Dear Friends and Family,

Perhaps it is the less than congenial computers or perhaps it is just that I’m too often on the rails or road, but I have yet to put together words that might best describe my latest adventures for you all. Since departing Rishikesh at the end of November, I've been to Amritsar, Agra, Jaipur, Udaipur and minutes from now, I'm getting on a bus for Ajmer to Pushkar. So today, in lieu of lots words, lots of pictures.

India is wondrous.

With love,

Laura

Kali, Hindu Goddess of Scariness - at Amritsar's Mata Temple.

I've been vegetarian for 45 days - plus!
- with this single, delicious exception.

Amritsar's golden, Golden Temple.

Agra's Itimad-Ud-Daulaugh - tomb of
Empress Nur Jahan's beloved parents Mizra Ghias Beg and Asmat Begum.

Inside Itimad-Ud-Daulaugh.
Many believe that elements of Itimad-Ud-Daulaugh inspired
Emporer Shah Jahan 10 years later when he commissioned his Taj Mahal.

Sunrise at the Taj Mahal.

Heart-stoppingly beautiful inlay at the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal in early morning sunlight.

Jehangir's Palace at the Agra fort.

Sorry - tip your head right - Jaipur's Palace of Winds.

Detail from the Diwan-i-Am (Hall of Public Audience) in
Jaipur's Amber Fort-Palace.

Garden in the Amber Fort-Palace.

Rumored to be the largest silver objects in the world,
built to hold holy water from the Ganges for one Jaipurian Maharaja's journey to England.

Houston, we have another palace: this time Udaipur's Palace.

Udaipur's Jagmandir Island - some also say a stay on this island
inspired Emporer Shah Jahan when he later built the Taj.
Although I personally could't see a single daytime resemblance,
the island was very pretty from a distance, after sunset.

Dear Family and Friends,

No doubt you've heard this story before but...

Once upon a time, in a far away land there lived a legendary hero by the name of Odysseus. Odysseus had it all: blessings from the Gods, the kingship of a boutiful kingdom, a lovely wife, a healthy son, and considerable cleverness... until one day he was called to fight in far away Troy. When the war was won and done, Odysseus and his men boarded their ship for their journey home. That journey turned into a 10-year adventure and that adventure turned into a legend thousands of years old: Odysseus journeyed to the underworld, defeated a cyclops, ate great quantities of lotus and spent 7 years weeping for his family by day and fully enjoying the bed of the nymph Calypso at night...

Actually, I've never understood the Calypso portion of The Odyssey. The story goes that she had beauty coupled with great magic and Odysseus had quite a lovely life with her. That said, 7 years seems an awfully long time to linger despite wanting, with all your heart, to go home. Yet within hours of arriving in Rishikesh, I suddenly understood that during his time with Calypso, time lost meaning for Odysseus and 7 years simply drifted by.

Now, do not get me wrong! A comparison between myself and Odysseus is hardly apt: I am neither a muscle-bound hero nor legendary, I was not stranded on an island amidst the wine-dark sea and sadly, there was no male equivalent - nymph or otherwise - to warm my bed. But somehow, within hours of setting off on a train from Delhi and mere minutes after alighting at the gates of my temporary home of Shiva Resorts in order to study yoga with Rishikesh Yog Peeth, the world retreated, I lost my bearings, and time changed.

Although I cannot say if I was most interested Indian culture (which I feel is increasingly spreading to the States), in Indian food (yum!), or in India's beautiful buildings; it has nonetheless been my dearest Asian travel wish to visit India. Once I had afixed India as my last Asian destination (for the meantime) and once initial research indicated that overland travel to India was cheap and easy (yeah right!), I spent approximately 10 seconds deciding that since I had more time than money on my hands, I should capatilize on a passing interest and study yoga while in India. It then took me hours of research to decide where better to study yoga than the than the city that modestly styles itself the "yoga capital of the universe" - Rishikesh, India?

Rishikesh and the smaller town that I found myself actually sleeping in (Ramjula) are backed upon far Himalayan foothills while that holiest of rivers, the Ganges, flows through their centers. City is too strong of a word for Rishikesh: narrow streets plagued with cow manure and motorcycle beeping border the Ganges along with many-leveled Hindu temples and low-roofed ashrams. I, we, studied a combination of "Hatha Yoga" and "Raja Yoga" at an intimate school called Rishikesh Yog Peeth, which is the teenist bit of an uphill climb out of the village. Days were almost invariably sunny; nights were beautifully bright with stars.

I lived rather quiet. My bedroom was clean, comfortable, safe, and soley mine. Every morning, I stepped out of bed onto cooled marble floors, which (if the floors weren't painfully cold) radiated through my soles. My door opened onto a walkway that had the air of a balcony and overlooked nicely clipped greenery. With irregular success, I began my day still under the covers, moving a pen across a journal in my lap. Afterwards, we students began our day with yogic cleansing, which sometimes involved a neti pot of saline solution running through our nostrils while other days we cleared our minds with a simple mantra of "Aum" 108 times in succession, fingering the beds of a mala. After cleansing, we hurried to beg for glasses of tea (I loved and always ordered crushed fresh ginger + fresh lemon juice + honey tea). Our first yoga asanas (postures) began before the sun had yet to rise and finished an hour and half later, after the sun had brightened the windows. Our next committment, yoga theory class, was at 3:30 in the afternoon, which gave us time for a shower, 2 meals, plus some time to walk into the village or e-mail or study or read or nap or... well... enjoy the moment. We attended lecture, took a short break and then re-gathered for our evening asana class, followed by a breathing and meditation class. Finally came dinner and I rarely waited long after dinner to return to bed.

Well into my course, a friend wrote to inquire, "Aren't you bored studying yoga?" And I surprised myself with a vehement, "NO!" This could have been because the actual practice of yoga is multi-faceted and rather challenging. But I suspect that my reply had more to do with the fact that I live my "real life" wound tighter than a clock. I fuel up on caffiene, I function at high energy, and I am forever tending a list of things to do that is longer than I can truly accomplish. I rarely ever savor life because I'm forever concerned about when and how I'm going to get through the next task. The actual clock ticks time by and this incites panic in me, which results in my own interal works becoming tighter and tighter. Relaxation in my "real life" is fleeting, instead I'm always pushing myself to be more, do more, be more. No wonder I experience burn out with such regularity.

Living in India should have been frustrating for someone such as myself, who prefers to do more, faster. The elecrity cut with frustratingly regular irregularity and the computers available to me were cranky. A friend sent me a parcel from Korea - it took days to arrive in India and an entire month to travel by air (?!) from Calcutta to Rishikesh. Food, clean and of high quality, took time to prepare from scratch. I was no longer living in a world where time and difficult-to-achieve expectations ruled and while I resisted at first, eventually I learned to adjust my expectations, shrink my list of things to do, and relax. And I was all the better for it.

Happily, the company at Rishikesh Yog Peeth was grrrreat. Our class was composed of mostly kindred women, aged 23 - 36, from Canada, Seychelles (look it up), Hungary and the States. We had 3 official teachers: the intent master of our program who doubled as our theory lecturer, a meditative yogi whoes eyes twinkle and wisdom belies his actual youth, and a serious-faced, beautifully kind asanas teacher. All 3 of our teachers were young, Indian, and devoted to yoga; yet each teacher's practice of yoga differed. Besides our teachers, there was an amiable cast of characters to keep us in comfort - which, I must say, they excelled at while somehow managing to be the best of company beyond their obligations. By the end of the course, I had gained friends that bordered on (unrealistically diligent) brothers... pretty much the only time that I recalled that they were obligated to keep me comfortable was when the hot water in my shower ran cold. And so, in what could've been 7 days, 7 months, or even 7 years of happily studying yoga, November drifted by....

In order to draw the beginning of today's tale to a close, after 7 years of fruitlessly pining for home, Zeus, king of the legendary Greek Gods, finally prevailed upon Calypso to release Odysseus and he immediately set sail for home. When he arrived, he had a bit of problem settling in (i.e. there were 100 potentially murderous suitors courting his wife and abusing his son) but he managed to dispatch the enemy, restore harmony, and presumably lived happily ever after (well, until he was killed by the spine of a stingray).

During my time in Rishikesh, a pining for home and unpleasant memories of weeping for one's loved ones began to grow within me. I found myself re-examining my original plan for adventure (which next prescribed a flight to the juncture between Asia and Europe - Istanbul) and decided to change my plan. So, after a few more weeks on the rails in India (after all, I could really eat more naan and I have beautiful buildings to see with my own eyes), I'm suspending my adventures (such as they are) in order to return home to spend Christmas with my loved ones. T.S. Eliot once wrote that, "[h]ome is where one starts from" - but home is also where one prefers to end as well, no? I concede that while Odysseus and I have little in common (although after a month of daily asana practice, my muscles are nicely on their way to heroinic), I find that I agree with him that living amongst loved ones is to be treasured, home (in whatever shape it takes) is to treasured. Although I've come too far, I've seen too much, learned too much to ever end up exactly where I began, I am also very much ready for a not-yet-defined duration... at home.

With much love,
Laura

PS: For the record, when the crazies began raining bullets on Mumbai, I was beyond their reach - physically and mentally - to the point that I didn't hear about the attack until a good 12 hours after the seige began. Upon learning of the attacks, I reluctantly re-joined the world, at least to the extent avidly examining the news on a daily basis. I do not (currently) have any original insight into the situation but share India's grief and fear for the future.

Our village and the river Ganga...

A delicious and fun lunch out.

Where we saluted the sunrise and sunset.

Sunset while on the return to Delhi....

Dear Friends and Family,

My next stop was the Nepal/India border.

Before our mini-bus came to a complete stop 4 kilometers short of the border, rickshaw drivers gathered around the bus shouting, “Lady? Rickshaw lady?” A few other Westerners had boarded the bus after I had and so, hoping for safety in numbers, I stood up and queried, “is anyone else going to the border?”

A French lady spoke up and in seconds, she and I teamed up and gamely climbed out of the bus into bombardment. I turned to the closest rickshaw haggler and inquired into his price (my guesthouse had suggested that 30 Nepali Rupees was reasonable). The driver quoted 60 Rupees.

“60 Rupees? I think not.” I turned to another. “How much?”

“Madam, 50 Rupees.”

“How about 40?”

“How about 50?”

“How about 40?”

“Ok, madam. 40 Rupees.” We placed my backpack on to his one-person rickshaw. I gracelessly climbed into the seat while the driver gamely climbed aboard his pedals. We set off down a line of freight trucks, each truck belching noxious black smoke and, I’m certain, a fair amount of carbon dioxide. Arrogant SUV drivers driving the other direction honked until we moved aside and spit dust on us when they passed. My driver, apparently a man who doesn’t hold a grudge, pointed to the line of trucks in the manner of an accomplished tour guide (while never breaking the rhythm of his pedaling) and told me that the border was closed. I didn’t believe him – and I wouldn’t let him stop at his favorite currency exchange shop (drivers in tourist traps are often paid commissions by less than savory monetary operations; I will have none of that particular scam). My driver remained cheerful in the face of my stony denials – chattering and pedaling. I watched as his back became dotted then solid with sweat and I began to wonder what this man’s life was like. His skin was deep brown and he was agedly bent, his plastic flip-flops were cracked and his rickshaw was unshiny and dented. I was doing my best not to breathe while he was forced to breathe and pedal through foul exhaust into dust. I replayed my earlier conversation with him, mentally substituting dollar values.

“How much?” I had asked.

“Madam, 97 cents.”

“How about 70 cents?”

“How about 97 cents?”

“How about 70 cents?”

“Ok, madam. [You pay me] 70 cents.” Although I had agreed to pay more than Nepalis pay for a ride, nonetheless, I had just argued this man out of 17 cents. 17 cents is of little consequence to me – but for a man with rotting teeth and thin clothing, 17 cents may buy him an entire meal. I began to think of all the material comforts that I had and was assailed by guilt. That ride felt much longer than 4 kilometers – and in the end, I paid him beyond double our agreement.

Borders are rarely congenial places; this border was no exception. The border itself was a tall and broad gate, barely supervised. While the Nepali authorities examined my passport, 2 Japanese girls initiated a conversation with us and recommended their guide + driver (if we were looking for a ride). I had planned on taking the bus but quickly caved in the face of my French companion’s interest and the temptation of a faster, less motion-sickness inducing ride to my next destination. Later, I learned that for that drive, I paid 500 Indian Rupee (about $18) when 200 would’ve been more than plenty. That happens when one is forced to negotiate one’s own prices, but I do hate to be suckered that badly.

That car ride from the border to the closest Indian train station gave me a… preview of what was to come. [Author’s note: Dad, you may want to skip this next part.] After we had dropped my French companion at the train station and were on our way to the hotel that I planned to spend the night in, I found myself carefully fielding questions about my current lack of boyfriend. The guide, a short, wiry man who had established himself as a speedy, tactless speaker, informed me that he thought “women with big boobs were best”… and shortly followed that comment a statistic regarding the length of his manhood… and a more startling conversation about his manhood in comparison to other manhoods. The conversation was subtle enough that I was morbidly fascinated instead of afraid. I didn’t doubt that I was being propositioned but I’d never been propositioned so… statistically. The guide insisted on further proving his manhood by carrying my now-returned-to-heavy backpack into my hotel. But luckily for me, he took my firm refusal with a smile, even apologizing in case he had embarrassed me. When he had disappeared down the hall, I fell against the door of my new room and wondered how my friendly but truly circumspect behavior had lead him to think that he and I would have a quickie before he and the driver returned to their city (which, thankfully, was an additional 4 hour drive).

I was disinclined to explore the city that I slept in and enjoyed a quiet day of reading and watching the city’s unpenned monkeys climb walls until a mouse wandered into my hotel room. The mouse looked at me, I looked at it. We both wanted to scream. The mouse screamed first and presumably returned to its hiding place and so I returned to my book (although I did alert the hotel of its presence when I checked out).

My train to Delhi was scheduled to depart late into the evening. On the way to the station, I found the city streets and houses draped with Christmas lights because, come to find out, I had inadvertently selected the night of a major Hindu holiday called Diwali, the Festival of Lights, to travel. The holiday rendered the train more empty than full, and it came as a relief to have a quiet train ride with the probability of luggage thieves comparatively low. A train attendant handed me 2 scrupulously clean sheets and a blanket to sleep with and after locking my backpack to my seat, I duly attempted sleep. The train rattled and shook throughout the night. I tossed and turned and pulled at the sheets and blankets until I had twisted myself into a full-body version of a Chinese finger trap toy.

It was just past 6 when I gave up all attempts at sleep and instead curled myself into the corner of my seat and absorbed myself with the window. Morning fog shrouded farmers in fields and long-legged storks picking their way between oxen. Palm trees were plentiful and still. Residences were irregular in size, space and color. Motion sick yet again, the train rocked and rolled while I refused chai and breakfast and lunch and snacks. The train was hours late. I fielded the city subway and settled into a non-descript hotel.


Delhi was yet another transitional destination for me and my “list of things to do” was heavy on errands and light on tourist destinations, which was good because it took me 3 hours to shrink my backpack with a visit to the post office. My attempt to mail packages was unexpectedly adventurous: involving native assistance and a coffee date with a handsome windbag of a man, a tuk-tuk between post office branches, a tailor to stitch my treasures into canvas, another man to seal the package with wax (my mother later inquired if I had mailed them a cloth-wrapped ham) and finally the expected post office workers to banter and negotiate with. One thing I’ll say about traveling: nothing is routine, including a visit to the post office.

Errands aside, I acted upon quality advice from a companion on my train journey and took myself to a Seikh temple with marble floors, arched colonnades and corners crowned with onion domes. To enter the temple, I received a numbered tag for my checked in shoes and prepared myself to enter in the same manner as the other supplicants: first I washed my hands under a cold faucet, then dipped my feet into a rectangular shallow pool filled with a substance closer to mud than cleansing water, and lastly knotted a borrowed scarf across my hair and over the nape of my neck. My breath caught as I raised my head from the warmed marble mosaic floor, the afore-mentioned colonnades surrounded an enormous silver square pool. Pigeons fluttered above the water, never touching, while men in full turbans and beards stepped ankle-deep in the shallow water to pose for pictures by their wives with fluttering scarves. The temple was lively but not too full of people and I found a secluded spot against the wall to simply watch. I pulled my journal out and incited the interest of a little girl, who ran from her parents to squat next to me. She was mute but looked me straight in the eye while nervously pulling at her braids. After a minute, she ran back to join her parents and infant brother. I respectfully nodded and her parents smiled and nodded back at me. A few minute later, the little girl returned to ask me in clearly rehearsed English where I was from. I smiled and replied but she was too shy for actual conversation and soon she again ran away, her feet lightly slapping against marble. I wanted to be unobtrusive - but failed. I as watched two elementary-aged boys in bathing trunks splashed each other while their smiling father stood nearby, close but not too close. Eventually I arose and paced the pool before walking through the temple. Musicians pounded deep drums with the flats of their hands. I understood nothing that I saw and did not feel (as I often do in holy places) that I was intruding.

But my time in Delhi left me in no doubt, no doubt, that I was foreigner in a foreign land. During an exploratory walk the previous night, I was approached many times. Most memorable was a young (not unattractive) man who gave me the feeling that he wanted a date but actually wanted to interest me in a visit to a splendid houseboat in Kashmir. (Admittedly, this appealed – minus the approach… and the on-going political fracas in Kashmir.) And the next day, central to my post office adventure was a pleasantly tall man in a blue business shirt, purportedly on holiday. My first instinct was to refuse his company and assistance but he too wasn’t unattractive and he didn’t make my instincts scream. He walked me to the post office and when we discovered the workers uninterested in actually opening the office, he was kind enough to treat me to coffee while we waited. Later he greatly amused me, popping over while I was watching the tailor sew my packages to inquire my opinion of the sunglasses that he planned to purchase. Blue Business Shirt man and I exchanged e-mail addresses but as he had proven himself more of a talker than a listener, I was grateful for his assistance and quite happy to bid him farewell.

Later that evening, I returned to shop in the area near the post office and was disconcerted to be recognized by a man that I had never seen.

“Hey,” he called “You bought ------- sunglasses!” I was confused until I recalled that I had provided an opinion about the purchase of sunglasses. I smiled and continued walking. Minutes later, another man approached to talk and sell me something. A minute after I had dissuaded him, a group of guys in their 20s halted me. One called,

“I know you.”

I politely paused; I didn’t know him.

“You had coffee with -------.”

And I had. But 7 hours had passed since that coffee and the shop had had enough people that I shouldn’t have been necessarily noticeable. The level of recognition and attention that I was garnering was beginning to scare me. This feeling wasn’t helped by the fact that the men followed me for a bit, calling to that it was “their turn” while the most insistent one told me, “you are a rose and you should share your scent.”

I was unprepared for this level of attention. Look, I am no Helen of Troy and frankly, after 2 years of not blending into Korea, I’m accustomed to attention, accustomed to being a foreigner. But what was new to me was that I seemed only to be interacting with men. And what was rather scary was the sexual edge to the attention that I was receiving. I felt as if I were an absolutely free, 4-course meal (complete with all-you-can-drink beer!) walking down the street, an open invitation. I decided that if I were indeed a meal, it wouldn’t matter the food or the quality of the meal, it just mattered that I was available and free. I didn’t like this feeling one bit. I finished my errands and positively fled to the safety of my hotel. And early the next morning, I took a seat on another train on the final leg of my current journey. I was tired of "the road" and ready to spend a month in Rishikesh learning yoga, learning about India.

Laura

Inside the temple...

Sunset in Delhi... over the reflective pool.

Dear Family and Friends,

Perhaps it is unkind of me to state so, but I found Lumbini, the fabled birthplace of Buddha, jiade. Oooh, but that’s jumping ahead a wee bit so…

My mini-bus away from Kathmandu was scheduled to depart at 7:15 am. So, like any seasoned traveler, I arrived a good 45 minutes before the scheduled departure time. Conservatively early, just in case. Although I had previously purchased a ticket, the bus station lacked reassuring signs of organization such as numbered departure gates and so I was forced to jockey to the ticket counter in order to discover where my bus was actually located. Soon, a youngish man in a black Adidas jacket lead me swiftly past a row of empty, parked mini-buses before settling on a seemingly random bus and pointing me to board it. He prevented me from bringing my backpack with me, instead locking it into a teeny trunk with flimsy lock. I climbed aboard an empty bus and sat. The seats were benches and hard. Eventually, two university-aged men with melting brown eyes also climbed on and took seats, only to then restlessly exit. Soon a family of 3 boarded. And then got off. And then back on again. Finally, when a third of the seats were occupied and my watch reported that it was 10 minutes past our scheduled departure time, the Adidas man, a driver, another man (who turned out to be a second driver), and another youngish man with a Porsche scarf knotted over his head climbed aboard the bus. The driver started the engine and we were off.

We drove about 30 feet and stopped. 10 minutes later, I’d estimate (generously), we had moved another 10 feet. The 2 youngish men, who shared the job of managing the bus and hustling additional people aboard, were effectively the doors of our bus. They clutched a bar inside while their bodies hung outside. They seemed to be in charge of our stopping and going: they’d signal when the driver could let off the brake with two smart slaps on the bus’s side. Vendors of newspapers and potato chips and bottled water climbed on to and back off the bus; beggars with cards in Hindi and English (purporting to be begging for charitable purposes) dropped a card in each person’s lap on their way in and picked the same card up on their way out.

Outside the bus, a lady snuggled a presumably beloved dog under her diagonally slung neckscarf. Our bus rolled another 20 feet or so (I was beginning to wonder if I could walk to Lumbini quicker than the bus would drive) and drew up near a series of shopping stalls – obviously not for tourists – with assorted plastics, woven hats, rows of sunglasses, and dusty piles of clothing. The bus swayed and chugged around a corner onto an actual street. There, men were pulling weighty boxes to the tops of other buses. Another man rode on a livestock truck: he had planted two bare feet on the back of a huge brown bull and clutched the back of the truck. Another truck passed, its back filled with burlap bags and two brown shiny shins of a man whom I presumed (and hoped) was merely burrowed asleep. Snack stalls hung with long rows of shiny wrappers that reminded me of packaged condoms – although in actuality, condoms are not easily located in Nepal. On the buildings and rubble bordering the street, clothes were hung to dry on every possible surface; there were a surprising number of decorative potted plants amongst shoddy abodes. The city was wreathed in morning smog – or was it dust? People hurried along the streets with kerchiefs to faces, while policemen waving their arms amongst traffic had cloth masks to cover their lips, elastic stretching across the back of their heads. A girl clothed from matted hair to foot in dust, smiled at me and then turned to beg while two tight slaps to the side of the bus sounded and the bus started down the street.

But we stopped again around the next corner. Wryly, I decided that I needn’t have bothered being early for this bus, I couldn't have missed it even if I had tried!

Finally, an hour after our departure time, we stopped stopping and began to drive into hills. I concluded that schedules aren’t a priority in a country like Nepal: the priority and profit must reside in riders, ticket sales, in filling the bus and not wasting space nor gas. As we drove, a few buses passed uncomfortably near the window next to my face. Inside our bus, a few men coughed phlegmily while the engine growled and groaned. One of the youngish bus managers, who I decided that I liked much due to his gentle touch with elder people, inserted a CD into the player next to the driver’s head and loud Indian music blasted through speakers. As the bus bumped and swayed and gunned through tall Nepali hills, I began to feel very motion sick. But I was fascinated with the people crowding on to the bus. I found myself remembering that my previous home in Korea is populated with rather homogeneous-looking people; Nepal’s confluence of people and cultures shows on its people’s faces: aquiline profiles with darker skin, often wavy or curly hair, and female bodies with more heft and curves.

My motion sickness became bearable only after I opened my bus window. The window kept falling closed and so I had to keep re-propping it open with my elbow. I recalled another drive, a year earlier in another country, when I spent an entire drive with my head stuck into the breeze. After that drive, friends noted that my face had been speckled and darkened. This drive was not much different – 13 hours later, in Lumbini, I wiped my face and ruined my face cloth.

A guesthouse proprietor discovered a tired, dirty me near the Lumbini bus “station” at sunset. He inquired into whether I wanted to see his place (“it is just across the street, madam”) (just across the street turned out to be 2 miles away via motorcycle!) but the place was clean, family-operated and seemed to a decent place to sleep. Well, seemed decent until the dark dreadful hour of 5:45 am the following morning when raucous Indian music began blasting from the neighbor’s house. Horrified, I sat up in bed and felt a strong craving for Starbucks crash over me: I almost broke into tears imagining a soothing soy latte accompanied by a cinnamon scone. I would’ve happily settled for either Starbucks or throttling the neighbor – but I was meters away from the birthplace of Buddha and while Buddha was all about alleviating human suffering, I didn’t think that he’d approve of neither my materialistic nor violent impulses. (Although truly, is it ok on any level to blast dancing music at 5:45 am???) (I think not.)

At breakfast, the hotel proprietor’s good cook of a son inquired if I wanted to rent a bicycle for the day. Finding the price agreeable, I decided that I did. The bicycle had a puzzling lock built into its back wheel (it took me 5 minutes and a patient tutor to master the lock), was too high for my short legs, had poor shocks, and took me a good 2 hours to get comfortable maneuvering. And after my day on the back of a bike, I had the strangest bruising on the palms of my hands. But peddling was a great way to tour Lumbini, a place that somewhat accurately, LP describes…

As the historical birthplace of Gauama Siddhartha Buddha, Lumbini is one of the most important religious sites in the world. The man who would later a achieve enlightenment under a Bodhi tree, inspiring a global philosophy of peace and reflection, was born under a sal tree in Lumbini in the month of May in 563 BC.

Despite an important destination for pilgrimages, Lumbini is nothing like Haridwar, Mecca or Lourdes. Pilgrims here come in a slow, respectful trickle and many stay on to meditate in the monasteries surrounding the sacred site. That said, Lumbini has undergone a major renaissance over the last few years, and new monasteries are springing up here faster than you can say ‘om mani padme hum’ [the famous Buddhist mantra].

The centre of Lumbini is the Maya Devi Temple, which marks the exact spot where Queen Maya Devi of Kapilavastu gave birth to Gautama Siddhartha. Surrounding the temple is a sacred garden containing the pillar Ashoka as well as the ruined foundations of dozens of ancient stupas and monasteries. Extending for miles around the sacred garden is a huge park known as the Lumbini Development Zone, designed by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange in 1978. It’s a work in progress but the grounds are already full of landscaped lakes and Buddhist monasteries, constructed by Buddhist communities from around the world.

Lumbini sounds like a lovely place, does it not? However, the key phrase in this description is “it’s a work in progress.” The Development Zone is 3 miles by 6 miles (so I was told), surrounded by a brick wall crowned by already rusting metal designs. Cows and rickshaws and children wander along the dusty roads; monkeys do not look both ways before crossing.

The Maya Devi Temple is indeed the center of the complex; monasteries are scattered throughout the grounds. But – and there is always a but! – although the grounds had a comfortable number of visitors, the Development Zone is piles of sand yet to be smoothed into roads, scaffoldings absent of workers, lakes half filled with water, and even a museum filled with pictures of, not actual, artifacts. In his book Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler uses the Chinese word “jiade” to describe fake imitations of genuine objects. For me, Lumbini was a holy place devoid of holy – and I don’t believe that I felt this way because I’m not Buddhist. During my 7 hours of tooling about, I saw only 3 monks. While the monasteries (erected by countries such as Korea or China or Myanmar or Germany) did indeed contain Buddha statues big and small, laying or seated lotus in lotus position, the statues were made of plaster, or worse, plastic. Not one monastery that I visited (mind you, I didn’t visit them all), had the required atmosphere for paying respect, mantras, meditation or study. No doubt, once upon a time Lumbini was a beautiful, holy place but today it is an under-funded, unrealized dream. A jiade. Almost more sad than beautiful.

But, for me, Lumbini was a detour not a destination. And so, after I was awakened by raucous music at 5:15 am the following morning, I soon found myself propping open another mini-bus window while on my way to the Nepal/India border.

Yours,
Laura

Interior of my Nepali mini-bus.

A street in Lumbini...

Gauama Siddhartha - who later became
known as Buddha - was actually born. Here.

Buddha statue.

I was disproportionately overjoyed to find the Korean temple in Lumbini.

Although the Korean temple in Lumbini is also "a work in progress."

The jiade Chinese temple.

Plastic disciples around a plastic Buddha.

Dusk in Lumbini...

Dear Friends and Family,

On the last day of my Tibetan overland tour, I was abruptly – very abruptly – ejected at the border. Somehow I hadn’t realized that my Tibetan guide and driver would remain on the Tibet-side of the border and consequently, I was shocked to find myself bidding them farewell. I pushed my sunglasses against my nose and hoped that no one would notice the occasional tears that slipped down my cheeks. I slung my getting-lighter-but-still-heavy backpack onto my back, slung my purse across my chest and walked myself across the Friendship Bridge into Nepal.

The scenery had changed during the night: from dusty, near-arid mountains where Tibetans bent over their fields raking golden hay in for winter and yak could barely keep their balance into green: the thick, verdant green of the sort that grows bananas and coconuts. I imagined the landscape would change in a similar manner if one could drive 40 miles from North Dakota to Hawaii.

Wanting a moment to collect myself, as my sense of safety had vanished leaving the same unpleasant feeling that a pin causes an over-inflated balloon, I pulled my camera out to photograph a green and white foamy waterfall but was quickly sighted and reprimanded by a blue-fatigue clad Nepali soldier. My unhappy mindset deepened.

Chaos bombarded me. In crossing that river, in crossing that bridge, I was immediately in a new country where the men looked like Indian Indies: slightly shorter, high cheekbones and prominent noses while the women where covered in flaming saris. The houses were built of orange brick with hills to their backs or precariously supported, leaning over cliffs. Chickens minced across the street. Smallish freighting trucks lined the narrow border-bound road, colorfully painted in a myriad of patterns. Women squatted and scrubbed near pipes of streaming water; men and women alike carried enormous wicker baskets lashed to their backs and across their foreheads. Teen-aged boys crowded suitcases on the roofs of buses.

I felt only shock.

While still in Tibet, a man had approached our SUV and through an open window enquired, “One? American?”

My guide said, “Yes.” I barely had time to blink and hand them both tips before I was hurried to the line that would stamp my passport and exit me from China. The strange man said nothing to me, disappeared as I got into line on one side of the border but popped up on the other side of the border, urging me to sit in a café to await my driver and guide. My mind spun. Who was he? Would I need to pay the next driver and guide? Who had hired this driver and guide? Could I trust what was happening to me? I was confused, scared, buffeted by chaos and with effort, forced myself into resignation. What would happen would happen. I’d deal with whatever came my way. Happily, I had made friends with a pair of Australians the day before and they too had been ushered into the same café. We sat and stewed until a guide appeared in the doorway to call for them, followed by a guide that sat behind me, gave me a smarmy smile and ushered me into the passenger seat of another Toyota Land Cruiser SUV. From that vantage point, I could clearly see the road and was able to appreciate the good-bye wave of my friend’s arm protruding from an open passenger window.

The mountain roads in Nepal were no improvement over the ones in Tibet. My new Nepali guide, sent by the Nepali organization that organized my entire Tibetan overland tour, tried to engage me in affable conversation but I couldn’t maintain a friendly façade. My shock hadn’t faded – in fact, it never even abated that entire day. I had a difficult time placing myself into my habitual curious observer mode. Tears occasionally slipped to my chin. And the road didn’t help. It was a series of twists with parts that plunged into a white-tipped river below, waterfalls crossed the road and had to be slowly forged through, and of course, there were exponentially more rocks than pavement.

We stopped for lunch but I moodily stared at the river and, motion-sick, only ordered water. Our drive continued and wended us through shadow-casting terraced hills of rice, through single road villages with houses that averaged four stories in height. Not long after lunch, we stopped in one village under the guise of another “rest.” My guide disappeared but eventually reappeared with his entire family: a forthright son, a pretty daughter, a lined wife and someone else. They crowded – all – into the passenger seat of the SUV and were kind but not kindred. I was quiet.

Kathmandu was apparent from a distance: a carpet of many brick houses blanketed by smog. The city roads did not boast increased organization and city traffic was chaotic. Disinterestedly, I watched motorcycles cut across our path and was amused to realize that crazy city traffic doesn’t bother me within the least – while mountains with the potential for the car to go down, down terrify me. I was painfully polite when I said good-bye to my day’s driver and guide as they dropped me off at the hotel that I bid them to. I checked into the hotel and was grateful to shut the door on the world. What I had seen of Kathmandu strongly reminded me of another city that I had not particularly appreciated, Medan (Sumatra), and upon throwing myself in bed, I attempted to raise my enthusiasm for Nepal by belatedly perusing my Lonely Planet. I began a list of things to do with laundry, followed by thorough shower. After dark, I had to scramble for my flashlight after the power cut and when I carried my laundry to the hotel lobby, I was told that a single light bulb in my room was run on a generator. Most electricity cuts in Kathmandu are scheduled and accommodated.

In the dark, my curtains added a small layer of security; nonetheless, I curled in the middle of the bed, trying to escape Kathmandu via a paperback mystery, and desperately wished to be… well, anywhere. My gumption had deserted me and in that dark, I hoped that it would return with the following day.

* * * *

Awaking in Kathmandu is a bit like responding to a slow action alarm clock.

“Riiiiiiiing ring.”

Quiet.

“Ring. Ring. Ring.”

Quiet.

Quiet.

“Ring riiing.”

It took me a few mornings to realize that the early morning bells that began as light just stained the sky were the result of a Hindi tradition called puja. According to LP,

Every morning Hindu women all over Nepal can be seen walking through the streets
carrying a plate, usually copper, filled with an assortment of goodies. These
women are not delivering breakfast but are taking part in an important daily
ritual called puja. The plate might contain flower petals, rice, yogurt, fruit
or sweets, and it is an offering to the gods made at the local temple. Each of
the items is sprinkled onto a temple deity in a set order and a bell is rung to
let the gods know an offering is being made. Once an offering is made it is
transformed into a sacred object and a small portion is returned to the giver as
a blessing from the deity. Upon returning home from her morning trip, the woman
will give a small portion of the blessed offerings to each member of the
household.

In the days following my arrival in Kathmandu, I plotted an escape from a faultlessly polite but sexually predatory hotel manager, stumbled upon a beautiful garden where I could catch up on my reading, and discovered my Australian friends’ hotel. Before they departed, we took ourselves to a place that strongly echoes Tibet named the Bodhnath stupa. All 3 of us had lost a bit of our hearts to Tibet and were not quick to develop a fondness for the dust and Hindus, so we found the Buddhist stupa with its famous third eye, and the Tibetan-style buildings surrounding it, appealing. Later, after my new friends departed for Hong Kong, I walked a daunting flight of concrete stairs and into another Kathmandu holy place, known as Swayambhuynath temple (popularly known as the monkey temple). The temple also had a famous third eye painted upon its stupa… but the swooping dome that lifts its eyes towards the sky had monkeys scrambling across it while Kathmandu city sprawled beneath. The monkeys had reddened behinds, traveled in small families and adroitly picked through mounds of garbage. Their babies had tiny skulls; the monkeys seemed wild, like animals.

My plan to rest in Kthamandu for 5 days was destroyed by the realization that I needed to submit to the Indian embassy for a tourist visa. Both a travel agent and LP concurred that I needed to wait outside the gates of the embassy to obtain a visa: so in the days following, I made 4 trips. First I went on foot on Sunday to locate the embassy. I skipped breakfast on Monday to arrive at 7:30 am and stand in a queue that I calculated was about 35 people. At 8:30, we were allowed through the embassy gates, run through metal detectors, allowed to take a number and ushered into metal seats. I filled out a “telex” form that rumor suggested I needed so that the embassy could query the USA (rumor was correct). When my number rang at 11:30 am, it took minutes to submit the form to a man behind glass and pay 300 Nepali rupees ($4) for the privilege of visiting. Abruptly, I was instructed to return 4 days later (money apparently doesn’t speed Indian bureaucracy) and duly arrived on Thursday at 7:15 am only to learn at 11:30 am that the US apparently hadn’t responded to the Indian query. I was dismayed and less than pleased to picture myself fruitlessly returning the following morning but the visa man quieted my dismay.

“How long you need visa?”

“Uh? (4 weeks of yoga plus some traveling…) 6 weeks, I think?”

“I give you 2 months visa now. Ok?”

“Yeah, ok.” Not like I had a lot of room for negotiation. I paid the 6-month visa fee and was instructed to leave my passport and return at 4:30 pm. It was dark and 6:00 pm when I exited the embassy. But I had my visa.

Early the next morning, I bought a bus ticket to Lumbini – the apparent birthplace of Buddha. The following morning, I gathered my gumption and departed Kathmandu.

Laura

A monkey about to jump from its temple...

The Garden of Dreams... one of my favorite places in Kathmandu.

Kathmandu city.

Kathmandu's historic Durbar Square.

Dear Family and Friends,

In her memoir about teaching English in 1980s Tibet, Inside the Treasure House, Catriona Bass wrote that, "[e]ver since the fifties, petitions had been smuggled out [of Tibet] to the UN. In the early days people dreamt of an army being sent in - they had heard of the UN forces in Korea [preventing South Korea from becoming a Communist-ruled state]."




Initially when I read that statement, I paused, considered, and thought, "naaaah." And yet, despite my rejection of this statement, the idea that the UN should've intervened on Tibet's behalf in 1951 has continued to nag me.

I barely need say here that I have established a fair understanding of Korea and its history - although by no means have I established scholarship-level knowledge of it, nor of international law, China, nor Tibet. In passing, I have read that the basis of the Chinese claim on Tibet is that the 2 share a very long history, an idea which is irrefutable considering their close geographic proximity. In fact, it was an army from Tibet in the year of 210 BC that attacked the Chinese city which we now know as Xi'an, ending a certain remarkable tomb-building project that has given modern-day tourists the joys of photographing an entire army of Terracotta Warriors. Throughout that time 'til comparatively modern times, say a century or so ago, Tibet developed its own life, maintained its own government, and indeed kept its own army (although whether the Tibetan army was fit for actual fighting is highly questionable).

The main pillar of China's claim on Tibet seems to be that for hundreds of years, Tibet paid costly tributes to the Chinese empire, for which China in provided protection - or at least desisted from actual aggression. But here's the thing: for hundreds of years, Korea also paid costly tributes to the Chinese empire in return for the same sort of protection. So while Tibet was busily making payments to the Chinese, identifying and raising Dalai Lama incarnates, building the Potala and allowing as few people as possible to visit their land, so was Korea. Well, with semantic differences. Korea was ruled by its Joseon Dynasty, built the Gyeongbokgugn Palace, and was isolated to the point of being well-known as "The Hermit Kingdom." One could well imagine that if had been possible for Europeans to crash ships and strand sailors on the shores of Tibet, Tibet might've been known as "The Super Hermited Kingdom" (or something like that) - but Tibet was so isolated that it lacked the very seas necessary to earn this imaginary title.

Anyway, the more I compared my understanding of Korean history to what I was learning about Tibetan history, the better I could understand, and indeed sympathize with the comparison that the Tibetans had drawn with the Koreans. However, historical comparatives between the two countries breakdown when the Japanese colonized Korea in the year of 1910 and collapse in the year of 1945, when the Americans and Russians agreed to temporarily split Korea into north and south. During the next few years South Korea hatched its fledgling democracy under the heavy-handed UN and US, while North Korea turned Communist under the equally heavy hands of Kim, Il-Sung backed by the Russians while China fully turned Communist under the leadership of Mao, Tse-tung. When North Korea attacked South Korea in 1950, the US, barely concealed under the auspices of the UN, went the rescue of its new friend and might have well re-acquired the northern portion of Korea to boot if China hadn't decided to send "volunteers" (their army) into Korea in order to support its Communist comrades. Speculation aside, the result of this 1950s disagreement remains: South Korea and North Korea are armistically divided with a DMZ and very different governments.

Nothing I've ever read about Korean history has ever cast any doubt upon the notion that Korea is a different state and a culture than China. But it must be noted that Korea is as - in fact more - geographically approximate to China than Tibet. Although the language and the writing and the cultures of China and Korea are completely different, you can equally truthfully say the same about Tibet. In fact, honesty, I observed more similarities between Korea and China than I did between Tibet and China. For example, Korea and China are both acutely Confucian societies, mixed with unmistakable strands of Buddhism and Christianity. But also, Korean and Chinese societies were structured similarly, ruled similarly, shared similar values, and tended to even look similar in that they valued a similar ascetic in art and architecture. In contrast, Tibetan culture seems untouched by Confucianism and its values, their historical government was a mix of religious and secular, and their art and architecture were quite different.

All of this got me thinking: Korea was a Chinese protectorate. If Japan, the US and Russia hadn't stuck their oars into Korea during the early 20th century, would China have made the same argument about Korea that they made about Tibet? The same argument that China prefers to make about the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the same argument that the world seems to be gradually swallowing about Taiwan? At one point, was Korea been in real danger of also being swallowed by China?

I don't know what my Korean friends would say about this (I suspect they wouldn't approve of this general line of reasoning), but I came around to the Tibetan's logic and wanted an answer to the question: if the world and the UN intervened to grant Korea its rightful independence, why didn't they intervene on behalf of Tibet?

And the answer to that question can only lie within the alliances and political machinations of the late 1940s and early 1950s. In fact, when the Chinese Army moved to acquire Tibet in late 1950, the world had already mobilized its troops in order to rescue another country: Korea. Although truly, realistically at that point in time just past World War II as well as in 1959, the world was exhausted from war - it might not have been able to intervene even if the political will on behalf of Tibetan independence had been strong. The UN passed concerns intoning “grave concern” during 1959 and the early 1960s, while the Chinese dug in their heels and worsened the situation with the Cultural Revolution.


I suppose that now, in the year of 2008, the whys and whatfors must take a backseat to the reality of the Tibetan situation. In 1951, China forced Tibet into a 17-point plan that allowed Tibet to keep its own government - and then China proceeded to figuratively stomp that agreement into the ground - and then rip it to pieces. By 1959, things in Tibet were grim and became grimmer when the Chinese "invited" the young Dalai Lama to one of their army bases to enjoy some sort-of cultural performance – sans entourage. Tibetans were certain that their beloved leader was in danger - and they were likely correct. A few years before, leaders of the movement for Uyghur independence in a province neighboring Tibet that is now called Xinjiang, were invited for peace talks and their flight mysterious vanished, leaving the Uyghars without leadership nor independence. Luckily the Tibetans were able to rescue their leadership and it is well known that today Tibet is a region with a history of wanting to be to free of Chinese rule, a province titled a autonomous while utterly lacking autonomy. The world fantasizes about Shangri-La, utters platitudes in the ears of the beloved Dalai Lama, and either cannot or will not intervene as they did, 50 years ago, in Korea.



Catriona Bass's comment about Tibetans pinning their hopes for UN intervention was actually part of a longer heart-wrenching vignette. One day, one of Bass's friends, a Tibetan monk, showed her a letter that he had written to the United Nations saying, in part that

The world should know that every Tibetan considered the Dalai Lama to be their
leader.. Now the Chinese talk about liberalization, they say Tibetans have
never had it so good, but Tibetans are still unhappy. We have no real
freedom.. Many Tibetans are still suffering in person for their beliefs...
They are beaten and tortured and treated worse than ordinary criminals...

Bass wrote that she listened to her friend's letter to the UN with a fair amount of cynicism, some of which perhaps showed on her face because her friend said to her,

"You think I'm naive, don't you? Of course I know that western governments
aren't going to suddenly take our side against China. China is more important
than we are. It always has been, and now western countries are frightened that
if they offend the Chinese government they'll loose their share of Chinese
trade.

[And so,] we must talk to tourists, tell the outside world about
Tibet, maybe it will change something. Maybe it won't. But there is no other
way."

Visiting Tibet convinced me that the world should take a stronger stand, indeed the world should take action, in order to allow the people of Tibet to determine their own future. There must be a way.


Laura

Dear Friends and Family,

Well, as it has been over a week and approximately 1000 kilometers since my last opportunity to post to this blog. Therefore, I trust that you will be unsurprised to read that I've been on the move. Quite naturally, you may (or, truly, may not) like to inquire, where in the world is she now?

Well, I'll tell you. But, as a warning, you may need to dig out an atlas to follow my answer. My latest journey began with a 12 hour Nepali mini-bus from Kathmandu to Lumbini. Followed by a more fractured trip that began with an another mini-bus, then tuk-tuk, and then I went on foot (over the border into India), and lastly a 2-hour taxi ride which ended in the city of Gorakhpur. The next evening, I caught an Indian Railways sleeper train (sleep not necessarily included) from Gorakhpur that arrived the following afternoon in Delhi. Lastly, a few days ago, I climbed aboard another train and then caught a taxi to where I've now settled: 2 kilometers from a Northern section of the Ganges River, just outside of a town in India called Rishikesh. I'm in Rishikesh for a month, where I plan to study yoga and eat Indian food. Two tasks that I embrace, I must say, with equal enthusiasm.


But I left you all thousands of kilometers back at near the flanks of Mount Everest so...


******************************************************************

Sunrises in Tibet are lovely, as, indeed, sunrises around the world usually are. Tibetan sunrises make the western hills glow gold and cast the eastern hills into the deepest shadows. Tibetan sunrises are also pleasantly accessible for a woman who prefers to open her eyes nearer to 8 am than 6 am thanks to a Chinese government mandate which requires the country operate within a single time zone. As the US and China near -comparable in total area, this would be like Washington DC mandating that Anchorage operate within its same time zone. Personally, I cannot approve of the high-handedness within this mandate and yet, I enjoyed the result: sunrises just shy of 8 am.




We had barely left the town of Shegar and the sun was not yet lighting the hills when we were halted at our first checkpoint. All 3 of us - my guide, our driver and me - had our paperwork thoroughly examined by the Chinese police before we were allowed to continued on our way. The road from Shegar was no longer paved and as we drove up through a mountain pass that morning, we bounced and skidded and even fishtailed in the gravel. The drive should've been scary but it was not. Our driver's skill was evident. And the view at the top of the pass was incredible: the hills pulled aside and between them rested a low blanket of clouds with the peak of Everest touching the sky behind them. Mount Everest was both majestic and unmistakable; it became very evident to me how some people could equate mountains with gods.



We continued to spit dust as we descended down the pass. We crossed through another two police checkpoints.



"Are they looking for me?" I asked.



"Nah," briefly reassured my guide.



But that didn't actually reassure me. We spent near 20 minutes at the next checkpoint, and during that time, the young, stern-faced military police officers spent a lot of time examining my passport and permit and making phone calls. I sat in the car and worried; despite having nothing to hide, these examinations were nerve-wracking. We also stopped in two hamlets that morning, the adults were raking hay into stacks while their children would race full tilt towards our SUV, crowding around the car and calling to me, "Halloh, halloh, lady." Or pointing to their mouths, pleading with their eyes, and cupping their hands to await money. I hated the begging - which I later read has no stigma in Tibetan culture - those children that morning seemed to have put aside dignity in hopes of candy or a Chinese yuan that other foreigners had taught them to ask for but that they didn't necessarily need. It hurt to refuse their pleas, but neither would I give them money.



Our last checkpoint stopped us at a famous Everest Kodak moment. The police examined our paperwork while I stared out the window at the Rongbuk Monastery, a low, remote monastery crowned by a gold-tipped stupa. Later, in Kathmandu, I realized that many a postcard photographer has positioned him or herself behind the monastery and photographed the stupa with Mount Everest in the background. I bought a postcard of this particular angle on Everest but felt that my experience far outweighed missing a single, if famous, picturesque moment.



Although I tried not to show it, you could've knocked me over with a feather when we pulled up to that night's Everest 3-star hotel. Neither the itinerary nor my guide warned me that in the Everest Base Camp, hotels were actually large, woolen rectangular tents with chimneys thrusting from their roofs. Upon our arrival, I parted a heavy curtain, stepped onto a bright red carpet, and tried not to blink at the sight of wooden benches covered with thick woolen rugs and piled with thick comforters that surrounded the tent's perimeter. An iron stove, faithfully tended by a kind Tibetan lady proprietress, turned out to be the life of the place: they spent the entire day heating kettle after kettle of water to boiling. I walked to a corner bench well away from the door, set my backpack down, and immediately the proprietress poured me a glass of jasmine tea. She then picked up a colorful thermos and poured steaming cups of yak butter tea for our driver while my guide informed me that we'd be spending the night there.



"Ok?" he asked me more than some-what rhetorically.



Sure it was ok by me. I had just finished Jon Kraukauer's Into Thin Air and from that expected that the base camp would lack amenities. I had never camped in a tent that large, nor that plush and I had packed a flashlight that would do very well for visiting the outhouse. But I did wish that someone had warned me to savor the morning's hot shower.



The North-side Mount Everest Base Camp was actually 4 kilometers from where we stayed. We stayed in a u-shaped cluster of hotels - sorry, I mean tents - facing Mount Everest, between the monastery and the actual base camp. Our camp was relatively isolated from the weather by lively, jagged hills and decorated with thousands of years of avalanche debris. There wasn't much to do within the camp itself, I wasn't permitted to walk beyond its perimeter, and so I nested our tent's corner and caught up on my journal while my guide, our driver, the hotel proprietress's husband (not to mention various other Tibetan guides and drivers) drifted in and out, smoking and playing cards. Sometimes I myself drifted out into the chilly afternoon: to gape at the mountain, to explore the camp, to visit the outhouse - but most of the time, I quietly resided in my own English-language filled world sipping on jasmine tea, listening to the slap of cards against the table. Black birds with vivid yellow beaks flew above the valley, white dust from the dried river bed turned to clouds in the stiff winds. All the while, Everest remained a breath-taking sight. I quickly ran out of appropriate adjectives. Sunset partially pinkened the mountain and night quickly descended upon the camp. Our proprietress served me a plate of Tibetan rice and I ate it with wooden chopsticks, illuminated by a single florescent bulb powered by a car battery. Eventually, my eyes resumed their worrying problem with focusing and so I sat and listened and sometimes participated in the Tibetan socializing... all men, all curious (a female, alone?), and all perfectly friendly.



When it came time for bed, fully clothed, I shimmied into my REI sleeping bag liner (purchased in anticipation of unhygienic beds) and my guide tucked two comforters around me, gently tucking them around my feet and behind my back as if I were a toddler. Indeed, I felt just like a toddler when, just after I had been comfortably settled and put my head down on two teddy bear pillows, I wriggled out of my bed to use the outhouse one final time. Once re-settled, I blocked my ears with my iPod's headphones, turned my back to the light bulb and fell asleep to strangely vivid dreams about people at Perkins Coie... my former workplace in Seattle. I awoke several times throughout the night but it wasn't until morning that I could see that while the hotel proprietress and her family had not slept in our tent but my guide, our driver and two of their friends had settled under their own comforters on the benches. But propriety had been observed in giving me an entire bench wall to myself. During the night, the fire had burned out and my leftover jasmine tea turned to ice.



The sunrise at Everest was lovely but not brilliant. My guide and I walked 4 kilometers, often having to stop while I caught my rasping breath, to the "real" base camp. Bored Chinese guards examined our paperwork before waving us to a short hill strewn with prayer flags. We climbed to the summit of the hill and there, spread before us, was Mount Everest. We sat for a few minutes, just to enjoy. The sky was a compelling blue and completely devoid of clouds... and Everest was as you might expect: gorgeous, majestic, breath-taking.



BUT it wasn't amazingly tall. You see, if one comes from a land ruled by a 14,410 foot towering mountain (Mt. Rainier) and if one has already reached an elevation of 17,090 feet, then the tallest mountain in the world appears to be a mere 11,939 feet. And yet, a visit to Mount Everest can only be rated as wondrous.



A group of Chinese tourists joined us on the hill but appeared to be more excited about me, an American tourist with "blond" hair, than the world's highest peak. With my permission, each person put his or her arm around me and posed for pictures - without the mountain - before bidding us cheery farewells as my guide and I began our walk back to the hotel.



We broke camp at noon and had driven approximately 1 kilometer past the Rongbuk monastery when the SUV broke down. Without any sign of alarm or even annoyance, our driver and my guide matter-of-factly climbed out and rounded to the back of Land Cruiser in order to extract a box of tools, unwrap several engine parts, and set to work. I remained in my backseat, took in an amusing NPR podcast, and used the "ladies room" (an outcrop of rocks just below where the gentlemen could see me) several times. It took another driver and guide stopping to provide aid as well as our hotel roprietress's husband and friend delivering a fresh car battery (I suspect that ours died testing early repairs), and we were on our way.

I cannot think that a car break down, especially in a remote region such as Tibet is ever a good thing, but 2 kilometers after getting started, I was very glad that I had had so much time to utilize my primitive ladies room or fear may have very well had me peeing in my pants.

No joke.

But the landscape continued to enchant me. The hills turned ochre, green and brown-gold, smooth, rough... they were constant only in their changefulness. Some resembled the sort-of cliffs bordering rough seas while others bore smoothness of eons. We saw few people that day but memorably, I caught a glimpse of a man with a dark face and lean build, red tassel wrapped amongst the braids on his head, driving 6 saddled yaks with a long stick. Reluctant to loose sight of him, I turned to the back window and the man and his yaks became Platonic shadows with green hills parted around them, as if the hills were dusty green velvet stage curtains, while snow-covered Himilayas brightened the horizon.

The beauty of the ride would've been sublime - except for the road. Driving away from Everest, we veered onto an unmarked dirty track, crossing a river valley and beyond. The road was sometimes gravel, sometimes gravel and rocks, sometimes large rocks with streams of water pouring through them. Many times I lost sight of the road altogether and several times I considered interrupting our progress so that I could take a picture for you all that I would titled "Where is the bloody road???"

Over bumps, skidding through gravel, we could've been stars in an ultimate Toyota SUV commercial but I felt like I was sitting on a trampoline. The SUV would hit a bump and I'd go flying from my bench seat - feeling as if my bones were being flung to the ceiling and then I'd drop back and all my bones would crash against each other. The bouncing, however, was not the worst part of the ride. We kept coming to narrow bits of road, cut from cliffs, barely wide enough for our car, with a 100 foot drop to the river below. And the road felt as if it inclined downwards, towards the river. I slid to the hill-side of the car for balance - and to escape the sight of the river. Our driver had already proved himself stellar but I was terrified.

Arriving in the frontier town of Tingli at somewhere around 6 pm was a relief despite the fact that it required the use of an enamel basin for washing my face and utilizing a truly disgusting outhouse. I sipped on jasmine tea as children parted the curtains of the street-side hotel restaurant to beg for money and an elderly man serenaded us by playing a tin coffee can strung with strings. Truly amazing sounds came from his instrument - which had pegs for tuning the strings and an arched bow. Next door, a family was tossing bowls of whitewash upon their house while others painted the trim with inexact colored paint and brushes.

The next day's drive was more palatable that the previous day's, but still had its moments. We continued away from the village of Tingli on a dirt road but were regularly forced off the road in order to skirt bridge construction sites. We drove around a lot of construction sites but the most notable required 10 minutes off-roading through hills of dirt on the right-side of the site before our driver seemingly forced to concede to wait until backhoes had completed their next stage of work and might let us pass. However, our driver clenched a lit cigarette between his teeth and went for a stroll near the hills on the left side of the site. When he came back, he honked until he had rearranged several trucks and we could escape our parking spot. Our driver then drove into a ditch, spun the wheels and spit gravel, but then manged to find enough purchase in order to drive up and onto a brush and rock covered hill. Tipped to almost 30 degrees and speechless (both with morbid fascination and admiration), I flattened myself in the seat while my guide grinned from outside the car before joining us on the other side of the construction.

The scenery widened to the either side of us and soon we were driving straight up towards more snow-capped Himalayas. Eventually we were forced to halt in a line of SUVs and cars - all captives of construction on the "Friendship Highway" that would open for traffic sometime that evening. There was a village where one could pass some time eating lunch and making friends and so of course, I did both. But as evening approached, it became downright cold in the village and so I returned to our parked SUV to await the rest of our drive.

After sunset, somewhere near 15 minutes before 8 pm, the road opened. Our driver tossed his cigarette, gripped the wheel and followed the path of the SUV in front of us. At first the highway was paved but quickly we ran into tight turns and bouncy holes. If I had been scared before, now I was beyond terrorised. It was very dark. There were no street lights. The road sharply twisted and turned... there were slides... In the dark, I glimpsed impressive cliffs and beautiful waterfalls but the road felt undefined with sketchy bridges, piles of rocks and backhoes and shovels and concrete molds and shiny guardrails - or worse - no guardrails at all. Sometimes, I'd peer out the side of the truck and see flames flickering in the distance: migrant road workers taking their dinners in tents. The dark below was fathomless and I imagined us helplessly slipping down into it; our driver sang with his music while my guide warily watched the road. I clutched the door handle - if that handle had been a human hand, I would've broken it. The 30 kilometer driver exceeded an hour... but we eventually and safely arrived into a city built into switchbacks. The city streets were lined with lorry trucks waiting their turn to cross the border and little convenience stores, waiting to feed snacks to the lorry truck drivers. My tension eased amongst my first shower in days. It may seem over-dramatic, but during the hour or so previous, all the beauty of the days before had vanished from my mind's eye... and at that moment, logically or illogically, I was simply relieved to be alive.

Love,
Laura

My first glimpse of Everest.

The "hotel" NaPa.

A pretty Tibetan doorway.

A city in the cliffs...

Make your dreams come true at the Qomolangma Nature Reserve.

(Qomolangma is the Tibetan name for the mountain that we call Mount Everest).