Thoughts on Tibet
In June 1999, I traveled to Tibet for three weeks with a guide and five strangers. There are some of my reflections on this trip:
- o The beggars are too aggressive. They would grab and cling on to me.
- o The entire country is obsessed with the Dali Llama and Buddhism.
- o The Chinese government has very little effect on the Tibetans’ practice of religion. These people practice their religion regardless of government sanctions and restrictions against them.
- o Unlike Christianity, the people served the monks. The monks do not serve the people.
- o It was so difficult for me to breath at 18,000 feet above sea level. I don’t know how anyone can climb Everest. It’s just too damn high.
- o The minute I was told that I couldn’t talk about the Dali Llama because it was against the law, I had in insatiable urge to talk about him nonstop.
- o Altitude sickness got the best of me. I felt sick throughout the entire trip.
- o These people are hard workers. They do a lot of backbreaking work.
- o Living conditions are horrible.
- o The government has to do something about the sewage problems. There are few toilets so people defecate right in the streets.
- o There is a strong sense of family in this country.
- o The lifestyle of a villager is not much more sophisticated than the lifestyle of a cow.
- o My hotels were better than I had thought they would be. Some were larger than my most recent hotel in Paris.
- o Sometimes I would just lean against the wall in the monasteries and listen to the chanting and I could hardly believe I was in Tibet, this magical place. I could have listened to that chanting all day long.
- o When I walk down the streets many Tibetan stop in their tracks and just stare at me.
- o “Hello money” was a greeting I heard over and over again.
- o The food was difficult to eat because it is so greasy and tasteless.
- o My altitude medication was annoying. It made my fingers and toes tingle all of the time.
