by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 6 Apr, 2019 | Journeys
The plateau stretched out across vast distances, with each horizon serrated by mountains. It was an uninhabited desert, alive with colours and strange sounds made by the wind, much more inspiring than the rather static photographs one sees in the National Geographic magazine.
The village I had been left in was a small collection of low-slung mud buildings, ideally suited to resist the wind and dust. You couldn’t actually see any houses as they were all surrounded by walls which, I guessed, act as a wind, dust and snow barrier. I could see goats and children and assumed I could scrounge a cup of tea, or some water. A barefoot child ran up to me and then dashed off in terror after I made a gesture meaning drink. He came back with a crowd of noisy kids and a strange mime act followed: me pretending to drink and the kids screaming with laughter. They were filthy, dressed in rags and scraps of animal furs but they looked happy, fit and healthy. Eventually they realised what I wanted and two of their members were sent racing off across the dust. A woman appeared carrying a gourd. She was wearing a long leather coat, with fur on the inside, belted at the waist. Her face was dark brown, filthy and weather-beaten but her teeth looked perfect. She passed me the gourd and I sucked at it desperately while the kids clapped and screamed with joy. It contained sour goat’s milk and felt like the best thing I had ever drunk in my life. I felt invigorated. I thanked them in Chinese and walked on. The kids followed me for about a mile down the long dusty road.
The land was empty as far as the eye could see. Every hundred yards stood a wooden telegraph pole and the wire stretching between them made strange humming noises in the wind. It felt like someone was trying to talk to me in a language I didn’t understand. I examined an ancient stone wall by the side of road and compared it to the ones I knew from the lowlands of Scotland. This wall was made up of large round stones, as if from a river or sea, not like in Scotland where stones for drystone dykes are dug from the earth. I got so lost in these thoughts that I almost missed the truck that was approaching. Then the roar and dust cloud was upon me. The truck was slowing down. What joy! I ran along the road, waving to the driver – who took one look at me and accelerated. But he had slowed down just enough for me to race after him, grab the tailgate and get into the back of the truck. I lay face down enjoying a moment of rest, grateful to be moving, enjoying the comfort of a wooden floor. And then I felt a hand on my arm. I looked up and saw a row of western faces.
They asked the usual questions:
– Where are you from? Where are you going? My answers were short and simple:
– Scotland and Shanghai!
It felt strange being able to talk normally with people who could understand me and I wasn’t sure I liked it. The more time I spent in the wilderness the less I felt the need to talk, and the more I felt the power of silence. On my right was the guy who had touched my arm and helped me up. He was from Denmark and his face was tanned from travelling. He looked kind and had a blonde moustache. He seemed to be with the thin Englishman with a red face, clutching his camera and staring out of the open back of the flat-bed truck. The Englishman didn’t want to miss anything and kept taking photos. On the other side of the truck sat an emaciated-looking Australian who seemed to be staring at the spare tyre. He was the only one who seemed unimpressed with the spectacular view that was unfolding behind us, as if to say this is nothing! You should see the places I’ve been to! The wooden floor became uncomfortable and we all stood up for long periods with slightly bent legs, in the surfing position, trying to absorb the bumps, chatting like a group of commuters on the train into London.
The sun was going down and the evening light illuminated the dust cloud behind us with flashes of gold. The road started climbing again and we continued uphill for hours. The Englishman told us that soon we would reach nineteen thousand feet and I wondered why these travellers feel the need to know all sorts of facts and figures before they go anywhere. I could feel the altitude fiddling with my brain. Despite the headache I felt a wild freedom welling up inside me. I wanted to cry, to weep and scream with joy – all at the same time. By the time we reached the high pass I was slumped over an oil drum, fast asleep.
There was no movement and the stillness woke me from a deep, dreamless sleep. The truck was empty. I looked outside and saw them standing in a group talking with the driver and looking at the sun going down on a jagged horizon. The air was incredibly clear and you could see for miles. I jumped down and wandered over. The young Tibetan driver and his mate were animated and friendly and it was difficult to imagine that they had been quite happy to leave me by the side of the road earlier on.
– That’s Mount Everest over there, said the Dane, pointing to a ridge of mountains on the distant horizon. It looked impressive but it was hard to make out which one was the biggest as they all looked roughly the same size. I looked again and saw that one was slightly bigger than the others. That was the tallest mountain in the world?
– Chomolangma, said the driver with a smile.
– That’s the Tibetan word for Mount Everest, said the Englishman. To the Tibetans it’s a holy mountain.
There was a pause and I was glad to see nobody was encouraging this annoying Brit to spout any more of his schoolteacher-ish knowledge.
– He says we should take photos, said the Englishman, who took another. There was no way I was going back to the truck, to rummage through my bag, find my camera and waste a precious shot on a vast plateau like this – even though the colours were rather incredible. I had a crappy camera and only one film; I wanted to remember the feelings on this trip, not rely on photos to remember what happened.
– I only have black and white film I said, feeling as if I had to justify myself.
– The driver’s inviting you into the front, said the Australian with a trace of resentment. He lets us all ride in the front for a bit. Go for it mate!
Now I understood why nobody seemed to want the front seat: there was so little space between the dashboard and seat that your legs were constantly crushed. It reminded me of a story I had heard about the Russian T34 tank that was built in huge numbers during the Second World War. Apparently the Soviets saved huge amounts of steel by building the tank for small people and, so the story went, the Russians only recruited short people for the tank brigades. I wondered if the same designer had worked on this truck.
Darkness fell with surprising speed. Blackness spread out in every direction. I leaned forward, looked out through the grimy windscreen and saw that the sky was lit up by bright stars. The driver was talking to me in Tibetan and pointing up, but I couldn’t understand a word. The stars shone so brightly that I wondered if they were the same stars that we sometimes saw at home. They had to be, but these ones looked so much bigger and brighter. They seemed to illuminate the ground in the same way that moonlight would.
I decided to make friends with the driver and his mate so I rolled them a cigarette. Soon the cab filled with Dutch tobacco smoke and it seemed more cosy. They were chatty and I started to practice some Tibetan words with them. After much confusion I worked out that Dro is the Tibetan word for go. I pronounced it again and again, raising a few laughs from the driver’s mate, and eventually found the right tone. As we ploughed on into the night I worked out how to say: Lhasa. Go. You. Me.
We drove on and on through the night and I realised the driver wasn’t going to stop. My headache was getting worse and I felt exhausted too. I couldn’t cope with any more Tibetan words or jokes I didn’t get. Why didn’t the driver feel tired? He had been driving all day but he just seemed to get more cheery. We stopped a few times in the wilderness to get out, stretch our legs, have a pee and stare up at the sky. The Ozzie was getting restless and said I had been in the front for long enough; I came out of that warm cocoon and he jumped in. In the back I noticed the others had brought out puffy down jackets and Arctic sleeping bags and were looking very snug. I had nothing but a hat, a thin jacket and the plastic sheet I had picked up at the border. I started to freeze.
At the next stop an old woman wrapped in rags emerged from a low mud building. She was carrying a metal flask and she handed us each a hot cup of tea. The driver gave us all a packet of Chinese noodles and we dissolved them in the tea and ate greedily. Nothing had ever tasted better! Then I realised that I needed to stop, to get some sleep, to try and deal with my pounding headache. I told the Dane that I wasn’t going any further with them and he seemed disappointed, as if to say: don’t leave the cosy protection of the gang. I gestured to the driver, pointed to the mud buildings and indicated sleep. He understood, shouted what sounded like orders to the old woman and she disappeared into the darkness. There was a flurry of activity: parting greetings, headlights spearing the blackness, a roar of engine and the build-up of their dust cloud. I was left standing alone by the side of the road, hoping the old woman hadn’t barred her gate and left me to freeze. A few minutes later she re-appeared with another cup of tea, led me inside her low, dark, smoky abode and pointed to an ancient metal bed covered with a filthy carpet that would serve as my cover. I was so tired and in such pain from the headache that lying down on a surface that wasn’t bouncing up and down was pure unadulterated pleasure. I lay there with a smile on my face, trying to work out what the appalling smell coming from the carpet was and thinking that I really needed to get one of those high-tech sleeping bags. But none of this was important and within minutes I was fast asleep.
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. If you’d like to reserve a copy just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article).
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 4 Apr, 2019 | Journeys
The road from Khasa was surfaced with gravel and clung to the gorge precariously. Soon it became clear why there was no traffic: as I walked along I could hear boulders crashing down from the forested gorge above, bouncing over the road and plunging into the abyss below. It was still pouring with rain but the little square of plastic I had bought from the Tamang porters was keeping me dry and happy. After a few hours a Chinese man bounced along in an old car and gave me a lift. He was middle-aged, friendly and the seats were covered in some sort of carpeting. Even though he was only going for a few miles it was wonderful to relax in a comfortable chair. Our conversation consisted of single words:
– You? America? He said. America good! You go?
– Me? I replied. I go Shanghai!
– China! He concluded with disgust. No good! No money!
We finally reached the top of the gorge. On a nearby hillside was a miserable settlement of low houses huddling from the wind. The driver indicated that this was where I had to get out. I happily complied, grateful for the lift. I waved goodbye and to my outrage noticed that he didn’t turn off into the village at all, but drove on towards Lhasa. The swine! He just wanted to get rid of me. Maybe I should have offered him money. I walked on.
Hours later I saw a tiny shack by the side of the road – a tea shop – and went in. The tables and stools were so small, and so low to the ground, that it looked like a kindergarten. I sat down on a stool that wasn’t much bigger than a cigarette pack and looked at the big, pretty, round-faced Tibetan girl who was standing over me. She looked nervous and kept saying momo which I assumed was the Tibetan word for steamed dumplings. Tea and momos were the only thing she had on offer, apart from hot chili sauce. They were delicious, invigorating and cheap.
Back on the road I was starting to feel light-headed because of the altitude. The colours were changing: in the gorge it had been dark green, brown and grey but now the predominant colour was yellow, the sort of browny yellow you associate with the desert, or lions. The air was incredibly dry and dusty. There were no people around, no settlements, no cars, no animals. I was feeling optimistic and not at all lonely.
Suddenly a Tibetan man on horseback appeared. He looked weather-beaten and far bigger than the pony he was riding. He looked at me with interest, jumped off his pony and came over to sniff me out. He made appreciating noises about my rucksack, my sunglasses and my boots, smiled broadly and then indicated his stirrups, boots and hats. Would I like to swap? He took my sunglasses, put them on and squealed with delight as the whole landscape changed colour. He moved towards his horse and I was sure he was going to shoot off with my specs, so I grabbed them back and we wrestled and laughed like a pair of teenagers. As he rode off with a wave I was struck with the harmlessness of the incident – if this had happened in a western city it could easily have turned violent. I walked on.
Am I on the right road to Lhasa? I thought. Surely there should be more traffic on the main road from Kathmandu to Lhasa?
I hadn’t actually asked anyone if this was the right road but it was the only one leading out of Khasa so it had to be. I trudged on, enjoying the atmosphere, talking to myself and not caring where I was going. Some time later I noticed a dust cloud in the distance, coming up the road behind me, and then a small new minibus appeared. I stuck out my thumb. If there’s one thing I learned from hitchhiking it’s that the more expensive the vehicle, and the better dressed the occupants, the less likely you are to get a lift. To my amazement, the minibus stopped some distance in front of me and I raced up to it. But something was wrong: a kind-looking Tibetan man was blocking the door:
– I’m sorry, he said, in good English, but we can’t give you a lift.
– But didn’t you stop for me?
– No. Driver have problem. You cannot come on bus. This is private bus, hired by Japanese tourists. I am guide and translator.
I pushed onto the step of the bus and looked at them: waxwork models, expressionless. They didn’t seem to notice me and I realised this was an opportunity; they weren’t objecting to my presence. They were probably embarrassed by the incident but didn’t want to speak out. I knew how to exploit this.
– I go to next village, I said to the guide, staying fixed in the door frame.
– There are so many empty seats, I continued with as much charm as I could muster, moving inside another fraction.
– Okay, at next village you get out, said the guide unhappily. I jumped on and gratefully dumped my rucksack. The bus moved off and I found a seat near the Japanese tourists, appreciating the luxury for every minute that I could.
– Where you from? I said to the nearest Japanese. No response, not even a glance in my direction.
– You from Tokyo? I asked again cheerfully, not caring if they replied or not.
– I’d like to go to Tokyo. I continued. Nice place.
At the next village I watched the minibus disappear into the horizon, followed by its faithful cloud of dust, I realised that the landscape had changed again: I had passed through the mountains and reached an endless plain. Much of Tibet is a flat country, a high plateau, with mountain ranges around the edges. The unique thing about this plateau is its height – thousands of metres above sea level – no wonder they call it the roof of the world. India also is relatively flat, with the Himalayas along the north and a range of hills running through the centre. I remembered my geography teacher saying:
– India crashed into Tibet and the impact formed the Himalayas. The Himalayas are a barrier between the two plateaus. Wolfe Murray, boy! Are you awake? What plateaus are we talking about here?
– Er, um. I’m not sure sir.
– Stupid boy! Never pays attention. I’ve been talking about India, which is more or less a flat country, a plateau, which crashed into Tibet, which is also a plateau.
– And what mountain range was formed by the impact?
– Er…um…not sure.
– I don’t know why I bother. Does anyone listen to me? The Himalayas, boy! Have you heard of the Himalayas?
– Er, yes Sir. Highest mountains in the world.
– Sometimes I don’t know why I bother.
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. If you’d like to reserve a copy just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article).
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 1 Apr, 2019 | Journeys
I was full of optimism the next morning as I walked through the golden fields outside Kathmandu, enjoying the warm sunshine. It was one of those moments of such complete beauty that I momentarily forgot that I was doing something that often feels depressing: standing by the side of the road and trying to hitch a lift. There wasn’t much traffic: a tractor now and again, some trucks and the occasional official zipping by in a shiny Japanese jeep. A kindly man on a small motorbike gave me my first lift. He didn’t mind the extra weight even though his back springs screeched over every bump. The wall of mountains ahead got closer and closer and at the foot of them my companion stopped, said he had to turn off the road and I had to get off. I started walking up and up. A lorry carrying sacks of grain picked me up and we made good time; it was a Mercedes and the driver easily overtook the Indian-produced trucks that seemed to be crawling along. Within a few hours we had reached the Nepalese side of the border, which is located in a steep gorge.
A torrential rainstorm had started and I didn’t have a raincoat. The driver stopped by the Nepalese customs house and I dashed in before getting soaked. The customs house was actually a shed perched on a thin strip of land between the road and a river that was powering through the gorge with a deep roaring sound. There were a few more sheds stuck to the customs house, a teahouse, a primitive shop and some shanty type accommodation. The whole shambolic construction looked like it would get swept away by the river at the next monsoon. A few hundred yards up the road was a ramshackle bridge that marked the border between China and Nepal.
Inside the Nepalese customs house was a group of Italians who were all talking furiously at the same time. Their gear had been soaked and was spread all over the small room. An attractive woman with short black hair, glasses and a mad look in her eye pointed a finger into my chest and said:
– You go to Teebet?
– I’m going to Shanghai, I admitted sheepishly. There is something fascinating about furious Italian women and this one reminded me of the raging torrent outside. She looked at me askance, tapped her temple vigorously and launched into a tirade:
– You can’t go! No transport! We try to go to Lhasa. We get nowhere. Why? Because no transport, no nothing, only the stupid donkey and cart. Three days we wait. No car, no bus and no food! We get so wet. You like adventure? You have big adventure. You must be crazy!
– Is there no bus service on the Chinese side?
– You no listen to me! I say you there is no bus, no nothing. We order private bus from Lhasa, we spend thousands of dollars and what happen? Nothing. We wait like stupido. Now we go to Kathmandu and complain to Chinese Embassy.
– So there’s no bus service on the other side? I repeated, more to myself than the enraged Italian, thankful that I was hitching and able to walk if there was no transport.
Pools of water were forming on the mud floor of the customs house and I noticed that the Italians had hung their raincoats and capes all round the bamboo walls. The only person who was completely detached from this chaos was the customs officer himself, an emaciated Gurkha who was calmly ironing his khaki drills. I quietly waited until he had folded away his trousers, caught his attention, showed him my passport, got an exit stamp and walked out into the pouring rain.
Standing on the shaky bridge, I looked up at the Chinese village and realised it was quite close as the crow flies. If you were to climb directly up the gorge it wasn’t more than a mile away, but the road must have been four times that length as it switched back and forth, forming a zigzag pattern up the mountainside. There was no traffic of any description and I presumed the road had slipped off the edge at some point. Suddenly I saw a fountain of brown earth thrown up into the air and heard a sharp explosion echoing off the gorge walls. A group of men in white helmets appeared on the hillside above, Chinese engineers trying to tame this wild hillside. Rocks spasmodically cascaded down the mountainside and bounced off the road. The whole mountain seemed unstable, as if annoyed by the impudence of cutting a road into its surface.
A line of what looked like Sherpas passed me on the bridge and disappeared into the undergrowth on the Chinese side of the border. I later learned that Sherpas would never do such lowly portering work (the Sherpa’s domain was Mount Everest and the foreign climbing expeditions – these people were local Tamang tribesmen).
Assuming this was the shortcut, I followed. The porters were barefoot, wearing only loincloths and each one carried on his back a huge pack, wrapped in canvas, about the size of a bale of hay. The packs were held on their backs by a single strap that went in front of their foreheads. They moved fast and silently, up a steep, muddy track that was covered in various sizes of boulders, effortlessly carrying the huge packs that seem to have been glued to their backs. I struggled to keep up with them, conscious of the fact that I was carrying a puny little rucksack, a handbag compared to their loads. Eventually they stopped for a two-minute cigarette break and I begged one of them to sell me his raincoat – a square of thick polythene, probably from a construction site. Even though I was already soaked to the skin, this scrap of plastic seemed to help against the cold that was seeping into my bones.
Was I the worst prepared traveller to have reached Tibet? With a slight sense of shame I realised I didn’t have any warm clothes, waterproofs or a sleeping bag. I had been put off by the smugness of some travellers who knew exactly where they were going, how they would get there, how much they’d spend, the political situation; they had the whole thing worked out, they were executing a plan with a complete lack of spontaneity.
Khasa is the Nepalese name of the Chinese frontier village and it was dominated by a big white customs building and a new hotel. It is located halfway up the gorge and the only place where construction is possible is right by the road. The street was full of people milling around: porters waiting patiently with their huge loads, pushy Nepalese traders whispering Change money! Change money!, western travellers checking their maps and trying to look purposeful, Chinese soldiers in green uniforms, rifles slung over their shoulders, not seeming to notice what was going on around them and dark-looking Tibetans who were joking with each other and didn’t seem to have anything to do. There was a whiff of anarchy about this town, it was like something out of the Wild West. I went into the new customs house and was struck by the almost clinical hygiene and calm, the automated politeness of the uniformed officials and the speed with which my passport was stamped.
Food was my first priority and the smell of Chinese cooking was drawing me towards a ramshackle wooden construction a few hundred yards up from the customs house. Smoke billowed out of an improvised chimney; there was a trail of black slime on the cliff directly under the shack and the place was packed. As I got closer I could see that it was built in mid-air. They had somehow fixed poles into the cliff below and built a platform on the poles. The walls consisted of scraps of wood that were roughly nailed up to keep out the elements. It looked as though it could disappear off the edge at any minute.
I learned one of the secrets of Chinese cooking that day: the worse looking the establishment the better the food. It looked like Satan’s boiler room inside the shack: packed with rowdy, hard drinking groups of Chinese and Tibetans, all talking furiously. The walls were black with sticky grime and the air was thick with tobacco smoke. All the Chinese I had seen thus far seemed to be chain smokers. There was no kitchen, it was just one big room, and if you needed the toilet I supposed you went outside and did it over the edge (hence the trail of black slime below). In one corner was a small man in a cloud of steam, standing over a flaming wood fire, handling a wok with a speed I had never seen before. I went over to watch and he didn’t seem to mind. Cooking a dish took less than a minute: he held the wok in his left hand, a metal ladle in his right and he would start by ladling some oil into the wok, holding it over the flame until it spat, then use the ladle again to toss in the finely chopped meat and vegetables that were neatly arranged in a series of bowls. He would then squirt some evil-looking sauce into the fray, and ladle in a big quantity of what looked like salt – while continually moving the wok over the flame in a tossing movement.
Then I realised the brilliant logic of it: he had to keep the food moving constantly or it would burn, it had to be tossed to ensure that the sauce and meat and vegetable would all blend. When he wasn’t cooking the wiry little chef would step over to a huge tree trunk that stood behind him – his bloodied chopping block – grab a metal cleaver and hack away furiously at chickens, fish and vegetables. I stepped closer to see what sort of mess he was making of the ingredients and to my surprise everything had been chopped very precisely; he was using the big cleaver with the delicacy of a French chef, but with much more force and speed. I felt quite comfortable amidst the chaos, ordered a dish by catching the cook’s attention for a moment and pointing at a nasty-looking concoction he had just produced. It was the most delicious Chinese meal I had ever tasted.
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. I’d be very grateful you’d reserve
a copy; just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article).
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 29 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
Kathmandu seemed seedier than ever as I waited for my Chinese visa. I had to keep busy, I couldn’t sit around all day or I would get depressed. It was August and the weather was hot, too hot, and by mid-afternoon I would feel slimy with sweat, as if I had been digested by a frog. I forced myself to have cold showers, hot water being unavailable in the Trekkers’ Lodge. The showers in cheap hostels doubled up as toilets: this was where you went to relieve yourself of diarrhoea and the smell, and the slime on the floor, was appalling.
One day I went for a trek (fashionable travellers don’t go for walks, they go for treks) to the nearest hill, just a few miles away. The atmosphere felt different as soon as I got out of the city and I could feel the tension ebbing out of my brain. While Kathmandu had been modernised, to a limited extent, by the influx of tourism, the countryside felt totally untouched.
By now I was at the bottom of a hill which, according to a sign, was a Royal Nature Reserve and contained wild boar and tigers. A high fence stretched out in both directions and I could see Nepalese soldiers patrolling it. They charged me two pence to enter. The path led through light woodland that reminded me of England, the air became cooler and within a couple of hours I had reached the top. I stood panting under a large, spindly observation tower, observing a laughing group of Gurkhas who seemed to be on their lunch break. My plan was to see the view when the mist lifted and see if I could scrounge lunch from some unsuspecting visitors.
The soldiers were friendly and offered me a glass of chang, a milky-coloured and quite disgusting home-made alcohol, from a jerry can. I gratefully swilled down a cupful and asked for another. An important question was pressing: where could I get lunch? I hadn’t brought anything and my stomach was rumbling. The chang helped relieve the hunger pangs but something more was needed. I climbed the observation tower and noticed a rather odd looking couple sitting nearby. I walked over to them and tried to look friendly. The girl was white and seemed to resent my appearance, he was Nepalese and older and invited me to sit down and join them. The picnic was small but she had constipation and couldn’t eat a thing. He invited me to tuck in while she asked me if constipation is worse than diarrhoea.
The man introduced himself as Shankar and started talking about his uncle who, he claimed, had been Prime Minister of Nepal and good friends with the king. It sounded very unlikely but I made I’m impressed noises as I bolted down their picnic. He had been educated at one of the English-style public schools that are dotted around India and had the behaviour, accent and witticisms that are typical of people who get educated in these places. As I started on the hard boiled eggs Shankar said:
– My uncle went to China and returned to make Nepalese history. I nodded with interest, looking forward to a good yarn.
In Beijing the uncle had opened negotiations with Zhou Enlai, the Prime Minister, and signed a trade agreement that resulted in cheap goods flooding into the Nepalese shops and the opening up of the land border to traders and international tourists. However, this created a problem with India, which had always considered Nepal to be within its sphere of influence and had never forgiven China for stealing a huge chunk of its north-western borderland – the Aksai Chin – in the early 1960s. China had briefly invaded northern India in 1962, but quickly withdrew. My new friend told me that there are other disputed areas along the Himalayan frontier and war between India and China was always on the cards. I kept nodding enthusiastically, trying to keep his attention away from my real priority: finishing off their picnic.
By the end of the conversation my head was spinning with names and borders and strategies and once I had eaten my fill I started to note it all down in my diary. Shankar seemed impressed that I was so interested in his knowledge and as we were leaving he whispered to the girl conspiratorially, they both glanced at me, and he said grandly:
– We must meet up again. Do call me tomorrow.
The following day I checked with the Chinese Embassy to see if my visa had been approved and, having heard the same answer I got every day, I called up Shankar. He had been very friendly on the hillside the day before but now he sounded quite distant and remote. Had the girlfriend pointed out that I had greedily consumed the bulk of their picnic? But he invited me to come and meet a fellow Scotsman, which sounded interesting. Later that day the three of us drove out of town, heading north, towards Tibet, on the first bit of decent tarmac I had seen in Nepal. We passed a series of concrete poles by the side of the road which supported overhead cables. Shankar explained that this was Nepal’s first electrified bus line, built by the Chinese.
We parked by the end of the flat plain that Kathmandu is located on and looked up at the vast wall of mountains, the Himalayas, that towered above us like a tidal wave. We went up to a tall, newly-built house, saw a well kept, English style garden and were greeted with great warmth by an old couple from Forres, Scotland: Mr and Mrs McLellan. They were a pair of bright eyed highlanders who had come to retire in Nepal. He was a tough cookie, thin and friendly, and a great storyteller. His wife complemented him perfectly – warm and sympathetic with a voice like a soft highland breeze – and kept our teacups full as he blethered on into the evening.
Mr McLellan began life in a croft, a miniscule farm in the Highlands, got called up for the Second World War and then got a job washing dishes in a hotel. He then learned the hotel business, worked his way up the management chain and eventually set up his own business. During the 1970s the McLellans moved to Nepal and he established himself as a hotel consultant. Because tourism is about the only thing that makes cash for Nepal, apart from drugs, they desperately needed a Mr McLellan, who loved telling people how to run things. He described Nepal as somewhere between autocracy and democracy and told us that corruption is rife. Comparing the running of a country to the management of a Scottish hotel, he saw himself as a source of practical economic advice, leading the region into the next century.
Some years before, the Chinese leadership had invited Mr McLellan to come and advise them about the hotel business. Due to some canny diplomacy on Mr McLellan’s part he managed to get a personal audience with China’s top leader.
– What, he asked, is the precise population of China? The Chinese leader thought for a moment, scratched his head, looked in his file and then admitted he didn’t know the precise figure but thought it was approaching a billion.
Mr McLellan was not impressed. He informed the leader that not having high quality demographic information is a major handicap for a government, and he explained the value of a detailed census as a building block for good government – especially when it comes to planning, which is something Communist governments take very seriously. The Chinese leader apparently took all this in good faith, spoke to someone on the phone about it and thanked Mr McLellan for his advice. He concluded his tale by telling us that their next census, taken in 1982, was the best that had been carried out since the Communists’ took over in 1949. We were impressed by Mr McLellan’s storytelling and even Shankar felt outclassed. On the way back to Kathmandu that evening he hardly said a word and I felt sorry for him when he glumly said goodbye.
After repeating the tale to Adrian and Richard that evening and imagining an audience with the Chinese leadership in the sumptuous Forbidden Palace in Peking, Trekkers’ Lodge felt grottier than ever. Sleep was impossible because of the buzzing mosquitoes dancing round the windows and the endless howls of the stray dogs that roamed the streets at night. My tolerance for the travellers’ life in Kathmandu was ebbing and the one idea that gave me cheer was the knowledge that the Trekkers’ Lodge was luxury compared to what would be available in Tibet.
Just as I had come to the grim conclusion that the Chinese weren’t going to give me a visa, or an explanation, and certainly not my money back, they promptly told me that I had a one month visa to visit the People’s Republic of China. I was delighted and I dashed off to inform my new friends of the great news. Then I started to ask myself if one month is enough time to visit Tibet, get through China and reach Shanghai? Is it possible to get visa extensions in Tibet? But I didn’t dwell on these future challenges; this was my ticket out and I was delighted to be leaving.
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. I’d be very grateful you’d reserve a copy (you’ll be helping me become a full time writer); just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article).
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 26 Mar, 2019 | Journeys
Kathmandu was the first Asian city I had seen that wasn’t built of concrete.
This small city seemed genuinely ancient and the centre was full of Hindu temples, each one a hive of activity. Some were covered with elaborate stone statues of Hindu Gods penetrating their consorts with massive stone penises. The streets were narrow and packed with crowds, people selling fruit and all manner of foods, sacred cows wandering freely and helping themselves to the produce of the fruit sellers who would get infuriated but were unable to do anything. There were more hippies per square yard than I had seen anywhere in my life and their expressions told me there were plenty of cheap drugs available. Everywhere you looked Nepalese men would be hustling, offering hotel rooms, cheap restaurants, tours to the mountains, rupees, precious stones, antiques, temple visits and, of course, hashish. It was pouring with rain and everything felt damp.
At 70 pence a night, the Trekkers’ Lodge was the cheapest place I found to stay. The boys in charge of the guesthouse walked me up some dark stairs, along a gloomy corridor and showed me into a small grubby room with three beds. The boys thought they were doing me a big favour by putting me in a room with two Englishmen. We entered the room and two shabby looking travellers glanced up from their fat paperbacks and tried to look welcoming. Mosquitoes circled the sole light bulb and a towel was stuffed into the small, broken window. I took the free bed by the door.
Richard was dark and good-looking and he had the bed by the window. He sounded like an upper class Englishman but he claimed to have worked as a brickie before going to study at East Anglia University. He fervently believed in the British Labour Party and put all his energy into convincing us that Neil Kinnock, the leader of the party, was different and would transform society when he became Prime Minister. His diatribes were fascinating and I learned more about British politics than I had done at university, where I had studied the subject, but I didn’t believe in party politics, or ideologies of any stripe. I told them that my view of parliamentary elections was based on some graffiti I once saw in Liverpool: Whoever you vote for, Government wins!
Adrian was in the middle bed. He was thin, witty, had a whispy beard and was a seasoned traveller from the West Midlands. He showed me a photo of his mates back home, lined up outside the pub, a grotesque glimpse into another world. Adrian had lived in Greece where he had witnessed the Socialist Party getting elected based on a promise of expelling the American troops from their country, a promise they had failed to deliver. Nothing could convince him that any political party delivers on its promises, Neil Kinnock being no exception, and so they had endless material for debate.
We would go for meals together in cheap restaurants with pastel drapes and nice decor, endlessly talking about world politics while eating westernised food at a tenth of the price. Prices are a big topic among travellers and I noticed how our understanding of money changed to suit local prices. The restaurant we frequented most often sold delicious bean burgers, with all the trimmings, for just twenty rupees which is one British pound. If we went to another restaurant and saw bean burgers on the menu for thirty rupees we would consider it extortionate and leave in disgust.
I had to get a Chinese visa and I wanted it quickly. Neither of my roommates had a clue where I should begin, but across the landing a chatty Chinese American girl with chubby cheeks and a bright smile told me where to go. At the Chinese Embassy, an inscrutable official sent me packing: I didn’t have the relevant papers and couldn’t possibly get a visa for China. They told me to get one in London. This isn’t what I was told in that bar in Budapest.
I then ran into a haggard looking American journalist who told me how to go about it: send a telex to Beijing requesting permission to visit the People’s Republic of China and to issue the visa in Kathmandu. Then send a telex to the Bank of China, New York branch, to pay for Peking’s reply. Whatever the reason behind this ludicrous procedure it took ages, cost far too much, and left me twiddling my thumbs in Kathmandu for the next two weeks.
My new Chinese American friend had travelled overland from Tibet with a horde of young people from Hong Kong. I noticed that Hong Kong Chinese people, when travelling together, can be incredibly loud and also rather exclusive: they seemed to ignore everyone around them and are self-contained in a rather selfish way. I had tried to share a dormitory with them, as they occupied the biggest and cheapest room at Trekkers’ Lodge, but they had specifically told the boys in charge that they didn’t want to share with anyone. I later noticed that Hong Kong Chinese people behave totally differently from their compatriots in the People’s Republic, where people seemed more friendly and humble.
But my Chinese American friend was different; she had all the openness and warmth of the Americans and was keen to talk. She had been brought up by an American family in the Midwest (I presume she had been adopted) and only learned Chinese when she went to live in Taiwan for two years. Her recent trip from Hong Kong through China and Tibet was the most potent experience of her life. She described her best moment as watching the Potala Palace, a vast and ancient structure that overshadows Lhasa, at sunset, while listening to country and western music on her Walkman. Her description of Lhasa’s street life was far more vivid that anything I had read in in the guidebooks. She talked of playful monks, dogs snoozing on the streets, the infectious friendliness of the people, children running alongside the tourist buses and demanding sweeties. She told me that Tibet was quite backward compared to China proper but the effect of western tourism was spreading fast.
Our conversation inspired me to find out more about Tibet and as I began devouring guidebooks, with their short potted histories, I realised my knowledge of Tibet was virtually non-existent. My only source had been Tintin in Tibet, a cartoon book involving a plane crash in the Himalayas, some amusing encounters with Tibetan monks and a showdown with the Yeti, the Abominable Snowman.
I learned that Tibet had been a medieval country until the 1950s. Neither China, home of ancient technology, nor Britain, the scourge of Asia, had introduced anything more than a radio set to this ancient abode of Lamas, or Buddhist priests. It seemed inconceivable that such a strategic country, located between the Chinese, Russian and British Empires, had managed to evade colonisation for so long. Tibet’s policy towards its imperial neighbours had been simple: ignore them. Incredibly, this policy had worked and they had been left in relative peace for almost a thousand years. When a Chinese dynasty got powerful it would install an ambassador in Lhasa and encourage trade in silk and tea, and when the dynasty grew weak their influence would wane and the ambassador would go hungry. Not until the 1950s did China conquer Tibet and incorporate it fully within their border.
By the nineteenth century Britain was raping China, selling them vast quantities of Indian opium and setting up fortified trading ports where huge profits could be made. Meanwhile, to the west, Russia was expanding into the vast deserts of central Asia, butting up against the outer rim of the Chinese area of influence and conquering the ancient kingdoms that had ruled the region for centuries. China’s ruling Ching dynasty couldn’t cope with all this. For hundreds of years they had considered themselves to be the centre of the universe – they called themselves the Middle Kingdom as they believed their land was between heaven and earth. When foreign kings would visit they would be expected to kowtow: prostrate themselves on the floor in a gesture of total submission. Unlike the Japanese, the Chinese were unable to adapt to modern technology and, as a result, the western powers were able to humiliate them. The Chinese didn’t know how to cope with the arrogant Brits who not only refused to kowtow to the emperors, but undermined Chinese society with opium, made a mockery of their armies and destroyed the exquisite Summer Palace in Peking, a vast playground of parks, pagodas and ponds, in an outrageous act of vandalism.
As the twentieth century approached, Tibet’s importance as a strategic buffer zone grew. In 1904 a British force marched into Tibet, fired a few volleys against medieval troops and met virtually no opposition. They found that rumours of Russian influence had been exaggerated, there were no foreign representatives in Lhasa, and they quickly withdrew. But they did sign a treaty, lay a telegraph line and install a trade representative in the city of Gyantse. The Tibetans started to realise that they couldn’t go on ignoring the rest of the world and they tried to sign a treaty with China, but the Ching Dynasty was disintegrating at the time and they were unable to make any progress in this regard.
The chaos of the Second World War enabled Mao Tse Tung and the Communist Party to seize control of China and by the late 1940s they turned their attention to Tibet. They considered Tibet to be another part of the Chinese Motherland that needed to be liberated. They didn’t need to fight their way in as they made a promise that Tibet’s autonomy would be honoured, that the Dalai Lama could remain as leader and that its unique cultural integrity, including a distinct language, would be respected. A treaty was signed in 1951, under duress, and for the first few years the Communists did carry out some useful reforms. By 1959 Chinese heavy-handedness had become unbearable to the Tibetans, and especially to the Dalai Lama, who was nominally in charge. It became clear that the Chinese would only tolerate Tibet’s culture for as long as it took to install the Red Army and their oppressive system of administration.
In 1959 there was a general uprising in Lhasa. The unarmed Tibetans didn’t stand a chance and thousands were killed. The Dalai Lama, followed by about 80,000 Tibetans, fled over the Himalayas and eventually set up a government-in-exile in the Indian village of Dharamshala. The darkest period in Tibet’s history was still to come: in the 1960s over a million were displaced or killed, villages starved, collectivisation was brutally installed and, during the Cultural Revolution, Tibet’s vast network of monasteries was destroyed and the monastic way of life abolished.
But this had all changed when China’s new leader, Hu Yaobang, visited Tibet in 1980 and publicly apologised to the Tibetans for the mistakes that had been made. He decreed that Beijing’s grip on Tibet should be loosened and that Tibetans would have a say in its governance. Part of the reform process that followed included the opening up of Tibet to international tourism.
At that point I still retained some faith in Chinese Communism, which I believed to be more benign than the East European and Soviet variety. I wanted to believe that Communism could work somewhere on this planet as it is such a great theory. I became fascinated by Tibet and refused to believe all the horror stories I was hearing. I wanted to find out the truth for myself.
The more I found out the more questions I had: why wasn’t Tibet even mentioned at university where, in my final year, I had studied The Western Powers and Asia? Why did all the other tourists in Kathmandu seem to know the history of Tibet back to front? Did people in the west know this story? Was I completely wrong in thinking that the Peoples Republic of China was the one place where socialism hadn’t been so terrible? Were the guidebooks wrong? Was the potted history I had just learned nothing but capitalist propaganda? Was Mao Tse Tung really such a baddie?
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This is an extract from 9 Months in Tibet — the eBook — which will be published soon. It was about a journey that happened in 1986 and 1987. If you’d like to reserve a copy just email me at wolfemurray@gmail.com (or post a short comment under this article).
