Don't you oppress me!

Being a bit sick of cold weather and no hot water and also wanting to save some money I decided to head to Tibet. What a stupid idea. Don't get me wrong, Tibet was great, but in winter it's cold.Very cold. Sure, certainly not ridiculous -30 cold, but still well-below-freezing cold. Which would be fine, except they don't have any central heating (unless you count burning yak shit as heating). Nor running hot water. In fact, some places didn't even have running water. D'oh! Plus, despite hearing all over the place that Tibet is free (y'know, travel agents are always having rallies and stuff advertising Tibet: "Free Tibet! Free Tibet!" and they produce all those stickers 'n' shit that you see everywhere), it bloody wasn't! It was expensive actually. Ah well. Still, it was quite interesting, up to a point.

The first five days involved driving north from Nepal towards Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. The landscape was incredible, across the world's highest plateau at over 4000m above sea level. It was harsh, barren, bleak, inhospitable and unforgiving yet people still manage to carve out an existence, albeit without the trappings of modern living. It's not too difficult to see why religion has flourished here, when people have it tough they tend to turn to 'higher powers' to make 'em feel everything's going to be just dandy in the end and all this hard work really is worth it. Despite their mostly inescapable poverty Tibetans from all over the land make regular, and often very long, pilgrimages to holy sites to pray and worship and of course most importantly to give lots of money to the monks. At every single monastery there are notes of all denominations stuffed into crevices, placed at the feet of statues, poked through fences and just generally scattered about the place. The sole job of most monks seems to be to count this loot. I reckon there'd be more cash in each temple than in an ATM.

On top of this they have quite a collection of bizarre beliefs, including, but not limited to, decision-making lakes (when the Dalai Lama dies, a particular holy lake will tell the monks where the next Dalai Lama currently is); magical demon-thwarting doorstops; making you walk around sacred things in a clockwise direction (never anti-clockwise you evil thing you); prayer wheels (spin the wheel and something important will actually listen and give a shit. Honest) as well as amazing smoke that Buddha can apparently travel down. Yes, Buddha, that rotund and heavy-set, androgynous fella with the smug, self-satisfied smile and hands that appear in a variety of poncy poses. Although to be more precise there are actually heaps of different Buddhas (of course there are!). There's past, present and future Buddha, there's long-life Buddha, happy Buddha (who looks to me to be more aggressive than happy), there's bashful, sad and dopey Buddha, there's sitcom Buddha, footy Buddha, I'm-off-to-the-dogs-and-need-some-luck Buddha and of course the ubiquitous onanism Buddha (I may have made a *few* of those last ones up).

However, this belief system may be on the ropes, as China truly is a cultural bulldozer. Lhasa is now 90% Chinese, and apart from the very quaint Tibetan quarter the rest of it is just another urban sprawl Chinese city (not that I've been to many Chinese cities . . . none in fact . . . but work with me here people). The Tibetan language is only taught to Tibetan kids, and sparingly at that. The government have forced Tibetans to move from their traditional homes in the mountains to brand new houses closer to the tourist highway and forced them to spend large amounts of money making them look nice. The result is villages lining the highway that are indeed quite pretty for the tourists, but quite empty for the inhabitants. Military guards are stationed at each monastery, not to protect the monks but to eavesdrop and be a threatening presence. Although I did managed to fart on one as I was passing close by on a narrow stairway - cop that commie oppressor! Don't you oppress me! Don't you oppress me! It's increasingly harder for Tibetans to keep their cultural heritage and if things don't change in a few generations they will be consigned to the cultural scrapheap. Sure, there has been heaps of progress under Chinese rule with the construction of major infrastructure projects (roads, electricity, running water), but there is a corresponding lack of freedom for Tibetans. It is hard for Tibetans to get a job and indeed keep it (our guide nearly lost his when an army guy posing as a worshiper, the sneaky fuck, demanded to see the photos on all of our cameras. If he had found any photos of soldiers that camera would have been confiscated and our guide would be looking for a new job) and they need a permit from the Chinese government to become monks. Passports for Tibetans to travel just within Tibet are expensive and if they want a passport to travel outside Tibet it is prohibitively expensive. There are police and military everywhere restricting movement and even more spies listening to every day conversations. Apparently Tibetans are paid quite well to spy on other Tibetans. All in the name of progress comrades!

Upon reaching Lhasa we were greeted with the most impressive sight in the city, the Potala Palace, perched high above the masses below. It used to look down onto a wee village, but of course the Chinese demolished that and built one of those gigantic imposing, inhuman concrete squares that socialists are so fond of. The Palace is the seat of the Dalai Lama who heads up the triumvirate of Tibetan Buddhism, the Panchen Lama being second in command and oh fuck me, I'm even boring myself now. I've already learned far more about this nonsense than I would ever care to remember and if I have to see the inside of another monastery ever again I'm going to throttle the nearest monk, even if it is the Dalai Lama. I'm sure he's a real swell guy 'n' all, but like every other bloody religion on this planet Buddhism is simply a number of crackpot beliefs combined with an ethos of "Hey, give us money and we'll have nice thoughts on your behalf so you can have it good when you die. Yay! Give us money now. Money. GIVE US YOUR MONEY". You know it's true.

Summary: Tibet is very cold (certainly in winter anyway) and quite interesting, but if you go be prepared to overload on the Buddhism mumbo-jumbo. The flight back to Kathmandu from Tibet was incredible though, with a stupendous close-up view of the sublime Himalaya, Everest the standout peak exhibiting a tiny trail of cloud. It has to be the most spectacular regular passenger flight in the world. If you ever, ever, EVER get even a hint of a chance then do it.