the last of the Tibet pictures

Of course, I have many more, but these are the last of the ones I picked out as the best.

This is the way many families heat up their water. The sun is so strong that all they have to do is reflect some of it on the kettle in the afternoon and they have hot water! Ingenious, huh?












Some women outside a temple in a small city on the way to base camp. They are each wearing a colorful striped apron that represents the fact that they are married. My friend and I each bought one of these aprons as a sort of "self-fulfilling prophecy" we hope.








This little boy was sitting on his parents' fabric selling booth in the market. He was so cute that when I took the picture, I said out loud "oh my goodness!" and he repeated me. So cute.















I couldn't resist taking a picture of this woman with a prayer wheel in one hand and a watermelon ice cream in the other. I wanted to get closer, but she was already giving me a questioning look and turning away.
















These guys were watching my friend give out pencils to kids who were begging in one of the villages we ate lunch at on the way to Everest Base Camp.

Monks (notice their great visors!) walking the prayer/shopping circuit around the temple.
















A small island building at the summer palace in Lhasa.
Muslims sitting in front of the entrance to the mosque in Lhasa.














I couldn't resist sharing these two (of the many we saw) great uses of the English language. On the menu, especially notice "squeeze the vegetables" and "fragrant bowel". The other sign was actually a warning that they had a guard dog, but we thought we were back in Northeast China for a second, where dog is a popular dish.

a colorful nation

"You are called to go to the nations. Be sent to the continents and the nations of the earth. Let the cultures, the peoples, the tribes and tongues of the nations now color your soul and change how you look at this hurting earth."
This is an introduction to a CD that I own. I was listening to it on the train ride from Lhasa to Beijing last week and all the sights that I had seen in the past week were impressed on me again. These people are so open, so needy, so friendly, so wonderful. If I hadn't already felt like I was called to another place in the world, I might pack up and move to Tibet.




The Potala Palace, the (former) home of the Dalai Lama and the government.









The Jokhang Temple, the center of Lhasa. At the end of the day, from a nearby rooftop.

In front of an image of Buddha at the temple, a box of milk (served with straw inserted), some fruit, potpourri, a little money, and bowls of water are presented.









Mending a tent roof at the Summer Palace.

more Lhasa pictures

I thought this lady's hair was great. Maybe when I'm old and gray, I can be cool enough to wear braids, too. She's selling some vests and stuff at the market around the temple. The guy on the right is turning a prayer wheel.













Yak oil candles inside a small temple.

Lhasa smells like yak. Maybe all of Tibet does. It's not exactly a good smell. (One member of our group thinks that smell is the reason we all lost weight while in Tibet. Maybe she's right. Maybe we could start the Lhasa Yak Smell Diet or something.)
If you want to buy some of this Tibetan favorite meat, you can find shops like this one easily. Most of them have at least one piece of meat that still has the hair attached (like you can see in the bottom right). I guess to help you understand how fresh it is? That it's not processed? That you're not buying lamb? I don't know.

Large prayer wheels lining one side of the Potala Palace. These line every major temple so that you can pray as you walk alongside.











Extra large prayer wheel outside the Jokhang Temple. You can also see one guy bowing. There were actually many people doing this. They use cardboard on their hands to make sliding all the way onto their stomachs easier. Very hard to watch. These people need the truth.

still base camp

I accidentally deleted a picture and then couldn't get it back into the last post, so one more...

Gathering stones at the river at base camp. (Cheap souveniers.)

This camp was originally chosen because it had springs for fresh water.












Our dinner that night...cucumbers and cup noodles. They sell food in the tents, but it didn't look good and is outrageously expensive since it's your only option if you don't bring it yourself. We were happy we had our cup noodles.









Inside the tent where we stayed at base camp. The guy to the left is fueling the fire for heat and his dinner with animal poop chips. The little guy on the right is his younger brother. They stay up here from May-October, then it gets too cold and they go back to their village. The little guy is just visiting until school starts again for him.







Our early to bed camper.

camp and the peak

I couldn't get more than five pictures to post on the last one, so here are a few more.
The entrance to a tent at base camp, enticingly named the Eingush Hotel ( I think it's meant to say English). Before we went up, one member of our group said "Let's stay in a nicer place tonight since we saved some money last night." I was a little bit scared, because I thought there could actually be some pricey hotels at base camp. (I had seen a picture of one in some Chinese brochure.) When we got up there, though, there were only these tents with Tibetan style couches around the perimeter for sleeping. There were only outhouses (some of which were dangerously near their limit of what they could hold) and no showers (or any running water other than the river). So, it was kinda funny to see the response on my friends' faces. It got very cold at night, and they had plenty of blankets, so once we got under about four of them and let our body heat warm them up, we were OK. We talked later about how often the blankets were washed, and we decided that we'd be surprised if they were ever washed. I asked the big guy upstairs if he would keep lice or anything else crawly off of us as I was trying to go to sleep. He did.





Base camp at night (or maybe early morning.)









One of the best views of Everest that we got, the next morning. The tallest peak you see is it, with just a thin skirt of clouds around the middle. We didn't get a completely clear view, but were still quite impressed with this one, and glad to get it just before we had to set off back down to meet our driver again.

trip to Everest Base Camp

We took a four day trip from Lhasa with Everest Base Camp as our goal. I might post some pictures of the other days later, but here are some pictures of days two and three when we got to see Everest. This first picture is our group and our Landcruiser driver. He was a really nice guy. Our student got to talk with him quite a bit, so we learned more about him. In peak season (July, August, September), he only gets to sleep one night at home in between his 4 or 5 day trips to base camp and back. The peak of Everest was actually visible from this spot (the first place we got to see it), but I don't think you can see it in the picture.

Rongphu Monastery, the highest monastery in the world. We went on up a little further from here to base camp. Only special cars are allowed up from this point, I think to reduce the pollution around base camp (and probaly to make more money).









We took the horse ride up to base camp. I sort of wanted to walk. It wasn't a hard walk, but when we got up there and I climbed a little hill, I was glad I hadn't walked. We had to get adjusted to the altitude again here and anything other than walking on level land made us short of breath.














A sweet dog that reminded me of Stella, my black mutt in Dripping Springs. When I walked down from base camp while the others took the horse again, this dog followed me the whole way.

This is the little hill we climbed that made us realize how high we were again. Everest is seen through the prayer flags, but at this point, we couldn't see much of it through the clouds.





Our first view of Everest from base camp. It's behind the clouds, just to the left of the ravine in the background. (Behind the one peak in the back on the left that can be seen.)