Mt. Everest, crazy women, and human skull drums

Wow, been a long time since I posted anything to here. I think some of my posts are going up twice...but whatever, will take care of that bull when I get to Mongolia and escape this Chinese censor stuff.

 

Anyways, I think I left off at Sakya...(I'm back in Lhasa now)

 

So we went to Sakya which is supposed to have this amazing monastery. Well, we went and the town was an absolute dump and didn't have a good vibe at all. The monastery was like a massive walled-fortress and most of the chapels were closed because there was a festival on. We did see the sand mandala though after annoying the monks into opening the chapel for us which had it. We really wanted to get into this other section, the Protector Chapel which contains all these monster statues and dead animals, but they refused to open it for us. So we contented ourselves with the carcasses of wolves, birds and rats hanging from the doorway. Yummy huh?

 

After Sakya, we drove out to Mount Everest where we lucked out and had amazing weather and the entire mountain was clear as day, and unobscured by clouds...it was an amazing sight. We hiked for 2 and a half hours to Everest Base Camp, then hiked some more out to the edge of Rongphu Glacier, at which point, continuing involved stripping off our boots, socks and pants, and wading across an ice-cold river, at an altitude of 5,500 metres. You should see the photos from that. Than we hiked some more hills to get a somewhat better view of the base of the mountain and these massive glacier peaks in the distance.

 

We left Tom at Everest Base Camp, he was continuing on to Nepal...it was a pretty sad parting actually, we'd all grown quite fond of each other in two weeks...(Alex excluded of course)

 

So then we drove back to Lhasa over 2 days....we busted all the tires on our land cruiser, helped out tourists who were in a land cruiser accident, the driver and one girl were pretty busted up because their axle broke and their cruiser rolled 3 times. They were super lucky about the spot the accident happened because most of the roads are on mountains and are flanked by huge ravines...they rolled on the one flat spot with land on both sides.

 

God...so much happened, I can't remember it all, the drive back was crazy, dangerous and amazing...we stalled on mountain passes and had to reverse-push-start the truck...rolling backwards down curving mountain dirt road is not a fun experience.

 

We got back to Lhasa, checked back into our fav hotel, where the staff is Nepali and they're great and know us pretty well now, the hotel owner just came into the computer room and insisted I drink orange juice because he's noticed I have a cold.

 

Today, we hit the markets...I bought a hand-woven Tibetan carpet. Got attacked by a couple of stallkeepers. In Tibet, they tend to physically grab you and haul you back to the stall if you walk away. I've been tackled by 3 girls manning a stall in Shigatse, two on my arms, one holding my backpack...Mark had to rescue me.

 

Today, this one bitch of a stallkeeper, grabbed me by the arm to drag me back to her stall after we'd argued over a bracelet I didn't even want but she wanted to sell me. In Lhasa, usually they don't grab you, but she did...did I mention I don't like to be manhandled?

 

So I start yelling at her to get the fuck off me, but she digs her nails in and won't let go and is pulling me...so I lose it and start screaming at her to let me go and am prying at her fingers and she won't...so I punched her in the arm and she finally let me go and went after Pauline. She grabs Pauline, we're both yelling at her, and I run over, pry her off Pauline, screaming "crazy fucking bitch!!!"....basically all the Tibetans and Chinese in the market, which is busy, stopped to stare at the spectacle of two foreigners being attacked by a crazy Tibetan shopkeeper, and are yelling and hitting her to get her off them. It was a nutty 10 minutes.

 

What else...there are so many insane things that have been happening, can't remember them all...we're like a magnet for the extraordinary...but we're having the time of our lives and have seen some of the most amazing things here and met amazing people. I have peed and pooed all over Tibet because generally, there are no toilets...so literally, the world is your toilet. Many complete strangers have been treated to the sight of my bare ass behind some rock (so hard being a girl). The Tibetans are incredibly nonchalant about doing their business, so they'll come and pee or poo beside you and watch you while you pee and while they pee...just a big happy peeing social circle.

 

We're off to Mongolia in 4 days...am gonna really miss Tibet. Tomorrow I'm hitting the markets to buy a drum made out of Monk skulls. Yes, monks as in human Tibetan monks. Apparently when they die, their skulls get made into drums or bowls for the other monks to use. It's pretty fucked up seeing human skull bones and drums out of skulls at the markets...but am gonna buy one anyway....I wonder if they'll let me into Canada with that....

 

Oh yeah, also at Everest Base Camp, I think the Chinese government doesn't allow excavation in Tibet, so these Tibetans run around dregging fossils up from the rivers in rural areas ( mostly the swirly shell-like fossils) and selling them to tourists. I bought two fossils retrieved from the base of Mount Everest. So damn cool huh?

 

I LOVE TIBET!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

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