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?
2 comments:
aw, that sucks about what happened but it sounds like it was the right thing at the time, given your health.
to ascend slower, would you just stop at places along the way, rather than go straight to lhasa? i'd like to visit tibet sometime but this story makes me rather nervous..
was it cold when you were in tibet at that time of year?
Bless you both for trying. I think you've received a lot more out of that trip than you knew at the time...
xo
Post a Comment