Free Willy and Free Tibet

As long as I can remember I always wanted to go to Tibet. That and seeing killer whales. 

We used to have a large glossy nature book at home which had a photo of a killer whale sticking its head through a hole in the ice with its mouth wide open and  a row of sharp pointed teeth. I was both terrified and fascinated, and just looking at it sent a shiver down my spine, a bit like loving and hating a horror film, wanting to hide under the sofa but not being able quite to stop watching. In those days there used to be a killer whale show at Windsor safari park. Much  to my shame now  I begged and begged to go,  and in the end we did. I remember how absolutely enormous he was and thought it was one of the most exciting things I had ever seen. Obviously now I would never set foot in such a place. As we have all come to our senses  we all know that  Dolphins and killer whales belong in the sea,  not in tanks and for anyone who hasnt seen ‘Blackfish’ please do. Thankfully places like Seaworld are becoming the pariahs  of the theme park world and one would hope that one day they will simply cease to exist. 

And then I got to go to Tibet. We left Japan to travel back home  and took a boat to Shanghai. Our original plan had been to get into Tibet,but we were told in no certain terms that the border was closed again and it was impossible, particularly if you were individuals and not part of a Chinese financed supervised tour group. Also, there was snow, so much snow that a lot of the roads were impassable. 

So we decided to head to Hong Kong instead. We spent  a couple of weeks travelling around China, visiting the terracotta warriors, the opera, endless villages, pagodas and gardens, on trains and buses,  bikes  and on foot, staying in hostels and dormitories. After Japan everything felt khaki and noisy and bleak and in your face. I  secretly wanted to go somewhere else. Anywhere else. One evening we were sitting in a bar in Chengdu. An American couple came and sat next to us. We got talking. They had just come back from Tibet. And they said it was amazing. And possible. So we went

On their advise we bought  flights from Chengdu to Lhasa. The plane was full of  tribesmen in big coats with scarlet braids entwined in their matted dreadlocked hair. Before the plane took off,  the air stewardess walked down the aisle with a large basket. She stopped at each row of seats and everyone unloaded their knives, daggers and swords which were put into the basket for safe keeping. Tim felt a little inadequate when all he had to offer was his Swiss army penknife. 

The first building you see when you get into Lhasa is the Potala Palace. Huge, towering over the city, yet squat and fat and very square in the Tibetan tradition with pointed golden roofs and balconys and hundreds of steep steps as if you are climbing into the clouds. And surrounded by mountains and sky that is the bluest blue you could ever imagine, to the point that no photo could ever do it justice

We booked into the Yak Inn. For the first couple of days we struggled with terrible headaches as our bodies acclimatised to the altitude and to the clean pure mountain air. We wandered through  the markets, past the endless streams of pilgrims, with their bells, and prayer flags , chanting and  singing, prostrating themselves as they made their way round the main square and into the Jokhang palace. Inside the palace   was dark and gloomy, the air thick with the smell of lacquer and damp, chanting, incense and burning bowls of fat , the clanging of bells and lines of shuffling sniffeling Tibetans with their rosy cheeks and filthy sheepskin coats. We sat in the street and watched the butchers stripping carcasses down to strips of meat, the old women knitting socks ( I still have a pair, a bit mouthy and too scratchy to wear ) and the Khampas who came down from the hills with their turquoise earrings and flashing smiles with leopard skins casually slung over their shoulders. We saw one with an enormous eagle perched on his arm as he trotted through town on an impossibly strong tiny pony. We walked to the Dalai  Lhamas summer palace, with its brightly painted timbers and embroidered wall hangings, gardens full of deer and birds, the old 50’s radio  and record player still in the sitting room. We were ferried over over the river in coracles, hired bikes and cycled out to monasteries and tiny hamlets where smiling children came out to greet us, and dogs sometimes chased us. The Tibetans believe that monks are re incarnated into dogs so packs of them  wander everywhere. We were told grisly stories of people having been bitten and catching rabies etc but luckily no such incidents befell us. 

It was colder than anywhere I have ever been, bone numbingly freezing. We bought Chinese army coats, ankle length padded coats like duvets with fur collars ( we called them the blue blob and the green blob). With our padded trousers, sheepskin lined boots and fur hats we waddled around like deranged penguins and life became a never ending session of getting dressed then going indoors, dying of heat, dying for the loo, undressing, dressing again and so it went on. 

We met up with other travellers and began to think about the next step. Could we drive across the Tibetan plateau, past Everest and down into Nepal? Some said we couldn’t, others said we could but that we would end up getting stuck in the snow, others that we would be stopped and sent back. In the end we decided to hire a rickety old bus from an extremely unreliable looking driver who smelt of sheep aftershave and cigarettes. . He and his slightly deranged looking  chum agreed to drive us to the border, a journey that would end up taking the best part of a month

And we had many adventures on that incredible journey across the roof of the world. Unbelievably beautiful, hilarious, sad, life affirming, and a couple of incidents  so terrifying I never told my parents. And I will tell you about them all another time.