by Bob Frank
They looked at each other intensely, simultaneously thinking about seeking a past life regression on the Dalai Lama. Clay interrupted, “No. Come on. We’ve got too much to do, plus we didn’t bring our regression gear.”
Looking sheepish, Shali nodded. “Back to business, big guy. I figure we do some sightseeing over the next few days and see if we can find a taxi driver we can trust. We need a driver who will take us out west, stick with us and keep his mouth shut.”
Clay nodded. “If the Chinese government knew what we were searching for, we would be detained and deported before we knew what hit us.”
“But I think we have a good front. All the camera equipment and photo bags definitely make us look like freelance writer-photographers for National Geographic.”
Clay pushed the food around his plate with chopsticks. “Kind of a mundane meal, here, huh? Egg drop soup, steamed dumplings and fried noodles.”
Shali chuckled. “What do you expect, José? Burritos, tamales and tacos?”
Within an hour, they were feeling the effects of the jetlag, so they retired to their rooms and collapsed in bed.
* * * ~~~ * * *
The next morning they met in the lobby with their cameras and backpacks. Somehow the lobby seemed a bit more cheerful and did not smell as grungy as it had the night before. They walked out the front of the hotel and hired a taxi to drive them around Lhasa for the morning. Shali easily conversed with the driver in her fluent Mandarin Chinese. However, neither Clay nor Shali were comfortable with the driver, so after the first temple they switched to another taxi. Shali was not comfortable with the second driver either. She felt his Chinese dialect was simply too good. They picked up a third driver and kept him for the rest of the day.
That evening, they walked down the street from the hotel to a small restaurant for dinner. This one was quainter, brighter and more bustling than the one at the hotel. There were many more people dining there, and the smells from the kitchen were more aromatic too. Their dinner conversation was mostly about the sight-seeing of the day and the other patrons of the restaurant.
While sipping on a harsh-tasting tea after dinner, Shali said, “I feel better about this last driver. He’s got deep, native Tibetan roots. Plus I like his demeanor and flexibility. Over the years, the Chinese have moved a lot of settlers-come-infiltrators into the major Tibetan cities and towns, but he is definitely native; not a settler.”
Clay replied in a cynical tone, “I guess the Chinese are no different than Israel injecting Jews into the West Bank. Sort of like a dog and fire hydrant — ya gotta mark your turf.”
Shali glanced at Clay out of the corner of her eyes, acknowledging his tone. “Sort of? The Chinese influx has been a definitive and concerted effort to drag the Tibetans into Chinese society; they planted the Chinese inside to try to curb dissention. But the embedded colonists will rat out their Tibetan hosts in a second. I didn’t sense this driver’s harshness toward the Chinese, but he certainly has no love lost.”
“Alright. If you’re comfortable, let’s keep this driver for the next several days to hit the local tourist traps around Lhasa. If he works out, maybe we can try to hire him for the month to go out west.”
“I already asked if he would be willing to stay with us when we head out to the boondocks. He agreed and saw it as a change of pace from the big city.”
“Did you get a price?”
Shali smiled. “Yeah, I negotiated a really low rate. It may seem cheap to us, but he probably feels like he won a lottery from a pair of Western suckers. It’s a perfect match, a win-win.”
Clay’s tone became more serious. “Before we left California, I spent a good deal of time studying Google and the Yahoo satellite maps of western Tibet, along with a bunch of other Internet sites and articles dealing with that area. The terrain is really rough and barren out there, but I downloaded satellite maps onto my laptop and installed a GPS module so we can know where we’re at all the time. We’ll have an eye-in-the-sky on geography while we’re out there looking for our secret treasures.”
She smiled at his quip but then turned serious. “Have you picked up any traces of anybody tapping or following us? I’m still concerned about what happened at the hotel in Jordan, not to mention the bugs planted in our place back home.”
Clay shook his head. “Nope. Nothing.”
“It still bothers me what that Jordanian crook was yelling before he jumped out the window. There is more to our suitors than you think.”
“Yeah, but I was very secretive when I made our travel arrangements. Anyway, whoever they were, maybe they have just given up now.”
“No way,” Shali snapped back. “I don’t believe it. They might not know what we’ve been up to, but I don’t believe they’ve given up for one minute. Clay, if they know we are out here and if they have a few connections, we could end up as goners. Done, finito. Their Chinese connections could make us disappear in Tibet and no one would find a trace.”
Clay hesitated and bit his lip in thought. He nodded acknowledgement to her comment.
In a more cheerful, upbeat tone, Shali said, “Let’s call it a day. We’ve got photo journaling to do tomorrow for National Geographic.” She winked at him.
Clay reared his head back. “Is that wink for the cover story or is that an invitation?”
Shali stood up from the table and smiled seductively. “Don’t you wish, big boy.” She put her hands in a square shape before her face, miming taking a photo, and said, “Click. Let’s meet at seven-thirty for breakfast.”
She grinned at having stirred her partner’s libido.
* * * ~~~ * * *
On the third day of touring, they visited the famous Potala Palace. This beautiful, white historic structure was perched on the hill in the center of the valley.
At dinner that night, Clay said, “It’s beautiful, huh? A lot of dalai lamas and buddhas have hung out here the past six hundred years.”
“That’s for sure. As a veritable fortress, it must have been a challenge to ancient invading neighbors. I read that it has recently been a focal point for some of the riots and civil revolts against the Chinese occupation.”
Clay shifted his tone. “Speaking of invaders, do you feel a bit odd? Like, are you getting any odd stares from the Chinese authorities and locals?”
“Not the way you are. I could probably pass for a Nepalese or maybe a light-skinned Northern Indian — maybe even a Tibetan. The stares I get seem to beg the question of why I am hanging out with this big-nosed, white barbarian. That’s what the Chinese call you guys.” She laughed again. “But I don’t think it is just the locals. Everywhere we’ve been in Lhasa, the uniformed Chinese overseers seem to be conspicuously staged at every other street corner. Plus I’ll bet there is at least one covert undercover agent for every Chinese in a uniform.”
After a several minute pause in the discussion, Clay said, “I thought it went pretty good with this driver again, today. You think?”
“Agreed,” Shali replied. “I like him. He doesn’t ask too many questions, and I sense he can keep his mouth shut. He helped us find those Drukpa without wondering why.”
“Good. So what’s on for tomorrow?”
In an upbeat tone, Shali said, “We’re up for a visit to a temple where we can meet some of our Drukpas. From the temple in California, I’ve got the name of a specific monk to look for. Maybe he can help us.”
* * * ~~~ * * *
The next morning the three of them went to a particularly mundane looking temple. The driver located and introduced them to the Drukpa monk they were looking for. The monk excused the driver, and he and Shali began speaking in Mandarin. Clay quietly watched the low-volume, polite dialogue that seemed laced with intense body language. Finally, the monk politely bowed to them both and smiled. He pulled a cell phone out of his robe and moved about thirty feet away to make a call.
Looking puzzled, Clay looked at Shali and asked, “What is going on here?”
“I don�
�t exactly know, but we’re on to something.”
“What’s happened so far?”
“He spent several years of his earlier monk-hood in the Mount Tsipri area, where we want to go treasure hunting. He is definitely not Chinese, so I took a chance and told him we were looking for secrets held by the Drukpa.”
Surprised at her boldness, Clay said, “Isn’t that pushing our luck a bit?”
Hey, we can’t just drive out into the Himalayas and start asking for hidden secrets. We’ve got to make our own leads. So I did.”
They moved over to a bench closer to the monk and sat down. As the monk continued to chatter away, the two of them pretended to engage in idle discussion.
“Look at him, over there,” Shali said. “He’s been on that phone for quite a while. He’s talking in a slurred Tibetan slang, so I can’t understand it, although I could tell from the first few minutes of the call that he was reminiscing with an old friend. But he’s become very serious and lowered his voice now. I can’t make out much, but it seems the other guy is asking a lot of questions.”
“Any idea what it’s about?”
Shali’s eyes showed her uncertainty. “It has something to do with us, because he keeps glancing at us, but I just can’t tell.”
The monk closed the cell phone and walked toward them. As he approached he spoke to Shali in clear, crisp Mandarin Chinese, but obviously in a serious tone.
She conversed with the monk at length, and then he escorted them back to the taxi where the driver was patiently waiting. The monk spoke with the driver in a local Tibetan dialect for another ten minutes. From his hand motions, it was clear even to Clay he was giving the driver specific directions.
He then exchanged contact information with both Shali and the driver. Before they left, they all placed their hands together in front of their chest in prayer fashion and bowed their heads with closed eyes: a classic Buddhist farewell.
As they drove away, Clay glanced back and saw the monk contemplatively watching them depart. He had a sorrowful, sad look on his face, as if some ill fate had come to pass. Just before they passed out of sight, the monk took his cell phone out again and appeared to be making another call.
“Shali, you’re killing me, here. What the hell is going on?”
Shali gave a huge sigh of relief before responding. “Clay, we’re on the way. This monk has set us up to visit a colleague of his, close to Mount Tsipri. He said his associate would introduce us to other Drukpa, if necessary, to get our story for our ‘photo shoot,’ of course. He gave the driver specific directions and contact numbers in case there were any problems. The driver thinks we’re just going to interview with the Drukpa. We leave in the morning. The temple is almost two days drive to the southwest, so they’re expecting us the day after tomorrow.”
Clay asked in a concerned tone, “Do you think we’re being set up?”
“No. Both the monk and the driver are native Tibetans. We need to trust someone or we’re never going to find our hidden secrets.”
* * * ~~~ * * *
Early the next morning, the adventurers packed their bags into a small minivan and headed off across the Tibetan countryside. After a seemingly long morning of bumping up and down curvy mountain roads and being stopped at many Chinese checkpoints, they stopped for lunch at a roadside café. An hour later they were back on the road where within thirty minutes they were stopped at yet another checkpoint.
Late that afternoon, as they drove into at larger city called Shigatze, Clay said to Shali, “These checkpoints are starting to suck. At every point we have our papers scrutinized like a bad day in the immigration office. And the last one, those Chinese soldiers damn near stripped the van looking for contraband.”
Shali chuckled. “Yeah. I was getting ready for the rubber-glove treatment. Look here on the streets. There are guys in uniforms on almost every other corner. I’m getting a bit claustrophobic. Imagine how the Tibetans feel.”
The driver pulled up in front of an old hotel. Shali looked at Clay and said, “I let the driver pick the hotel. I hope that was a wise move.”
They checked in for the night and went to their rooms to freshen up.
* * * ~~~ * * *
Shigatze, Tibet
At dinner that night in the dark, dank dining room of their dingy little hotel, Clay broke the ice. “Did you know this town was founded in the fourteen hundreds by the first Dalai Lama? It carries quite a bit of significance to Tibetans and for sure the Buddhists.” He took a sip of his beer and breathed in the raw aromatic smells rolling out of the kitchen. “But at this point, to me, this is just a dumpy little Tibetan town.”
Ignoring his geography lesson Shali said, “Clay, I’m getting some weird feelings here.”
“You are not alone. You first.”
“I’m really uncomfortable with the Chinese. I feel like they are all over us. If we do find the secrets and the Chinese find out, they are going to take them away.”
“And we are going to go away. Yeah, that’s bothering me, too. I feel like I can’t even go to the bathroom without some soldier or security goon looking in the hole when I’m done. It’s stifling. What about the driver? Do you think he was planted to watch us? Can we trust him to keep quiet?”
“I really don’t think he is one of them, Clay. He is not a fan of the Chinese. I don’t think he would rat us out. On the other hand, if he could capitalize on it — ”
“We’ve got to be careful. If we get close to finding the secrets, we absolutely cannot let him know anything. What about the monk in Lhasa? Didn’t that seem too easy to you?”
Shali clamped her lips tight, paused and said, “Yes, something bothered him about us — more than he bothered me anyway. Yet he still made the connection out here. It’s like he was expecting us, but at the same time he was not happy to see us. It’s almost as if he was leading us on. Yeah, it was just too easy.”
Looking concerned, Clay said, “Yeah, I expected to be roaming all over the countryside, bumping up and down looking for Buddhist temples with hidden treasures but getting nowhere. I did not expect to be pointed to a specific place and given a gold-plated invitation.”
“But, Clay, this does not mean that we are being led to the secrets. They could be setting us up for a rip off.”
Clay pulled his head back. “Are you kidding me? The guy is a monk. Why would he set us up for a rip off?”
Shali laughed out loud. “Come on; business is business. A Buddhist monk will rip you off faster than a Jewish rabbi or a Southern Baptist crusader. You have to watch them all the time. Just remember that we don’t have much money, okay?” She winked at Clay. “Remember, we are poor, hungry, freelance writers and photographers just trying to squeak out a living. All we want is to take some pictures and get a story about the Drukpa.”
“Alright. I’ll chill out. You know, this beer is not too bad.”
Shali nodded. “At least it’ll kill our senses so we can’t smell the sulfur in our rooms. Did you smell those blocks of coal used for heating our rooms?”
“How can you not smell them?”
Shali shook her head. “Next time, we arrange our own hotel and don’t depend on a driver to find us a place to stay. There are some nice hotels here. At least then, we might get normal heat.”
Clay replied, “One more beer before we retire to our quaint little rooms with a smoldering block of coal?”
“No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.”
Isaac Asimov
Chapter 16
The next morning the trio headed out after a simple breakfast of hot soy milk, fried breads and boiled eggs. The second day of traveling was even more difficult than the first. The roads were rougher, steeper, more winding and obviously less maintained. Many of the village roads were clogged with farmers and their herds of cows, all trekking to the fields.
The strong musky odor of manure penetrated deep, and the sme
ll of burning farmyard trash drifted across the roadways along the way. The driver pressed on. After pondering over the directions from the monk in Lhasa, late in the day they turned off onto a small dirt lane that took them through a long desolate valley and then up a steep ravine.
* * * ~~~ * * *
Near Mount Tsipri, Tibet
Finally, they arrived at a monastery that blended into the rugged mountainside. An older monk came out of the main door into the courtyard at the entrance; they were obviously expected.
The monk invited the three travelers into the main foyer to sit and enjoy a cup of hot tea and sweet almond biscuits. Two younger monks took their bags and scurried off up a set of stairs. The driver was asked to accompany another monk who took him off to some unknown place.
Shali engaged the elder monk in staccato crisp Mandarin Chinese, and Clay patiently waited for her sporadic translations along the path of the conversation.
Miss Faisal, is it?
“Yes. Please call me Shali.”
Fine, Shali. What is it that you seek?”
“We are here to take photos and interview Drukpa for a magazine article for National Geographic. More importantly, we are also seeking other information.”
The monk nodded his head. “You have come in search of something in particular, I hear.”
Shali smiled. “We are in search of ancient writings from long ago — perhaps as old as two thousand years or older. These have been referred to as secrets or treasures by people from long ago. The writings may have come from the great library in Alexandria, Egypt. Many ancient people have even said these writings may contain the secrets of the universe.”
The older monk facetiously chuckled before responding. “Well, well, secrets of the universe? Isn’t this a bit of fantasy, perhaps something from a Hollywood movie? I mean, what could the secrets of the universe possibly be?”
“We do not know. We have been told that they exist, but we do not know what is in the writings.”
“Why do you come to Tibet in search of these — these secrets?”
“We were told that the Buddhists in this part of Tibet, specifically the Drukpa Kargyüs, should be able to help us find the writings.”