November 29, 2008
oh no! back in the doo so soon?
chengdu. china. november 23rd - 30th
well, we are back in chengdu much sooner than anticipated and under unfortunate and disappointing circumstances. we have checked into a new hostel called 'dragontown' in the restored ancient area 'kuan xiang zi', not far from the loft hostel where we were staying before. judy in not due to return back for another two weeks. we are alone to process what has just happened, to regroup, rest and refocus our travel plans. the first couple of days are frustrating, not wanting to be here, wanting to be back in tibet and on our way to nepal. it was hard to get that out of our heads, but eventually it simmers down and we are able to start thinking about moving forward with new directions and new travel plans. after another week in chengdu and after much effort and discussions about possibly still flying to nepal or just heading down to south east asia, we decided it would be nice to spend more time in china. we found out earlier from judy that you can have up to two visa extensions from the original one, so that was our plan, to extend our visas again. we are happy with our decision and decide to head south by overnight sleeper train to kunming in yunnan province.
November 26, 2008
plateaued in tibet... november 19th - 23rd
downed, but not out.
i sit here today; back in chengdu, writing this blog post in disbelief and disappointment at what has transpired over the past few days... an unforeseen health issue. an opportunity gone, just like that.
5 days ago we left on our epic journey to tibet; a place we had waited so long to see, feel and experience. the setting was ideal; crisp, cool, clean winter air, 2 hard sleeper train tickets for the 45 hour journey from chengdu to lhasa, our tibet travel permits, we had found 2 amazing travel partners; rick and mirjam from holland (traveling in groups greatly reduces the costs of traveling in tibet, which currently only allows guided tours), and all the excitement and inspiration for what was to come. this is what we have waited years for. 2 days to lhasa, 3 days in lhasa, 5 days overland from lhasa to the nepal border, then onto kathmandu. hitting elevations of over 5000m along the way.
except for some restless sleep, everything was smooth railing on the first day of the train ride into the tibetan plateau, the scenery vast. more and more stunning each step of the way. we enjoy the company of our travel partners. we have the cabin to ourselves. just the 4 of us in a 6 bunk cabin. we discover there is some sort of 'criminal' in the cabin next to ours. ankles shackled. men sitting outside the cabin, constantly on watch. who was he? a leader to free tibet? or a real so called criminal? in either case, it didn't phase any of us, we still allowed ourselves to confidently close our eyes to sleep, not afraid that we wouldn't wake up the next day... or maybe we were just too exhausted to think about it? (as an end note to this story, the 'criminal' was met on the train by more officers when we got in to lhasa and was escorted off the train right in front of us, surrounded by at least 8-10 men, then put into a big van right on the station platform and quickly driven off. all the while, a cameraman recorded the whole thing. i think to myself... what has he done? is he hannibal lector or nelson mandela? was i lucky to leave the train with the flesh on my face? or fortunate enough to be so close to such a courageous leader? i'll probably never find out. ahhh, such is the world of politics and the judicial system!)
day two begins with a couple of extremely high mountain passes, one being at 5180m. the breathtaking sunrise slowly creeps in over the eastern edge of the plateau. a thin yellow light in the distance growing brighter, wider, taller, until it eventually begins to cast long dark shadows over the vast expanses. today laurel wakes up with slight symptoms of altitude sickness and quickly plugs in to her oxygen supply, which helps to alleviate the condition for now. the train slowly awakens as the glorious sunlight begins to pour in; only 8 hours until lhasa. i stare in awe at each passing landscape, capturing as much as i can with my camera. the sky is incredibly blue, unreal almost, but very real. i manage to sit down and eat a bowl of instant noodles for breakfast before taking my place back on my sleeper for rest and relaxation. not long to go now. 7 hours...
then... it all began with a very slight headache, then my noodles didn't want to stay down. i don't know how i made it to the bathroom in time, but i did. what the hell had just happened? i gathered myself and made my way back to our cabin. laurel is still not well and on oxygen. i know the high altitude has affected me too. i immediately join her. tubes up our noses, sitting in the hall outside our cabin. others were there too, on oxygen. poor rick and mirjam, resting in our cabin. they seem fine, but watch in helplessness as we try to suck up oxygen through these two little tubes. i don't feel well. time passes. we sit restlessly, plugged in to the oxygen. i try to drink some water as i'm suppose to do with altitude sickness, but as quickly as it went down, its starts to come back up. i rush, yet again to find a free bathroom. its time to get help. laurel finds an onboard doctor. the look on the doctors face when she took my oxygen saturation / heart rate reading (we googled this afterwards) was a little frightening to say the least. she immediately gave me some medication and told me to go back on the oxygen. my readings begin to rise, she's confident that i would feel better with the oxygen. phew, i actually got a little concerned there for a moment.
the remainder of the train ride involved a couple of more vomit sessions, absolutely nothing was staying down (and trying to find a free bathroom in time to not make a mess in the hallway became a sort of 'sick' game), a headache, dizziness, and having to constantly inhale cigarette smoke along with our oxygen.. yum! and oh, i also develop a cough. yes, fun times. we finally make it to lhasa. i just wanted to get to our hostel and lie down. we are greeted by our guide 'choeduk' and our driver 'dawa' at the train station and together we drive to the hostel. we explain our situation. choeduk says we'll feel better soon, its all very common to people coming to the high altitudes of lhasa. but please don't take a shower, it will make things worse. at the hostel, we make plans to meet up the next morning. time for rest.
that evening and night was restless. waking up every hour or less. we share a little oxygen inhaler we bought at the hostel. a little shot of O2 for you and a little shot of O2 for me. ahhh. back and forth we went. my headache is bad. i am still vomiting even though i didn't dare to eat or drink anything else all day. morning finally comes. laurel is feeling better today. i cannot participate in our tour events today. we need to go to the hospital. we send rick and mirjam off with our guide for some sightseeing. have a great day!
the hospital is near the hostel... somewhere. thankfully, a staff member at the hostel is nice enough to walk us there. its morning, the hospital is busy. line ups at various counters and rooms. he helps us get checked in and in the proper line up for the room where there is a doctor who can speak english. we are ever so grateful. thank you. we don't even know your name. after that, the process was long, involved and definitely interesting. see the doctor, then to the cashier to pay, then to the eye specialist (there is a retinal problem related to severe altitude sickness), then back to the doctor. eye exam is negative! then back to the cashier to pay for my medicine, then over to pick up my medicine (all 1 yuan worth! about 18 cents canadian!), then back to the doctor to get an explanation of what to do with the medicine, then over the emergency building. now where do we go? we are helped and pointed towards a counter where i had to pay yet again, this time for the bed, oxygen and IV, then over to pick up my IV fluids from another counter before i was finally able to get into a hospital bed. what should have been two hours on oxygen and the IV drip to replenish my fluids ended up being about 4.5 hours because the first nurse didn't properly set my drip and i was hardly getting any fluids at all!! we all kind of found it amusing. they fixed the problem. thankfully, laurel stayed and kept me company the whole time, sitting on a little stool in the cold unheated room, reading her camera manual once in a while. she still amazes me. from time to time, strangers would walk in wondering what was going on, some smoking their cigarettes, some looking for someone else, or some just curious. by the end, i did feel a bit better when we eventually left the hospital.
that afternoon, considering what i was going through and as crazy at it may have sounded, actually ended up being a really rewarding experience. to interact in a public hospital in lhasa (so different from ours back in canada) with the variety of locals. people who were mostly very pleasant, some helpful, some curious, some a little pushy, some who loved their cigarettes a little too much and some who needed much more care than i did. in some way, it all greatly added to the experience and i felt we got to see a glimpse into the heart of tibet. i never once felt concerned for the care i was receiving, although breathing in cigarette smoke through the oxygen mask wasn't very pleasant at all!
its evening, i feel, and apparently look, a little bit renewed. i decide to try to and eat some food again. it has been over 48 hrs since anything i ate stayed down and over 24 hrs since i dared try to eat anything. the IV drip had hopefully helped. we bump into rick and mirjam at the hostel restaurant. we share our days stories. i manage to eat a little bit of soup and a handful of fries for dinner, all seems to go well. i am happy to taste food going down and not coming back up!! its an early night. we head to our room.
that night, things didn't get better as hoped. my head begins to ache again, only worse then before, the 'make the headache go away' medicine the doctor prescribed didn't really 'make the headache go away' except for the first time i took it. why not?? my eyes felt like they were going to explode (not really, but close to it), the cough never went away and i still couldn't sleep. so restless. so frustrating. laurels sleep is restless and anxious as well. then... at some point during the night, i think i actually got a little scared. not sure that even if i got better while in lhasa, if i'd be confident enough to leave in 1.5 days on the long rough road towards kathmandu, where there would be no hospitals nearby, where there would be a couple more 5000+m high passes before eventually getting dropped off at the nepal border 5 days later. somehow, i don't think i can make it this time. i am so completely disappointed in my decision, but i reluctantly tell laurel that i can't continue with our tour. i have to get back to a lower altitude. laurel looks disappointed but doesn't hesitate even a second to agree that it is probably the best thing to do. disappointment is an understatement. i was so disappointed in myself that i couldn't prevent this from happening. we hope our travel partners can still continue on the tour, just now as a 2 person group instead of 4. until morning.
the next morning, i do not change my decision. why? i do not quite know. what am i doing? we meet up at breakfast and discuss our situation with everyone. everything worked out as hoped, they can continue on without us. phew! we are all sad at the outcome of our tour, but give rick and mirjam our best wishes for the rest of their journey. it was a pleasure to meet you along the way. there are no flights to kathmandu (1300m) for atleast 2 days, so our guide helps us buy tickets back to chengdu (500m) for that same afternoon. its time to go. our hour long drive to the airport was painful. sad and tear filled, exasperated even more by the fact that i think i was beginning to feel a little better and by what was passing right before our very eyes and deep in hearts. beautiful crisp stunning landscapes. snow capped mountains, blue skies, vast open fields of nothing and then everything, rivers of water and ice. rock. villages almost untouched. villagers touched. isolation. yaks roaming. solitude. calm. majestic. still. ice. untamed. unseen. unbelievable. what have i done? why are we going this way? can we go back? i promise i'll feel better from here on in. too late. i've made a decision i now have to live with. the opportunity that we had waited so long for and that was right in front of us, is now slowing distancing itself with us, for the time being...
a day later, back in chengdu. i physically feel much better at this lower altitude. almost as instantaneous as it came on, it is now gone. i am eating full meals again and look forward to a nice cold beer tomorrow. much needed discussions with laurel and my sister prove helpful. my thoughts are clearer. i am still not settled on the decision i made, but i can at least move from here and take something from this experience, i haven't quite figured out what it is yet! time will tell. we circle back in to china again in the spring and we have decided we will try again to go to tibet. this time. taking our time. ascend a little slower. a little wiser. maybe with an extra canister of oxygen or two and with our fingers crossed that the 50th anniversary of the exile of the dalai lama in the coming months doesn't bring closure to the tibetan border once again, but brings with it the hope of change. hmmm, maybe now i'm asking a little too much?
5 days ago we left on our epic journey to tibet; a place we had waited so long to see, feel and experience. the setting was ideal; crisp, cool, clean winter air, 2 hard sleeper train tickets for the 45 hour journey from chengdu to lhasa, our tibet travel permits, we had found 2 amazing travel partners; rick and mirjam from holland (traveling in groups greatly reduces the costs of traveling in tibet, which currently only allows guided tours), and all the excitement and inspiration for what was to come. this is what we have waited years for. 2 days to lhasa, 3 days in lhasa, 5 days overland from lhasa to the nepal border, then onto kathmandu. hitting elevations of over 5000m along the way.
except for some restless sleep, everything was smooth railing on the first day of the train ride into the tibetan plateau, the scenery vast. more and more stunning each step of the way. we enjoy the company of our travel partners. we have the cabin to ourselves. just the 4 of us in a 6 bunk cabin. we discover there is some sort of 'criminal' in the cabin next to ours. ankles shackled. men sitting outside the cabin, constantly on watch. who was he? a leader to free tibet? or a real so called criminal? in either case, it didn't phase any of us, we still allowed ourselves to confidently close our eyes to sleep, not afraid that we wouldn't wake up the next day... or maybe we were just too exhausted to think about it? (as an end note to this story, the 'criminal' was met on the train by more officers when we got in to lhasa and was escorted off the train right in front of us, surrounded by at least 8-10 men, then put into a big van right on the station platform and quickly driven off. all the while, a cameraman recorded the whole thing. i think to myself... what has he done? is he hannibal lector or nelson mandela? was i lucky to leave the train with the flesh on my face? or fortunate enough to be so close to such a courageous leader? i'll probably never find out. ahhh, such is the world of politics and the judicial system!)
day two begins with a couple of extremely high mountain passes, one being at 5180m. the breathtaking sunrise slowly creeps in over the eastern edge of the plateau. a thin yellow light in the distance growing brighter, wider, taller, until it eventually begins to cast long dark shadows over the vast expanses. today laurel wakes up with slight symptoms of altitude sickness and quickly plugs in to her oxygen supply, which helps to alleviate the condition for now. the train slowly awakens as the glorious sunlight begins to pour in; only 8 hours until lhasa. i stare in awe at each passing landscape, capturing as much as i can with my camera. the sky is incredibly blue, unreal almost, but very real. i manage to sit down and eat a bowl of instant noodles for breakfast before taking my place back on my sleeper for rest and relaxation. not long to go now. 7 hours...
then... it all began with a very slight headache, then my noodles didn't want to stay down. i don't know how i made it to the bathroom in time, but i did. what the hell had just happened? i gathered myself and made my way back to our cabin. laurel is still not well and on oxygen. i know the high altitude has affected me too. i immediately join her. tubes up our noses, sitting in the hall outside our cabin. others were there too, on oxygen. poor rick and mirjam, resting in our cabin. they seem fine, but watch in helplessness as we try to suck up oxygen through these two little tubes. i don't feel well. time passes. we sit restlessly, plugged in to the oxygen. i try to drink some water as i'm suppose to do with altitude sickness, but as quickly as it went down, its starts to come back up. i rush, yet again to find a free bathroom. its time to get help. laurel finds an onboard doctor. the look on the doctors face when she took my oxygen saturation / heart rate reading (we googled this afterwards) was a little frightening to say the least. she immediately gave me some medication and told me to go back on the oxygen. my readings begin to rise, she's confident that i would feel better with the oxygen. phew, i actually got a little concerned there for a moment.
the remainder of the train ride involved a couple of more vomit sessions, absolutely nothing was staying down (and trying to find a free bathroom in time to not make a mess in the hallway became a sort of 'sick' game), a headache, dizziness, and having to constantly inhale cigarette smoke along with our oxygen.. yum! and oh, i also develop a cough. yes, fun times. we finally make it to lhasa. i just wanted to get to our hostel and lie down. we are greeted by our guide 'choeduk' and our driver 'dawa' at the train station and together we drive to the hostel. we explain our situation. choeduk says we'll feel better soon, its all very common to people coming to the high altitudes of lhasa. but please don't take a shower, it will make things worse. at the hostel, we make plans to meet up the next morning. time for rest.
that evening and night was restless. waking up every hour or less. we share a little oxygen inhaler we bought at the hostel. a little shot of O2 for you and a little shot of O2 for me. ahhh. back and forth we went. my headache is bad. i am still vomiting even though i didn't dare to eat or drink anything else all day. morning finally comes. laurel is feeling better today. i cannot participate in our tour events today. we need to go to the hospital. we send rick and mirjam off with our guide for some sightseeing. have a great day!
the hospital is near the hostel... somewhere. thankfully, a staff member at the hostel is nice enough to walk us there. its morning, the hospital is busy. line ups at various counters and rooms. he helps us get checked in and in the proper line up for the room where there is a doctor who can speak english. we are ever so grateful. thank you. we don't even know your name. after that, the process was long, involved and definitely interesting. see the doctor, then to the cashier to pay, then to the eye specialist (there is a retinal problem related to severe altitude sickness), then back to the doctor. eye exam is negative! then back to the cashier to pay for my medicine, then over to pick up my medicine (all 1 yuan worth! about 18 cents canadian!), then back to the doctor to get an explanation of what to do with the medicine, then over the emergency building. now where do we go? we are helped and pointed towards a counter where i had to pay yet again, this time for the bed, oxygen and IV, then over to pick up my IV fluids from another counter before i was finally able to get into a hospital bed. what should have been two hours on oxygen and the IV drip to replenish my fluids ended up being about 4.5 hours because the first nurse didn't properly set my drip and i was hardly getting any fluids at all!! we all kind of found it amusing. they fixed the problem. thankfully, laurel stayed and kept me company the whole time, sitting on a little stool in the cold unheated room, reading her camera manual once in a while. she still amazes me. from time to time, strangers would walk in wondering what was going on, some smoking their cigarettes, some looking for someone else, or some just curious. by the end, i did feel a bit better when we eventually left the hospital.
that afternoon, considering what i was going through and as crazy at it may have sounded, actually ended up being a really rewarding experience. to interact in a public hospital in lhasa (so different from ours back in canada) with the variety of locals. people who were mostly very pleasant, some helpful, some curious, some a little pushy, some who loved their cigarettes a little too much and some who needed much more care than i did. in some way, it all greatly added to the experience and i felt we got to see a glimpse into the heart of tibet. i never once felt concerned for the care i was receiving, although breathing in cigarette smoke through the oxygen mask wasn't very pleasant at all!
its evening, i feel, and apparently look, a little bit renewed. i decide to try to and eat some food again. it has been over 48 hrs since anything i ate stayed down and over 24 hrs since i dared try to eat anything. the IV drip had hopefully helped. we bump into rick and mirjam at the hostel restaurant. we share our days stories. i manage to eat a little bit of soup and a handful of fries for dinner, all seems to go well. i am happy to taste food going down and not coming back up!! its an early night. we head to our room.
that night, things didn't get better as hoped. my head begins to ache again, only worse then before, the 'make the headache go away' medicine the doctor prescribed didn't really 'make the headache go away' except for the first time i took it. why not?? my eyes felt like they were going to explode (not really, but close to it), the cough never went away and i still couldn't sleep. so restless. so frustrating. laurels sleep is restless and anxious as well. then... at some point during the night, i think i actually got a little scared. not sure that even if i got better while in lhasa, if i'd be confident enough to leave in 1.5 days on the long rough road towards kathmandu, where there would be no hospitals nearby, where there would be a couple more 5000+m high passes before eventually getting dropped off at the nepal border 5 days later. somehow, i don't think i can make it this time. i am so completely disappointed in my decision, but i reluctantly tell laurel that i can't continue with our tour. i have to get back to a lower altitude. laurel looks disappointed but doesn't hesitate even a second to agree that it is probably the best thing to do. disappointment is an understatement. i was so disappointed in myself that i couldn't prevent this from happening. we hope our travel partners can still continue on the tour, just now as a 2 person group instead of 4. until morning.
the next morning, i do not change my decision. why? i do not quite know. what am i doing? we meet up at breakfast and discuss our situation with everyone. everything worked out as hoped, they can continue on without us. phew! we are all sad at the outcome of our tour, but give rick and mirjam our best wishes for the rest of their journey. it was a pleasure to meet you along the way. there are no flights to kathmandu (1300m) for atleast 2 days, so our guide helps us buy tickets back to chengdu (500m) for that same afternoon. its time to go. our hour long drive to the airport was painful. sad and tear filled, exasperated even more by the fact that i think i was beginning to feel a little better and by what was passing right before our very eyes and deep in hearts. beautiful crisp stunning landscapes. snow capped mountains, blue skies, vast open fields of nothing and then everything, rivers of water and ice. rock. villages almost untouched. villagers touched. isolation. yaks roaming. solitude. calm. majestic. still. ice. untamed. unseen. unbelievable. what have i done? why are we going this way? can we go back? i promise i'll feel better from here on in. too late. i've made a decision i now have to live with. the opportunity that we had waited so long for and that was right in front of us, is now slowing distancing itself with us, for the time being...
a day later, back in chengdu. i physically feel much better at this lower altitude. almost as instantaneous as it came on, it is now gone. i am eating full meals again and look forward to a nice cold beer tomorrow. much needed discussions with laurel and my sister prove helpful. my thoughts are clearer. i am still not settled on the decision i made, but i can at least move from here and take something from this experience, i haven't quite figured out what it is yet! time will tell. we circle back in to china again in the spring and we have decided we will try again to go to tibet. this time. taking our time. ascend a little slower. a little wiser. maybe with an extra canister of oxygen or two and with our fingers crossed that the 50th anniversary of the exile of the dalai lama in the coming months doesn't bring closure to the tibetan border once again, but brings with it the hope of change. hmmm, maybe now i'm asking a little too much?
tibet november 19th - 23rd
until we meet again.
it is so devastatingly sad to be leaving this place. on the drive to the airport i weep. there is something here, something we both feel deeply, something we are heartbroken to leave. the landscape around us is breathtaking, unreal. we pass villages, people, a world unlike any other i have seen. i hadn't realized quite how much this part of our travels was really the place i was waiting to be, our journey through tibet on to nepal, but it is painfully obvious to me right now, as we aren't going to be able to do it. and i am deeply sad that we will not be sharing this journey with mirjam and rick. i felt that this experience was one we wanted to have with them, that we had found really great travel partners with whom we could share this unforgettable experience, that we would all be altered by it together. and there is fear, a fear that we won't make it back here, a fear that even tibet is changing so rapidly that if we do come back, it won't be the same, that something will be lost, but i guess that fear is also something inside of me, something i am afraid of losing, but it is far outweighed by the reason we are leaving.
coming here has made a deep impression, and although our time was short, it was no less epic. our departure from chengdu, the anticipation and excitement shared by our travel partners, mirjam and rick as we wait to catch our train. settling in to our berth, i think we are all in disbelief that we are here, that it all came together and we are on our way to tibet. the 45 hour train ride from chengdu to lhasa, across the tibetan plateau. a sleepless first night, i listen to music to try and relax and stare out the window watching the landscape appear as the sun rises. an intense journey, at some point, it becomes a seemingly endless journey through a stunning landscape i was too sick to enjoy by our final day, and too worried (and motion sick) to enjoy as much as i normally would have before that, my general lack of photos on this journey will be a testament to that. what i thought at the time was altitude sickness, but what i now believe was mostly motion sickness being exasperated by the high altitude and the stress and effects that has on the body. i spent the better part of that last day on oxygen, but my worry about altitude sickness from the rapid ascent struck stephen, and his final day on the train and first night in lhasa were worrisome and debilitating. he began throwing up our final morning on the train, and after a couple of times, with him feeling sick, i seek out help. there is a doctor on the train, she checks stephen's oxygen levels, is concerned by what she sees, and tells him to use the oxygen for the rest of the journey to lhasa. upon our arrival in lhasa, the fresh air feels good at first, but stephen's condition deteriorates pretty rapidly that night. it is so difficult to watch him being so sick, and i am afraid, afraid of how serious this could be, of his not seeming to recover. but after our long ride and night in lhasa, we wake to take him to see a doctor here, and once that is set in motion, we are both calm, and all things considered, have a nice day. stephen hasn't been able to keep food down, and later even water down, for 24 hours now, and upon waking, on an empty stomach void of food or water manages to continue throwing up. our guide tells us how to get to the nearest hospital, and after he leaves to take mirjam and rick around for the day, we make a call to our travel insurance before trying to find our way there. we ask downstairs at the hostel, and once the man we are speaking to realizes our guide is not around, he walks us blocks to the hospital, around the grounds trying to find where we need to be, to admitting, helps us with that process, takes us to the waiting area, makes sure the doctor we will be seeing can speak english, before going back to work! we wait our turn, and are surrounded by local people doing the same. even in this setting, these people are beautiful, and the smiles i offer to the many who are surprised to see me there are all returned. stephen sees the doctor, has an eye test, comes back to the doctor, is prescribed medicine for his headaches and vomiting, then sent to emergency to spend two hours on an iv to replenish his fluids and oxygen to raise his oxygen levels. i sit in the sun by his bed, watch him rest and keep him company until the nurses return two hours later to realize the iv hasn't been running. they start it, walk away, two more hours go by. stephen's eyes are brighter now, and once he tells them he feels a bit better, they tell him to go eat, drink fluids and rest.
we walk back in the crisp air, under the dazzling blue sky that seems a part of lhasa, to our hostel, but stephen's headache is already returning. he takes some of his medicine, then we go upstairs to get him some food. mirjam and rick join us, and stephen manages to eat a bit of soup and some french fries before becoming so exhausted he can't keep awake. we say goodnight and head to our room, stephen falls asleep by 8:30 after taking another dose of medicine which i find out later is no longer helping. i can't sleep at all, and lie awake worrying, and still not feeling 100% myself. stephen wakes around 11:30 with a headache, and we spend the better part of the rest of the night awake tossing and turning. around 4am with no relief from his headache, stephen makes the decision to leave as soon as we can. we tell rick and mirjam at breakfast, make the arrangements, and get a flight later that afternoon. we don't get to say a proper goodbye to rick and mirjam, our parting is sudden, and our departure feels the same. i haven't gotten the chance to know anyone here, to get a sense of the city, but our brief encounters with our guide, the driver, the hospital workers, the hostel staff have left their impression. i hope mirjam and rick have a fantastic journey, and that one day sooner then later we will hear all about it, maybe even in person. thank you for your help while we weren't well, your understanding and concern. safe travels.
and now we are leaving, and the weight of it hits me. the day is sunny and beautiful, the air crisp and cold. we are being driven to the airport by dawa, it is a one hour drive. and this is where my story began, with a sadness that overwhelms me. were we too hasty? will we be back here? will it be a different place? who can say? all i know is that it was a part of a process, a journey, and that it left it's mark. maybe we weren't ready just yet, maybe it was not our time for this. we are back in chengdu for the moment, and stephen has recovered, for now, that is what matters. it has been an emotional few days, and we have been altered by this, it is all part of our experience, part of our growth. it offers perspective on how fortunate we are to be able to travel in the first place. i am proud of stephen for taking his condition seriously and making the difficult choice to leave, for recognizing his limits, and taking measures against becoming more seriously ill. for now tibet will have to wait. you are deep inside of me, maybe one day we will meet again.
coming here has made a deep impression, and although our time was short, it was no less epic. our departure from chengdu, the anticipation and excitement shared by our travel partners, mirjam and rick as we wait to catch our train. settling in to our berth, i think we are all in disbelief that we are here, that it all came together and we are on our way to tibet. the 45 hour train ride from chengdu to lhasa, across the tibetan plateau. a sleepless first night, i listen to music to try and relax and stare out the window watching the landscape appear as the sun rises. an intense journey, at some point, it becomes a seemingly endless journey through a stunning landscape i was too sick to enjoy by our final day, and too worried (and motion sick) to enjoy as much as i normally would have before that, my general lack of photos on this journey will be a testament to that. what i thought at the time was altitude sickness, but what i now believe was mostly motion sickness being exasperated by the high altitude and the stress and effects that has on the body. i spent the better part of that last day on oxygen, but my worry about altitude sickness from the rapid ascent struck stephen, and his final day on the train and first night in lhasa were worrisome and debilitating. he began throwing up our final morning on the train, and after a couple of times, with him feeling sick, i seek out help. there is a doctor on the train, she checks stephen's oxygen levels, is concerned by what she sees, and tells him to use the oxygen for the rest of the journey to lhasa. upon our arrival in lhasa, the fresh air feels good at first, but stephen's condition deteriorates pretty rapidly that night. it is so difficult to watch him being so sick, and i am afraid, afraid of how serious this could be, of his not seeming to recover. but after our long ride and night in lhasa, we wake to take him to see a doctor here, and once that is set in motion, we are both calm, and all things considered, have a nice day. stephen hasn't been able to keep food down, and later even water down, for 24 hours now, and upon waking, on an empty stomach void of food or water manages to continue throwing up. our guide tells us how to get to the nearest hospital, and after he leaves to take mirjam and rick around for the day, we make a call to our travel insurance before trying to find our way there. we ask downstairs at the hostel, and once the man we are speaking to realizes our guide is not around, he walks us blocks to the hospital, around the grounds trying to find where we need to be, to admitting, helps us with that process, takes us to the waiting area, makes sure the doctor we will be seeing can speak english, before going back to work! we wait our turn, and are surrounded by local people doing the same. even in this setting, these people are beautiful, and the smiles i offer to the many who are surprised to see me there are all returned. stephen sees the doctor, has an eye test, comes back to the doctor, is prescribed medicine for his headaches and vomiting, then sent to emergency to spend two hours on an iv to replenish his fluids and oxygen to raise his oxygen levels. i sit in the sun by his bed, watch him rest and keep him company until the nurses return two hours later to realize the iv hasn't been running. they start it, walk away, two more hours go by. stephen's eyes are brighter now, and once he tells them he feels a bit better, they tell him to go eat, drink fluids and rest.
we walk back in the crisp air, under the dazzling blue sky that seems a part of lhasa, to our hostel, but stephen's headache is already returning. he takes some of his medicine, then we go upstairs to get him some food. mirjam and rick join us, and stephen manages to eat a bit of soup and some french fries before becoming so exhausted he can't keep awake. we say goodnight and head to our room, stephen falls asleep by 8:30 after taking another dose of medicine which i find out later is no longer helping. i can't sleep at all, and lie awake worrying, and still not feeling 100% myself. stephen wakes around 11:30 with a headache, and we spend the better part of the rest of the night awake tossing and turning. around 4am with no relief from his headache, stephen makes the decision to leave as soon as we can. we tell rick and mirjam at breakfast, make the arrangements, and get a flight later that afternoon. we don't get to say a proper goodbye to rick and mirjam, our parting is sudden, and our departure feels the same. i haven't gotten the chance to know anyone here, to get a sense of the city, but our brief encounters with our guide, the driver, the hospital workers, the hostel staff have left their impression. i hope mirjam and rick have a fantastic journey, and that one day sooner then later we will hear all about it, maybe even in person. thank you for your help while we weren't well, your understanding and concern. safe travels.
and now we are leaving, and the weight of it hits me. the day is sunny and beautiful, the air crisp and cold. we are being driven to the airport by dawa, it is a one hour drive. and this is where my story began, with a sadness that overwhelms me. were we too hasty? will we be back here? will it be a different place? who can say? all i know is that it was a part of a process, a journey, and that it left it's mark. maybe we weren't ready just yet, maybe it was not our time for this. we are back in chengdu for the moment, and stephen has recovered, for now, that is what matters. it has been an emotional few days, and we have been altered by this, it is all part of our experience, part of our growth. it offers perspective on how fortunate we are to be able to travel in the first place. i am proud of stephen for taking his condition seriously and making the difficult choice to leave, for recognizing his limits, and taking measures against becoming more seriously ill. for now tibet will have to wait. you are deep inside of me, maybe one day we will meet again.
two weeks in the doo and then some.
chengdu. china. november 1st - november 19th
finally have a chance to sit down and write about our time in chengdu, sichuan province, deep in the heart of mainland china. i must admit it seemed a little overwhelming to start writing the chengdu posts, since we spent the better part of our november in chengdu (minus 5 days). thats something like 25 days! so here goes....
our main reason for coming here was to visit my sister judy, who has been living in chengdu for the past year for her studies. it was an opportunity to spend some time with her and see where she's been calling home for the past year. of course we didn't anticipate spending the two weeks prior to coming here with her as well, so that was a bonus. the first thing i noticed about chengdu was the weather. much to my delight, it was considerably cooler here then the sweltering heat of our previous city, guangzhou. also, chengdu is a much bigger city than i had thought it was going to be. i wasn't sure what i was expecting, but not this huge mega modern city of over 4 million people with another 8 million in the greater chengdu area! since judy had spent the summer traveling, she was in between apartments when we arrived and was not due to take over her new place until december 1st. so our first few days were spent crashing at her friends' apartment, who all just happened to be in shanghai for a few days. after that, the three of us moved to a local hostel called 'the loft' (our home for the next two weeks) closer to the central area of the city, but quite far from judy's familiar stomping grounds of the ke hua bei lu area.
the first few days were spent hanging out and exploring the neighbourhood where judy lived. some of our time was spent helping judy move some of her contents from old to new apartment, meeting a large group of her friends for a vegan dinner at 'vegetarian lifestyles' restaurant, a stroll to wu hou ci (tibetan quarter) and jinli lu (constructed ancient street), visits to the local eateries such as 'the usual place', the 2 dumpling places, peter's tex mex, the cheap noodle shop beside the auto repair place and cafe paname.
after relocating ourselves to 'the loft' hostel, we had many new surroundings to explore and a base in which to start researching our options for traveling to tibet. a local eatery down the street called 'dodo's'; with their friendly staff and service and willingness to accommodate a vegan diet, quickly became a fave hang out of ours. judy knew all the places to go, see and eat, so we followed her lead most of the time, once we found our way to the wenshu fang and the wenshu temple grounds and enjoyed a lovely meal at a vegan buddhist restaurant called 'lotus on the pond'. some of our other destinations included "the bookworm' (a local hang out place, where you can find english language books, games, free wifi and good food!), the 'place under the bridge' (an interesting mix of artists spaces, park space, sculptures, cultural murals, water ways, stages, paintings, men playing cards and people performing on waist drums.) and for laurel and judy, a yoga class with a studio where judy practices and sometimes teaches at, a visit to a 'shopping street', then cafe paname again to see a band from kunming perform and back to vegetarian lifestyles for another meal.
our first really touristy destination was the panda breeding and research center in the northern part of chengdu. its never easy for us to make the decision to go and support a place like this (if you want to know why, ask us later, but for now, we don't need to discuss it in this blog), but for some reason, we thought that this place might be different and we decided to go. well, as cute and as beautiful as the bears were to see, being there solidified to us that we don't need to go to places like this to satisfy our own curiosities or in search of personal enrichment, as it provided none. it only brought to our attention more and more questions about why we think we need to have places like this. anyways, we arrived in the early morning, the grounds were quite large and contained many giant pandas and red pandas of various ages. there were about 10 baby giant pandas only months old, all lying in a big crib inside a facility, one being bottle fed something by an attendant in a sterile looking nurses uniform. there were giant panda cubs, young adults and full size adults as well, all feeding on bamboo in the early morning sunshine. each age group seemingly in their own separate environments. next were the much smaller, lesser known and more active red pandas. they were all roaming about in their own separate environment, playing and climbing on many man-made structures. the rest of the morning was spent walking through the grounds and exploring a very quiet pond area which was also on the grounds.
another day and another venture out to find vegan food! this time to qing yang gong taoist temple (green ram temple), where within the temple grounds, there is a buddhist vegetarian restaurant. on our way there, we strolled through nearby baihuatan park, eventually making our way to the temple grounds. the temple was quite impressive, having to walk through a seemingly endless series of temples before reaching the main temple at the far end of the grounds. we spent the early afternoon walking through this place of calm and peacefulness. off to the side, we find the vegetarian restaurant where we were joined by judys' friend jane. our experience there was not so good to say the least. service was unfriendly and impatient. they were indecisive as to whether they would be able to make us food after 2:00pm and said we would have to wait until 2:30 when they are done their lunch break. we were okay with that. then they told us we should hurry up and order before they go on break. then, they couldn't make one of our dishes because there wasn't enough time before their break, so we had to order something else. all in all a very confusing and not so enjoyable experience. and the food? well, i don't remember how it tasted, so it obviously wasn't very memorable.
a little over a week in chengdu now and we are no closer to being on our way to tibet. we had made a few contacts on the internet, in search of travel partners to help reduce the cost of the tour. we keep on editing our itinerary in order to get the tour cost down to a reasonable per person amount. the process continues. before we can go to tibet though, we need to extend our visas, as our 30 days will be up shortly. so, that takes us to leshan, a city about 2 hours from chengdu and easily done as a day trip. leshan, apparently offers quick turn around visa extensions (1 - 2 days) and is also home to the 'grand buddha' or 'dàfó' as known by the locals, and at 71 metres high, is the worlds largest buddha. we boarded an early morning bus and eventually arrived in leshan around 11am and immediately made our way to the PSB (public service bureau) office and nervously handed in our visa extension applications. the nice PSB lady who served us, had us run next door to make photocopies of our passport pages, then afterwards down the street to the bank of china where we had to pay for our extensions. after this is all done, we hand in all of our paper work. we wait a moment and then breath a sigh of relief when she tells us to come back after 4:00pm to pick up our passports and new visas! phew! now we have a grand buddha to see! after getting a little lost on the way, we eventually find our way to the grand buddha. we spend much of the afternoon walking around the grounds, then climbing down steep narrow stairs to the base of the where the buddha's huge feet rest and then all the way back up on the other side, a steep and sweaty uphill journey, taking many breaks along the way. there is much more to see in the area around the grand buddha, but its now time to make our way back to the PSB office. after a rather confusing and round about pedicab ride, we get back to the PSB office shortly before closing. we pick up our passports and with big grins on our faces, we say 'xie xie' to the nice PSB lady and hop on a bus back to chengdu. a worthwhile day well spent! that evening, back in chengdu, we meet mark, judys' boyfriend who had just returned from his summer long travels through india and central asia. it was nice to finally meet you!
approaching two weeks in chengdu, judy is getting ready to leave for a visit back home to canada, we focus our attention on our tibet tour and work harder now to find an affordable tour and to find partners to travel with. our internet contacts have fallen through, as have other possible leads for travel partners, so it was up to us now to find people in town to travel with. after visits to other guest houses to get quotes and post notices on their message boards, we eventually find a affordable quotation from another guesthouse and we meet a couple from holland who seem to be looking for the same journey through tibet and then overland to nepal. after more discussions and meetings we determine that we all can make this journey through tibet together! we set the wheels in motion, order the train tickets and the tour and now just a couple days for the other couple to go to leshan to extend their visas. november 19th will be our departure date! excitement has set in, now we keep our fingers crossed they'll get their extensions quick enough.
our last few days with judy before she leaves for canada. it has been wonderful to be able to spend so much time and experience so much with her over this past month, it will be hard to say goodbye again. the next couple of days... we shop for our winter coats in preparation for tibet, we take a stroll down beautifully restored 'kuan xiang zi' (ancient area), make another visit to vegetarian lifestyles for dinner, attend small goodbye party for a couple of judy's friends, and finally i get to try a sichuan hot pot dinner with judy and mark. it was definitely a special experience and the food was definitely hot! (i will leave out the painful day after details for now:). we say our goodbyes as judy leaves on sunday, and then mark leaves on monday (bound for a visit back to the u.s.). we meet aviv from israel, who has just come from nepal into china, we have many questions for him about nepal! our tibet partners have returned from leshan and they have their visa extensions, we are set to leave tomorrow night for tibet. over two weeks in chengdu. maybe we stayed a little too long here, as we even outstayed judy, but its now time to move onto the next part of our journey... tibet.
our main reason for coming here was to visit my sister judy, who has been living in chengdu for the past year for her studies. it was an opportunity to spend some time with her and see where she's been calling home for the past year. of course we didn't anticipate spending the two weeks prior to coming here with her as well, so that was a bonus. the first thing i noticed about chengdu was the weather. much to my delight, it was considerably cooler here then the sweltering heat of our previous city, guangzhou. also, chengdu is a much bigger city than i had thought it was going to be. i wasn't sure what i was expecting, but not this huge mega modern city of over 4 million people with another 8 million in the greater chengdu area! since judy had spent the summer traveling, she was in between apartments when we arrived and was not due to take over her new place until december 1st. so our first few days were spent crashing at her friends' apartment, who all just happened to be in shanghai for a few days. after that, the three of us moved to a local hostel called 'the loft' (our home for the next two weeks) closer to the central area of the city, but quite far from judy's familiar stomping grounds of the ke hua bei lu area.
the first few days were spent hanging out and exploring the neighbourhood where judy lived. some of our time was spent helping judy move some of her contents from old to new apartment, meeting a large group of her friends for a vegan dinner at 'vegetarian lifestyles' restaurant, a stroll to wu hou ci (tibetan quarter) and jinli lu (constructed ancient street), visits to the local eateries such as 'the usual place', the 2 dumpling places, peter's tex mex, the cheap noodle shop beside the auto repair place and cafe paname.
after relocating ourselves to 'the loft' hostel, we had many new surroundings to explore and a base in which to start researching our options for traveling to tibet. a local eatery down the street called 'dodo's'; with their friendly staff and service and willingness to accommodate a vegan diet, quickly became a fave hang out of ours. judy knew all the places to go, see and eat, so we followed her lead most of the time, once we found our way to the wenshu fang and the wenshu temple grounds and enjoyed a lovely meal at a vegan buddhist restaurant called 'lotus on the pond'. some of our other destinations included "the bookworm' (a local hang out place, where you can find english language books, games, free wifi and good food!), the 'place under the bridge' (an interesting mix of artists spaces, park space, sculptures, cultural murals, water ways, stages, paintings, men playing cards and people performing on waist drums.) and for laurel and judy, a yoga class with a studio where judy practices and sometimes teaches at, a visit to a 'shopping street', then cafe paname again to see a band from kunming perform and back to vegetarian lifestyles for another meal.
our first really touristy destination was the panda breeding and research center in the northern part of chengdu. its never easy for us to make the decision to go and support a place like this (if you want to know why, ask us later, but for now, we don't need to discuss it in this blog), but for some reason, we thought that this place might be different and we decided to go. well, as cute and as beautiful as the bears were to see, being there solidified to us that we don't need to go to places like this to satisfy our own curiosities or in search of personal enrichment, as it provided none. it only brought to our attention more and more questions about why we think we need to have places like this. anyways, we arrived in the early morning, the grounds were quite large and contained many giant pandas and red pandas of various ages. there were about 10 baby giant pandas only months old, all lying in a big crib inside a facility, one being bottle fed something by an attendant in a sterile looking nurses uniform. there were giant panda cubs, young adults and full size adults as well, all feeding on bamboo in the early morning sunshine. each age group seemingly in their own separate environments. next were the much smaller, lesser known and more active red pandas. they were all roaming about in their own separate environment, playing and climbing on many man-made structures. the rest of the morning was spent walking through the grounds and exploring a very quiet pond area which was also on the grounds.
another day and another venture out to find vegan food! this time to qing yang gong taoist temple (green ram temple), where within the temple grounds, there is a buddhist vegetarian restaurant. on our way there, we strolled through nearby baihuatan park, eventually making our way to the temple grounds. the temple was quite impressive, having to walk through a seemingly endless series of temples before reaching the main temple at the far end of the grounds. we spent the early afternoon walking through this place of calm and peacefulness. off to the side, we find the vegetarian restaurant where we were joined by judys' friend jane. our experience there was not so good to say the least. service was unfriendly and impatient. they were indecisive as to whether they would be able to make us food after 2:00pm and said we would have to wait until 2:30 when they are done their lunch break. we were okay with that. then they told us we should hurry up and order before they go on break. then, they couldn't make one of our dishes because there wasn't enough time before their break, so we had to order something else. all in all a very confusing and not so enjoyable experience. and the food? well, i don't remember how it tasted, so it obviously wasn't very memorable.
a little over a week in chengdu now and we are no closer to being on our way to tibet. we had made a few contacts on the internet, in search of travel partners to help reduce the cost of the tour. we keep on editing our itinerary in order to get the tour cost down to a reasonable per person amount. the process continues. before we can go to tibet though, we need to extend our visas, as our 30 days will be up shortly. so, that takes us to leshan, a city about 2 hours from chengdu and easily done as a day trip. leshan, apparently offers quick turn around visa extensions (1 - 2 days) and is also home to the 'grand buddha' or 'dàfó' as known by the locals, and at 71 metres high, is the worlds largest buddha. we boarded an early morning bus and eventually arrived in leshan around 11am and immediately made our way to the PSB (public service bureau) office and nervously handed in our visa extension applications. the nice PSB lady who served us, had us run next door to make photocopies of our passport pages, then afterwards down the street to the bank of china where we had to pay for our extensions. after this is all done, we hand in all of our paper work. we wait a moment and then breath a sigh of relief when she tells us to come back after 4:00pm to pick up our passports and new visas! phew! now we have a grand buddha to see! after getting a little lost on the way, we eventually find our way to the grand buddha. we spend much of the afternoon walking around the grounds, then climbing down steep narrow stairs to the base of the where the buddha's huge feet rest and then all the way back up on the other side, a steep and sweaty uphill journey, taking many breaks along the way. there is much more to see in the area around the grand buddha, but its now time to make our way back to the PSB office. after a rather confusing and round about pedicab ride, we get back to the PSB office shortly before closing. we pick up our passports and with big grins on our faces, we say 'xie xie' to the nice PSB lady and hop on a bus back to chengdu. a worthwhile day well spent! that evening, back in chengdu, we meet mark, judys' boyfriend who had just returned from his summer long travels through india and central asia. it was nice to finally meet you!
approaching two weeks in chengdu, judy is getting ready to leave for a visit back home to canada, we focus our attention on our tibet tour and work harder now to find an affordable tour and to find partners to travel with. our internet contacts have fallen through, as have other possible leads for travel partners, so it was up to us now to find people in town to travel with. after visits to other guest houses to get quotes and post notices on their message boards, we eventually find a affordable quotation from another guesthouse and we meet a couple from holland who seem to be looking for the same journey through tibet and then overland to nepal. after more discussions and meetings we determine that we all can make this journey through tibet together! we set the wheels in motion, order the train tickets and the tour and now just a couple days for the other couple to go to leshan to extend their visas. november 19th will be our departure date! excitement has set in, now we keep our fingers crossed they'll get their extensions quick enough.
our last few days with judy before she leaves for canada. it has been wonderful to be able to spend so much time and experience so much with her over this past month, it will be hard to say goodbye again. the next couple of days... we shop for our winter coats in preparation for tibet, we take a stroll down beautifully restored 'kuan xiang zi' (ancient area), make another visit to vegetarian lifestyles for dinner, attend small goodbye party for a couple of judy's friends, and finally i get to try a sichuan hot pot dinner with judy and mark. it was definitely a special experience and the food was definitely hot! (i will leave out the painful day after details for now:). we say our goodbyes as judy leaves on sunday, and then mark leaves on monday (bound for a visit back to the u.s.). we meet aviv from israel, who has just come from nepal into china, we have many questions for him about nepal! our tibet partners have returned from leshan and they have their visa extensions, we are set to leave tomorrow night for tibet. over two weeks in chengdu. maybe we stayed a little too long here, as we even outstayed judy, but its now time to move onto the next part of our journey... tibet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)