Misc stuff about Tibet

No bathing in Tibet, is the thing i remember the most. Yeah. no bathing on the train there, then first few days to acclimatize. I bathed on day5, after which we started ascending again and i stopped bathing. Only bathed twice in my 12 day trip. But i bet we all smelt the best in Tibet. Coz people there bathe only 3 times a year!

For the first 2 days in Tibet, we followed a tour group of 28 people. From the 3^rd day onwards, we left the group, 8 of us split into 2 SUVs and had 1 tour guide to bring us on our mount everest stint! Both tour guides are pretty young, first one from Chengdu called Xiaowen, while the 2^nd is tibetian called duojie. (well, I guess only tibetians can really bear with the altitude and weather of everest. While we were freezing in layers of clothes and down, duojie was wearing a t-shirt and not feeling cold at all!! >.<)

I guess it’s coz the group size was small, thus we got along better with the 2^nd tour guide. Furthermore, he followed the SUV with sam, pris, bong and I in it. Actually, he didn’t look THAT young.. but found out tt he’s only 25!! Must be the long hours under the strong UV in tibet, plus the chain smoking that caused him to look older than he actually is. Haha. Interestingly, our tourguide is also a part-time artist, drawing tibetian paintings (thangkha) to sell in his free time.

That’s me with our tour guide, right at Everest~

Toilets in Tibet.. are.. not really existent. Haha. However, non-existent toilets are still better than smelly and gross toilets! The most tiring thing that makes me out of breathe is usually toilet visits, as you either have to hold your breathe while you’re in there, or you have to climb some hills to find some rocks to hide behind.

Pris and shu’s hiding place

My peeing rock

Bong’s rock

And since everest is an important place, I even took a VIDEO of the toilet there!! ^_^

Somehow, many people whom I’ve talked to after this trip, told me “I’ve never seen this (nature) side of you”. Well, it’s not a new side of me, but simply a side that seldom gets revealed in the midst of city life. I DO love nature. In fact, when leaving Tibet, I actually asked myself, why was I willing to succumb to pressures and remain in Singapore? Why did I not have more courage to give up everything I have and move to some remote village and lead a simple life? I even wondered if a compromise could be reached. Something like in the movie Painted Veil, where a guy risked his life to do research on infectious diseases in a village in China. Maybe I could do some cancer research in some village too. Then I’d have the best of both worlds. Whoahaha. I am just day dreaming.

This path I have chosen. 10 days a year, is the max I will be able to find retreat in some simple place from now on.

Enjoying the sky, the mountains, the view, the cold air.. together with tibetian singing.. is the most enjoyable moments..

Thanks Sam for inviting me on this trip. Thanks Bong for being my nice roomie, and being so stern with me and thus keeping me safe during the trip. Thanks to Jinghui, Pris, Anshu, Patrick and Yifei for making such wonderful company~

Nature in Tibet!!

A pleasant surprise was a complete circular rainbow above Potala Palace, even when it did not rain that day! I don’t know how that rainbow appeared, but it sure is beautiful ^_^

What else to see, but lots of mountains, lakes, valleys, blue skies, green pastures!

Mountain with many stripes. COlorful mountains were labelled as "artists' palette" in death valley, as a tourist attraction. Here, in tibet, you see it everywhere.

Of course, the main highlight of the trip.. was Everest!!

Us at Everest Base Camp (EBC), day1. Freezing cold, wind very strong, and everest (right behind me) is hidden behind heavy clouds. The tent that we slept in. Brrr..

Warming up inside the tent

Tent is kept warm in the day by burning yak dung (amazingly, it doesn't smell! Really! i had my dinner sitting right next to it! And pat even BBQ-ed his bun using the smoke from yak dung! >.<)

Everest early in the morning.

Everest at sunset

Everest after sunset

Everest at night

Reflection of Everest on a lake in the morning

Me with everest

Taking the horse carriage further up Mount Everest

At everest base camp (the old one, 5200m above sea level)

Attempting jumping shots at everest (even when we were advised not to have physical exertion due to lack of oxygen!) Diamox rules~ (medication that saved me from any form of altitude sickness! ^_^)
Utterly tired after 10 jumping shots. There is definitely less oxygen up there, despite me taking Diamox religiously

And of course, tones of videos on everest!!

Windy windy windy at everest base camp



Walking towards everest on day1 when everest was still blocked by the clouds

News reporting the sighting of Sunset everest



Taking the horse carriage up to the Old EBC early in the morning at 7am



Screaming (and fainting from lack of oxygen) at summit of EBC (Everest Base Camp)

View of everest from the horse carriage in the morning

Cultural side of Tibet

Some interesting stuff that we learnt about Tibetians during the trip:

· Greeting term is “zha1 xi1 de2 le4”, thank you is “tu1 ji1 qie4”.

Us with our ma3 da2 (white scarf), given while saying zha xi de le.

· National animal in Tibet is the Yak (mao2 niu2). However, yak is only the male version. The female one is called the ‘dju’. Hence, I wonder how the term ‘yak milk’ came about. Hmm..

Yak milk tea (aka butter tea), most common beverage in tibet, very good for keeping warm. However, it tasted like melted butter! ultra oily! >.<

Yak is not only for it's milk, but also for its meat! yumyum.. i ate yak at every chance i could

Yak curry

Yak sekuwa (nepali dish)

Yak meatballs

Yak stew

Yak stir fried with capsicum

Some other photos are with bong.. but.. you get the idea. yak tastes similar to beef, but you don't get it in singapore!! ^_^

· National food in Tibet is Tsamba. It is made mainly from Barley, processed into barley flour, and mixed together with cheese, butter and sugar. Sounds really yummy eh? ^_^ It is usually eaten with yak soup.

We tried Tsamba at a tibetian restaurant in Shigatse

· They have 4 types of burials after death. Water, air, land, fire. Fire is like cremation, used for Dalai Lamas. Land is just burying of the body. Water burial involves the stripping of the body, then wrapped with a white cloth called the ‘ma3 da2’, then attaching stones to the body before throwing into the river to be devoured by the fishes. Air burial involves the cutting of the body in pieces, mixed with Tsamba, priests pray and the ‘boss vulture’ will lead the rest of the vultures to consume the body. People who have sinned much are believed to be left uneaten during air burials. Sick people are usually given land/fire burials to prevent spread of disease. Otherwise, tibetians in general prefer air/water burials, as they believe in returning their bodies to nature after death. (I argued with the tour guide that land burial also can return to plants.. but.. oh well.. plants and animals are different, I guess. Haha)

Mountain for air burials

Lake for water burials (thus, don't eat fish in tibet!! >.<)

· Some villages in Tibet still practice arranged marriage. Furthermore, if a family has more than 1 son, only 1 son has to marry a wife, and the remaining brothers share the same wife! (However, some the Tibetians are getting increasingly modernized, and do no see a need in marriage without feelings, thus arranged marriages are decreasingly popular)

Other random photos of tibetians

THey're very strong people, the tibetians. The amount of yak meat (much tougher than beef) they eat must be a factor

They tend to carry around this thing that they keep swirling around. Each swirl means 1 additional chance

Kids posing for my camera!! ^_^
Road side stall

Bong said this is my "national geographic shot" XD

Shops along bu4 xing2 jie1 (walking street) in Shigatse, the model town in Tibet

Pool tables are seen EVERYWHERE in tibet. along the streets, outside almost every shop and house. I suspect it is their national sport!

the sheep rule the road!

tibetian tent, with nice mountainous view behind

Tibetians like to hang these colorful scriptures everywhere. Colors signify different parts of nature-- red for earth, yellow for earth, blue for sky, green for plants, white for clouds. They hang it in the windiest places, and even on roof tops, for each time the wind blows and the scriptures move, it signifies that they've read the scriptures once.