Lhasa, July 2006

“We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always been a new fresh face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.”

Names changed to protect identities.

Mark your calendars and remember where you where on July 1^st, 2007: The railroad has officially arrived in Arakkas (where the Freman live – the good guys). Marked by a 4 hour opening ceremony in the town of G-mud (where the tracks had previously ended) and broadcast live on 4 different national channels on (TV 1, 2, 4 and 9 - that’s like ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN), a visit by almost all of the VIP heads of the state and party members – the Harkonnen (the bad guy invaders) Premier, the Harkonnen Vice Premier, the Secretary of Xining Prefecture, Secretary of Arakkas Autonomous Region, the Secretary of Transportation and many more of your favorite talking heads! There were boring speeches and forced applause. Keywords included development, stability, innovation, progress. There was dancing and singing (probably not by choice for the Fremen waiting at the station here). Endless commentary on the television about the amazing feat it was to build such a structure, how environmentally friendly it was going to be and how much trade and growth it would increase for the poor but welcoming western inhabitants of the Harkonnen Motherland. And too top it all off, at the end of the day, when the train that left G-mud at 11 am wasn’t even ¾ of the way to L-town, the capital of Arakkas (1200 km), as the night’s darkness fell, there was, over the P. Palace – the symbol of Freman culture and religion, the most impressive fireworks display I’ve ever seen. It went on for over 1 ½ hours. The child inside of me was quite in awe and thrilled to see such an illuminating and dramatic spectacle, but L reminded me the true, sober reality of the situation when she said as we were watching the display from our rooftop, ‘Different explosions, different context, but still an invasion’.

It was quite the day. After watching the unbelievably sincere yet completely disturbing ceremonies on the English speaking channel TV 9, we decided to go for a walk. It happened that this walk took us down the river, over the bridge and to the brand new railroad station. Supposedly the architecture was based on the same architecture of the P. palace. Well, there was a lot of red….but that goes without saying when it comes to Harkonnen building aesthetics. There was a lot of wood, which I’m sure come stolen from the local forests of Arakkas. Did I mention why the Harkonnen wanted Arakkas in the first time? It wasn’t any sort of historical precedent that they were together at any point. In fact, there are countless documents, stone pillars, trade agreements, etc that refute that argument. The reason the Harkonnen wanted Arakkas is as old and simple as human civilization – power, or in other words, money. First it was military advantage, but now it is about natural resources, water being the most important. Five of the major rivers start on the Plateau and I think there are plans (if not already in process) to dam every one of them for power. If I were any of the Harkonnen neighbors, I would be at my podium at the Imperial Council or wherever I could be heard screaming my head off about water theft and abuse. Remember, water will be the next millennium’s oil. There will be wars fought, rights distributed, pumps drilled. Other resources include copper, nickel, uranium, gold, timber and I’ve even heard of oil. I also think that one of Arakkas’ most precious resources will now (thanks to the train) be exploited – open space. I cannot even imagine how crowded it is in the east of Harkonnen but if Arakkas is 1/6^th the total land area of Harkonnen and they already had a little over 2 billion people, I can’t foresee the wide open plains of the Plateau remaining that way for many years more.

One last thing I’d like to say is that this starkly reminds me or the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. (If you haven’t read this book, you should….it’s got some very powerful theories). In it he talks of the Givers and the Takers, or in other terms, the Pastoralists and the Agriculturalists and how basically it all goes back to the myth of Cain (the Agriculturist or Taker) and Abel (the Pastoralist or Giver) in the Bible. Abel was a Sheppard, Cain a Farmer. When asked to give gifts to God, both of course did and God was more pleased with Abel’s gifts. Not that he was displeased with Cain’s, mind you. Cain got upset and jealous and slew Abel. When God discovered this dread deed, he banished Cain from the Garden and put a mark upon him so that when anyone was to encounter Cain (or any of his descendants) this mark would warn them of his history. Daniel Quinn goes on to talk about how anytime a Taker Culture encounters a Giver culture, the Giver culture must be made to convert to the Taker way – there are countless examples of this in history: Native Americans put to the sword or cross by the Americans, Spanish, French; the tribes of Africa encountering the same fate during the colonial periods of Europe; the Yamapami and other Amazon rainforest hunter-gathering tribes being pushed out by the farming Brazilians….and now, in this current day, I believe this is what is happening in Arakkas. You have the matriarchal, nomadic, semi-pastoral Fremen being forced by the gun into culture shift by the patriarchal, farming Harkonnen. It’s a sad story as old as history and doesn’t seem likely to cease…..

The theories Daniel puts forth are different, unique, intuitive and powerful. If you are interested in reading more about a different paradigm of thinking and a different look at history (and therefore a different vision of the future), I would go here to find out more.

There are numerous ways of looking at this very historic event (when was the last time you heard of a railroad ‘arriving’ – don’t the iron rails exist everywhere already?). Of course there is the official line that it is a great thing, an engineering marvel, a testament to the power of the worker and the efficiency of the socialist state (it was completed a whole year early), a powerful tool to help increase the ‘social stability’ and ‘economic development’ of west Harkonnen (i.e. Arakkas). They have been talking about building this railroad since 1958! Others, many of whom call this metal beast ‘the snake’, see it differently. One of the last steps towards a total flooding of their cultural home by eastern immigrants journeying overland on the very inexpensive rails to find new economic opportunities by taking all the jobs; a very easy and inexpensive way to transport natural resources (coal, wood, metals) back to feed the industrial giant of the east; damaging the very delicate environment and ecological balance in the territory that the tracks pass over.

However one chooses to see this situation, the future has shifted considerably for this land, this people and this culture. It will change more rapidly than ever now, for better or for worse it is to one’s own conscience and history to judge.

P.S. Can you tell who’s who in my little tale?

Within this delicious environment of tension and uncertainty, my good friend L-Dub arrived. She is the only friend so far that has the money, the guts and the time to come and visit us! We have been having a really, really good time….mostly. For the first couple of days of her arrival, we took it easy so that she could get her Tibetan legs under her. It is after all over 11,000 and she had just flown in from Israel which is a whopping sea level or below! (She went to the Dead Sea). So the first couple of days were spent walking around the Barkhor, the Jokhang, the Potala and just the maze of streets that is our neighborhood. It was nice. The weather was cooperating, too. It is really nice to have a friend come to visit. To see where we live. To meet our local friends. To experience our daily lives in this foreign land.

Speaking of where we live, many of you have been asking to see and hear more about our little apartment here in Lhasa. Our place is realy nice (albeit cozy). We're in the old Nepali consulate (which dates back to the early 1900’s) building which is now part of the Gorkha hotel. There’s traditional Tibetan architecture and painting. You’ll notice from the photos that the roof is constructed of large timbers (blue) covered in smaller timbers (green). The pillars are of traditional design as well. I wouldn’t say the painting is purely traditional but it is a derivative of sorts. Unfortunately, there just isn’t a lot of light. The building itself is surrounded by the newer hotel construction, and though there is a city wide ordinance that no building can be more than 3 stories, the encompassing hotel blocks out a lot of the natural light. Not to mention, as you can count, there are only 3 windows on the far wall and on the entrance door side there is one large one but it opens only to the stairway/hallway. It’s definitely a cave - cool in both summer and winter! For those of you who remember the high school cave….the basement bedroom I had in high school, where I slept away my teenage years, sometimes not awakening until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, and the wall were decorated with the dazed and confused doodling of our young but experimenting minds visions. It’s much like that but much finer and sophisticated. You might notice that we have a fridge finally - oh my god ice and cold beer!!!! You spoiled Americans with all your conveniences, you really have no idea. As an experiment, I dare you to go unplug your fridge. Go on. Just for 3 days….3 days was the moment, our love was 3 days long….I bet you can’t do it. It’s incredible how much one depends on refrigeration. With the ice we can now make and the blender we just inherited and the rum we brought from Nepal and all the fresh fruit we can currently buy here in Lhasa (especially the bananas and peaches – yum!), you know what that means? Cold, liquid fun! We have a small but adequate hot-water shower, a western toilet throne (no squatters here!) in a separate bathroom, a TV w/ basic channels (World Cup and the railroad opening celebrations are the only times it's been on thus far), DSL internet (in Tibet!), a living area with two semi-comfortable couches and coffee/dinner table, a nook of a kitchen with our one gas burner, an electric water boiler & pressure cooker, and our 'bedroom' with it’s less than Seely comfort level. There is a very decent Nepali restaurant located in the courtyard below us with yummy fruit muesli yogurt and blue cheese veggie pizzas. We have our own phone (not to mention our cell phones). And one of the gloriously best things about the place – housekeeping! Every morning a sweet, friendly Amdo woman comes in and makes our bed, sweeps our floors, cleans our room and if were particularly lazy, cleans our dishes. It’s decadent really. I just said Americans were spoiled. Well it’s true here too. We are spoiled in our living conditions. They could be MUCH worse. And with our daily dose of organic Guatemalan coffee and fresh baked banana bread from the one local grocery store that has a clue, it is quite easy to feel homely. And all this for the relatively low price of 375 USD a month. By Chinese standards, very expensive. For example, in Chengdu the going rate for our place would be about 175 or 200. But by Tibet standards, where the options for foreigners are severely limited and therefore severely overpriced, we worked out a good deal. So now you see where we live. Like it?

Back to our good friend’s L-dub’s visit…..We of course took her to all the local Lhasa must sees – the Jokhang, the Potala, Sera & Drepung Monasteries. But we also managed to get out of the city and visit a few very special places in the countryside.

Our first stop was to the sacred Sky Lake of Nam-Tso. You probably remember that Leigh and I went to Nam-Tso earlier in the year, maybe April or late March. I beg you to revisit those photos b/c the lake couldn’t have looked more different. It’s amazing what a contrast it is when you visit a place in the last throes of winter and when the warm summer embrace is fully layered. Where once the lake was a solid block of white ice, from shore to shore, when we arrived and from our first views from the distant pass, it was a deep, deep beautiful blue. The kind of blue that melts all anxieties and worries from the mind. The color blue that brings peace, tranquility and deep relaxation into the soul. The color blue that really can only be found in certain skies at certain times of the year or like here, in glacial lakes or high alpine waters where the liquid is as much snow as it is rain or anything else. Photos never do it justice. Words never do it justice. It is the kind of blue that just has to be experienced and felt through the eyes before true understanding happens. And then to have that kind of blue tone surrounded by the velvet green of the surrounding hills. The way God’s palette is absolute perfection when you ‘see’ the vibrational tones of the greens reflecting, playing, dancing with the vibrational tones of the blues. It’s like the Disney cartoon Fantasia (the original of course), where the music is set to color. It is a majestic orchestra of feelings, moods, subtle expressions and outstanding solos. And finally to top it all off, the undeniable monarchy of the Nyachen Thangla Mountains that encompass and snuggle up against the lake’s shore, with the king of all Mt. Nyachen Thangla at 7088 meters (over 21,000 feet!) gracing the crown truly leaves the mind clear and the soul exhilarated. Nam-Tso has many names, Sky Lake, Blue Lake for example, but the one I like the most and the one I think sums up the place most accurately is Heaven Lake. It truly is a piece of Heaven the angels forgot to bring with them or more optimistically left for us here to remind us of Glory greater than the imagination. Despite its isolation on the Chang Tang (northern plateau), pilgrims visit regularly and a few really hardy ones do the complete circumambulation (18 days). The kora around the promontory where we were staying is a popular sacred route, or nekhor. There are many caves, some hermitages and a few pilgrimage karma-testing sites to stop along the route. The lake shore, graced with lovely pebble beaches (many of which are ancient coral from the ancient ocean that used to cover this part of the world!), is superbly serene and untouched. With gentle lapping waves brushing against the shore and crystal clear waters (but boy are they cold!), one could spend a few days here melting away cares and city toxins. Just being at the lake at 4718 meters (that’s over 15,000 feet!) is a test of body and soul. Unfortunately for L-dub, we might have brought her up to the lake a little soon in her acclimatization because after just a few hours of being there, we had to go and get the poor girl some canned oxygen! Though it is really amusing to look back on it now, at the time the situation seemed a little more serious.

The sunsets and sunrises we experienced there were nothing short of miraculous and spirit shaking. My words, and my photos, will do them no justice. There are some moments in a person’s life where the overpowering and awe-inspiring beauty of the nature world shakes them to the core. Helps them remember their ancestral beliefs of the worship of Nature as God and Goddess, as Giver and Taker, as serene and violent. I believe that it is during and immediately after these moments of sublime and clear Truth that those lucky few who do not outright reject the Voice, who are able to clearly see and overcome the initial Fear, to ingest, embrace and understand the Word, experience the crucial meaning of being human: awareness. Of course this was easy to perceive when seated upon a high rock outcrop with nothing but the silence of the wind to disturb the visual ecstasy of the moment to moment divine painting unfolding within and without you. But for L-dub and Leigh who where standing next to the northern shore, with a horde of youthful and manic Chinese tourists mooning the nearby cameraman, this galactic lesson might have been a little more difficult to absorb!

The next stop on the Tibetan Express was the nunnery of Tirdrum. Getting there, we traveled along the Lhundrup River valley. What an incredible drive! The road itself was nothing to write home about – dirt and bumpy, but the river valley must be one of the most beautiful and composed places in Tibet. The road, as most in Tibet do, followed the river. And throughout the 6 hour drive down this valley, the magic and undisturbed nature of this place was not overlooked. It was Tibet as it always has been. A land apparently untouched through time or politics. Traditional, white washed houses nestled together in the crooks of the surrounding mountains, gathered neatly into small charming villages. The surrounding fields, resplendent in their summer glory, were bright green (barley), bright yellow (rape seed) or bright purple (a wild flower that is semi-cultivated seemingly for aesthesis only). The combination of the quaint villages, the green, yellow and purple blocks of color all around, and the gorgeous milky white river flowing below, and add to this the occasional horse rider coming down the road or the random women working in the fields with their chubas, made for a continuous postcard journey. When we stopped beside the river for our mid-day picnic, L-dub was especially excited by the plethora of wetlands wildflowers and plants she found. Asthers, daisies, fetch….the names kept rolling off her tongue like she actually studied in graduate school!

Tirdrum, or Terdrom, means ‘Hidden Treasure Casket’, a reference to the many concealed treasures (terma) supposedly discovered here. Personally, I think this is in reference to the medicinal hot springs located at the nunnery. Founded in the 8^th century (isn’t it amazing that so many places we visit here are 5-6 times as old as the United States!), Terdrom was fortunately spared from the destruction of the Cultural Revolution (a very rare thing). The nunnery has about 30-40 nuns (all of them we met were very, very sweet) and a few monks. There are approximately 30 buildings at the entrance of an extremely narrow gorge with near-vertical cliffs (we’ll get to these in a second) – definitely an arresting and idyllic spot. Above the main buildings nearest the confluence of the two creeks that join at the nunnery, are the nuns’ quarters and retreats. Above those are the numerous meditation caves, marked as they are by large collections of prayer flags. The main cave was used by both Guru Rinpoche and his consort, Yeshe Tsogyel. She is actually the first Tibetan to become enlightened and she’s a woman! I love it. A rebuilt hermitage now stands in front and a nun, considered the reincarnation of Yeshe Tsogyal, lives within. Surrounding the nunnery is the five-peaked mountain that represents the five sisterly divinities called Tsering Chenga. Legend also speaks of how the gorge was once dammed and the vapors waters so poisonous that they would bring down birds flying overhead. Within its depth lived evil spirits. When Guru Rinpoche came to meditate in this area, he threw his Dorje at the ridge and a tunnel was created, thus draining the lake. To make the place a comfortable sanctuary for future practitioners, he created the medicinal hot springs. I need to take a moment to talk about these hot springs. Known to have sulphur, limestone, bitumen, coal and other minerals, and averaging 40 C, the springs can reputedly alleviate gastric disorders, tumors, paralysis, rheumatism, dermatitis, poor blood circulation, and general debility. Wow! After just my first soak that afternoon after the rough but beautiful (kind of sums up Tibet those two words), I felt fantastic! I am an absolute true believer in the power of hot springs to heal and these were very special indeed. The pool was not that large but it was separated in to male and female because the nuns are the ones who enjoy them most of all. And I sure wouldn’t want to be the one, being naked, made them think impure thoughts or whatever. The pools are blissfully concrete free and are constructed of only rock. The view above is of the open sky and at night this was incredibly beautiful with the full moon and stars circling overhead. We stayed there two full days to take full advantage of the springs. Our schedule was something like – wake, soak, eat, soak, hike, soak, eat, chill, soak, eat, soak, sleep. Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

The hike we did on the second day was unbelievable and almighty strenuous. We took our driver with us as a guide and he proceeded to march us from the nunnery straight up the ridge to the left. Finally after a couple hours of hike, stop, breath, hike, stop, breath, with the constant sound of our hearts pounding in our heads, we reached the shoulder of the ridge and from there it was a beautiful walk along the ridge overlooking the Terdrom gorge as well as another deep chasm of fast flowing water to our left. Roughly following this waterway, we eventually came to a smaller nunnery located high on the mountain’s neck. Passing through herds of yak and random horses, we arrived at the small nunnery with a welcoming committee of about 12 nuns who were just as curious to see us as we were to see them. Seems that not a lot of visitors make it up this high, but we wanted to meet the Khamdro-la, or reincarnation of Yeshe Tsogyel, who was reported to be here and not in her retreat cave. The setting was something out of ‘Sound of Music’ meets ‘Seven Years in Tibet’. However you look at it, it was stunning, idyllic and well worth the strain to get here. After a brief visit inside the small chapels and to purchase kata to give to the Khamdro-la, we were escorted to the highest residence of the complex. When she came out we all gathered around her feet and sat in stunned silence for several moments as we adjusted to her very palpable and very powerful energy. Here was a reincarnate of the first enlightened women in all of time! Her different carnations have brought her over 1200 years to this point in time, where we sat, in that moment, with her to gain, thresh, whatever valuable grain of knowledge she would be willing to pass down. I couldn’t help but smile within myself when I thought of how ironic it was that I was climbing this huge mountain to sit at the feet of a wrinkled and wise teacher. I felt she was going to tell us, ‘You have one question to ask’. But this was not so. She was generous, funny, full of light and joy and seemed more than happy to spend 3 hours of her precious time sitting with us and talking of things religious, spiritual, political and ordinary. I know for Leigh it was an incredibly powerful and rich experience and if for nothing else than that I am thrilled to have been able to help provide her with that opportunity. Eventually, the time came to depart and with much gracious gratitude, we headed down the mountain….full but light. It was a very special day, one not to be forgotten soon.

After Terdrom we made an afternoon stop at Drigung Monastery, which is famous for its sky burials. Unfortunately, because of past bad apples, the Tibet regional government has now forbidden any foreigner or Chinese to witness a sky burial. According to Leigh, who has witnessed one, they are extremely powerful and very important lessons on the impermanence of one’s life and one’s body. So, after a short visit to the temples and a kora around, we headed back to Lhasa.

I’m not going to spend anytime talking about how sick L-dub got after we returned. But it was bad, it was for a short time scary, and eventually we had to track down the Italian doctors that were in town. Fortunately, she is now doing fine and I think somewhere in Thailand living it up!

Finally, many of you have been asking me about my National Geographic assignment. I really must admit that it is not a large assignment, in fact it is only one single photo they need of a Tibetan Buddhist monk. I guess I should tell you a little about the meeting too, since so many of you are curious. Well, when Leigh and I were in D.C. I had arranged via email to secure a short introductory meeting with the Deputy Director of Photographer there. I was overjoyed and overwhelmed just to get this! So on the appointed day, I donned my new custom made button up, a pair of nicer looking jeans, my new pair of black flats (that I had to buy just for this meeting!) and polished it off with my new custom made brown corduroy jacket. Now, of course it just so happens that this was probably the hottest day in D.C. all year and the humidity must have been in the 90 percentile. God was it hot! When I got to their headquarters (not at all what I thought they’d be), I was escorted up to meet the Deputy. Boy was I nervous! We sat down and I told her about a couple ideas I had worked up about Tibet, one being on the rapid modernization theme that I’m concentrating already, the other being on the train. She told me that they had already done Tibet pieces recently (which I doubted b/c I researched first), but that the train story was something they were going to do but it had already been assigned to someone else. Oh well…..at least I had a good idea that the Geo would have used! Then I showed her my portfolio and afterwards she said bluntly that I was not ‘quite there yet’ to do a feature article for them. I needed to develop my style more and my images were too literal. Well, what if that is my style? It was nice to get some constructive criticism and I thought that was it, but she asked me to sit for a second. A minute later when she came in, she said ‘How would you like to do a one photo assignment for us?’ Well, what was I going to say? No? Of course! I’d be thrilled! What do you need? They needed a full body portrait of a Tibetan Buddhist monk. They are going to use it on the Family of Man page that is a new addition for 2006. They take two of the same thing from different parts of the world, like a schoolgirl from Australia and one from Afghanistan and compare them on one page. So I was introduced to the designer and got a full run down and explanation. I then signed a contract (whoa!) and farewells and profuse thank yous all around before having to leave. So, if you can believe it (because I really can’t), my first official paid freelance gig is with National Geographic! I cannot tell you all how many years I have flipped through the pages for that magazine and dreamed of one day being a photographer for them. It still seems to stand for the symbol of excellence and professionalism in the photojournalism industry. Though it is a very small thing, it is still a pretty big deal. Now the assignment has been shot and although there was some technical issues I was not aware of (or did not fully understand), it seems (nothing final yet) to have been accepted and will go to print hopefully in the December opposite a photo of a Russian Orthodox monk. When I hear more, I’ll definitely let you know.

“Photography, fortunately, to me has not only been a profession but also a contact between people - to understand human nature and record, if possible, the best in each individual.” – Nickolas Murray