namsto and casablanca

lots of people write to calm themselves, and tonight i am one of those people. last time i skyped with mom and dad, dad joked that lhasa is the casablanca of asia. once you get there, you can't get out. two days ago, that was funny. but as my journey out of lhasa and across several provinces to xian approaches… the joke is not so funny!

weeks and weeks ago, the agent that attained my permit, guide, and housing in tibet (you are forced to buy all these things together) offered to help me get a ticket out of lhasa for the end of my trip. because i didn't get to take the train up, and the scenery is legendary, i decided to take the train down. conveniently, the train from lhasa to beijing stops in xian, so i asked for this type of ticket.

when i arrived this week, the agent had no idea i wanted a ticket. the best he could offer was a ticket to xining (about 2/3 of the way to xian). i had to take what i could get, but this means that tomorrow morning i am getting up at 5 am to brave the masses and TRY to purchase another ticket, from xining to xian. anyone who has seen a chinese train station at opening time will seriously question my sanity now. but 没有办法。。。after 27 hours on the train from lhasa to xining, i REFUSE to get stuck in qinghai. plus, it's another 12 hours to xian :(

ok, so i'm pretty stressed about that right now, but i promise the last 48 hours were a blast. last time writing, i left off with my crazy quest to make it to nam-sto lake, one of the biggest, and certainly the highest lakes in china. it's sacred to tibetans and famous to everyone else because the water is a gorgeous, translucent turquoise color… i had to see it for myself!

of course, when i told the travel agency about my desire to go, they said i could hire a private land cruiser for me and my guide, and i would pay 2000 RMB roundtrip. uh-huh. so i told them i would join another group tour and pay something reasonable like 300 RMB (i had heard this was possible from another agency's guide). at first, my agency refused to hand over my permit, because it was "against the rules." how much it is "against the rules" and how much it is "extremely profitable" to hold one's permit hostage… i do not know. anyways, i eventually got it and ran off to join another group for the two-day journey.

what the other tibetan guide DID NOT tell me, is that he was going to sneak me in with a chinese tour group, because technically it is illegal for foreigners to go to nam-sto. i would sit in the back of the car, pretend i lost my passport in lhasa if any authority asked, and speak only chinese. the chinese agency felt confident that i looked chinese enough to pass the glances at the checkpoints. as promised, it would be 300 RMB roundtrip and for housing at the lake… less that 45 USD. they even reassured me that they had snuck three taiwanese girls through that day!

the whole proposition was at once hilarious, terrifying, and intriguing. i knew that the risk to the chinese company was much greater than the risk to me. if i was stopped, i would beg ignorance, while the company could do no such thing. but when i thought about how much money i would pay NOT to come into contact with PLA checkpoint soldiers in tibet… i knew that this was 100% not an option! so i decided to (1) not go, or (2) seek out other foreigners who had ideas.

turns out, a foreigner found me. the chinese agency gave him my cell phone number when they turned him down, because he is chilean and has no chance of faking chinese identity! his name is antonio… he's studying abroad at the university of nanjing, and also traveling independently in tibet right now. long story short, antonio and i met up, found an agency that would take both of us, and were set! this agency was so nonchalant about the checkpoints that we could not help but be reassured. we also watched as 5 foreigners boarded one of their buses out of town that night, while PLA soldiers casually stood by on their watch. like i said… this is the craziest place i've ever been.

so as you can see, getting a ticket to namsto was truly half the adventure. the other half, i will have to skim over because 5 am is drawing near. we boarded our minivan at 2 pm yesterday… a vehicle that should have seated 8 passengers was somehow packed with 11. antonio and i turned out to the be the only non-chinese. at first, they joked and nervously poked fun at us, but we were fast friends by the end of the 4 hour ride. in the evening, we walked by the lake and hiked up nearby hills (strewn with thousands of colorful prayer flags) for views of the sunset. in the morning, it was pouring, so we all stayed in bed until the minute the driver called us out to go.





however amazing the lake was, our 9 chinese companions were truly the highlight of the trip. from begging us to belt lady gaga/shakira songs in the car, pumping oxygen into each others' noses for the 2000+ elevation ABOVE lhasa, paying to ride on yaks, teasing the driver, snapping 30 photographs a minute with outrageously expensive cameras, bargaining for an amazing dinner in the middle of nowhere, acquiring a ridiculous housing rate of 25 RMB per bed, and screaming like little kids in the middle of the night…. i am certain i will never forget any of them. antonio and i had a blast and we were so happy to be accepted into the crew. plus, the boys AND the girls were all much friendlier when they discovered that we were not a couple, and we had only met the day before ;)

so that was nam-sto. when we got back today, i was exhausted and didn't do much of anything, except buy provisions for what is shaping up to be a 3-day train journey this weekend. i also did some recovering, as i believe nam-sto is the highest i have ever been… 5,100 meters or almost 17,000 feet. tomorrow, i will go to the train station first thing, and hopefully be back in time to meet dikri and antonio to go to drepung monastery, another of the three largest in tibet. tomorrow is also the day to do all my shopping! because friday morning at 7:45 am… i'm out of here. oh god.