China

Waking up as early as possible, we wanted to see if we can get up onto the mountain tops where the ‘viewing platform’ is for you to see the Oracle Lake’s miraculous powers. This is the lake where high-lamas go for signs of the next Dalai Lama or other reincarnations of other high-lamas.

For commoners, it is purported we can see our past, present and future life….amazing!

When we got to the ticket-stop, we were told that there road to the mountain top is closed due to construction, and are only able to go down to the lake side. Nooo! Not content at the situation, we ignored the authorities like any respectable Chinese person, and still drove up into the mountains hehehe… On our way up, the roads were totally fine, thanks to the massive amounts of construction crews living in tents. Workers just woke up and haven’t really started working, so we whizzed past all of them before we hit the parking lot to the viewing platform.

It was short climb up to the top with stairs, and after a brisk 20minute climb we finally made it to the top. The funny thing was, our Tibetan driver wanted to come up with us, but he put his heritage to shame as he barely made it half way by the time we were at the top, and we can see him huffing and puffing down below…hehe

The beautiful part about the road closures is that we had the whole mountain top to ourselves! We’ll pay for it later, but that’s a different story. From our perspective at the mountain top, the lake was situated at the opposite end of a valley, compact and neatly shaped. The water itself was calm, unlike that of a reflection pond with a glacier towering behind it….but size isn’t what’s important here, it’s how you use it.

The Visions of Oracle Lake

Alan: A volcano emerged shortly after witnessing the lake. In my mind, this was to be Mount Vesuvius, reinforcing my notion that I was Roman/Italian in my prior life resulting in my interest in their architecture/food/arts. Sitting idly next to the volcano was a princess with long hair, and a vision of a wise old man with a crown appeared above her. Like a Etch-N-Sketch board, the whole image changed with a moment’s notice as the view now turned into a young man, resembling a prince, standing tall in an athletic stance. Another moment passed, another change, and this time it was a chef, walking briskly whilst holding high a platter of food. And the very last vision was that of a beach, with a very young girl happily chasing after a ball.

Jiajia: A lobster ( ha ha ha ). For the longest time, the vision of a lobster appeared on the surface of the lake and wouldn’t move. Next was a ying-yang face, before finally turning into a snow-capped mountain.

We stood there for almost 45minutes, and that was what we saw. Without looking very deeply into our visions and taking it for face value, a lobster is a pretty awesome vision no matter what context you put it in…hehehe. Our Tibetan driver has been here four times, and he’s never seen anything. Guess we’ve got a little more ‘seeds of wisdom’ than he does.

And with that was the end of our adventure and we headed back to town. Problem was, construction is now in full bloom and the 13km dirt path was dotted with asphalt pavers and excavators, all of whom knew we weren’t supposed to be on the trail and never bothered moving out of the way for us and turned a 1hr trip into 2hrs!! Oh well, it was all worth’d =P

Taking a private car to the city of Jiacha, we had one of our few bad experiences with Tibetan drivers. This guy had a 7-seat SUV (so there was no trunk space), but removed one seat for luggage. Problem was, we had 6 people (incl driver) already but he wouldn’t leave until we got a 7^th. In the end, we had only one person sitting comfortably, while four would sit in the back with one last guy sitting in the ‘trunk’. The roads were pretty bad, and add to all the bumpity-bump in a cramped space, it wasn’t too pleasant.

We struck a conversation with our ‘close’ friends in the back seat, apparently two of them were going to work at a hydroelectric power plant construction site, while the third girl said she’s going to ‘get used to the area’ before traveling. After a sketchy drive across the mountain we were sorta nervous about the road condition even though it hasn’t rained for a bit, but our fears were confirmed as we drove pass by a wrecked SUV laying nose-first into the ground…. Not cool.

Anyways, after a bumpy 4hrs and dropping off the two construction workers, we finally get to the city of Jiacha. The strange thing about that third girl was that, she’s already been here back in 2008 (Strike 1). She then proceeded to say she has her own apartment, and will ‘stay here for a bit before traveling’ (Strike 2, why would anyone have their own apartment in a rural town?). Lastly, she said her friend was waiting for her at 金龙, and we thought it was a hotel name, but instead it was a “night club” (Strike 3, that nightclub looks shady). Conclusion: She may be ‘working’ to pay off her ‘tuition’? Ahhh well. She wasn’t your stereotypical skinny+high heels kind of look though, she looked like a student in a colourful hoody and carrying a bit of baby fat… Not sure how her business is, but maybe she was really telling the truth =P

Trying to find tourists to head up to Namulacuo with us, we walked around the whole town and found NOTHING. The town itself was rather amazing, as it is serviced by nothing but a poor mountain road that takes at least 4hrs to the next town, it still had a steady supply of fresh produce and locals. The town is supported mainly by the hydroelectric plant nearby, and also by the cordyceps foraging by Tibetans which make this town rather rich. Tourists stop coming by early September, and we totally missed anybody and in the end had to pay full fare for the trip into the sacred lake…. not cool.

There was still a 70km drive to get to the lake, and we headed up there today to get to the base where another, you guessed it, monastery was located. This would save us a long ride early in the morning, and we agreed as we wanted to head back to Zedang sooner. After another bumpy 2.5hr drive getting only 50km far, we stayed at the remote town in what can be best described as a concrete shack, we slept early to prepare us for a 630am morning call…. ahhhh, the lengths we go to!

Visiting the Samye Monastery, we took our time to explore the massive premise going through the outer ring, the inner ring and finally the masterpiece of the main temple. Continuing with the lineage of Guru Rinpoche, this monastery was actually one of few built by him. Unlike most monasteries we’ve seen so far, this one was NOT built upon the mountainside, but rather in a structured manner (most monasteries doesn’t seem to have any conscious form of organization..hehe) with patches of grass, unlike most Tibetan-style of construction.

One cool part of this monastery, is that there are four massive stupas in standard white, but also three other in green, red and black! Each stupa represents the four stages of Buddha Shakyamuni’s life, and was supposedly built after four rocks which self-manifested at the specific spots of the monastery. At the very centre of the compound stood the impressive centrepiece of the main temple. The first floor is modeled after the Tibetan-style, while the second floor is decorated in the Han-style, with the top floor designed after the Indian-style. The frescoes and the artifacts of this temple is numerous, but its claim to fame must be the several remnants of Guru Rinpoche’s personal items such as his walking stick, and the gold-plated skull of another well-respected lama.

Religious Note: Guru Rinpoche aka Padmasambhava, was born in ancient India (modern day Pakistan) and is attributed with the creation of the Nyingma school of Buddhism. Throughout our travels, his presence can be felt everywhere. And we mean EVERYWHERE. This guy knows some sort of magic, as he’s been to some of the most remote places that takes like 10hrs by car through mud roads created within the past 5 years. So which implied he had to traverse steep mountains, cross whitewater rivers and have nothing to eat for a couple of days to get there. He also left behind a plethora of his own ‘mark’, a footprint here, a hand stamp there, and a walking stick in the Samye Monastery. It’d be cool if you can go back in time and sorta follow him through his travels to see how he does all this.

The monastery was all the region had to offer, so we hopped on an afternoon bus to our next destination of Zeda ng, which had some historical significance as city, but more importantly it was a stopover to head into the small city of Jiacha to view the most sacred lake to Tibetans, Lhamo Latso (纳木拉措), or the Oracle Lake….Oooooo? What could it be?!!??!?

Zedang is the centre of the Shannan prefecture, but historically it plays a significant role in Tibetan history as the fact that it was the capital of the Tubo dynasty for 33 (!) generations, until the famous Songtsan Gampo moved the capital to what we currently know as Lhasa. There are two relics left behind by the Tubo dynasty, one is the king’s summer palace and the other is his winter palace, both of which were converted to monasteries after the relocation.

Surprisingly, the entire castle, despite its diminutive size, still stands strong atop the strategically placed spot in the valley. The region is unlike other parts of Tibet, as the lower altitude and geographical elements result in a lush environment for growing crops! And the castle overlooks all of this, with mountains protecting it from both front and back. These guys know how to choose a home! Inside the castle, there wasn’t much to comment on as it is now a fully functioning monastery, but it is definitely small by most measures containing only three stories and probably less than 1500sqft in useable floor space for the King. The cool part though, is the location. High atop the village below (where the peasants probably lived), you can actually see and hear whats going on underneath!! We sat there enjoying the scenery, and you can hear people yell and cows mooing. We weren’t sure whats going on, but there was this terribly vocal cow that wouldn’t stop mooing!

So we took in the fresh air, sunshine and had a cow sing for us… T’was nice being a king.   

Deciding at midnight that we would take the detour to Shannan, we asked around and found out the bus departs “some time before 730am”….well that’s very accurate. Waking up at 5:30am, we made it out the door by 6 and arrived at the bus stop at 6:15am. Problem was, nothing was open and there was nothing to eat, and we were super tired so we fell asleep pretty quickly. By 7:45am, the bus finally started but didn’t stop us from continuing our nap time.

We arrived at Samye, a neat little monastery town with everything owned by the monastery, but moved on to another bus to take us up to Qingpu Self-Study Area (). The Qingpu area is nested within the mountains with a spectacular view overlooking the Yarlung Tsampo river, with practitioners carving out small caves where they’d stay for any period of time from 3-weeks to 3-years! The interesting part is that, most of the people on the bus are NOT tourists, but rather local Tibetans paying homage to the practitioners studying in solitary caves. The biggest reason why this area is famous is because it is said that Guru Rinpoche achieved buddhahood in a cave at the very top of the mountain.

Due to another allergy-attack, we didn’t make it all the way up to the mountain, but visited several other relics left behind by other respected boddhisattvas. The neatest one was the practice cave of 马头明王, which was ‘heavily guarded’ by three kind nuns. After visiting the cave, we walked out and they were sitting there, eating steamed potatoes and offered us a few! We sat down, ate some potatoes as we tried to communicate with their Tibetan while we spoke Mandarin. After sharing a few laughs (about what, we’re not sure), and being invited to stay with them for the evening, we left with a small token gift from the nuns.

Back down the foothills of Samye town, we met two other travelers whom we dined with. Both were our age, One was a girl who actually had a son that was 9years old, and another was a fellow from Beijing, who declared himself to have a strong Buddhist-sense and talked nonstop about his miraculous stories relating to Buddhism. After a while, we phased out and stopped giving a fck. After dinner though, we trekked together through Samye monastery. Without much light as the sun sets rather quickly, and we were soon spotted by nothing but moonlight. On our way out though, our friend from Beijing noticed something interesting: As we made our way towards the exist, resting in the skies right above the main temple was a ‘dragon’! It was pretty cool, but it was made less impressive by the fellow’s constant mention of supernatural-powers.

Finally saying goodbye, we made our way back to the hotel. We stayed at the Samye Monastery Hotel, in a 4-person dorm, as we’re used to staying in dorms to save a few bucks. When we got back to our room, we were greeted by two Tibetan ladies who were probably here to pay homage to Qingpu and Samye. Problem is, their long journey here can be felt in the air by the strong odour exerted by their weary feet….. They also had this strange habit of fuming their blankets with incense. We got over the air of the room and snuggled into the amazing comforts of our Feathered Friends bags, but as we started to doze off into the night, our neighbours started to do their evening prayers!! They probably went on for about an hour and finally resting at 11pm…. before waking up at 6am before the sun came up and started talking LOUDLY for about 3hrs until 9am. Uhhhhh, oh well. Time for us to wake up =P

After staying in Lhasa for so long, we finally went to ‘other’ part of the “Historic Ensemble of Polata Palace”, the famous Jokhang Monastery (大昭寺). Built originally in 640s by Songtsan Gampo as a place to house Shakyamuni’s figure brought over by his two popular wives, one from inner China and another from Nepal.

Now, the monastery is the most important site of pilgrimage for Buddhists as they walk/prostrate (NOT to be confused with prostate) their way from thousands of kms away into the city of Lhasa, the Jokhang temple is their final destination…..if they actually make it. Many people can’t survive the treacherous journey, and die due to fatigue, severe cold or slipping into the rivers that line the roads into Lhasa. Its hard to describe what a prostration is, and its even harder to describe how difficult it is actually making the pilgrimage. And everyday, at the front of the monastery you’d see hundreds of Tibetans performing prostrations. From the young, to the elderly, male or female (but mostly elderly female), they all continue this tradition with a sense of fervor like no other.

The monastery doesn’t allow pictures and was rather small (compared to Potala Palace), but we managed to spent a good couple hours there listening to other people’s tour guides talk about the history and stories of the palace. Within the grand temple, the architecture is styled in a more Nepalese manner (see post from Jilong), and its most important relic is a ‘equal-sized’ statue of a 12 year old Shakyamuni decorated with gold. Tibetans were allowed to walk up close to the small, heavily guarded enclosure. Everyone else, unless if you have a ‘permit’ saying you’re a devout Buddhist, would require donating a small fee of $9000RMB which includes a small cup of gold paint (made with actual gold) for you to pay homage with by adding to the statue’s already gold body.

Unfortunately, most of whats left in the grand temple are actually remakes as most of the originals were either sacked or destroyed through time as different groups moved through the area. One crazy story: Not all pilgrims can make it into Jokhang, and as such other pilgrims have a unspoken responsibility of carrying a teeth of dead pilgrims with them. If they were to make it to Jokhang, they would take the teeth and gnaw it into a crevass of the columns in Jokhang to represent that the deads’ spirit has also made it to Jokhang, sometimes carrying half a dozen with them. So you’ll notice, all the columns have cloth wrapped around it, so either it is not to scare off tourists, or its a myth you can’t unravel without being tackled by the army of police that patrols this place.

And because we just placed an order for our laptop charger that ‘may’ arrive in 1-5days, we took a detour from Lhasa to the region of Shannan (山南).

We did nothing fun. Just rested, do some laundry and eat some Cantonese food!