“But why are we going with them if you obviously don’t trust him?” I asked, secretly relieved and happy that we’d have four bodies’ worth of extra space with the second car.
“ ’Cause we kind of have to. If you talk to anyone else, you’re lucky if they don’t run away screaming at the mere mention of the border.” Then Ammon told us of his and Sebastian’s attempts to arrange a ride to Nepal. Travel companies knew full well that they were the only way tourists could get to the border and were quick to take advantage by raising their prices. “Locals treat the border as if it were the plague. So we have to pay three times as much to go with a licensed company. To be perfectly honest, Tibet has been a major disappointment.”
“Oh really? Why is that?” Yves asked, sounding surprised.
“Everyone thinks it’s this holy, magical place that will instantly transform you. Truth is, because of its reputation, it’s become a tourist trap that’s lost its authentic feel. It’s probably better to get to know Tibetans and their culture from neighbouring countries,” my cynical brother said. He had been so excited to be part of such a historically reverential place before we arrived. I suppose that the higher the level of expectation, the more room there is for disappointment. And we were disappointed. Perhaps the altitude combined with our sibling rivalry was affecting us more than we thought.
In other parts of China, though, we’d often been approached by ladies, children, elderly folk, and couples asking where we were from, or wanting to have their picture taken with us. Whenever we were standing on a corner or looked lost, someone would inevitably offer to help. Of course there was very little English spoken in China, and we were constantly finding ourselves coming up with new ways to communicate. Everything was about hand signals and sometimes even drawing pictures. But here, there was some kind of distance between the tourists and locals. We never felt we were in any danger, only that we weren’t completely welcome.
“No matter where we go, even outside the main tourism sites, it seems everyone is begging: the pilgrims, old people, villagers, and even a few monks. Everyone greets us with outstretched hands, and calls out to us, saying, “Hello, money.” I know Tibetans are poor and that they’re oppressed by the Chinese, but if they think they’re the only people with this problem, they’re sorely mistaken. The Burmese and people from numerous other poor countries I’ve been to didn’t beg to nearly the same extent.”
This bold statement made me cringe. Oh geez. Though we had also seen many sweet, school kids in their blue uniforms smiling up at us, unfortunately it was the aggressive children that seemed to stand out the most. The hairs on my back rose with anticipation at how the Swiss guys would react to such a negative viewpoint. After seeing the way they handed out money to every kid and monk holding their hands out, dropping a coin or two into all those open palms, I couldn’t imagine they had similar opinions. I wouldn’t have dared to speak my mind that way, but Ammon was very confident in his right to speak freely, even if it risked offending someone. He stood by what he believed, and I suppose he usually had solid evidence to back him up in this kind of debate.
“It’s not the begging, per se, that bugs me – otherwise we might as well completely skip India – but it detracts from the “holy” atmosphere and turns something that could be really inspirational into a headache. I was expecting something amazing, but I just never got those good vibes.” To my amazement, the Swiss all started nodding their heads, whether because they’d recently come to the same conclusion or because they were just generally open-minded enough to consider different opinions fairly, I’ll never know, but I could see their wheels turning as if they were recollecting all of their own experiences.
“Yeah, yeah.” Adrian nodded. “I do see what you mean.”
“I’m glad I came. I saw lots and I came away with a better understanding than I had before,” Ammon said. “But I put Tibet in the same category as Vietnam; this is one of the few places I won’t rush to go back to.”
When the guys had finished arranging private transportation to Nepal, they knew little more than where and when we were supposed to be picked up. With such limited communication, we were tossed willy-nilly from one thing to the next. First, the local drivers told us to get out and that we had to unload all our luggage when we reached the outskirts of town, which was the first inkling we’d had that they wouldn’t be taking us all the way to Nepal. Shortly afterward, two Toyota Land Cruisers arrived. The four Swiss guys tied their stuff up onto the metal roof rack. Our vehicle didn’t have a rack, so we piled our luggage into the storage space behind the back seat, and Bree sat on top of it.
Once we were finally on our way, the road was like a big, jittery gravel pit. The only people we saw were construction workers, both men and women working side by side, manually mixing cement and hammering concrete. The small women were toiling away, sweating and working just as hard as the men. There were a few smooth stretches along the way, but they gave us only enough time to take one long, steady breath before we were again being tossed all over the place.
“So wait a second. What you’re telling me is that this,” I moved to the side, enabling them to see past me to the grey, rocky scene out the window, “is supposed to be one of the most scenic routes in the world? You meant the least scenic, right?” We were in a giant gravel pit surrounded by barren mountains. Even the roadside construction workers seemingly came out of nowhere; there was no sign of a town, or even a tent, in the surrounding rocky terrain.
“It may not be scenic in the traditional sense of the word, but I think it’s cool in its own way, ‘cause it’s so high that nothing grows,” Mom said.
“Tomorrow we should get a glimpse of Mount Everest, so I’m sure it’ll get better,” Ammon said, before directing his next comment to Bree. “That’s the highest mountain in the world, in case you didn’t know.” Bree stuck her tongue out at him from her perch in the back of the vehicle.
I remembered a specific elementary school assembly presentation with a special guest speaker who’d seen Mount Everest. I couldn’t quite remember if he had just done the base camp trek or if he’d actually summited, but he had shown us pictures and spoken passionately about his journey. It was of little interest at the time because this place he spoke of seemed so far away, as if it were on some other, almost fictional planet. I must’ve been only about eight or nine years old at the time, but I still remember it, so it had quite an impact on me. Imagining that I was going to see the exact same mountain he had discussed made me feel like I was about to witness some spectacular, unreachable land.
“I just don’t get it. This is the main highway to Nepal, and it’s not even built yet.” Ammon was completely puzzled as we continued to swerve all over the road to avoid boulders and loose rocks that too often nearly sent us over the ledge. Our Land Cruiser, of course, was a slow piece of junk that felt like it could split in half at any moment. “I can’t believe this is the right road.”
“Do you think maybe they’re taking a back way to avoid police checks?” Mom asked.
“Yeah, like a secret smugglers’ route?” Bree suggested.
“I dunno. I think the Swiss guys had a GPS. Let’s ask them at the next stop,” Ammon suggested, still staring down at his compass and trying to make sense of things. Ammon appreciated their help, and I liked knowing they were riding in the car ahead of us, too. Having five grown men in the group felt much safer than having just one male around to protect three females. If anything went wrong, at least we were all there to help each other.
We were forced to stop when the Swiss guys’ truck got stuck in a large mud puddle blocking the road. The rain had just stopped, creating a huge, magnificent rainbow that provided a welcome streak of colour amidst the grey. We knew we were high up from the lack of vegetation and the emptiness of the thin air. The scenery was a mix of grey, stony passages and high plateaus the colour of dead grass. When we tumbled out of our car, the guys already had the GPS unpacked. Sebastian was holding it stretched
out in front of him like a metal detector, squinting down at it through his big, round glasses while it beeped away.
“What are you finding out?” Ammon asked.
“It’s right. The coordinates are right. I thought it might not be the Friendship Highway, but it is,” he said, stopping to look around as he shrugged his shoulders. “It must be.” The Friendship Highway name had led us all to believe it would be a high-class, paved road. I wanted to smack myself over the head as I observed the rocky pit around us. Instead, I laughed aloud at my impossibly naïve thinking.
An oncoming Land Cruiser switched to four-wheel drive and, instead of stopping to make sure the people in the vehicle were okay or maybe even trying to help get them out of the mud, the driver maintained his speed to pass the Swiss guys’ stuck vehicle. The cars were just inches away from each other, making it nearly impossible to squeeze past, even without the sticky mud. But we were more than a little bit pleased to see karma in action in Tibet when he promptly got stuck, too. As he struggled to extricate himself by revving his engine furiously, we couldn’t help but laugh at his stupidity. We particularly enjoyed watching his expensive sunglasses fall off his face into the deep mud when he looked out his window to inspect the too-narrow space between the cars. Luckily, it wasn’t too long before a random bulldozer happened by and pushed and lifted the vehicles from behind to rescue them.
Not much further on, we stopped again, and all eight of us were instructed to pile into the Toyota Land Cruiser our family was travelling in.
“We were told that you can’t have more than five people in one vehicle because it’s illegal. But here we are, with all eight of us crammed in one to cross the checkpoints. What a bunch of crap,” Ammon said between pursed lips, the side of his face squished to the ceiling.
“Obviously they do it to avoid paying bribes for two vehicles full of tourists. Now the other truck will drive right through,” Mom said. This deception did not sit well with our entire group, but I’d personally never been happier to fall victim to a scam. Without it, it would probably have been my face that was plastered to the ceiling for the entire trip.
A well-armed policeman peered in our window and, after a deft bribery exchange with the driver, he waved us through. As we left them behind at their remote station, the dust that our vehicle had disturbed obscured the sight of the soldiers with machine guns strapped over their shoulders.
After long stretches of nothing, we’d come across small, random, and apparently forgotten communities in the mountains. Each one appeared to have at least twenty kids for every adult, not to mention dozens of mangy dogs around every corner, scampering about with their heads hanging low. We finally stopped at one of them for dinner.
“It’s like some kind of terrible horror movie,” Bree said as kids grabbed at our pockets left and right, leaving trails of fresh snot on our arms. They charged toward us with outstretched hands, shouting “Money! Money!” Bree soon became even more horrified. “Oh my gosh, that boy whipped out his freakin’ thingy. I’m seriously going to kick his butt.” What was meant to be a rest break from an exhausting journey rapidly became even more stressful. The restaurant owners rushed us to what we thought was a secluded room.
“Those kids are definitely little demons,” I said as I struggled to find room to pull out a chair at the big round table in the small room. “It’s like escaping the paparazzi, except that the paparazzi probably don’t spit or bite.” It didn’t take long for them to find us, of course. The first girl invited herself in, and she was soon followed by her little tribe of sisters, brothers, cousins, and all their friends’ cousins and siblings.
“Money?” she asked. Adrian reached in his pocket and, before any of us could cry out “Noooo,” he dropped the coins in the lead girl’s hands and, like flies on stink, we were surrounded. Although they were small, we were far outnumbered.
When the waitress entered our private dining room, I could see the main part of the restaurant through a gap in the curtain. Chinese customers were eating, slurping, and talking loudly, but they were not being hassled by obstreperous children. She placed our food down on the table and then began flinging her arms up and directing a verbal storm at them to shoo the kids away. As much as I welcomed the relief she offered, her actions seemed a bit extreme. But I’d learned that it’s best not to take offence at however the locals may interact with each other. Different cultures have different ways of dealing with things. Beggar kids don’t accost the locals because they know their place in society. We tourists come in and let them get away with everything and then, in addition, we give them money. They’re taught to respect their elders, but they logically learn, from our own actions, to disrespect foreigners. It’s all in the way we present ourselves and how we expect to be treated. If we hand them money, we’re promoting that type of behaviour. They often don’t see us as people, but instead, as stupid Santa Clauses who owe them something. If we saw an old woman on the curb or others who were truly in need, we’d often slip money into their hands, but we couldn’t support them all, and resented being constantly harangued.
After the waitress had cleared out the kids, I looked at my small plate of food and slumped. We were all famished, and we’d been really excited when we saw familiar items like ‘French toast’, ‘sweet and sour chicken’, and ‘stew’ listed in English on the menu. To my dismay, what we got was a depressing meal of two pieces of untoasted bread and a tiny plate of burnt “chicken” scraps.
“I’ve never had French toast like this before.” I looked disdainfully down at my plate, but before I had time to complain further, a very small head popped out from the curtain behind Ammon, and the sound of a child demanding, “Hello, money,” made us all jump.
I shook my head. “I swear they must be hiding in the furniture.”
“Why does everyone here think my name is Money?” Bree joked.
“It’s like they’ve all gone to the school of ‘Hello Money’,” Ammon grimaced. They didn’t hesitate to barge in on our meal from the sliding glass door behind the large curtained wall. Another poked her head in through the curtain with a mischievous look in her eyes. Before too long, they were back in full force, laughing and stealing bits of food like vermin and nearly pulling the plastic tablecloth out from under us.
“Screw off,” Sebastian said. He swatted their hands away from his plate as they continued to snicker and egg each other on. The Swiss guys were starting to swear and get really irritated. Feeling guilty about the role he’d played in encouraging this mess and then not being able to defend his personal space made Adrian’s husky-blue eyes and pale skin redden.
The kids were energetic and feisty, and they didn’t seem to be desperate or suffering as much as simply bored and up for any challenge. What did they have to lose? Bree and Ammon eyed each other and he stared deviously into his bowl. I knew they had something up their sleeves and that a counter-attack was in the making. Bree lip-synched “Three, two, one. Go!”, and he blindly catapulted a spoonful of stew over his right shoulder.
My jaw dropped open in disbelief at what they’d just done. A snort escaped me, and I knew then that everything had gotten completely out of hand. Should I be laughing or ducking for cover? The comedic aspect had more to do with just how insane this scenario was than it did the fired missile itself. The girl looked down at a blob of potato and then slowly picked it off her shirt and placed it in her mouth. She began chewing dramatically before she actually leapt toward us. Still clawing frantically at the air, she was grabbed on all sides by her comrades. Finally, Mom sternly led the kids out and shut the door and curtains behind them.
We were looking at another full day of being tossed around and pulverized on that not-so-very-friendly Friendship Highway, but by that time, I’d have done almost anything rather than stay here with these spitting ankle-biters. We decided that, before we could be cannibalized, it was best to just make a run for it after we paid for our meal.
Ch. 26-30 photos here
Changin
g Faces
31
“So Ammon, how much longer is it to Kathmandu after we cross the border?” I asked.
“Well, we’re going to need a ride through the ten-kilometre stretch (6 mi) of no-man’s-land once we get there. Same as the other times we’ve crossed Chinese borders. After that, we’ll catch the final bus or truck or who knows what – likely a jeep – to the capital. Why does it matter?”
“Oh man,” I groaned. “And how long will it take from there?”
“I don’t really know. Maybe about five hours? But you saw how yesterday went – five hours turned into thirteen.”
“That’s just not right,” I said.
“Don’t remind me,” Bree moaned as she squeezed her head between her palms. By the second day of this trip, our legs were cramped and our backs felt like they’d been used as accordions. We’d spent the night at a roadside “hotel.” The smoky kitchen downstairs, where the local family fried food between sooty walls, made us cough, and our eyes watered almost all night long. Himalayan nights were pitch black and cold. With no heating in the room, we were freezing. The only bits of warmth we had were the cups of hot tea we hunched over in our room.
“Today should be better, though,” Ammon said. “You’ll be able to see five of the world’s highest peaks: Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, and Shishapangma. I think they’re ranked as the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, and fourteenth highest mountains in the world.”
“Honestly Ammon, when do you have time to memorize all that?” Bree asked.
“I read it last night.”
Sihpromatum - Backpacks and Bra Straps Page 22