Tibet

Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/5GByhCpYMu28DncCA

So as mentioned before, for both acclimatization and cost reasons, I decided to take a pair of overnight trains to get from Xi’an to Lhasa, instead of flying. Lhasa sits at a whopping 3650 meters above sea level, so pretty similar to Cusco or Leh. My first train wasn’t too bad, 12 hours to get from Xi’an to Xining from 1030pm to 1030am, so I got to sleep for the vast majority of this trip. Xining is actually on the Tibetan Plateau at a little over 2000m. but in the Chinese province of Qinghai, which is a province that almost entirely consists of the Tibetan Plateau and has a good deal of Tibetan culture (the current Dalai Lama was born near Xining actually), but has also been under direct Chinese rule for centuries, unlike Tibet, which was sort of an on/off Chinese vassal state for centuries before annexation by Mao (with the occasional influence from the Mongolians…the term “Dalai Lama” is in itself a Mongol term that was gifted upon the Tibetan leader like 300-400 years ago). Anyways, I had a 3 hour layover in the afternoon before boarding a 22 hour train ride from Xining to Lhasa. Honestly not too bad of a train ride – I started and finished the excellent, excellent war book “Love Thy Neighbor” by Peter Maass, about the Bosnian Genocide. Honestly one of the best books I have ever read, and a very difficult read at times. Between reading, looking at the scenery outside, and my 8+ hour sleep at night, this went by relatively quickly. The scenery itself was cool – the rolling brown hills with snowy peaks peeking in from behind, but I do know that the further west we go in Tibet, the more stark and beautiful it will get.

Tibet. The Tibetan Plateau is already my favorite place on Earth (after Burning Man, of course), between Ladakh and Spiti in India, and Upper Mustang in Nepal. We started off in Lhasa. As I would soon discover, much like every city in Tibet, Lhasa is a somewhat generic Chinese city. And by generic Chinese city, I also mean tier 2/3 cities like Datong and Luoyang, or even the outskirts of places like Xi’an, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Suzhou. Wide avenues, sort of a depressing autocratic vibe like what you get in Central Asia. Much like how Leh in Ladakh has long ago lost its’ Tibetan-ness and is now a generic north Indian (/Kashmiri) city, the same is true for Lhasa and other cities in Tibet, but on an even bigger scale, with the Han Chinese moving into Tibet at a far larger rate than Indians to Leh. Like Ladakh, the beauty of Tibet lies outside Lhasa, though also like Leh, Lhasa was still pretty cool. Honestly both are VERY similar cities, which makes sense given their historic backgrounds as capitals of Tibetan kingdoms that got overthrown and then absorbed into a larger country. In general, the Chinese influence on Tibet means that Upper Mustang is clearly the best spot to go to in order to experience authentic Tibetan culture…even beyond the people, you still had things like stupas littered about in the middle of nowhere (all destroyed in Tibet, you only see Buddhist stuff in the villages and cities, not in the barren landscapes really, EXCEPT for the area approaching Everest). I know I spoke about this in my Mustang post, but I think it bears repeating. In the west (myself included sometimes), we sometimes conflate “culture” with poverty…any sign of economic development is viewed as a “loss of culture” in developing parts of the world. If you want to see an authentic culture that has not been touched by modernity, look no further than the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Obviously for the Tibetans here, the economic gains far outweigh being more “authentically” Tibetan and mired in poverty. Really the best way to preserve culture is to let societies advance economically while giving them the choice of deciding what to keep and what not to keep. Because of this, with a few exceptions in some super rural villages that we drove through during this trip, every “traditional” building that you see in Tibet is basically a modern concert building that is then painted to look like the OG Tibetan mudbrick style, in contrast to Upper Mustang in Nepal where it was legit OG Tibetan mudbrick. Another great part about the Chinese development here is that I pretty much had 4G/5G for the entire portion of this trip, and *all* the roads are paved, which really is an incredible feat given that we were weaving through mountain passes going up past 5000 meters in elevation, and in general driving through the most remote and barren landscapes. In general, China has done a wonderful job with infrastructure development, from phone reception to roads to high speed rail criss-crossing the country. Lowkey there are some benefits to not being a democracy. Another one of the other selfish benefits of the Han Chinese presence across Tibet was that I did not only have to eat Tibetan food, but could branch out and try other good Chinese food. Tibetan food is wholesome and decent enough, but doesn’t compare to some of the assortment of Chinese I had in Tibet, from dimsum from the south and east to hand-pulled noodles from Xi’an to the delicious lamb-based dishes of Xinjiang in the northwest to Sichuan food etc. etc. Overall, the non-Tibetan food in Tibet was largely on par with the food I had in Beijing…very good but nothing *amazing*, if that makes sense. Another Tibet observation…one thing I will say politically, is that it did not at all feel like an occupation, and honestly felt like just another Chinese province (EXCEPT for the annoying constant security checks while driving. Honestly, given the tech China already has, they can easily just have foreigner info linked to a passport so all we would need to do here is scan our passport and move on. Instead, there’s all this annoying paperwork we dealt with each time that would take a few minutes). Absolutely nothing like Kashmir in India, or Palestine in Israel (which really is by far the worst I have ever witnessed). Especially when you consider that in mainland China, all citizens need ID to use public transport, so the only real difference to me is that in Tibet things are, for whatever reason, more manual and less digital with these checks. Obviously I cannot comment on other regions like Xinjiang, but again, just my two cents from what I have seen in Tibet over two weeks.

So the obvious highlight of Lhasa was the Potala Palace. It is waaaaay bigger than I thought it would be, it’s an absolute unit. It rises like 120m above Lhasa, and has 1000s of rooms inside, the vast majority of which we are of course not allowed to enter. It served as both the administrative capital of Tibet and as the religious capital of the Yellow Hat sect, of which the Dalai Lama is the leader (the sect that was predominant in Upper Mustang was the Red Hat sect). Interestingly enough, according to my tour guide (a guided tour is mandatory for all non-Chinese visitors to Tibet), all Tibetans regardless of Buddhist sect or even religion (so even the Bon, those who follow the indigenous pre-Buddhist Tibetan faith) have viewed the Dalai Lama as a respected leader for the past few hundred years. Another fun fact is that Potala is a Sanskrit name, and that the palace is named after a mythical Buddhist mountain which, according to Wikipedia, is almost certainly based on a small mountain in Tamil Nadu of all places.

But yea, the palace was stunning, though obviously my love of all things Tibetan is probably a strong bias here. One interesting thing was that the red painted areas here were covered in a type of dead bush that is only found in Tibet above 4500 meters, so it gave it a sort of spiky appearance. This is true for a lot of the red painted areas you see across Tibet. In general, the palace architecture was the grandest form of Tibetan architecture, whether here in China or in India and Nepal. Unfortunately no photos were allowed inside the palace, but it was really, really cool. Tons of intricate woodcarving (eastern Tibet, which I am not visiting, is lower elevation and has tons of trees. AKA not as cool for me) that honestly really seemed more north Indian than anything else. Tibetan style really is a cool synthesis of both Indian and Chinese influence, though for geographic reasons the Chinese influence is definitely stronger (which is interesting because culturally, the Indian influence is far stronger, from religion and culture and language…Tibetan is directly linked to Sanskrit). Because there is tons of money flowing into Lhasa (Tibet is arguably domestic China’s biggest tourist hotspot…heaps of domestic tourists in Lhasa and very few foreigners, much like Beijing and Xi’an), the monasteries in Lhasa are outrageously opulent. They have all more than recovered from the Cultural Revolution due to the influx of tourist money, and nowhere is that clearer than the Potala Palace. It wasn’t gaudy to the point where I would dislike it, but just ginormous gold plated idols and statues littered about everywhere, brightly colored and intricate woodwork (as mentioned before), well maintained corridors and shrine rooms, tons of giant statues of those demon protectors that I love, and so on. Definitely the grandest Buddhist interior I have ever seen, and in a way reminded me of some of the grander historic south Indian temples – it’s all living history here, as these historic buildings are constantly maintained for modern worship.

Up next was the Sera Monastery, which was sort of like a lesser Potala Palace on the inside – very well maintained and super nice due to the Lhasa tourist fund. One interesting note here is that apparently many of Sera’s monks fled to southern India at some point in the past 50 or so years, and the established a sister Sera monastery near the city of Mysore in Karnataka (I was here with my sister last spring where we saw the Mysore Palace before doing our Tiger Safari in Kabini). I checked with my parents to confirm but we actually visited this monastery as a family when I was in elementary school. I distinctly remember stealing their camera and spamming 100s of photos inside the monastery, as that was my first real introduction to Tibetan culture. Kind of funny that I guess I have always found this stuff super cool. The coolest part about Sera was actually getting to witness a monk debate session. No photos or videos allowed. But it was basically a training session where the younger monks were trying to synthesize what they had learned earlier in the day in a debate form. They were all paired in groups of two in this outdoor courtyard, with one trainee seated and the other standing, while a few elder monks were patrolling the area to both make sure none of the tourists were taking photos/videos, and to check in on the trainee progress. The one seated was apparently taking the negative position, and the one standing had to argue a point to the one seated, so taking the affirmative position. It was super interesting to watch because the seated ones were always remaining calm and basically saying the equivalent of “and?” or “why?”, while the standing ones had to labor to prove their points. The standing ones all did this sort of yell, jump, and clap dance motion periodically, which apparently was when they were emphasizing a key point. My guide was saying that the better they get, the less often they should need to resort to this jump/clap/stomp motion, as that was intended to be a very powerful point and less so a spam technique.

One thing that I learned in Lhasa and throughout the trip was just more in depth knowledge about Tibetan Buddhism from my guide. The more I learned, the more I became convinced that Buddhism is basically a dressed up polytheism, adapting local customs to force it into the monotheistic lens of Buddhism. Very similar to how Hinduism adapted all the local traditions across India as it spread, but at least there it kept it polytheistic by adopting gods and forms. Here, the Buddha has tons and tons of various forms that he adopts for different purposes and causes…it really seemed to me that each form he adopted was once a former local god that has since been co-opted into Buddhism.

The next day, we visited a couple of more monasteries in Lhasa and also walked around the old city a bit. The first visit was to the Drepung Monastery. A bit similar to the Sera Monastery, but the cool thing about this one was a giant room dedicated to protector deities, so those demon figures that I love. Tons of really cool artwork on the walls and giant statues of these deities. Like Potala and Sera, very well maintained and while it was historic, it also felt “new” due to the influx of cash. This was especially true for the next temple, the Jokhung Temple (this is a temple and not monastery as there are no colleges to educate monks here). This one was so flashy that it almost reminded me of a Thai Buddhist temple, so I wasn’t the biggest fan of it. A bit too gaudy for me. Jokhung was actually built by Nepali architects over 1000 years ago and then expanded 400 years ago, so the old interior was actually distinctly Nepalese and not Tibetan, so it strongly resembled a North Indian temple with the woodwork and carvings and color. In general in Tibet, no photos were allowed inside, so sadly I was not able to capture the absolutely magnificent idols and statues that were present in all four of these places in Lhasa, or anywhere else. Some of the coolest stuff I’ve ever seen, to be honest.

After the Jokhang Temple we walked around the Tibetan old town area. Honestly, especially after Upper Mustang this was underwhelming. All newish buildings that are built to look traditional, it felt like a generic European old town – gift shops and restaurants and modern shops with a historic exterior. Nothing like walking through an actual Tibetan village like in Upper Mustang. After a couple of days in Lhasa, we drove to Shigatse, which was an old capital of Tibet, with a few scenic stops on the way. In general, we drove northwest from Lhasa towards Kailash, circled back to EBC, and then finished in Lhasa before flying out. This day, we basically drove up to a 5000 meter pass, and then descended down to Shigatse at 3900 meters…at 3650m, Lhasa was the low point of the entire trip, which is actually kind of funny.

We had a couple of sightseeing stops on the way to Shigatse. First up was Yamdruk Lake, which was this gorgeous alpine lake. We drove up to 4800m to have a really cool aerial overview of the lake. It was a stunning bright blue, and really provided a nice contrast with the stark, barren, brown rippling hills surrounding the lake. Honestly, like any barren alpine lake, the pictures do not do it justice. While alpine lakes in more lush areas, like the ones I saw in Kyrgyzstan and Kashmir, are obviously gorgeous, there really is something else about high-altitude lakes in a desolate environment. Whether it was in Ladakh, Spiti (Chandratal!), Tajikistan, Bolivia, or Afghanistan (Band-e-Amir!!!), it really looks like an absolutely gorgeous painting, in the best way possible. The color contrast between the clear blue sky and the clear blue lake along with the grey/brown of the endless vast space around it. I do think that the sky seems bluer becaus of the contrast with the barreness of the landscape, which makes it all the more beautiful for me. And the total lack of vegetation and life really brings out the contours of the landscape, giving it a surreal appearance. Even without the lakes, I absolutely adore these landscapes (especially with the cloud shadows!), but the blue lakes (whether indigo or turquoise or anything else) really bring out the best in this. Personally, I also really love these landscapes because it emphasizes how difficult life is, and how minuscule and fleeting we all are…to me this realization makes life far more meaningful. The vastness of the landscapes in these alpine deserts is a good way for all of us (some more than others…) to realize ultimately how unimportant and meaningless we are individually, and to basically check your ego. Even moreso than Bolivia or Tajikistan or Namibia, Tibet is up there with Ladakh as the single most vast place I have ever been to.

During this entire trip, the drives were filled with these absolutely vast landscapes. It was so easy to get lost in my head, and I think a reason I love these roadtrips in barren, “nothing” environments – whether it’s in Ladakh/Spiti/Tibet, or Afghanistan, or Bolivia, or Namibia, or Jordan, or Utah/Arizona, etc. etc. – is the same reason I love trekking. I love getting lost in my thoughts and this is a great way to do so without getting bored, as I sometimes would in a more stimulated urban environment while doing nothing. Honestly, I genuinely feel bad for people with mental health issues where they struggle to deal with themselves and hate getting mired in their thoughts. I LOVE being inside my head (and always have…even when living in Chicago I would go for like 2-3+ hour walks at least once a month for the same reason), and I cannot imagine being in a place where that is your own worst nightmare.

Beyond the absolute vastness of Tibet, another thing I loved was when we drove in these valley-areas between the towering ranges, and you would see these flowing rivers with small rocks strewn about everywhere on each bank. It’s a very innocuous image, but it’s really a sort of scene that I adore. Since a lot of my all-time favorite landscapes, from Ladakh to Spiti to Tajikistan, have these small streams with pebble-like rocks everywhere while flanked by ginormous barren mountains.

Soon after Yamdruk Lake, we drove over a 5000m highway pass before descending onto the Karo La Glacier, which was a decent enough glacier view with a conveniently placed stupa for a nice scenic photo. Proceeded down to hit 3900m, and we eventually made it to the small city of Gyantse, where we visited the Pelkhor Choede Monastery. I actually enjoyed this one a bit more than the ones in Lhasa, as it felt more like a mix of old and new while the Lhasa ones all felt totally new due to how wealthy they were. This was about 700 years old, and like the Jokhung Temple in Lhasa, was built by Nepali architects. So the interior felt a bit more Nepali/North Indian with the wooden pillars, and the largest stupa in all of Tibet was in this complex as well, complete with those Nepali Buddha eyes on the top. There were cool old wall paintings here (though not as cool as what I saw in Spiti), and probably the best protector deities I have seen yet anywhere on the Tibetan Plateau, with tons of giant statues of various demonic figures and tons of crazy torture scenes from hell painted on the walls in the protector deity chapel/room. This was also the only monastery I have seen outside Spiti that had wooden idols, which added to the old/new feel as they were side-by-side with the gaudy gold-plated Buddhas. Gyantse also had a somewhat scenic dzong, or fortress, near the monastery, perched on top of a hill overlooking the modern city.

Drove about 2 hours from Gyantse to Shigatse, also at 3900m, and then spent the night. The main monastery in Shigatse, the Tashi Ihunpo Monastery, was unfortunately closed that next morning, so we instead spent about an hour and circled around the massive complex with tons of other Tibetan devotees. In general, Tibet to me (and Tibet specifically. This does not apply to Upper Mustang, Ladakh, nor Spiti) is the most openly religious/spiritual place that I have been to after India, where seemingly everyone is spiritual to some degree. There were numerous devotees here – all older! like grandparent age – who were doing prostrations around the entire ring that took us one hour to walk. The power of faith really is incredible. The entire walled complex that we walked around was ringed by prayer wheels. Unlike Upper Mustang, the prayer wheels here (and in all of Tibet) were on the newer side, probably due to the Cultural Revolution. A lot of the Tibetan men here were wearing these awesome looking cowboy hats…apparently a lot of Tibetans from eastern Tibet wear cowboy hats (reminds me of one of the main secondary characters in Uncharted 2), and it’s a pretty badass look. Also, like Gyantse, there was a cool fortress that we had a view of while circling the monastery here.

After Shigatse, we drove up to about ~4400 meters or so over the course of 5 hours to the town of Sakya to see a monastery. The drive was gorgeous as always…as we were going further and further west, the landscapes were just becoming bigger and bigger. Another part about the drive in general (not just this day), was that there were tooooons of ruins littered about. Various destroyed forts and destroyed stupas and monasteries. The guide wasn’t sure when they were destroyed, if it was more recently during the Cultural Revolution or way back in the day.

The Sakya monastery honestly was my single favorite one in Tibet, and might have been my favorite one in all of the Tibetan Plateau, at least on the interior. The Sakya are a different sect (like the Yellow Hats aka Dalai Lama, and the Red Hats aka the main group in Upper mustang), and their monasteries and all the buildings in their area (so this entire county) use grey paint for their buildings, which gave it a more unique experience to the typical all-white that you see in Tibet. The monastery was by far the “oldest” feeling one in Tibet, and really up there with the ones in Spiti in terms of how you felt like you were actually walking through history. Granted, the total lack of tourists here also helped…the vast majority of Chinese tourists turn around at Shigatse and head to Everest Base Camp before finishing in Lhasa agian. The wall paintings here were just as cool as some of the oldest ones I saw in Spiti and Upper Mustang, and the main assembly hall was just as massive and grand as some of the biggest monastery interiors I saw in Ladakh. It genuinely felt like a scene out of Uncharted 2 when I walked into the assembly hall, and saw these ancient wall paintings and wooden pillars along with massive gold plated idols. But these were like a dimmed gold, and clearly aged, not as flashy as the ones in Lhasa. The highlight was this massive back library room that was unharmed during the Cultural Revolution due to the monks building a seperate room to hide these books. Literally 1000s of 1000s of beautiful Tibetan scrolls just stowed away in a room that was easily 15+ meters tall. It’s a real shame no photos were allowed, specifically for this monastery. Really, it was like a combination of the best monastery interiors I saw in Ladakh (in terms of scale and the dark/historic feel) with Spiti (paintings, books, intimate historic feel). I think in general, it is safe to say that Tibetan Buddhism and South Indian Hinduism are my two favorite religious cultures when it comes to the aesthetic and architecture and general feel of everything.

After Sakya, we drove another hour and down to 4200 meters to crash in the city of Lhatse. The following day was a long drive to the city of Saga, with no scheduled stops so it was just admiring more of the scenery. We drove over a couple of 5000 meter passes before hitting Saga, nestled at 4500 meters. The highest point in the continental US is at something like 4450 meters…for basically 7 straight days, I would be well above 4500 meters the entire time. The longest my body has ever been put through the ringer of high altitude, and honestly you do sort of feel groggy/sore/don’t get the best sleep (I think this is what old age feels like at sea level, seriously) but I don’t know, I love that feeling because I know that I’m way up in elevation and there’s always cool shit to see and do the higher up you go.

The drives were getting better each day…as mentioned before, everything was just getting bigger the further west we drove. More barren, vaster plains, more massive rolling brown hills, and the first snow-capped mountains (over 7000 meters!) began to appear. Some of these almost looked like a cartoon, with the stark barren color and cloud shadows and bright white peak glaciers and comically blue sky. Honestly it all felt fake, in the best way possible. And the villages we drove by here were all windswept and sitting in a vast high plain…really strong Tajikistan vibes here, with these square houses getting battered by the wind at stupid high altitudes, well above 4000 meters. One of the highlights was driving by a small lake called Langsto Lake, where the brilliant turquoise blue contrasted with the desolated rolling brown hills around it. In general, Tibet as a whole weirdly felt more like Bolivia than like Ladakh, Spiti, or Upper Mustang. I think because those three were on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, so you got the up close views of big mountains combined with the vastness and scale. Whereas both Tibet and Bolivia were more about vast, wide open spaces. In both Ladakh and in parts of Spiti (when you go past the valley and drive into the plateau), the vastness was definitely comparable to Tibet, but overall I think Tibet just “feels” bigger. Even more than Bolivia as well. Though one difference with Bolivia (and a similarity with Tajikistan) were the mountains in the distance. Obviously in Tajikistan you also had up close giants with the Hindu Kush in the Wakhan Valley. Still gorgeous here obviously. And parts honestly reminded me a bit of Afghanistan…when driving close by the dry rocky mountains with basic villages set up on the valley floor. Honestly, this trip had me thinking of Scotland a bit…I firmly believe that the Scottish Highlands are like a 3rd world homeless man’s version of the Tibetan Plateau. So not even a homeless man’s version (which is a poor man’s poor man’s, as per Bill Simmons), but they are basically a poor man’s poor man’s poor man’s poor man’s version. So they were still pretty cool, but absolutely pale in comparison to the vastness and bigness out in the Tibetan Plateau.

One generic pan-China complaint…at lunch on the way to Saga, we stopped at this Tibetan equivalent of a trucker stall restaurant for some delicious momos. As per usual in China, we were eating with disposable wooden chopsticks that were all individually wrapped in plastic wrappers. These are everywhere in China, and are just so bad for the environment…it would legit be cheaper and better if all food places offered their own reusable and washable chopsticks. The chopstick waste alone rivals the outrageous amounts of plastic wrapping waste that I saw in Japan.

The following day was another full day of driving, before we arrived to Darchen, at 4700 meters. At the foot of Mount Kailash, it is the starting point of the three day trek around the mountain. So Kailash is the holiest mountain in Hinduism (as the home of Lord Shiva, his wife Parvati aka Kali, and their sons Ganesha and Murugan), Buddhism, Bon (the pre-Buddhist indigenous Tibetan faith), and Jainism. You get bucketloads of Hindu pilgrims from Nepal and especially India who visit to see Kailash and do the 3 day trek around it (there is a separate pilgrim visa that Indians and Nepalis apply for that gives them access to just the Kailash area), plus obviously tons and tons of local Tibetan Buddhists who come to circle the mountain. It’s also a decent trek in its’ own right…three days with a max altitude of 5600 meters. But yea, Kailash is arguably the single holiest site in both Hinduism and Buddhism (Buddhists believe that if you complete the Kailash circuit 108 times in your lifetime, you will reach enlightenment). Literally every single Tibetan Buddhist house/store/restaurant/guesthouse, whether it was in Ladakh, Spiti, Upper Mustang, or here in Tibet, has a giant picture of Kailash. Likewise, a lot of Hindu households, whether expats in the US and UK and southeast Asia or within India, have pictures of Kailash in them as well, especially if those families are predominantly Shiva worshipers as opposed to Vishnu worshipers. And when you get to northern India near the Himalayas and in Nepal, literally every single store/restaurant/guesthouse has Kailash pics up, so it is quite a big deal in Hinduism as well as Buddhism.

It’s also cool because it is arguably the single oldest pilgrimage site in the world that is still “in use”, so to speak…it’s been considered holy for at least 2500 years (rough age of the Mahabaratha, where the protagonists make a pilgrimage to Kailash), so almost certainly older than that. The mountain is “only” about 6700 meters, but towers over the plain around it as it is not really a part of a greater range (there are smaller mountain/hills in the immediate vicinity). It’s basically shaped like a pyramid, with each of the four sides featuring a straight up vertical ice wall that is at least 500+ meters tall. The Chinese government has banned climbing attempts on the mountain due to how many people worship it, but it would absolutely be a hell of a climb. The sources of the Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra, and Karnali (one of the primary tributaries of the Ganges) are all within like 50 square km of the mountain, which probably contributed to its’ holy status in ancient Hinduism (also pretty cool because these ancient folks discovered the source of these 4 rivers back when this shit was outrageously difficult to do). Honestly, it was probably a holy mountain before modern Hinduism and during the proto-Hindu days (the reason that Hinduism is called the “oldest” religion even though Shiva/Vishnu barely predate Jesus and don’t predate the Jewish faith, is because of how there is a continuous and traceable evolution from like 5000+ years ago). It would make sense that these proto-Hindus who lived in the fertile valleys of north India would find Kailash sacred as it soars above the region that is the source of the four rivers that helped the greater south Asian region develop. And once Shiva fully developed in the Himalayan region, it made sense that he was assigned to the holiest mountain of them all. Likewise, as Buddhism developed and co-evolved with Hinduism, it makes sense that Kailash would have been co-opted as a holy pilgrimage site as well. Kailash right now is currently within 100km of both the India and Nepal borders.

Anyways, the drive to Darchen was awesome. A bit of a slog…over 500km, but we covered it in 8 hours, which really goes to show how well the Chinese have done with roads because this is not at all an easy environment to have good paved roads in. The entire drive was between 4500 meters and 5300 meters…quite easily the highest roads I have ever driven on. Gorgeous views of a vast, endless, empty landscape with rolling giant barren hills, as per usual. But the highlight here was the ~3+ hours we spent driving right alongside the Nepalese border. You could see a straight wall of massive 7000+ meter peaks that formed the border. Honestly I think it was cooler to view it from Tibet than from Nepal, because here you get the entire view of a giant mountain range for like 50+ km (the visibility here is ridiculous because of how high we are and how *nothing* impedes your vision). And it’s crazy because these mountains didn’t look all that tall, and that was because we were <50km away and driving at around 5000m, so these were “only” 2000m in elevation above the plain. Just totally crazy.

So anyways, we got to Darchen, and unfortunately the first two days of the hike were to be stupid early starts, like before 6am. This is because the other two in my group were this older Slovenian couple (my parents’ age, in their late 50s), and while obviously they’re in great shape for their age to trek 50+km over 3 days at a range from 4500m-5600m, they were slower than me, and Chinese rules state that all foreigners must be with their guide at all times during the trek, so I was latched onto this slower group. But honestly wasn’t that big of a deal, and they were really nice and made for pretty good company during the trip. They actually sort of adopted me, and would keep feeding me snacks during the long drives and would not take no for an answer. It is good to pack calories in high altitude since you burn waaaaay more (like over double or triple) than at sea level. On the first day, we trekked about 21km to the settlement of Dripudek, slowly ascending from 4700 meters to 5000 meters.

So Kailash basically perfectly orients itself, with each of the four sides perfectly facing North/South/East/West (this can’t hurt for people finding it to be a holy mountain). Darchen faces the south side, and we walked 21km all the way along the west before reaching Dripudek, which faces the north side. It was super easy, though I spent roughly 6 hours hiking and 3 hours waiting, as I never went too far ahead and would plop down and wait for my guide and the couple to catch up. Also – high altitude means you have to walk slowly! There were a bunch of Chinese tourists who sped past me and they were all literally on oxygen canisters when I arrived in Dripudek…they all had to pay up the ass for an emergency 4WD vehicle to take them back down to Darchen the next day. Speaking of fast hiking, hiking in Tibet truly is humbling. I was going at a very good pace for a foreigner, but there were quite literally grandmas with walking sticks and HUNCHED BACKS who were zooming past me each day. Absolutely outrageous stuff. Tibetans, like the Chinese in general, are super super friendly, and the ones who spoke English would always slow down and talk with me for a bit. Literally everyone I met was doing some variation of their third to twelfth circuit around Kailash.

We even saw well over 30 Tibetan Buddhists (and a couple of Indian Hindu pilgrims!) prostrating over the 3 days. So prostrating is absolutely fricking mental. Basically, you do a prayer, get on your knees, lie down with your arms stretched forward, mark the spot where your fingers reached out, stand up and walk towards that spot, and repeat the process. A “good” prostrator apparently takes around three weeks to complete the Kailash circuit – this is 52km, going from 4700m up to 5650m back down to 4700m – while most people take a little over a month. I just cannot fathom both the physical fitness levels and the mental strength and level of faith required to complete such an outrageous task. Of course, these prostrators all have a support network that will set up camp and provide food/water for them for each night. Honestly, I was lowkey more impressed with the Indian Hindu pilgrims who were prostrating because they don’t have the genetic advantage of Tibetans with high altitude (not to take away anything from the Tibetans. Anyone who can prostrate this entire trail is an absolute legend). In general, the Indian pilgrims we saw were on the older side and did not look physically fit at all. They were also all obviously slower. But yet they completed the trek at their own pace. High altitude trekking is 95% mental…even for me, I often clear my head and just focus on breathing and walking, especially on the difficult uphill sections. It’s legitimately meditation, and I absolutely see the value of chanting something like “Om Nama Shivaya” or “Om Mani Pae Mey Hun” to control your breathing, get your walking speed at a correct pace, and clear your mind. In general, of the few hundred people I saw over the three days, I would say it was about 90% Tibetan, 5% Indian and Nepali Hindu pilgrims, and 5% Chinese tourists (who, to be fair, could also have been Buddhists and here for a pilgrimage). And then the 3 of us foreigners. That 90% Tibetan figure also includes about 20 or so Bon (including a few prostrators!) who we saw…they actually walk around the mountain counter-clockwise, while Hindus, Buddhists, and tourists walk clockwise. Though I am curious…if a foreign tourist had a Bon tour guide, would they do the trek counter-clockwise?

The first day was super cloudy (as was the prior day when we arrived in Darchen) so we didn’t really get a good view of Kailash. During one of my waits for the Slovenian couple, the clouds did clear up and give a cool first glimpse of the west side of the mountain. It was very cool to see all the Tibetan and Indian pilgrims around me just drop to their knees when that happened and start praying in the direction of the mountain. I feel like there’s something more powerful about a religious experience in such a difficult environment (super high altitude, middle of nowhere, amazing natural scenery) versus witnessing this same behavior in a man-made structure, or by some boring natural area (like a small hill in a green field or something dumb like that).I don’t know, it just feels more meaningful when people react like that out in the wild due to natural beauty (which gets mixed with spirituality/religion of course), and when the object of veneration is an objectively impressive and badass mountain. The four vertical walls make it such a unique mountain shape…honestly Kailash is up there with Shivling (in Uttarakhand from my Gaumukh Tapovan trek), Kilimanjaro, FitzRoy (Argentinian Patagonia), and Everest (keep reading) as the most impressive mountains I have ever seen up close. I think Cotopaxi just misses the cut for that group…amazing conical shape and ginormous (just under 6000m), but not quite the “wow” that the others had. In general, the trek was definitely more enjoyable because we were among pilgrims and were basically the only tourists (again, can’t comment on if the handful of Chinese we saw were also tourists or Buddhist pilgrims). Also – speaking about “middle of nowhere”, because China is, well, China, there was pretty much constant 4G/5G reception during the entire trek. Amazing. And the landscape this day (and all three days in general) was largely barren and rocky, with little spurts of short grass near the streams that surrounded the mountain. Once we got to Dripudek, the clouds cleared a bit and you could see most of the north face (the peak was still obscured). So of course, being the good Hindu boy that I am, I took a shirtless meditation photo in front of the mountain.

The second day was the absolute highlight. It was 20km, we rose up from 5000m up to 5650m down to 4800m. 5650m makes this the third highest high point of trekking for me! After Huayna Potosi at 6088m and Kilimanjaro at 5895m. We left at 5am again, and the stars were actually out (each night before bed, it was way too cloudy to see a good night sky). Still partially cloudy but overall a gorgeous view, though I would see much better at EBC in a few days. This entire trip, we were otherwise in cities so there was far too much light pollution to actually see the sky outside of here and EBC.

I hiked the first part, which was about a 250m incline over a few km, and then waited a bit for the others to catch up (this day was a bit obnoxious…8 hours of hiking and 5 (!!!) hours of waiting. But no complaints, honestly. Still had a great time). Because of this wait, we caught the absolute perfect sunrise on the north face (slightly east but still basically north). Up there with the sunrise of Mount Shivling as one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Blue sky with no clouds and the sun hitting the top was just gorgeous. While looking through my photos later, I noticed that if you zoom in you can see a shadow create a clear “E” on the center of the mountain. To the left of that, if you squint, you can almost see the outlines of faces, which actually really threw me back. My guide said that this was a known thing – to Buddhists it is the protector deities/those who have reached enlightenment/etc., while to the Hindus it is Shiva.

Overall, despite the elevation gain, I found the hike fairly easy (and this was with lugging my overpacked 8kg backpack with me!). Probably because I walked slower than usual because what was the rush if I had to wait anyways? And because of my frequent stops. For the last 100 meters of elevation gain to the high point of 5650m, a fellow 30 year old approached me (Tibetan of course)…he was doing his second circuit and he was with his mom (who naturally zoomed by while he slowed down to talk to me), who was on her 15th (!!!) circuit (my guide has now done 15, one as a child with his parents and 14 as a tour guide over the past decade…seems that the vast majority of foreign tourists don’t do the two week Tibet trip with Kailash and instead to an 8 day package that skips it but does everything else that I saw). This kid (he’s 30 but sue me, we’re kids) was actually a DJ, and he showed me some of his remixes, which were actually dope and provided good motivation to make that extra push to the top. They were all remixes of Afro beats and EDM/dance to Tibetan prayers, and it actually worked. Really really reminded me of Burning Man music, I totally loved it. At the top, once my guide and the Slovenian couple caught up, my guide smoked a customary cig. Apparently in Tibet they sell lighters that work at above 4500 meters, because regular lighters will not light up this high up.

Overall, the ascent was awesome. So much fun, such a good hike, we were walking on snow for the last 300m or so of elevation gain, but it was never dangerous. After that, it was about 14km of a slow and steady descent to 4800m, nice and easy. We ended at a settlement called Zultuk Puk (all these settlements exist purely for pilgrims and tourists).

Day three was a bit of a joke to be honest. Just 12km, and a slow and steady descent from 4800m to 4700m back to Darchen, so it took all of us like 3.5 hours in total (the Slovenian couple had acclimatized better by this point so kept pace with me. Helps that it was an easy day too). From the 5650m pass to the northeast of Kailash all the way until the final 2-3km where we turned west to go towards Darchen, we were walking alongside the east face of Kailash. However, this entire time, you could not see the east face, as the foothills surrounding Kailash blocked the view. Even on the west and north, you couldn’t see Kailash except for when there was a gap in the foothills. Likewise, from the south you can only see the top of Kailash rising above the foothills (because Darchen is waaay to the south).

So Mount Meru is the center of the universe in both Hindu and Buddhist cosmology (again, both emerged in north India and probably evolved from a proto-Hindu religion). Meru is traditionally accepted to be one towering mountain, with a series of foothills/smaller mountains surrounding it. In fact, historic Hindu and Buddhist temple design all intentionally copy this Meru layout – Angkor Wat in Cambodia is the easiest historic example of this – smaller pyramidal temple towers that surround a grand temple tower in the center. Another notable example is the Kailasa Temple (see the name) in the Ellora Caves, which remains the most architecturally stunning thing I have ever seen after the Pyramids of Giza. Given Kailash’s pre-Hindu history of being worshipped, a few historians/scholars apparently posit that Kailash was the inspiration for Meru, given how it is sort of identical – a towering mountain in a giant, vast plain, surrounded by smaller mountains and foothills. So to me, the single coolest part about the Kailash trek was to visit the mountain that directly inspired Hindu Temple and Buddhist Temple architecture across history. Beyond that, obviously very cool to do a trek with devout pilgrims. And obviously, as a cultural Hindu and Indian-American, it really was amazing to actually see this fabled mountain up close and do the trek around it. When we ended in Darchen, I actually insisted on going back to the hotel where we stayed and then tapped the door of my old room, to complete a full circuit around the mountain. Just because. Kind of crazy that this was my last big trek of retirement (I’ll get a couple of good day-hikes in in Hong Kong), and I can’t just casually go on an epic trek every few months now. Still, retirement has been absolutely wonderful.

I think the true value in trekking, or in any sustained outdoor activity (jungles, deserts, camping, horse riding, hell even Burning Man if you do it like me which is admittedly not the majority view on approaching Burning Man, etc.) that takes place over a few days, is that it teaches you how to deal with shit and not to complain. My biggest (only?) pet peeve with people is if they are overly negative and complain all the time, especially when faced with the slightest hint of adversity. You’re not some refugee in Sudan or dealing with military and opposition force violence in Myanmar or Mali, you are a first world and (usually) wealthy individual who is not having things go your way, so grow up. I often get told by people “I love how positive you are!” when in treks or in outdoor situations, when in reality it is just me trying to counter the absolute negative and annoying sinkhole that these same people who complement me are creating. Complaining achieves absolutely nothing and if anything will reduce the capacity and capabilities of those around you, so stop being a bitch and deal with it and figure out a way to move forward.

After Kailash, we drove over to a nearby lake, Lake Manosarovar, also situated at 4700m. This is also a super holy lake for Hindus and merely a “just holy” lake for Buddhists. It was gorgeous – clear blue skies and rolling brown hills that, as always, looked just like a painting. Up close was a bit different though. Spent about 2 hours attempting to walk along the lake, and I was assaulted by thousands upon thousands of gnats while occasionally sinking my legs almost knee deep in the wet sand. At least I was already filthy from the three day trek with no showering, so I sort of just embraced the filth and sludged on hoping for something better, given how famous the lake is. Honestly was the lowlight of Tibet. And the Slovenian couple walked the same two hours the other direction I did and had the same issues with Gnats and bad ground. There was also a busload of 50 Indian pilgrims who were at the same spot as us, so it’s not like my tour company picked a bad spot. But yea, totally forgettable (though at least it built character).

We stayed at a guest house near Manasarovar (again, cloudy at night so no good night skies), before driving back to Saga – same road we took before the Kailash trek, so same scenery, etc. The one difference was that in the beginning, it was a clear blue sky, so from the southwest, we got a magnificent view of Kailash from the distance. Might be one of my favorite pictures I’ve taken. Nothing too noteworthy on this drive – it was the only time this entire trip where we repeated a road – but one notable highlight was stopping by a bunch of yaks grazing in a field. Sadly, there are no more wild yaks in Tibet and they are all domesticated, so it wasn’t that cool, but still.

One night in Saga, at 4500m, before driving to the southeast, close to the Nepal border, to the Chinese/Tibetan Everest Base Camp. This was up at around 5100m. The drive here was very reminiscent of Tajikistan in particular, with the rocky narrow valleys and green patches of barley fields in between. There were also stretches like Ladakh – less vast than the rest of Tibet, but still outrageously vast, so with the mountains and soaring cliffs a bit closer to you. As mentioned in the very beginning (if you remember, kudos), this was the only part of Tibet where I saw tons of preserved stupas dotting the landscape. Also way more destroyed forts than in any other region of Tibet. It’s also crazy…every day we drove, we saw all these unnamed, soaring hills while driving. A good chunk of these are probably above 6000 meters, and they are a dime-a-dozen here, which really puts my personal high at the 6088m Huayna Potosi peak in perspective. Also, during this drive (as in all of our drives), our driver and guide would often talk to each other in Tibetan. It’s honestly such an aesthetically pleasing language to listen to, with a lot of humming-like noises going on.

We eventually got to Everest Base Camp around 3pm in the afternoon, and of course it was totally cloudy and couldn’t see a thing. We checked into our shockingly bougie tent accommodation, where I put on all my cold layers (thermals, hat, buff, gloves, the whole shebang) because EBC here is situated in a crazy windy valley, and at 5100m that cold picks up. Walked about 20 minutes (again! high altitude, you gotta walk sloooooow) to a rocky patch where there was allegedly a great view, and just sat and braved the wind and waited. About 5 (!!!) hours later, the clouds started clearing out, and honestly, holy f*****g shit. I’ve obviously seen pictures of Everest from the Nepalese side on Google and Instagram and various travel blogs, and comparing that view to what I saw here is like comparing a flip-phone to a smartphone. Just a total night and day difference. Of course, here you just drive, while there you do a trek (to roughly the same elevation), so the trek is obviously way more fun, but still. Just a clear, unobstructed view of the beautiful dry valley before us, and then the *entire* north face of Mount Everest starting at us. It looked so close, and yet it was 32 km (just under 20 miles!) away, which really rams home just how massive this mountain is. Just sat there, snapped a few pics, and then took in the whole view. I was surrounded by Chinese tourists (EBC, like Lhasa, is stuffed with Chinese tourists), and they literally *all* had oxygen cannisters to breathe because of the altitude. Much like Tibetans, the Chinese are just so so nice. They would all walk up and ask to take photos with me, and then talk for a bit if they knew English (or even if they didn’t!. Translate apps are amazing). Boy, girl, old, young, literally everyone. Just such friendly people, and honestly that made the entire Everest viewing experience more fun.

One cool Everest fun fact. When my dad was a teenager, he took a family trip to the Indian hill-station of Darjeeling, in the northeast (I visited here in early 2020). They were visiting his uncle (whose son and grandson actually both live in Singapore now! Since I will *most likely* be in LKY in SG for my master’s). While there, he actually met the man himself, Tenzing Norgay. Norgay was, of course, a part of the first duo to summit Everest, along with Sir Edmund Hillary (this was before a certain Rodham besmirched the name Hillary), back in the 1950s. Honestly such an incredible figure, and really cool that my dad met him. Crazy that for my grandpa, Norgay was probably only the second most impressive person he met in his life, after Albert Einstein. My grandpa lived in the US in the 40s/50s before moving back to India and getting married, and he somehow became decent friends with Einstein – we have a few photos of them hanging out together.

Speaking of Hillary and Norgay’s achievement – I often see on social media people just saying “oh anyone who is rich can climb Everest”. I guarantee that these would be the first people to bitch and moan and struggle after boarding a flight from sea level to 3500 meters, to a place like Cusco or Lhasa or Leh or La Paz. Altitude is no joke, and people (including my parents! who are both very fit for their age) constantly underestimate it until they actually wind up there and then struggle to lift a foot when hiking up a hill. Yes, you need to be loaded to summit Everest. But even then, you still have to be stupid fit, a *great* hiker, and technically competent with crampons and ladders and ropes and climbing. It is absolutely not an easy achievement at all. I think the beauty of it is that it is a doable achievement for most people physically (and mentally, which is the far bigger challenge).

Eventually, night time came and the stars came out. The sky remained clear, and the night sky was gorgeous. Absolutely up there with the skies I have seen in Kili, Ladakh, Spiti, Galapagos, Namibia, Wadi Rum, Kyrgyzstan, and Bolivia. I am very fortunate to have seen so many night skies (hell, I’m incredibly fortunate to live the life that I am currently living), and yet pristine night skies absolutely never get old, they really do create a sense of wonder. I really struggled with the photos here though…because Everest was 32km away, it was really hard to get a good shot where you can clearly see the mountain and the bountiful stars together. Happy enough with my photo I guess, but if it wasn’t numbingly cold and windy I would have spent hours really figuring out the right camera settings for a good shot.

The following day, we drove back to Shigatse, which was where we spent our first night after leaving Lhasa. On the way north from EBC, we hit a pass that was supposed to have a gorgeous view of five of the 8000m peaks. With our luck, the only one that wasn’t clouded out was, of course, Everest. This view put the view I had of the Nepal border on the way to Kailash to shame (and that was still an awesome view!). From 95km away, you could still see the peak and mountain so clearly, it was absurd. We eventually hit the city of Lhatse (where we stayed the night after Shigatse on the way west to Kailash), and then gunned it for Shigatse. This was the same exact road as on the way from Shigatse to Lhatse and Sakya. It was funny – when we got off at Shigatse, located a mere 3900 meters above sea level, it literally felt like sea level. I tested myself out and did jumping jacks and pushups in my hotel room, and felt like how I normally would instead of being winded. I was finally fully acclimatized! Funny that this is probably the *best* acclimatization I will probably ever have for tackling higher and higher peaks in the future.

Quick note on prayer flags, since I haven’t said much about them and they are ubiquitous here and in Nepal. It was originally a Bon practice that Tibetan Buddhists then incorporated, and this filtered into Nepal, where many Hindus are far more tolerant of Buddhism in terms of practicing it than Hindus in India (Nepal is, of course, hugely majority Hindu). But yea, at this point, in the west, they are always associated with the Himalayas.

The next day was just a simple drive back to Lhasa, although on a quicker road that bypasses Yamdruk Lake. The entire drive was under 4000 meters, and it was one last look at the gorgeous Tibetan scenery. As a whole, for most landscapes under ~4500 meters or so, Tibet more closely resembled Tajikistan <4000 meters (so western Tajikistan, Wakhan Valley, up until hitting the outskirts of the Tibetan Plateau on the east), Afghanistan, or even the beginning of the Upper Mustang region in Nepal (like <3500 meters) in terms of the dry cliffs with lush green in between. Once you got above 4500 meters, it really became more arid and lifeless, more like Ladakh or Bolivia or eastern Tajikistan or the Spiti Valley. Obviously still beautiful, but I definitely preferred the more arid parts more. Spending this last half day just chilling in Lhasa, and then flying off to Guangzhou in southern China tomorrow.

Overall, Tibet was wonderful. Cemented the Tibetan Plateau as my favorite place on Earth after Black Rock City. Love the vastness, love the total lack of life, and love the vibrant culture when you do actually see life. If I had to compare the four regions of the Plateau that I have seen so far…the overall most beautiful is Ladakh, though I might be biased here because Ladakh is the only spot I saw during the winter. It was by far the driest and most lifeless area which is why I think it is the most starkly beautiful, but I do wonder how visiting in the summer would be. Spiti has the best monasteries (especially from a historic standpoint), and honestly to me was the most “photogenic” in terms of getting to a viewpoint and just seeing a picture-perfect view. Probably due to the combination of Ladakh’s starkness and the more valley-like geography here, which lends itself better to photos than the vast plain. Upper Mustang was the best for experiencing authentic Tibetan culture, and I don’t mean that in a poverty way. Ladakh has a strong generic north Indian and Kashmiri influence, Spiti has a strong generic north Indian and even Punjabi influence, while Tibet obviously has a strong Chinese influence (even more so than the Indian influences in Ladakh or Spiti). Whereas the Nepalese influence in Upper Mustang is minimal – the only thing I noticed was that the villagers spoke Nepali, signs were in Nepali and Tibetan, and the guesthouses all served dhal bhat in addition to Tibetan food. But population wise it is basically 99.9% Tibetan. And of course, Tibet had the best “big ticket” attractions of the four, and arguably really of any place I have ever been to. Kailash and Everest alone would be two amazing stand-alone trips, and to top that with Potala Palace is incredible. But overall, all four are absolutely amazing destinations, though I think for most western tourists, Ladakh is the easiest one to visit – roads to Spiti are the worst I have ever seen in my life, Upper Mustang is a minimum of 1500USD, and the Chinese visa is way harder to get than the Indian visa. I’m going to miss the homey architectural style of indoors as well as the distinct mudbrick exterior style, the niceness of the locals, the barren and gorgeous landscapes, and of course the minor aches of being in high altitude…the Plateau really is amazing.

My very last retirement stop is coming up…a quick week in southern China to see Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau. Then the encore of my retirement will be London for a week, then NYC for a bit, and then grad school. I will know for sure in a few days, when I am in HK, on whether I will be in Singapore or Berlin for grad school…just waiting to confirm some stuff for Singapore before I commit, but if not, Berlin will still be fun.