The last stop, only half seen due to demon dog.
View of Lhasa from near Sera Tse
Wild Mountian Flowers (what are they Marilyn?)
Greetings friends and family,
So today we (well Tyson was already going to do it, I joined at the last moment) got up at 6:00am to go start our hike. We were really glad that we did it early in the morning because it got quite hot out once we were almost done. The hike took us approximently 7 hours with breaks, stops at monestaries for yak butter tea, and Tyson trying to get that "perfect" yak picture.. Its like the boy has never seen animals before. I think it looks like a cow, with horns, no big thing.
Trying to get to the starting point of the hike seemed to be a little troublesome early in the morning for about 3 taxis did not know where the heck we wanted to go, and we even had a Tibetan draw us a map and write down where we wanted to go in Tibetan, but still no go. The only guy who knew where we wanted to go was a Rickshaw driver.. he hailed down a taxi for us and explained where we wanted to go for him. After this he wanted money.. Tyson said no and that we would find his rickshaw later and take a ride.. because you know there aren't thousands or rickshaws around here as if we are going to see that guy again. (Tyson: his rickshaw number was 454, so I do mean on taking a ride) Anyways so in the Taxi we go.. and we were all good until we started going up a bit of mountain on a gravel/dirt road, this made the taxi driver upset and he started raising his voice and demanding more money after we had already agreed to pay him 30 yuan for the ride. I was getting a little nervous so i told Tyson we should just get out here and pay the man more money before he kicks us out. (Tyson: he ended up driving up the wrong road anyways). So out of the Taxi and the only way to get to the starting point which was a monestary. The only way we could get there was too.. well as Tyson said.. follow the goat path. I don't know what he was thinking, i am not a goat and i don't have feet like them to climb the side of a mountian with slippery rock. But we did it.. so apparently we are goats. So once we made it to the first monestary we saw a police car drive up the road.. both of us look at eachother and go "uh oh", since we are the only 2 people walking up this road... but the truck drove past us and waved and that was the end of that. The first monestary we tried to explore but there was some sort of service going on and well I didn't feel right going in and just watching.. so with some convincing to Tyson that we should move on, off we went past the male tortoise rock, and onto the kora path. We got to the second hermatige monastery within half an hour and we were greeted with arm open. The two monks that we saw opened up all the doors for us to explore and then offered us some yak butter tea, cookies, and barley flour. I had about 3 sips of yak butter tea which is like extremely well for me to take something from a stranger and drink it, while Tyson had a glass and then finished mine off. He also had a cookie.. the monk was so nice and kept trying to get us to eat the barley flour but even Tyson said no to that. (Tyson: I didn't know the correct way of eating it, plus I've never been much of a morning eater). So after we had our drinks, off we were to continue our hike. On the way out we kind of took the wrong trail and ended up having to scamber up another side of a mountain to get back on the right path and unto the third hermitage which was a nunnery around a cave used by a famous monk for meditating. We went into the nunnery and there was only one room we saw because it looked the nun was busy or not interested in us. We then followed the only other person who was a pilgrim for a bit to make sure we were going the right way. Along the way Tyson chased yaks like a little kid, while trying to get a good picture, and he took a picture of anything pretty much. The next stop was lunch, just before the sera tese monestary. After we ate lunch we arrived at sere tese which actually turned out to be a persons house no monks where found... the people invited us in and gave us hot water to drink. While Tyson drank his hot water there was a little girl doing practicing her Tibetan writting. We were suprized to see a family living there and no monks since in the guide book it was a monestary. On the way out we walked past a temple which was downstairs but it wasn't in use. So now we are almost done our hike by this point in time. There were a couple of other monestaries along the way but we couldn't get into them they were gated. So on arriving to our last monestary of the hike, Tyson got really excited because it looked really cool and interesting. We made our way down to the monestary and started saying hello and tashi de la.. but there was no answer. So being curious Tyson he wanted to go in anyways.. being realistic me.. i hesitated. But up the stairs we went.. to be greeted by a MASSIVE dog with a really loud bark who was .. thank god, chained up but was eager to eat us anyways. It scared the crap out of us and we both ran up the next stairs as fast as can be. But that wasn't enough to scare Tyson away .. even though he was shaking.. he wanted to get into the this place. So we went into the court yard, but still couldn't see anyone and could only hear the dog.. At the previous monestaries the dogs were half the size, not trying to break their chain, and did not look like the hell hounds from Ghostbusters. Usually once a dog starts barking someone comes to investigate, but not here. So we had to go around the corner where the dog was again to get down the stairs.. Tyson was still curious by this time.. and well as soon as i saw that the dog was trying to break his chain i fled down the stairs and down that dirt road never to return again!!! Tyson will return again, on another trip maybe in the first week in July when that kora is very popular with pilgrams, and the monestaries would be filled with people, not just a hell hound. It was funny because as we were walking down the road back to the valley bottom, Tyson holds out his hand and shows me like 5 little rocks he had that he was going to throw at a dog if it started to chase us... these rocks would have done nothing to this dog.. .. big brave man i am travelling with eh? The dog would have had Tyson as an appetizer and me as the main course. Other than walking down the service road in the blistering heat through a small village where the main road was far away from our guest house.. we eventually hailed down a taxi and were safely dropped off close to our guesthouse. After that we were spent, sat down had a snickers bar each.. mmmm and then rested for the rest of the afternoon. Then treated ourselves at dinner, Tyson had a Lhasa beer, and i had chocolate cake.
Tomorrow is our last day in Lhasa and then off to Golmud, or Geermu depending what nationality you are.
Sara and Tyson
So today we (well Tyson was already going to do it, I joined at the last moment) got up at 6:00am to go start our hike. We were really glad that we did it early in the morning because it got quite hot out once we were almost done. The hike took us approximently 7 hours with breaks, stops at monestaries for yak butter tea, and Tyson trying to get that "perfect" yak picture.. Its like the boy has never seen animals before. I think it looks like a cow, with horns, no big thing.
Trying to get to the starting point of the hike seemed to be a little troublesome early in the morning for about 3 taxis did not know where the heck we wanted to go, and we even had a Tibetan draw us a map and write down where we wanted to go in Tibetan, but still no go. The only guy who knew where we wanted to go was a Rickshaw driver.. he hailed down a taxi for us and explained where we wanted to go for him. After this he wanted money.. Tyson said no and that we would find his rickshaw later and take a ride.. because you know there aren't thousands or rickshaws around here as if we are going to see that guy again. (Tyson: his rickshaw number was 454, so I do mean on taking a ride) Anyways so in the Taxi we go.. and we were all good until we started going up a bit of mountain on a gravel/dirt road, this made the taxi driver upset and he started raising his voice and demanding more money after we had already agreed to pay him 30 yuan for the ride. I was getting a little nervous so i told Tyson we should just get out here and pay the man more money before he kicks us out. (Tyson: he ended up driving up the wrong road anyways). So out of the Taxi and the only way to get to the starting point which was a monestary. The only way we could get there was too.. well as Tyson said.. follow the goat path. I don't know what he was thinking, i am not a goat and i don't have feet like them to climb the side of a mountian with slippery rock. But we did it.. so apparently we are goats. So once we made it to the first monestary we saw a police car drive up the road.. both of us look at eachother and go "uh oh", since we are the only 2 people walking up this road... but the truck drove past us and waved and that was the end of that. The first monestary we tried to explore but there was some sort of service going on and well I didn't feel right going in and just watching.. so with some convincing to Tyson that we should move on, off we went past the male tortoise rock, and onto the kora path. We got to the second hermatige monastery within half an hour and we were greeted with arm open. The two monks that we saw opened up all the doors for us to explore and then offered us some yak butter tea, cookies, and barley flour. I had about 3 sips of yak butter tea which is like extremely well for me to take something from a stranger and drink it, while Tyson had a glass and then finished mine off. He also had a cookie.. the monk was so nice and kept trying to get us to eat the barley flour but even Tyson said no to that. (Tyson: I didn't know the correct way of eating it, plus I've never been much of a morning eater). So after we had our drinks, off we were to continue our hike. On the way out we kind of took the wrong trail and ended up having to scamber up another side of a mountain to get back on the right path and unto the third hermitage which was a nunnery around a cave used by a famous monk for meditating. We went into the nunnery and there was only one room we saw because it looked the nun was busy or not interested in us. We then followed the only other person who was a pilgrim for a bit to make sure we were going the right way. Along the way Tyson chased yaks like a little kid, while trying to get a good picture, and he took a picture of anything pretty much. The next stop was lunch, just before the sera tese monestary. After we ate lunch we arrived at sere tese which actually turned out to be a persons house no monks where found... the people invited us in and gave us hot water to drink. While Tyson drank his hot water there was a little girl doing practicing her Tibetan writting. We were suprized to see a family living there and no monks since in the guide book it was a monestary. On the way out we walked past a temple which was downstairs but it wasn't in use. So now we are almost done our hike by this point in time. There were a couple of other monestaries along the way but we couldn't get into them they were gated. So on arriving to our last monestary of the hike, Tyson got really excited because it looked really cool and interesting. We made our way down to the monestary and started saying hello and tashi de la.. but there was no answer. So being curious Tyson he wanted to go in anyways.. being realistic me.. i hesitated. But up the stairs we went.. to be greeted by a MASSIVE dog with a really loud bark who was .. thank god, chained up but was eager to eat us anyways. It scared the crap out of us and we both ran up the next stairs as fast as can be. But that wasn't enough to scare Tyson away .. even though he was shaking.. he wanted to get into the this place. So we went into the court yard, but still couldn't see anyone and could only hear the dog.. At the previous monestaries the dogs were half the size, not trying to break their chain, and did not look like the hell hounds from Ghostbusters. Usually once a dog starts barking someone comes to investigate, but not here. So we had to go around the corner where the dog was again to get down the stairs.. Tyson was still curious by this time.. and well as soon as i saw that the dog was trying to break his chain i fled down the stairs and down that dirt road never to return again!!! Tyson will return again, on another trip maybe in the first week in July when that kora is very popular with pilgrams, and the monestaries would be filled with people, not just a hell hound. It was funny because as we were walking down the road back to the valley bottom, Tyson holds out his hand and shows me like 5 little rocks he had that he was going to throw at a dog if it started to chase us... these rocks would have done nothing to this dog.. .. big brave man i am travelling with eh? The dog would have had Tyson as an appetizer and me as the main course. Other than walking down the service road in the blistering heat through a small village where the main road was far away from our guest house.. we eventually hailed down a taxi and were safely dropped off close to our guesthouse. After that we were spent, sat down had a snickers bar each.. mmmm and then rested for the rest of the afternoon. Then treated ourselves at dinner, Tyson had a Lhasa beer, and i had chocolate cake.
Tomorrow is our last day in Lhasa and then off to Golmud, or Geermu depending what nationality you are.
Sara and Tyson
1 comment:
ok that was the longest blog i have ever read. get to the point already. did the dogs eat tyson or not? lol. and if he really wants to see animals i have lots for him to goo and gaw at. anyway love you guys and glad to hear all is well or at least hilarious. ta ta for now... Melissa
Post a Comment