Tibet

The Chinese government blocks many websites, including Blogger, Facebook and Wikipedia. They seem rather determined to write their own history, and it may be working: I spoke with many people who thought that when you would type in Facebook.com and arrive at the "web page not loading properly" page that it was because of some fault in the website, not a direct block by the biggest of big brothers. Very strange. Now on to better things.

Tibet was unreal, unlike any landscape I've ever seen. In certain passes you would see these huge 6-7,000 meter mountains one right after the other. You'd see Everest, then turn a corner and see an equally stunning peak you've never heard of. Literally mountains everywhere in every direction all the time. And the elevation of the entire country is always above 3,000 meters (close to 10,000 feet) and at our highest pass we hit 5200, which is 17,000 feet, over three times as high as Denver. The capital Lhasa sits at around 13-14,000 feet. I have never been anywhere near that height and was completely unaware of exactly what it can do to a body. On our very first day as we climbed our first pass I began noticing that it was slightly difficult to breath, and ahead of me in the front seat Josh began to lay his head back against the headrest often and seemed strangely tired. We stopped for lunch and things seemed fine, but an hour after getting back on the road we climbed to the 5200 meter pass and by the time we got there I could tell that my body did not work as it used to. We stopped the jeeps so everyone could get out to take some photos and have a look around at the scenery. I had to pee so I walked maybe 50 yards off the road to a bathroom which had a staircase of maybe ten stairs leading up to it. By the time I got to the top I felt like I had just run a mile. On my way back down I was breathing deeply and feeling totally loopy. I snapped a picture or two because I had to and then got back in the jeep and tried to figure out exactly what was happening. I tried to eat some peanuts and drink water because I figured it would help, but I was having a hard time getting my mouth to do what I wanted of it. For the next hour I barely said a word because I was incredibly tired and somewhat apathetic, zombie-like, and also because I wasn't sure I still knew how to communicate. Finally we came back down to around 4,000 meters and things slowly began returning to me. I realized that none of us had been speaking and that we had all been dealing with the beginnings of altitude sickness. Urte actually seemed slightly drunk for the next hour, which I heard later is common for someone coming out of the heights.
Over the days my body got used to the altitude, but the entire 8 days I was in Tibet it was noticeably harder to breathe. This is made more evident when climbing the innumerable staircases toward monasteries and temples that the Tibetans love to build as high up as possible. All the white kids on the tour were often made to look like old, old men while simply trying to climb up to the second floor to their hotel room.
The next week was quite beautiful, driving the country and stopping in the towns of Nyalam, Shigatse and Gyantse to explore ancient places of worship. I've never met a group of people like the Tibetans, always smiling and loving even when they have no idea who or what you are. I didn't meet one who even looked at me with a frown. One day at the monastery in Shigatse I had walked off on my own to explore quietly when I turned a corner and found a group of 10-15 teenage monks. They invited me to sit with them, as sit was one of the only English words they knew, so of course I did and they instantly began feeling my ears and playing with my earrings. They loved it and couldn't quite grasp it but laughed and smiled. Eventually one of them lifted my jacket sleeve and saw my arms and so I was made to take off the jacket as ten monks rubbed my arms at the same time. Soon word spread to all parts of the monastery and slowly more and more monks arrived to touch me, and soon after a good portion of the tour group arrived to stare with equal amazement at the throng of monks gathered around me. This same story would play out a few more times in the next week, with children or old women in place of monks. Truly unusual people in the most glorious sense of the word.
Arriving in Lhasa I assume everyone has nearly the same reaction, which is something like disbelief mixed with wonder coupled with a frown every time you pass a military base, which we counted 14 of before we made it to our hotel. It really is China there, surprisingly, with military and Chinese flags everywhere in case you haven't quite grasped the concept yet. You have one of the most monolithic buildings in the world in the Potala Palace, somewhat sullied by the new urban mass that has been built up around it. There is a Playboy store not two minutes away. You could be inside a Louis Vuitton and look out the window and see the Potala. I did not expect that. Josh didn't either. We were allowed our one hour inside, basically rushing through the few rooms they allow you to see inside, but the building is truly massive so you know they've got some secret shit hidden in there somewhere.
After the week was spent we said goodbye to our new friends (there were 42 people on the tour) and boarded the Tibet railway for a 36 hour ride towards Xi'an, China. It was crazy packed and the hard seat ticket we bought was truly a hard seat, so much so that Josh and Urte upgraded on the train to a sleeper. I, as I'm sure you would guess, stuck it out in the seat and spent a lovely evening with a complete stranger's head in my lap. No joke, the second Josh and Urte left for their sleeper this guy jumped over to my side and occupied the two vacant seats with his whole outstretched body, and at some point in his slumber he mistook my left leg for a pillow and snoozed away. I, on the other hand, got maybe two hours at most as my pillow was the window or the small table in front of me. I even took a tylenol pm and drank a little strange Chinese booze and none of it helped at all.
You don't really know exactly when you leave Tibet and enter mainland China, because Tibet is, after all, part of China (please sense the sarcasm here), but you definitely feel it in the crazy bustle that moves through every single Chinese city, even the smaller ones, which are still gigantic. And you feel it in the people, who I found for the most part to be rather foul, often looking at you with displeasure and completely unremarkable in any way. There were very few I met who redeemed them, as apparently all the kind ones live in Tibet.