the Lalung la Pass and then reached the Tong la Pass (16,900’), its altitude offered a scene staggering beyond belief: the heart of the Nepalese Himalayas, with hardly a cloud in the sky. The view from its prayer-flag-draped summit swept from Everest and Cho Oyu in the east, past Shishipangma’s massive glaciated snowfields, to 26,759’ Manaslu far to the west, an unprecedented two hundred mile panorama of the highest mountain range on Earth.
On a clear day it is, without doubt, the greatest view on the planet. Along with hundreds of prayer flags at the pass were traditional Tibetan offerings of scarves and shoes littering the rocky landscape. They could clearly see below the upper reaches of the Bhote Koshi River valley they would steeply descend to reach the Nepalese border. Tibet had been so pristine and the air so fresh that Nick lingered knowing in several hours he would be back amongst the distress of the Nepali capital, 12,000’ lower. In fact, from such a height he could see the haze from the subcontinent creeping into
the lower reaches of the Bhote Koshi. Somewhat reluctantly, they climbed into the four-wheel drive and began the drop from one of the most commanding views on Earth.
Sweeping switchbacks took them off the pass onto the floor of the Bhote Koshi river valley, where yaks plowed barley fields at 15,500’. The valley widened as they dropped, with hardscrabble villages just off the road. Soaring directly ahead and seemingly walling off the valley were spectacular serrated peaks east of Shishipangma that formed the heart of the Himalayas. This is the highest barrier on Earth, but the Bhote Koshi River has persistently carved a deep gorge over the millennia. The high fertile valley comes to an abrupt end as the road climbs to the modern Chinese village of Nyalam, at the base of Purbi Chyachu (21,838’). The road then drops into the deep gorge from Nyalam to Kodari, one of the most spectacular drives in the world. The Friendship Highway where the Bhote Koshi cuts its way through the heart of the massif is a feat of engineering. It is a paved road blasted from sheer cliffs five hundred feet above the whitewater of the boulder-strewn torrent. Vertical cliffs on the opposite side of the canyon taper enough so conifer forests and flowering rhododendron cling to precipices a thousand feet above the road and river. It’s a road that will take your breath away, until a dose of reality in the form of one of the final military checkpoints brings you back to earth. Another thorough check of visa, passport and IDs for all and they were on their way through steep forested hillsides with stomach-churning switchbacks to the customs and immigration border town at Zhangmu (7,590’). It’s a congested shop-filled village in shocking contrast to the sublime landscape just explored. The switchbacks continued through town, continuing the descent from one of the highest passes on the planet.
After they reached the end of the road at the Friendship Bridge on the Chinese side of the border with hugs and a healthy tip for Karma and Tenzing, there was still a very modern Immigration and Customs building to process through. Once again, the officials wanted to thoroughly check Nick’s bags, asking if he had any magazines, books or writing materials. Then the officer closely examined the Irish passport and again disappeared for ten minutes, asking him to wait next to the booth. When it was clear the official wasn’t returning soon, he began to plot an escape across the bridge spanning the Bhote Koshi. The Chinese authorities had prepared for that and had troops stationed just before and halfway across the bridge. The Immigration officer finally returned and sternly handed him the passport. With great relief he walked across the Friendship Bridge over a frothing river full of massive boulders and entered Nepal.
The shock of Zhangmu was nothing compared to being in Nepal. The Chinese side was certainly second if not first world in places, especially the 500-mile Friendship Highway they had traveled from Lhasa. Nepal was third world. The dilapidated buildings and decrepit road, the sad Immigration official, the trucks, buses and cars clogging a main street full of litter and seething humanity, were all depressing after the natural beauty of Tibet. The most shocking thing departing Kodari was the state of the 89-mile long Araniko Highway to Kathmandu. Considering Kodari is the only international border crossing between the two countries, the “highway” Nepali trucks had to negotiate was nearly impassable due to landslides. Half of it was eroding into the Bhote Koshi River, while what remained is a dangerous single mud track. It took an hour to go the first ten kilometers. The two lane road improved slightly further down the widening valley as the Bhote Koshi merged with the Sun Kosi river and larger villages appeared along its banks, but after the modern infrastructure of Tibet, the scenic journey back to Kathmandu was jarring. In Dhulikhel, a tourist mecca for mountain views at 5,200’ halfway back to the capital, the subcontinent haze was so thick not a Himalayan peak could be seen. After the 12,000’ drop from Tong La Pass, he entered Kathmandu and crossed the trash clogged and foul smelling Bagmati River. He was already yearning for the natural high of the Tibetan plateau.
© 2021 James B. Angell All Rights Reserved
Another typical cursory and cliché description of Tibet as imagined by most Westerners.
No background or research was done on the caste system run by the lamas and the crimes and corruption committed by the Dalai himself and his cronies.
No detail discussion of just how involved the CIA was or how much funding went into the arming of terrorists and the dissemination of disinformation and propaganda for consumption of the Western audience.
No perspective was given on how much improved the lives of many everyday Tibetans since the liberation by the Communist Party of China.
And of course there was no mention of how Tibet has been part of China since the 13th century - hundreds of years before the genocide of indigenous and native Amerindians and the founding of your country of birth, America.
All the author had to do was some simple background research away from the typical US-controlled resources. But instead, he parroted, almost word for word, State Department and CIA talking points.