The Beginning

A trip to Tibet begins long before the steps are taken to board the plane. The genesis of any trip is lodged in the nexus of past experiences and curiosities. On the surface level it is sitting down to figure out which pants, shirts, and medicines to take or which roads/buses/planes to take. For me this journey began 25 years ago when I entered a Chinese public security station and asked for permission to travel into Tibet. This VERY serious man looked at me like I was non-existent and asking a very stupid question. Needless to say, my request was turned down. I returned to the streets of staring eyes of the people in Kunming, Yunnan Province. In the Fall of 1981 there had been extremely few independent travellers allowed to travel in China and the cloak of secrecy into Tibet was still a stranglehold as the last vestiges of the Cultural Revolution unraveled.

This will be one of the few references that I will make to the political situation in China and Tibet. First, the Chinese censor the cyberspace and I run the risk of not being able to post during my travels if I refer to politics or even mention certain names. Secondly, for me this isn't a political science trip. It is a journey, a pilgrimage into a land of antiquity and modernity that is not capable of being duplicated in too many other places in the world.

The history of Tibet has been documented in many places. If you'd like to see a film that captures the situation I recommend to you Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion. It isn't an easy documentary to watch, but it is a very powerful one.

It is still three days before my departure and I'm still trying to figure out buses and car/driver rentals. It is cheap to travel on a bus for a day from Chengdu to the town of Barkham (Markham on some maps); it costs around $10US for the trip and I'm told there are non-smoking buses. But if I choose the comfort of hiring a four-wheel vehicle and driver the cost is around $100 US per day. More choices.

I'm also taking a trial run at packing tonight. One thing that it's been recommended that I load up with is Clif Bars for those days when the food isn't too palatable AND because the Tibetans love them (great gifts). It is one of the few things that are cheaper in the U.S. I was going to buy a few extra things and then it dawned on me that I'm going to the land that makes most of the things I wanted and that Hong Kong will be cheaper to buy these things than here.

I'm so used to having all these conveniences around me and here I am trying to fit most of what I want into my backpack for 2 months. The last time I tried this (besides my 28 day trips in the wilderness with Outward Bound) was a quarter century ago. I'll keep you informed as to how it goes.