Monday, May 01, 2000
Journey To Ladakh- Introduction Part-2
Rasik Shah
Rasik Shah was born in the Indian diaspora in the colonial apartheid type society of Kenya in the early forties. Having grown up in a multi-ligual, multi-racial society, he studied law in the London of the early sixties and went back to Kenya, practising as a criminal lawyer. He migrated with his young family to Canada in 1974 and practised law in Vancouver till 1995. He has been conducting trekking tours to the Garwhal region of India in the last few years and is now retired from law, writing full time. He has short stories at the following sites:
1. "The Ngong Hills" at www.dorsai.org/~tjhubsc/ngong.htm
2. "At the Dentist's" at www.es.co.nz/~treeves/rasik.htm
3. "The Discreet Charm of Nairobbers" at: www.litnet.mweb.co.za
(double click "write again").
Currently he is working on a novel set in Kenya. He plans to lead a trekking group to Gaumukh, the source of the Ganges in September, 2000. (See his articles on the Gangotri-Tapovan trek in the previous issues of Sawf), and a jeep safari to Leh, Ladakh overland from Shimla via Lahaul and Spiti in the summer of 2001.
Please address any queries to him at: rshah132@home.com
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Introduction: A visit to Tibet.
After breakfast next morning we follow the deep valley of Bhote Koshi river and see lots of waterfalls. After about two and a half we reach Nyalum Pass and get glimpses of Jugal Himal. We go up to Lalung La (5050 m) and view other mountain ranges like Langtang (7245 m), Xixalangma (8013 m), Dorje Lagpa (6980 m), Makalu (8463m), Everest (8848m), Lhotse (8516 m), Cho Oyu (8201 m) and Gauri Shanker (7134 m). The sky is clear in the bright sun against all the distant snow. This part of the trip has us fascinated by the natural landscape of distant peaks, snow covered ranges and majestic vistas. We reach Xegar and check in at a hotel.
 From Xegar next morning we take a detour of 26 kms to visit Sakya Monastery. This was one of the oldest and most important Bon Po Monastery. From here we drive upto Xigase where we will visit the famous Tashi Lumpu Monastery which was the seat of the Panchen Lama until his death in 1989 in suspicious circumstances. We stay overnight in Xigase.
We have visited a few of the monasteries that survived the destruction visited upon all religious institutions since the Chinese occupation, specially during the Cultural Revolution of the sixties. We saw some evidence of the destruction of parts of one or two monasteries on our way. It was plain now that the Chinese authorities were now embarking on a policy of restoring some of the traditional monasteries, adapting a more pragmatic approach. I gathered that the Chinese had now decided to exercise control in more subtle ways, controlling the financing of the monasteries by taking charge of the large amounts of donations that all monasteries collected. An institution controlled by the Chinese now overseas all the moneys collected by the monasteries and how such funds are spent.
 Such remaining monasteries that we visited spoke of the immense cultural riches that many of them contained and some still contain. There were great series of murals, depicting the rich mythology that Tibetan Buddhism has developed, statuary of the Boddhisatwas illustrating different mudras of the hands of the Buddha, indicating whether the mode was a preaching one, a lecturing one or merely expressing total fearlessness.
 The next day we drive to Gyantse, a small bustling town steeped in history. The landscape is getting bleak and barren and we pass villages and little centres where our bus gets mobbed by crowds of poor-looking bedraggled children who beg for money, pens, etc.
Among the "children" were girls in their late teens, desperate and pushy. These were really deprived people, not just poor but also desperately seeking distraction from obviously vacuous lives. The only relief from this kind of crowding and mobbing was when our guide would get the bus to stop by some lonely shack where we were taken in and an old lady made fresh momos and served them with hot butter tea. This was a bad day on the whole and I was getting the feeling that we were traveling through a depressed landscape. There were no monasteries to provide any relief against the bleakness. I had already been slipping in a photo of the Dalai Lama to a lama here and there, in several of the monasteries we had been visiting. Most of them spoke just a few words of English, furtively putting the postcards away in the inside fold of their ochre and red robes, a bright beam of a smile lighting up the whole face with "thank you, thank you", uttered in English, or some times just joining their hands and returning my "tashi delai, tashi delai". Rarely have I felt so much pleasure at giving anything to anyone, or received such warm acknowledgment from any fellow-beings.
The next day we drive on to Lhasa, passing through pastoral scenes, the ubiquitous yaks grazing in the fields, often used as beasts of burden. We drive along a beautiful, turquoise lake called Yamdrok Tso as we approach Lhasa.
 In Lhasa, we check in at Hotel Yak, centrally located in the downtown area. It is an old-time place with rooms in two storeys surrounding the central courtyard. This hotel is basically run by a bunch of women, darting about all over the place, arranging the aluminium kettles hanging over solar heaters in the courtyard, running around providing room service, cleaning the rooms, etc.
As part of our organized tour, we visited nearby Monasteries like Dreyphung and took a tour of the Potala Palace and the Summer Palace, which the young Dalai Lama had loved. I stayed on in Lhasa for a whole week, beyond the time included in the tour, walking all over the city, visiting different sites. One of my favourite walks is the ritual circumambulation of the Jokhang Temple at the centre of the city. Lots of Tibetans who visit Lhasa from the countryside complete the circumambulation of Jokhang as a religious duty. I love looking at the market stalls along the round route of perhaps four or five kilometers. A lot of women run these stalls. It is a fact of Tibetan life and culture, the presence of women in all activities, including running businesses like shops and restaurants. These women are some of the least self-conscious people I am to meet in this part of the world, full of laughter and humour, ready to banter and indulge in small talk. Some of the stall-women wear feisty hats, in keeping with their personalities. I am to find later in Ladakh the same easy-going personality that the women here have, with the added advantage that language is a lesser barrier in Ladakh, where most Ladakhis speak some Hindi.
As I walked around the Jokhang I was occasionally accosted by some young man or other wanting to exchange some words in Hindi. It turned out that these fellows had spent some time in India and were now back in Lhasa or were merely visiting. These young men would probably have an uncertain legal status in Tibet and were probably not welcome by the Chinese authorities who control the region.
 The other fact of life in Lhasa was the presence of the Chinese. The Chinese soldiers and the police were everywhere. There were also many Chinese owned businesses in town. Whole new streets that ringed the city had Chinese owned shops. As I walked along one of these streets, I came upon a unique site. As I passed one shop, I saw a sign in English prominently displayed. It simply said: EXPROPRIATE. I thought this was an ironic joke, much truer than the owners of the business intended.
In fact, on Sunday outings in the gardens facing the Potala Palace, I found the Chinese out in force, enjoying the parks and the goodies and food that the vendors cooked and served. Usually all the people serving were Tibetans, the people consuming were Chinese. The Chinese women were always in rich-looking dresses, donning the fashion and high-heeled shoes that
belonged to, perhaps, the fifties in the West.
The reality was there staring one in the face. This country, Tibet, was being colonized, settled in by a set of new immigrants. Lhasa already was said to have a majority of Chinese people.
 Tensions ran high in some parts of the city. In the back streets around the Jokhang area, tall Khampa tribesmen congregated on the streets, playing pool on the tables set up on the streets (these streets were not open to traffic), swigging beer and swaggering around in red head scarves, rubbing shoulders with the Chinese soldiers in uniforms, a proud people who obviously resented the presence of the armed Chinese officials. You could see that the slightest incident would set off confrontation and violence. These Khampa tribesmen reminded me of the proud, tall Masaai of Kenya and Tanzania. I heard about some major rioting and police brutality that had occurred in the city just about a month ago. I had not heard or read anything about this in the world press abroad.
The Dalai Lama is one of the most admirable leaders in the world. If his policies and leadership bring no further change and the devastation and exploitation of Tibetan society continues, one wonders if his leadership will remain unchallenged. In the fifties, soon after the Chinese occupation, Khampa tribesmen were recruited by a CIA assisted guerilla movement of
resistance based in Nepal. The Dalai Lama was instrumental in calling off that movement, leaning towards nonviolent methods. The Chinese continue to control Tibet with the most ruthless, Machiavellian methods, recently detaining a small Tibetan boy (and his parents) who was named by the Dalai lama as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. The Chinese authorities are
trying to install their own choice of the new Panchen Lama, with the help of collaborating Tibetan monks.
When I returned to India after flying on a South West China Airline plane to Kathmandu, I breathed a very palpable breath of fresh air and realized, literally, what a breath of fresh air India was, in spite of all its poverty and chaotic way of life! Nothing, but nothing, can beat those abstract values that are real in India today: freedom and hope!
In India and after I returned to Canada, I became more and more determined to visit Ladakh and some of the Buddhist regions of India. The Dalai Lama visited Vancouver later that year and I had the pleasure of attending his talk. His presence was magical in a way that I imagine Mahatma Gandhi's presence was.
I started making plans for an overland trip to Leh from Shimla via Lahaul and Spiti in the summer of the next year. Organizing a group would help defray some of my expenses.
Rasik Shah is leading a trek to the source of the Ganges and Tapovan this year in September. There will also be an overland jeep safari of Ladakh in the summer of 2001, going via Lahaul and Spiti. See future issues of Sawf Magazine for Rasik Shah's articles on Ladakh and past issues for the articles on Ganges and Tapovan trek.
For further details or inquiries please e-mail him at: rshah132@home.com
In India his trek and tour organizer is:
Neelamber Badoni
Trek Himalaya Tours Pvt. Ltd.
The Upper Mall, Jhulaghar
MUSSOORIE (UP) INDIA
Ph. 011-91-0135-630491
Telefax: 011-91-0135-631302
E-mail: trekhimalaya@vsnl.com
Or:
neelubadoni@rediffmail.com
Credits
- Photographs taken by the Author.
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