我到天边走一回(1)Going Tibet
我到天边走一回(2)On the way to Tibet
天边走一回(3)步步沉重的Potala Palace
天边走一回(4)Barkhor Street@Lhasa
天边走一回(5)Norbulingka宝贝公园
文接自：天边走一回(6)into a TibetanVillageHouse
19/9/2012 The 3rd night in Tibet was spent at a higher altitude city, Shigatse….
It was still a miserable night for four of us (my family including me) still having headache with no appetite for breakfast. Breakfast at this hotel served only porridge and a few salted vegetable dishes.
8:30am We set off higher and deeper into the mountains of Tibet. As what had happened yesterday, our tour guide needed to register the time at a checkpoint entering the highway. She came back with a sigh… she told the driver that the next checkpoint was only 36km away but we could not reach within 55minutes…sooooo slooooow….
As so, the driver just strolled the bus slowly on the road, bouncing our way into the mountain.. Why I described that we were bouncing our way, because the highway road was very uneven all the way.. we did feel like we were riding a horse "kedekut kedekut..."
This is my shadow… why was I standing by the roadside? 2reasons… Firstly, we were about to reach 36km checkpoint soon but it was still too early to be there. Secondly, we found a perfect place to ease ourselves, no torment of smell and sight.. and it was free~ right beneath the bushes on the left. You even can get a cooling sensation on your backside.. hahaha… 所谓“唱山歌”就是在野外“小解”……在这里“唱山歌”等同上7星级厕所~! 隐秘凉风草香美景……何必给钱上藏族自己不用的厕所。
慎重注意 Serious Reminder: Not everywhere in the wild of Tibet can you simply relief yourself… Do not do this at places with prayer flags 经幡, holy lakes 圣湖 and stacked stones (marnie pile) 玛尼堆 are to be found. Tibetan locals will be extremely furious and you will end up with a lot of trouble.
All the way we could see piles and piles of harvested highland barley and wheat, covering the whole plain, spread out as far as the eye can see.
Goats on the road~ Here in Tibet cars would patiently wait for goats, cows or yaks to finish their usage on roads. They ranked the same as the traffic police officer here… *salute~
The most splendid mountain view on our great Mother Earth… Turquoise stream painted across the landscape leading us closer to 【Manla/Simila Hydro Dam】, which its upstream is the great glaciers.
满拉水库位于海拔4330米的斯米拉山口下的峡谷之中，如绿宝石镶嵌于苍茫山脉里。没有一丝皱缬，水面平静如丝，高原的风都不能带来一丝涟漪……
连水库都那么漂亮~你们说过分吗?!
There was even a picturesque island in the middle with a ruined fort on it.
This is a top tourist stop off point so Tibetans gather there to sell all sorts of decorative items and souvenirs. There was a locally dug “hole” kind of toilet again. RMB1 as well… It was an isolated place to drive to and fro, we could already know the condition of this toilet. No fluid day for me~! I did not want to go near to it at all.
UncleLee wondered with frustration… as to why they collected money but never maintained the cleanliness of the toilet. “If I open a toilet station here I would beat their toilet market”. AuntyLee replied defiantly “They don’t even have toilet at home, can pee and poo inside the bushes… who would want to use your toilet?”. Our tour guide said that they collected the money as a token of effort for digging the hole for tourists toilet use, locals indeed would not need any toilet… their toilet is anywhere and everywhere… haha….
1:00pm We proceeded with our road trip through the mountains.
↑ The mountain ahead of us, looked like a huge dinosaur lying over the road. The texture was amazing. I bet there must be plenty of unpolished agate treasure beneath.
山的纹路像极了沉睡的恐龙~!
Glaciers ahead~!!
比萨村? translate to English it would be Pizza Village… haha…
1:45pm Cross over 4330 meters of Simila mountain, we reached the great 【Karola Glacier 卡若拉冰川】
10years ago, tourists could touch the glacier by the road… but now…. sigh…
Another 10 years it would be gone~!!!
Please reduce the use of air condition or heater ~!!
PLANT MORE TREES!!!
如果地球温度持续飙升，十年后这些冰川就没了~! Please 大家不要用太多冷气或暖气，在你家前至少种一棵树吧~!!拜托~!
2:20pm We reached a restaurant in a small village. Our tour guide told us not to expect too much on the food of the restaurants in these small villages, as the resources here were difficult to access and she had already tried her best to find the most hygienic restaurant along the way. Whatever it was, I had difficulty to accept the taste… The tour guide had already requested to the chef that we wanted extremely less oil and less salt preparation… but it was still oily and salty. UncleLee said that maybe they lost their ability to prepare food in that formula… Perhaps the ext time we should just tell them not to use salt and oil to cook then it might taste better.. haha….
 |
 |
 |  |
| 
|
 |
4:00pm Our bus driver wanted to top up his bus water tank, he stopped beside this unknown lake… There was a hose which was continuously extracting water from this beautiful lake. He just joined up the hose to his bus, which was so convenient. After 10 minutes, he detached the hose of unstoppable flowing lake water and we continued our journey towards one of the sacred lakes in Tibet.
4:40pm 【Yamdrok Yumtso Lake 羊卓雍錯】was praised as sacred lake since Tibetans believe that it could help them to find the reincarnation of successive Daila Lamas. People would hold special ceremonies at Yamdrok Lake to find the reincarnation of Dalai Lama after he passed away. The lake would indicate the right direction of the location of the reincarnation through reflected image on the peaceful water.
This lake was also rich in fishes. Various kinds of fishes live in the lake. Yamdrok Lake is the heaven of fishes since Tibetans do not eat fish. It was evaluated that there is more than 0.8 billion kilograms of fish in the lake. Hence Yamdrok Lake was praised as "fish base" of Tibet.
羊卓雍湖的藏语语意是“天鹅池”，也被称为羊卓雍错（“错”在藏语里就是“湖”的意思），简称为羊湖。
The surface of the lake is about 4,441 meters above the sea level, carved on a land mark rock. I walked nearer and was thinking this was a must take photo shot, but as I went closer there was a guy eyeing on that spot, with a tiny paper placed at the bottom of the land mark, RMB2 for photo. I did not want to take it directly then. As I took a few shots beside avoiding that “rock”, mum whispered to me that he was not looking anymore. I quickly took a shot of that landmark, in split second and I heard the male voice exclaiming “Did you take the photo? Did you?!”. He walked towards me and I immediately deleted that shot before he grabbed my camera. He checked if I really took his guarded “rock”, luckily I was quick enough and I kept saying that I did not take the photo. I pulled my camera back and walked in fast pace back to our bus. 不知要说我手脚快还是幸运~! 捏了把冷汗噢~!
 |
 |
 |
We had a ride circling round the lake. The top view was spectacular. The above photo was taken from my phone panoramic function. The beauty of the land was extremely breathtaking, I was so impressed that even my phone could capture this magical scene.
There is no word on earth to describe the beauty of this anymore~
用手机都能拍到这样~ 美到我不想用地球话来形容了~!
Brother was too dizzy to come down from the bus. It was a pity, but he managed to take this photo secretly, because the local Tibetans were making money from tourists. Each dog may charge separately for each photo. They might check your camera and see how many dogs you had taken and charge it from there. However not all Tibetans are demanding.
5:00pm We set off and headed back to Lhasa
6:30pm Before we entered into Lhasa City, we stopped by a Tibetan dog breeding base. The Tibetan dog known as Tibetan Mastiff is the world’s oldest ancient dog species.
Its double coat was long, subject to climate, and found in a wide variety of colors, including solid black, black and tan, various shades of red (from white to deep red), bluish-gray (dilute black). A red Tibetan mastiff has become the priciest dog in the world after being sold for 10 million Chinese yuan.
7:45pm We reached Lhasa and we were back beside the Potala Palace. This time, we were arranged to visit an artifact shop which they claimed that they have the most genuine agate, sapphire and red coral because they got them straight from the temples around Tibet and they actually raise funds for the temples as well. The person in charge in the shop did teach us how to distinguish genuine agate. I had learnt some helpful information in there as it was a knowledgable visit.
9:00pm Dinner time at the Grand Canyon Mushroom Hot Pot 大峡谷野山菌火锅
This was a superb restaurant with superb taste with nicely brewed chicken soup full of different types of mushrooms. The waiter was very polite and humble, he served everything carefully into the pot. What made every lady so happy was that, there was a 5 star superbly cleaned toilet inside our private dining room, which offset the experience of all the earlier bad toilets ever… Birthday surprise~! Dad and my birthday fell on the same week during this trip. Following the Chinese culture, on the birthday we have to eat longevity noodles with an egg. Ta~Dah~ Dad and I each got a bowl and the waiter even presented a Khata as blessing in Tibet… so thoughtful~
A bigger surprise came in when our tour leader brought in a beautiful cake, with a lotus sparkling fire-work type of candle… and the petals opened up slowly, triggered an electronic device inside it (just like the one in some birthday cards) playing the birthday song. This surprise really blew away our exhaustion and worries that gloomed us for the whole day as my brother was quite sick. He did not come down from the bus much and was almost sleeping all the way during the journey. However he was very determined that he was fine.
My nightmare came, as the birthday song in the lotus candle was unstoppable. I brought it back to my room and it sang through the whole night until it went out of tune. Never knew I could get such a horrible lullaby for my birthday night.. haha… but it was indeed a memorable night for both of us. 小郭 (tour guide) and Thera (tour leader), thank you so much.
No comments:
Post a Comment