Departure

Leaving on 7/7/07, if one is numerologically influenced, seems to be a good day. Sitting in the LAX (Los Angeles airport) international terminal, I'm reminded of what an amazing world we live in. I know the carbon footprint is expanded every time one of the aviation giants achieve lift-off, but all around me are a variety of languages, dialects, and inflections and is a reminder of the positive side of what high-speed travel has done. It brings us all into a closer knit fabric of humanity. It is such a different world from my first flight across the Pacific Ocean in 1962 on a prop plane: a DC-6. I remember being in a plane for 24 hours and hearing the drone of the props, trying to sleep. My first memory of a plane flight was a seaplane landing outside of Skagway, Alaska in 1959. The world of aviation has come so far and the changes in international cultural exchange are remarkable. I'll leave it up to you to make a value judgement about whether it is a better world now.

I'm off to Hong Kong in a bit and thought that an itinerary would be useful to share. The small print caveat is that all this might be altered based on the winds of change.
7/8-14 (crossing the International Date Line, my land-based Sunday will last only 5 hours) Hong Kong, staying at Rodney's flat on Lamma Island (20 minute ferry ride from Central HK).

7/14- 17; Chengdu. This is in the western Sichuan Province of China. The world knows of it as the region of the Panda Bears. It has long been part of the trade routes that hooked into the Silk Road and the gateway into Tibet.

7/18 take a bus to Barkham (Markang in Chinese). A little political geography here. The boundaries of most countries have fluctuated as the centuries flow on. This region of the world is no different. The country of Tibet is now split into different regions. Lhasa is in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). The part of historical Tibet that I will be visiting is a part of Sichuan Province. Barkham is 390 kilometers NW of Chengdu. It will be a 7-12 hour bus ride to get there. I'm told it lies at about 8000 feet. A friend's family lives in the nearby village of Tsambu. My friends just had a baby and I'll deliver some photos. One of those serendipitous meetings that happened over a year ago that has lead me to take this trip.

I'll spend 3 days here to begin to adjust to the altitude. I'll visit a monastery, Tsamne, and Variotsana's caves. Variotsana was one of the early translators of Buddhism in Tibet. He lived during the reign of King Trisong Detsen (755-797 A.D.). He was exiled in this region at one point of his life.

For more information about Barkham, go to: http://www.tew.org/totar/totar.barkham.html

7/21 or 22 Leave for Aba (bus or rented car/driver). Other spellings of this town are Ngawa, Ngaba. This is about 300 km north of Barkham and NW of Chengdu.

7/23 to Pema Shen (shen is county in Chinese) and then to Mardo Tashi Choling. This is the community/ monastery where I'll stay.

7/23-8/20 Mardo Tashi Choling

8/20 and onward: I plan on a trip to Lhasa. This might be done overland or by going back to Chengdu and flying. I'll visit Samye (first monastery in Tibet) and Chimpu, as well as the sites within Lhasa.

9/12 return to the U.S. from Hong Kong.

Ciao.