continuation 2

I also went to the Tibetan Medicine Center in Llasa and met with a Tibetan doctor. He was a wonderful person and spent a few hours with me, explaining to me the basis of the Tibetan medicine. He also told me that if I wanted to know more I should go to Nepal or best to India because in Llasa the doctors were not able to fully practice the medicine according to their old books - part of the practice is forbidden by the Chinese authorities. Especially part that has to do with the psyche. We talked about the Tibetan medicine and also about the Chinese and Indian Ayurveda. The doctor told me that I should also find out about Ayurveda and see which of these forms of treatment would be most suitable for me and at which I could be most effective. What I like about the Chinese and Tibetan doctors is that they are humble: they practice their type of medicine but they are open to any other type and see the potential benefits of merging them all. The western doctors discredit all non-western types with a frown and hostility, believing that the medicine they practice is the best. What a pity. So on the doctor's recommendation I decided to go to Kathmandu. I found a Belgian couple who wanted to hire a jeep with a driver to go to the Nepalese border and we shared the expenses. It is the beginning of winter in Tibet but it's possible to drive through the mountains for another 3-4 weeks. After that the road will be closed because of snow. We set out the next morning at 6:30 am and drove through the deserty mountaineous landscape until 6 pm. We stopped for breakfast in one of the small towns and for lunch in a small village. In the village we met a couple, a Polish men with a Chinese girlfriend, who wanted to hitchhike to the Mt. Everest base camp but it would be additional 8 hours for us and we would have to pay the driver extra so we left them in the village - they would have to wait for someone going to the base camp. We saw the peak of Mt. Everest from the distance. It was warm in the car but outside it was freezing. It felt like minus 20 Celsius. We got over a few passes, one at the hight of 5,100 meters above sea level. The driver spoke a few words of English (everytime we would pass a Chinese military truck or a police jeep he would say "Fuck Chinese") but he sang the English songs pretty well - we listened to the popular American pop from the 70s and 80s (my favorite YMCA was part of the collection; I think it must be THE most popular song for all times and all countries) . "I love you more than I can saaaaaaay" sang the driver. "I am a small small girl in the big big world", "Baby don't leave me, pleeeeeese." It was so funny to listen to him knowing he didn't know the meaning of the words. We also listened to great Tibetan and Indian music and also to Eminem, the driver being equally fond of both types of music. So it was karaoke time for all of us; Gilles, Veronique and I would sing along whatever we knew. We spent the night in the Llasa hotel in one of the small villages. The hotel is a row of rooms in the back of a house. There's no heat and no bathroom. The bathroom is a hole in the ground and it's hard to pee since first it's so cold you don't want to put your pants down, and second it's so disgusting and smelly that you just loose the urge to go... Tibetans don't have bathrooms so the ones along the way are built mainly for tourists and it seems that no one is checking the state they are in. The living conditions are very hard in this climate. The house is mostly one room with a fireplace-type heater and dried yak dung is used as coal. It is the only stove and heater in the house. The room serves as living and dining room (also dining room for tourists) during the day and bedroom during the night: the wide day-sofas are beds at night. Hygiene doesn't exist. There's no running water and electricity is scarce. I don't think anybody takes a bath, changes their clothes often, or does loundry in winter. All the bodily smells which we the Westerners are used to be eliminating with detergents, soaps, deodorants, etc. are present here and it's just part of life. To a Westerner these are very hard conditions to adjust to. It's possible but it takes time. I was thinking how some time ago I was used to two showers a day, then when I started travelling I got down to one, and then when there was no water or it was freezing I didn't see anything wrong with a shower every few days and now I can easily go without for six days (I am glad I am not a stinker, though :). It's possible to adjust to anything if one must and Tibetans have to - it's a matter of survival. In the morning the three of my companions had breakfast and I just had tea as it was to early for me to eat and while they were dining I went outside to the freezing cold to see the sunrise above the village. A young Tibetan joined me and we both watched the sky changing colors. An old man appeared, walking with a group of about 15 dogs. He was feeding them some bread. He must have been a shepard with his crew (Tibetans are basically nomads hearding lots of sheep and yaks). One of the dogs came to me and the young Tibetan wanted to chase it away, thinking a tourist would be afraid, but I wasn't, of course, and I called him back and all the dogs came to me for patting and I patted them, tugged at their ears, looked into their eyes, my dear friends, and I looked at the old man and he was smiling from ear to ear. "We are made from the same stuff, dear" his eyes were saying. In such exchange there's no language barrier - words are not necessary. We left the village and the scenery chaged to higher mountains, snow-capped, deep gorges, winding steep roads. We saw all the various Himalayan mountain ranges and the driver told us the names of all the mountains. It was beautiful. After three hours of driving the landscape started changing again to lower mountains, not bare like the ones we saw earlier, but covered with evergreens. They turned into a dense forest growing on the slopes of the mountains and we started seeing waterfalls and even some subtropical vegetation. Amazing change of scenery. When we got to the border it was about 15 degrees Celsius. We got out of the car and undressed to teeshirts. The atmosphere was also very different: lots of Indian people, women dressed in sarees, men lightly dressed, all wearing sandals. A total mix of nationalities: Tibetan, Chinese and Indian. We parted with the driver and met a group who just came behind us: French couple and three persons I got friendly with: Nikki and Farhaan from Canada but living in Taiwan at the moment, and Nitzan from Israel. We went across the border, went to eat and then looked for a way to get to Kathmandu which is another 5 hours' drive. We got a minivan and with one short stop for snack and beer got to Kathmandu. We checked in hotel Garunda - a nice place in the tourist district. It is one of the most amazing cities I have seen. The streets are extremally colorful. There's all kinds of crafts being sold on the streets and little stores, spices, food, music. It's a town bustling with life. Bicycles, rikshas and motorcycles do a slalom between pedestrians. Whoever went to India or Nepal must know what I am talking about. I like it so much that, I think, I will stay here until at least the end of the year. I met with a Tibetan doctor today and I got so much information I have to sit on it for a while to digest it all. One of the things he told me is that there is a center and school of Tibetan medicine in Barcelona, of all places. Before I set out on my trip in February I thought that eventually I could settle in Barcelona. Isn't it amazing?! I don't know where I will go or what I will do yet, where I will study and live. It's a big question mark. But there all these amazing possibilites and I don't have to decide on anything yet... Leaving Poland a month ago I though I will just stay somwhere but now, coming to Kathmandu, that thing that makes me wonder around appeared again and I think I will be floating for some more time...

I haven't been responding to e-mails for a while - I am sorry. I wrote a bit on the blog for everyone to be informed and now I promise I will be keeping in touch individually more often.