Tibet

Onto Tibet! Our silk road voyage blended into a journey south to Tibet, but with two key differences: we were on a train instead of buses (praise Allah) and the scenery became decidedly mountainous rather than sand-duney.

Train twisting and climbing into the Tibetan plateau.

For once the LP was wrong, in our opinion: rather than being bored we were enthralled by the open landscape between Golmud and Lhasa, where animals abound. We counted 250 hooved wild animals (we think: wild donkeys, antelopes or gazelles, deer, goats), 10 foxes, a wolf, countless raptors (including three Himalayan Griffon Vultures, which are even bigger than Cinereous Vultures) and other birds, not to mention the hoardes of grazing sheep and yaks. We also admired the delicacy of the lichen and grass on the hills: made us think of the Dalai Lama's request that Tibet be internationally protected as a unique ecosystem because it is mostly unspoiled but is very fragile. Once the lichen and topsoil is disturbed, it takes a very long time to recover it, if ever. Geoff especially was glued to the window and was rewarded with lots of wildlife spotting.

Lichen 'skin' covering the muscles of the mountain.

Lhasa was a place of mixed feelings: on the one hand it was clean and there was good food and shopping, on the other hand it was easy to see China imposing its shops, restrictions, and people on the Tibetans. We worked hard to see all the sights: we biked to both Sera and Drepung Monasteries and took a bus to the third one, Ganden. We went to both the Potala (Dalai Lama's winter palace) and Norbulingka (summer palace), and we even fit in some birding and shopping.

Potala Palace, Lhasa

We biked on some country roads to Sera Monastery and met some cute - and dirty - kids:)

And we saw the monks debating, Tibetan style! So much energy! And aggression, but good naturedly. Very cool for us to see.

Having seen as much as we could in Lhasa, we hired a Tibetan driver and his Toyota LandCruiser and set out for a four-day bumpy ride to the Nepalese border. Our driver Sonam was friendly and good-humoured and we really enjoyed seeing Tibet through his eyes. 'Our number-one teacher in Tibet!' we told him:) He helped us to see beyond the city of Lhasa into the village life of Tibetans where the Chinese influence was less apparent.

Three families eating together and taking a break from their barley harvesting. We met them on our way from Lhasa to Nepal. Mel and I are sitting there at the back: he with a farmer's hat, and me with a red scarf.

We crossed over several high passes, stopping to breathe the air and acclimatize, and to take pictures. On one of these high passes, as we stepped out of our stuffy jeep on to a windy and dusty mountain top, a local girl selling bracelets remarked on my flipflops, admired my toe-polish, and motioned for me to paint her nails. So I dug out some nail polish and we had a mountain-top manicure, haha:) I gave her the bottle when we were done and she gave me a bracelet; lots of smiles and a picture. Her name is Tsereh.

The scenery all the way along was amazing - like driving through a postcard. The last 30km were the most harrowing and long 30km of our lives. Picture this: single lane dirt road made so muddy by the rain that any car other than a jeep would have been stuck or slid right off the road, winding down a mountain, 1000m cliff on one side with a turbulent river at the bottom, and sheer rock wall on the other side, at night, in the fog, and the rain, with raging waterfalls flowing onto the road (washing out parts of it) and over the road so that we drove under them like a carwash and over them like a river, with semi's going up and down the same road, passing construction materials and machines and tents, and skirting fresh landslides that included some rocks as big as a small car. We went 28km in 3 hours. We had to stop a couple of times because a semi up ahead was stuck or there was a rock on the road, and once our front tire fell into a hole but our driver managed to drive out of it. To top it all off, when we were finally in view of the border town that was our destination (at 11pm) we got stuck for 2 hours because the road controllers at the bottom were accepting bribes from vehicles wanting to come up the road: the road is supposed to be open for downward-traffic only before midnight and upward-traffic only after midnight, but the guards at the bottom take some money and let upward-traffic go up, which, of course, completely clogs the road and makes it impassable for everybody. It certainly was a grande finale to our overland adventure!

The next morning we woke up to find ourselves in a lush rainforest ecosystem: in our harrowing ride in the dark we hadn't been able to see the transition from the arid Tibetan landscape to the tropical Nepalese one. Geoff says "It's like we've stepped off the movie set of 'Mission to Mars' and onto the one for 'Jurassic Park'." And it really is. The change is amazing. So far we're really enjoying our time in Kathmandu with its trees and funky courtyard-restaurants. We're here for a few days and then head on to India, while Mel and Donna go back to China to explore the south. We've had such a great time traveling together: we all feel very fortunate to have had this chance to experience (and survive!) all these adventures together. We'll miss you, mom and dad Styles!

Next stop: Delhi! Make sure to check out our Picasa Web Albums for more pictures.