Hastening Slowly

Gigantic Cranes and cacophonous jackhammers greet every visitor to China's major cities, and provide graphic testament to the breakneck pace of Chinese development. However, there is one area where China has been remarkably successful in slowing the pace; it is in putting the brakes on disorderly traffic and speed demons.

Take a taxi from Beijing airport at 11 pm, and the taxi driver will daintily stay within the 80 kmph speed limit on the wide open superhighway. I wondered how the Beijing police department had been so successful in curbing the maniacal speed demon streak, which is an integral part of a taxi man's genetic code. The answer is that cameras are omnipresent on the superhighways, and a speeding ticket is a certainty should one trifle with the speed limit. The 80 kmph warning sign now acts as Pavlovian conditioning, warning errant drivers that a speed camera is not far away.

Ditto for the signal intersections - no one tries to run the YELLOW lights, because violators are certain to be fined.

A friend of mine was merrily cruising along a rural stretch of superhighway, and had unfortunately let his speed drift to 150 kmph. Guess what? At the next toll booth, the toll operator had a high resolution picture of his car with a hefty fine for breaking the law. Even in remote Tibet, they employ a less high tech method. There are highway check points, where they time stamp your ticket. If you reach the next check point too early, you are fined on the spot.

More insights in my next blog ...

Tibet: The Lazy Guide To Lhasa And Lamas

Perched for 6 days on Tibet, the Roof of the World was a dizzying experience; the mild inconveniences made the family vacation all the more memorable. Two hours after stepping off the airplane in Lhasa at 12,000 feet, all four of us suffered symptoms of altitude sickness - mild nausea, light headedness and a general lethargy due to the reduced levels of oxygen.

We did have Altitude Sickness prescription medication with us, but the week before our departure was a mad scramble to get our mandatory Tibet Permit dispatched from Lhasa to Beijing, and our medication was misplaced in the muddle. The medication deepens one's breathing so that the lungs inhale a larger volume of air to compensate for the lower concentration of oxygen. One afternoon in the rarefied Lhasa air convinced us to rummage through our bags for the medication, so that we'd be prepared 3 days later for the trip to Lake Namtso, which is at 14,000 feet.

A 6-day trip for 2 adults and 2 children cost us about $4500 in July 2007, and this included: air fare from Beijing to Lhasa, train tickets from Lhasa to Guangzhou, hotel accommodation, tickets to the temples, palaces and monasteries, a guide, a driver, and a 4-wheel drive Toyota for 5 days including 3 days of roller-coaster gravity defying thrills through Tibet's highways and dirt roads. Our travel agency, Http://www.accesstibettour.com is based in Chengdu and Lhasa, and proved to be quite reliable.

One fascinating facet of Tibet is a nonchalant approach towards non-vegetarianism; I had expected that the Lamas, monasteries and nunneries would've dampened the pleasures of the flesh, but Yak is omnipresent. Having been immunized against typhoid, cholera, hepatitis, tetanus, we were free to sample the delicacies of Tibet's roadside restaurants: salty Yak tea, Yak butter, Yak kebabs, Yak fillet mignon, and tongue shaped slabs of dried Yak cheese. For those who yearn less for yak, and more for a herbivorous diet, there are numerous Nepali and Indian restaurant, which provide wholesome vegetarian dishes.

The hotels and homes in Lhasa have richly decorated reception counters, inlay work in the furniture, and frescoes on the ceilings of the rooms. The town is bright and colorful and quite unique, with separated roadways for the cycle rickshaws to take a lazy cruise around the eastern Tibetan section of town.

We spent our second day visiting the magnificent Potala Palace in Lhasa, which was the residence of the Dalai Lama. Access to the palace is carefully controlled, so that visitors do not overcrowd some of the narrow stairways and passages of this 13-floor structure. The palace has magnificent frescoes, gilded Buddhas and mausoleums of the most revered Dalai Lamas. Pigeon holes contain ancient Tibetan language manuscripts, and pilgrims pray in the chapels and offer cash donations. Your ticket gives you about 90 minutes in the palace, so that the next wave of visitors can enjoy the splendors.

There is a huge square in front of the Potala palace which is a wonderful place for a stroll as the sun sets at 9 pm. Take the opportunity to dress in Tibetan costume in the square and take a picture at sunset against the back drop of the Palace. As darkness descends, there is a dancing fountain performance in the square.

The Jokhang temple has throngs of pilgrims, some of them wearing leather aprons, knee pads, and blocks of wood strapped to their palms. They fall face first to the ground, prostrating themselves and picking themselves up as they approach the sacred temple. A huge incense torch beckons the faithful to the temple. The prayer halls and chapels have brass vessels filled with Yak butter with burning candle wicks, and pilgrims arrive with their offerings of even more butter, and cash donations. The burning candles and the masses of milling devotees make for a minor miracle that there has never been a major fire inside the temple.

Apart from the Tibet Permit, Immunizations and Altitude Sickness medication the lazy traveler is well advised to carry a flashlight, 2 rolls of toilet paper, antiseptic soap. Believe it or not, but camcorders can also develop Altitude Sickness and refuse to work at high altitudes (but recover at lower elevations), so take along a standard digital camera as a backup. The Lonely Planet Mandarin-English Phrasebook is indispensable for journeys, shopping, and ordering food in restaurants.

We spent the next two days traveling to Shigatse and Lake Namtso. Tibet has interesting way to enforce speed limits: a highway checkpoint stamps your time on a ticket, and if you arrive at the next point too early, you may a heavy fine!

Shigatse's Tashilumpo monastery is similar to those of Lhasa, but the drive on a mountain road through the heartland of Tibet from Shigatse to Lake Namtso is an unmatched adventure. Nomadic tribesmen tend their herds on the grassy plateaus and continuously move on to better grazing grounds. The narrow dirt road overlooks a precipitous drop into the river below, which eventually merges into the Brahmaputra river in India.This is a 5-hour thrilling roller coaster ride through undulating, twisting country.

Lake Namtso has camping cabins, and outdoor hole-in-the-ground toilets so the unadventurous may choose to stay at the colorless town of Damxung which is 40 km from the lake. The lake at 14,000 feet is a steel blue salt water expanse, set against the backdrop of majestic mountains. Our camping cabin was comfortable, with a generator powering a solitary lamp. At 4 am, with the generator off and the dormitory in pitch darkness, one of our family discovered an irresistible call of nature. The flashlight on my mobile phone helped navigate on a moonless night to the miserable, squalid, noxious Namtso squatting platform; it was obvious that a number of directionally deficient homo sapiens had shotgunned evidence of their visit.

The next morning, we had a quick breakfast of chamdu (barley with Yak butter tea, yak cheese and sugar), and then did a quick trek to a nearby hill for a last look at Lake Namtso before heading back to Lhasa. Five days had blitzed by, and before we knew it we were on the train for a 60-hour journey to Guangzhou through several provinces of China, and then onward to our flight in Hong Kong.