Backpacks and Bra Straps (24 page)

Ammon’s post was the last I heard from my family about what I’d done. They knew I knew I was in the wrong, and that I’d learned a good lesson about using my better judgment. No doubt they were right, and thankfully, I was spared the lecture. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.” I knew I should’ve stuck with Thumper’s advice that time.

Too uncomfortable to say what I really wanted to say, which was, “Geez, I’m really sorry,” I said instead, “I told you guys I didn’t want to write that day.”

“Yeah, maybe we shouldn’t have pushed you,” Mom said. “But you’re going to have to do things in life you don’t always want to do, and now is when you decide how you’re going to handle those situations and emotions next time. Because dealing with it the way you did hurt you more than anyone else.” I nodded sombrely, my pride and dignity still almost mortally wounded.

In a way, I owed Anonymous for scolding me and forcing me to take a step back and analyze my behaviour. Otherwise, I might have let it go as an angry moment and remained unaware of the impact my actions had had on others. He/she pointed out something that otherwise would’ve gone unnoticed, and I’d not have ultimately learned this essential lesson. For that, I thank Anonymous.

Hello Money
30

W
e spent a week in Lhasa before moving on to Shigatse, the second largest city in Tibet. From there, we made a day trip to Gyantse’s Pelkor Chode Monastery before we made arrangements to get from Shigatse to Nepal. Although there were a lot of tourists in Tibet, we rarely interacted with them because most of them were on organized tours. Though we did meet four Swiss guys who were on a boys-only backpacking trip during our stay in Tibet and it felt really good to speak English and be understood for the first time in weeks.

Adrian had a long, blond ponytail, wore Converse shoes, was rather quiet (which surprised me a bit, given his “rock star” appearance), and was the only one in the group who did not wear practically identical round spectacles. Lucas, the shortest in the group, had short brown hair and was slightly geeky. Yves was the oldest, with quite a receding hairline, but he kept pace with the others just fine. Sebastian was so tall that he had subconsciously developed a slight hunch in order to stay connected with the “shorty” world, especially in China. Although he sported a contemporary, soccer-player hairstyle, he was the nerdiest looking of the bunch, and was obviously the group’s spokesman.

They were travelling a route similar to ours and had also avoided procuring the complicated Tibetan documents by sneaking in on a local bus. The bus was specially equipped for these kinds of situations with a secret door hatch to a smuggler’s hole in the bus floor. Whenever they’d passed through the various police checkpoints, they’d jumped into the undercarriage compartment beside the one used for luggage. They told us about the anxiety they’d experienced while they’d been stuck in the dark, dusty compartment, worrying a bit about how they could get out if something strange should happen while they were hiding in there.

As Sebastian recounted the story, Bree leaned over to whisper, “He reminds me of the guy from the
101 Dalmatians
cartoon.”

“Yeah, mixed with a bit of Ichabod Crane,” I said.

They now shared our predicament: how to arrange illegal transport out of the country. The eight of us decided we’d go together to Nepal. Foreigners are not officially allowed to travel any closer to the border than Shigatse; only locals were allowed to take the bus. I couldn’t quite figure out the reasoning behind those rules but, after searching the city of Shigatse for two days, we found an almost reasonably priced alternative.

“Seems a bit convenient, doesn’t it?” Ammon said while we waited on the curb, where we’d been for an hour already with all our backpacks piled on the ground around us.

“What does?” I asked.

“For them to say it’s illegal to put eight in a car. If we hire two cars, they automatically make twice as much money.”

“The laws are weird and confusing here. Nobody seems to really know what’s going on, so maybe it’s true,” Mom offered.

“We’ll see.” Ammon wore a suspicious scowl. “I’ve already been talking to the hotel manager who’s been lying to us about the cost of lodging, transportation, and really, just about everything I asked him about. This whole thing seems like a circus run by unhappy staff. I’d rather pay more than go with him, but at least he’s willing to take us without paperwork.”

“But why are we going with them if you obviously don’t trust him?” I asked, secretly relieved and happy that we’d have four bodies’ worth of extra space with the second car.

“ ’Cause we kind of have to. If you talk to anyone else, you’re lucky if they don’t run away screaming at the mere mention of the border.” Then Ammon told us of his and Sebastian’s attempts to arrange a ride to Nepal. Travel companies knew full well that they were the only way tourists could get to the border and were quick to take advantage by raising their prices. “Locals treat the border as if it were the plague. So we have to pay three times as much to go with a licensed company. To be perfectly honest, Tibet has been a major disappointment.”

“Oh really? Why is that?” Yves asked, sounding surprised.

“Everyone thinks it’s this holy, magical place that will instantly transform you. Truth is, because of its reputation, it’s become a tourist trap that’s lost its authentic feel. It’s probably better to get to know Tibetans and their culture from neighbouring countries,” my cynical brother said. He had been so excited to be part of such a historically reverential place before we arrived. I suppose that the higher the level of expectation, the more room there is for disappointment. And we were disappointed. Perhaps the altitude combined with our sibling rivalry was affecting us more than we thought.

In other parts of China, though, we’d often been approached by ladies, children, elderly folk, and couples asking where we were from, or wanting to have their picture taken with us. Whenever we were standing on a corner or looked lost, someone would inevitably offer to help. Of course there was very little English spoken in China, and we were constantly finding ourselves coming up with new ways to communicate. Everything was about hand signals and sometimes even drawing pictures. But here, there was some kind of distance between the tourists and locals. We never felt we were in any danger, only that we weren’t completely welcome.

“No matter where we go, even outside the main tourism sites, it seems everyone is begging: the pilgrims, old people, villagers, and even a few monks. Everyone greets us with outstretched hands, and calls out to us, saying, “Hello, money.” I know Tibetans are poor and that they’re oppressed by the Chinese, but if they think they’re the only people with this problem, they’re sorely mistaken. The Burmese and people from numerous other poor countries I’ve been to didn’t beg to nearly the same extent.”

This bold statement made me cringe. Oh geez. Though we had also seen many sweet, school kids in their blue uniforms smiling up at us, unfortunately it was the aggressive children that seemed to stand out the most. The hairs on my back rose with anticipation at how the Swiss guys would react to such a negative viewpoint. After seeing the way they handed out money to every kid and monk holding their hands out, dropping a coin or two into all those open palms, I couldn’t imagine they had similar opinions. I wouldn’t have dared to speak my mind that way, but Ammon was very confident in his right to speak freely, even if it risked offending someone. He stood by what he believed, and I suppose he usually had solid evidence to back him up in this kind of debate.

“It’s not the begging, per se, that bugs me – otherwise we might as well completely skip India – but it detracts from the “holy” atmosphere and turns something that could be really inspirational into a headache. I was expecting something amazing, but I just never got those good vibes.” To my amazement, the Swiss all started nodding their heads, whether because they’d recently come to the same conclusion or because they were just generally open-minded enough to consider different opinions fairly, I’ll never know, but I could see their wheels turning as if they were recollecting all of their own experiences.

“Yeah, yeah.” Adrian nodded. “I do see what you mean.”

“I’m glad I came. I saw lots and I came away with a better understanding than I had before,” Ammon said. “But I put Tibet in the same category as Vietnam; this is one of the few places I won’t rush to go back to.”

When the guys had finished arranging private transportation to Nepal, they knew little more than where and when we were supposed to be picked up. With such limited communication, we were tossed willy-nilly from one thing to the next. First, the local drivers told us to get out and that we had to unload all our luggage when we reached the outskirts of town, which was the first inkling we’d had that they wouldn’t be taking us all the way to Nepal. Shortly afterward, two Toyota Land Cruisers arrived. The four Swiss guys tied their stuff up onto the metal roof rack. Our vehicle didn’t have a rack, so we piled our luggage into the storage space behind the back seat, and Bree sat on top of it.

Once we were finally on our way, the road was like a big, jittery gravel pit. The only people we saw were construction workers, both men and women working side by side, manually mixing cement and hammering concrete. The small women were toiling away, sweating and working just as hard as the men. There were a few smooth stretches along the way, but they gave us only enough time to take one long, steady breath before we were again being tossed all over the place.

“So wait a second. What you’re telling me is that this,” I moved to the side, enabling them to see past me to the grey, rocky scene out the window, “is supposed to be one of the most scenic routes in the world? You meant the least scenic, right?” We were in a giant gravel pit surrounded by barren mountains. Even the roadside construction workers seemingly came out of nowhere; there was no sign of a town, or even a tent, in the surrounding rocky terrain.

“It may not be scenic in the traditional sense of the word, but I think it’s cool in its own way, ‘cause it’s so high that nothing grows,” Mom said.

“Tomorrow we should get a glimpse of Mount Everest, so I’m sure it’ll get better,” Ammon said, before directing his next comment to Bree. “That’s the highest mountain in the world, in case you didn’t know.” Bree stuck her tongue out at him from her perch in the back of the vehicle.

I remembered a specific elementary school assembly presentation with a special guest speaker who’d seen Mount Everest. I couldn’t quite remember if he had just done the base camp trek or if he’d actually summited, but he had shown us pictures and spoken passionately about his journey. It was of little interest at the time because this place he spoke of seemed so far away, as if it were on some other, almost fictional planet. I must’ve been only about eight or nine years old at the time, but I still remember it, so it had quite an impact on me. Imagining that I was going to see the exact same mountain he had discussed made me feel like I was about to witness some spectacular, unreachable land.

“I just don’t get it. This is the main highway to Nepal, and it’s not even built yet.” Ammon was completely puzzled as we continued to swerve all over the road to avoid boulders and loose rocks that too often nearly sent us over the ledge. Our Land Cruiser, of course, was a slow piece of junk that felt like it could split in half at any moment. “I can’t believe this is the right road.”

“Do you think maybe they’re taking a back way to avoid police checks?” Mom asked.

“Yeah, like a secret smugglers’ route?” Bree suggested.

“I dunno. I think the Swiss guys had a GPS. Let’s ask them at the next stop,” Ammon suggested, still staring down at his compass and trying to make sense of things. Ammon appreciated their help, and I liked knowing they were riding in the car ahead of us, too. Having five grown men in the group felt much safer than having just one male around to protect three females. If anything went wrong, at least we were all there to help each other.

We were forced to stop when the Swiss guys’ truck got stuck in a large mud puddle blocking the road. The rain had just stopped, creating a huge, magnificent rainbow that provided a welcome streak of colour amidst the grey. We knew we were high up from the lack of vegetation and the emptiness of the thin air. The scenery was a mix of grey, stony passages and high plateaus the colour of dead grass. When we tumbled out of our car, the guys already had the GPS unpacked. Sebastian was holding it stretched out in front of him like a metal detector, squinting down at it through his big, round glasses while it beeped away.

“What are you finding out?” Ammon asked.

“It’s right. The coordinates are right. I thought it might not be the Friendship Highway, but it is,” he said, stopping to look around as he shrugged his shoulders. “It must be.” The Friendship Highway name had led us all to believe it would be a high-class, paved road. I wanted to smack myself over the head as I observed the rocky pit around us. Instead, I laughed aloud at my impossibly naïve thinking.

An oncoming Land Cruiser switched to four-wheel drive and, instead of stopping to make sure the people in the vehicle were okay or maybe even trying to help get them out of the mud, the driver maintained his speed to pass the Swiss guys’ stuck vehicle. The cars were just inches away from each other, making it nearly impossible to squeeze past, even without the sticky mud. But we were more than a little bit pleased to see karma in action in Tibet when he promptly got stuck, too. As he struggled to extricate himself by revving his engine furiously, we couldn’t help but laugh at his stupidity. We particularly enjoyed watching his expensive sunglasses fall off his face into the deep mud when he looked out his window to inspect the too-narrow space between the cars. Luckily, it wasn’t too long before a random bulldozer happened by and pushed and lifted the vehicles from behind to rescue them.