This is a fortune in Llasa, and I’m sure I would have been expelled from the Backpacker Republic of Scrimping for paying it, but I couldn’t face the thought of another day shivering under three blankets, a t-shirt, a fleece and a winter coat.
Moreover, the new hotel’s location was nothing short of spectacular. It was right opposite the Barkhor, Tibet’s holiest shrine I mentioned earlier, and smack in the middle of the old town. The Barkhor temple itself, as a building, does not compete with the Potala palace (former home of the Dali Lama-the enormous white and red tower everyone thinks of when you mention Tibet), but the atmosphere of the Barkhor is incredible. Crouched over my beloved electric heater, trying not to burn my fingers by hugging it too much, I could see though the window the pilgrims perambulate over and over in a clockwise direction around the temple (doing koras), spinning ornate prayer wheels and dressed in elaborate regional costumes. The PSB kept a close eye on everything, but the Pilgrims didn’t see to see them, or if they did, they paid them no heed. Even 50 years of Han domination, or what the Dali Lama has labeled ‘cultural genocide’ does not seem to have destroyed their culture, or even dampened their spirit. In spite of the oppression and hardships, they laugh and smile a lot more than the Han, or westerners, for that matter.
I’d like to think this will continue forever, but Beijing is thinking long term, and is not prepared to give this place back to what it considers a bunch of savage primitives, too backward to even appreciate their ‘liberation from feudal servitude’, and all the roads and airports the Chinese have built, the schools they’ve set up, and jobs they’ve provided. There are significant untapped mineral resources here, and Greater Tibet (Tibet itself, Qinghai, and parts of Sichwan and Yunnan) is an enormous area, the size of Western Europe, and it’s grossly underpopulated and ripe for Han expansion. Beijing offers great financial incentives for Han Chinese to resettle here, and as there are only about 5 million Tibetans in Greater Tibet, and there are 1,300 million Han, crowded into Eastern China’s lowlands and costal areas, the Tibetans will soon find themselves a minority in their own ‘autonomous region’. The same is true for other ethnic minorities in China, who make up only 7 per cent of the population, but occupy nearly 40 per cent of the land.
Apart from repopulation, the Han fights the Tibetan campaign on a second from, a cultural front. The pilgrims I mention come from remote mountainous regions. In the urban centres, the young Tibetans seem a great deal less devout. They listen to hip-hop, wear western clothes and watch VCD’s. Western culture, insidious and all-conquering, may achieve what communist propaganda has failed to achieve in 50 years-it may make the Tibetans forget who they are.
Being brought up in the sham, pretense and general irrelevance of the Catholic Church, I was completely unprepared for what awaited me in the inside of the Jokhar temple. (I was also unprepared for the 10-dollar entrance fee a crafty monk made me pay for what is supposed to be free to all. Those guys never miss a trick!) Even in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, the epicenter of the Catholic world, camera-toting tourists outnumber the faithful three to one. Every Christian church I’ve ever visited feels like a museum; of historical and architectural interest only. In Macao, I remember a pair of young Chinese girls smiling for photos under the more picturesque station of the cross, searching in vain, I presume, for a smiling Christ.
The Jokhar, on the other hand, is most definitely a place of pilgrimage and worship. At the entrance, pilgrims first kneel and then hold their hands in front of their chest as if praying in a Christian way. They then place their hands on the ground and use them to support their body weight as they gently allow their body to touch the ground, touch the sacred ground with their forehead as an act of worship, and slide their hands (covered in some kind of mat) forward in front of their head so that it’s pointing at the temple. They chant something special for each part of the procedure. They do this over and over again. It looked very strenuous, like doing a push up, but the tough Tibetans continued on and on, oblivious to all discomfort, as always. I suppose the more times they can perform this ritual, the more credit is won with the Lord Buddha, like some kind of athletic rosary penance.
As you enter and try to navigate its dark labyrinthine corridors, the smell of incense and yak butter candles mixes with the smell of the unwashed pilgrims and their dirty clothes. The chanting devotees move hurriedly and purposefully past the fading paintings of the Brahayama (one of Buddhism’s most sacred books), spinning enormous silver drum-like prayer wheels as they go, making brief stops at tiny alcoves, each containing a different Buddha statue. I didn’t see any other foreigners in there, but nobody stared at us, as they were all far too busy seeking salvation to bother with a pair of wheezing ‘big noses’. Red-Robed monks are everywhere, and in the central room, a gigantic gold Buddha smiles down, secure in the knowledge that life and existence are nothing but illusions. He’s also probably relieved that the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution have left, as they destroyed about 40 per cent of the temple the last time they paid a visit.
On the roof of the building, the Potala palace, 2 kilometers away, appears even more wondrous and stately, and Llasa itself, surrounded on all sides by freshly snow covered mountains, seems truly locked away from the world at large, and above Earthly concerns.
We had deliberatelt left the Potala Palace until our last day in Llasa, daunte
d by its many steep steps. Finally, armed with a large breakfast, and an increasingly powerful set of lungs, a set of lungs a 60-year old would be proud of, we felt ready for the climb upto the Potala.
We still took it slowly, stopping frequently to take in the views of Llasa. However, they were a little disappointing. It’s only from the height of the Potala that you realize how much 50 years of Beijing rule have changed the face of the city. While the Jokhar and what remains of the old town around it are still very much Tibetan, the rest of the city is completely new. Of whatever there was before, nothing remains. It’s all been rebuilt in accordance with modern urban planning-all straight lines, wide roads and uniformity. At least they have kept it low rise, and the Potala does not have to compete with skyline with some shimmering steel and glass Bank of China building, but modern Llasa is about as interesting as a small mid-west American town. It’s only the backdrop of snowy mountains that remind you that you’re not just smack bang in the middle of Normallsville, Idaho.
When we had climbed about one third of the way up to the entrance, somebody shouted at us to hurry up, as the Potala would be closing soon. Not for the first time, I cursed my guidebook for trying so hard to be witty and not paying enough attention to essential details, like opening and closing hours. If I’d want to read something witty, I’d have bought a Bill Bryson book, and if I want to know what time the Potala Palace closes, I expect my guide book to know about it. As to the name of my illustrious guide book, let’s just say it has ‘Planet’ in the title, and I wouldn’t shed a tear if the authors were exiled to a different one, preferably a cold one where possession of a heater carries the death penalty!
Determined not to enter the Guinness Book of Records as the only sad prats who had managed to come to Llasa and not managed to see the Potala Palace, we sped up. After climbing 20 steps, my heartbeat reached 140; after another 10 steps, everything was zipping in and out of focus in an alarming fashion; after another 10, there was an odd buzzing sound in my ears, like helicopter blades from a Vietnam war movie. We simply had to stop again and catch our breath-perhaps hyperventilate is a more accurate description. Once the worst of the dizziness and nausea subsided, we clambered up more steps and through a feat of super-human exertion I never thought myself capable of, we made it to the ticket office.
I tried to explain our late arrival, but couldn’t stop gasping long enough to badmouth the guidebook. In fact, I couldn’t emit any comprehensible sounds at all. The assistant did not summon the nearest doctor or monk to administer whatever the Buddhist equivalent of ‘last rights’ is, as I would have done in her place when confronted by two swaying wrecks who looked as if they were about to “shuffle off this mortal coil,” but just punched 100 Yuan into a talking calculator and said, “you must hurry!” I tried to think of a witty retort, but at this stage of oxygen deprivation words were not even forming in my brain, let alone coming out of mouth.
We fell into the Potala only to be confronted by more steps. There are thirteen floors in the place. While geriatric monks seemed to have no problems whatsoever bounding up the tree-like steps, we certainly did, but there was always a monk or caretaker nearby to helpfully ask us to hurry up. One should look on the bright side-the lack of oxygen in my dying brain and the mild visual auditory hallucinations they caused did make the experience more mystical. Also, we had the place to ourselves, and didn’t have to suffer another tour group or guide, praise be to Buddha.
The Potala has 1,300 rooms, but of course, only a few of these are on view. Most of those seem to be under urgent repair. The Potala was built and is still supported using wooden beams, and they are far from eternal. The endless rooms contain Buddha upon Buddha, thousands and thousands of them; some big, some small; some silver, some gold; some with him sitting, some with him lying down. Each one is probably a collector’s piece and I’m sure many are priceless. It’s a wonder they’re still here, as the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution were all set to come in to destroy the ‘Four Olds’, but thankfully Deng Zhou Ping stuck his neck out and sent a contingent of loyal Red Army troops to protect the place.
The walls and roof of each room are painted to depict scenes from the Brahayama, with its freaky assortment of goblins and monsters. Centuries of yak oil candles have darkened and blackened everything, and there’s very little natural light in most of the rooms, but this only heightens the feeling of peace and isolation. Other rooms contain holy scrolls, browned by age and musty beyond belief. Some of them, I was told, had been brought from India by my old friend Tributaka, of ‘Monkey’ fame.
We also passed through tall cavernous rooms, containing hefty golden, jewel-encrusted tombs of the previous Dali Lamas. Near the top of the Palace, we were briefly allowed to see the Dali Lama’s living quarters-where he ate, slept, and looked out on a world that was about to disappear; and the throne room, where he held court. It must have been a very strange world to grow up and live in, believing yourself to be the reincarnation of previous Dali Lamas, universally credited with possessing divine qualities and born with a right to rule. In this fairyland world, it’s hardly surprising he didn’t see the Chinese wolf at the door. But it’s the wolf’s house now, and I can’t see him giving it back.
One Chinese word you pick up very quickly is ‘fang bien’ or ‘convenient’. The Chinese use the word about ten times as frequently as we say ‘convenient’. Perhaps their obcession with the term is because nothing is convenient in China, especially traveling. We had only gor four hours sleep on our last night in Llasa in order to catch the impossibly early flight out of there to Xian. Actually, the flight wasn’t that early (10.00) but in the spirit of making life as inconvenient as possible, the Chinese authorities had decided to place Llasa airport a whopping 100km outside the city. There are only 200,000 people in Llasa-how much do they expect it to grow?
I tried to look on the bright side. |
