The final chapter....
Ah, let’s go to the Summer palace…
 |
| A palace at NorbulingKa |
The
next morning we go to the NorbulingKa.
Which, as the entrance ticket describes it is: "the traditional
summer residence of the successive Dalai Lama.
Originally built by the 7th Dalai Lama in the mid-18th century, it was
later renovated and enlarged until the beginning of the 20th century. There are several separate palace complexes
inside." We're fortunate to be he the first thing in the morning, so the
area is not yet crowded and the cloudy skies make for excellent photography
conditions and the palace complexes provide rich material. The story of the palaces are interesting
including the one that the Chinese government built in order to try and appease
the Dalai Lama. He apparently refused to
live in it after declaring it too decadent.
From
there we’re off to visit
a Museum of Tibetan History. This plan
gets quickly derailed when we arrive at the gates only to find we're denied
admission because some visiting government official is visiting the site today. We quickly reconfigure and decide this is a
good opportunity to go visit the bazaar and stores around the bazaar. I'm once again grateful for Rene and his
wife, Debbie, who are experienced in buying in these environments and know
where and how to find both good merchandise and pricing. They greatly help me with a couple of minor
jewelry purchases and the acquisition of a new duffle bag (a counterfeit I'm
sure, but it's sole mission is to get the booty from this trip home). At less than $10 for a good size bag, I'm indeed,
a happy buyer. As we navigate the
streets of the bazaar, Bob continues to discreetly photograph people while the
people continue to find this group of western tourists fascinating. After our little shopping expedition we catch
the penny taxis and head off for dinner.
The "Ice
Cream" Dinner
Our
hosts have another formal alumni dinner this evening, but we've declined
feeling it inappropriate for us to attend yet another alumni function. Beyond which of course is the fact that we'd
much rather find some normal fare to eat.
Rene has again located us a promising choice and the penny taxis drop us
there.
As
we enter it's a good looking restaurant with lots of rich mahogany wood
furniture, white table clothes and well-dressed staff. However, as we've so often found with
restaurants here, appearances can cover a variety of underlying service issues
and this one would prove no different.
The
menu does indeed offer a wide variety of western choices including Haagen Dazs ice cream.
Our hopes rise. Bob and I order
spaghetti and I request extra sauce as I always find restaurants only give you
enough for the top 1/2 inch of the noodles.
As the waitress collects all of our orders, she notices us pointing to
the Haagen Dazs sign on the table and asks us if we'd like some and we tell her
yes, but only after we've completed our meals.
While
we're waiting, Rene gets a call from CT asking where we are as he'd lost track
of us in the bazaar and he and our guide would like to join us. Rene provides them the needed directions and
asks if he should go ahead and order for them, which he does after hanging
up. By this point some 20-30 minutes
has passed since we'd placed our order, during which some of the soups ordered
have arrived. Which is nice, except of
course that we have no silverware. We
point out to the waitress we were going to need some silverware and we watch as
she brings us just enough to cover the soups ordered (two settings). We promptly pointed out that we would need
two more sets just for the people already here, not to mention we have two more
coming. She looks befuddled. She clearly understands English, so this
seems a straightforward transaction. But
we know how that goes, don't we?
It
takes two more attempts for her to get the required number of settings to our
table. In parallel to this exercise, a
server brings out two orders of ice cream (we'd ordered four). We promptly send him back with ice cream in
hand, explaining we had clearly said this was to be served at the END of the
meal.
The
first orders out are the steaks for the two people who aren't there yet. The waitress doesn't take them back and put them
under a heat lamp. When we point this
out, she just leaves them setting on the table.
Of course, the rest of us are marveling that the main courses we'd
ordered thirty minutes before the steaks aren't there yet, while the ice cream
is now being served. Did we enter a time
warp? Had we lost 60 minutes of time
during which our meals were served and we consumed them? Or, are we simply en-route to another one of
those experiences? The answer comes
quickly.
CT
and our guide arrive and promptly dig into their meals. While the rest of us watch and wait. In fact we watch them consume their entire
meals, while we continue waiting for ours.
Our guide goes back to the kitchen and tries to shake loose our
meals. This brings forth our waitress to
assure us they are working on them and to ask if we want our ice cream? We emphatically state: "NO, we don't
want our ice cream until AFTER our meals!!". While there, she visually notes the empty soup
bowls, but does nothing about them. So
Bob gathers them up into a stack and heads back towards the kitchen to deliver
them personally (and a not too subtle hint).
That brings forth attendants to relieve him of the stack, but does not
get properly interpreted as a rapidly growing frustration with the level of
service we're receiving.
CT
starts yelling at the restaurant staff across the room, pointing out we've now
waiting nearly an hour. This gets the
attention of the other diners as well as the restaurant staff. They begin racing back and forth across the
restaurant, like fish in an aquarium (i.e. lots of activity), but food does not
appear (no results). After another 10
minutes or so, our spaghetti dinners finally arrive. Being somewhat hungry at that point and
having some at the table already done with their meals, Bob and I devour ours
in a hurry. So, now we're ready for our
ice cream and we flag down a server to indicate such. Bob has ordered a scoop of vanilla and
chocolate and I have ordered a single scoop.
Given they've tried to serve the ice cream to us two or three times
already, we're expecting a quick turnaround here. Silly us.
Time passes, no ice cream appears.
Once again, we start grilling the staff on where the ice cream might
be? Again, this results in much
scurrying of restaurant staff back-and-forth in what Bob terms, quite
appropriately, "communal chaos".
CT again takes to the floor, in a high-energy effort (and volume) to
obtain our desserts. Finally, two plates
arrive, each with a single scoop. As
mine gets placed in front of me, we point out Bob is supposed to have two
scoops. His plate of ice cream gets
passed under his nose and is promptly withdrawn by the waitress. She is headed back to the kitchen before he
can grab it. So close, yet so far. More time passes and I'm thinking we deserve
an perseverance and humor prize for our handling of this because at some point,
probably far earlier than I realized, this became a contest of will. And we're determined to win. These people are dealing with pushy
Americans and the odds are simply not in their favor. Rene decides that given my report that the
ice cream is good, we should further up the ante and he orders a scoop as
well. In the interest of speed, we offer
that they can simply bring the scoop, minus the decorations if that will speed
things up. Which has an interesting
result. Bob's two scoops show up at
exactly the same time as Rene's single scoop. Bob's fully decorated, Rene's
not. Yet obviously prepared side by
side. The Twilight Zone has nothing over this place.
Let me be
sure I have this right. We're paying you… to beat us up??
Our
meal finally concluded, our psyches and sides aching from the experience,
coupled with bodies aching from the day's travel, CT insists we join him in
getting a foot massage. Having never
done one before, I thought what the heck, my feet are tired and that might feel
good, so I indicate I'll join the group.
So the five of us remaining head off to a spot CT recommends, a short
walk from the restaurant.
Upon
arrival, we're lead to a room with six side-by-side beds, each with a tub at
the end. We each take a slot, removing
our shoes/socks and waiting while the Olympics play on the TV in the room. Soon, in proceed six young Chinese ladies
who start pouring hot water in the tubs at our feet and directing us to place
our feet in them. Then to my surprise,
the young lady climbs up on the bed and sits behind me, indicating I should lean
back towards her. Well, OK, but my feet
are at the other end.... It turns out
the phrase "foot massage" is only a description of where they end
up.
We
get turned over and over like BBQ on a spit while they work there way up and
down our bodies hammering away on us.
When the ladies start climbing across people's backs both with their
knees and feet, you can hear the groans (or in CT's case, the snoring. He obviously finds this very relaxing). The lady working on me takes my legs and
folds them up like she is trying to turn me into her personal Origami
project. My groans border on screams of
agony and I wonder if she's taking a bit too much delight in this folding and
mutilation experience.
The
lady working on Bob reads his feet and tells him he has a bad stomach,
apparently as does Debbie. The precise
implications of this are left ambiguous, but what isn't ambiguous, is when she
finds a couple of old injuries on Bob's body from the days of his youth (yes,
we're talking OLD injuries here :-), and applies pressure to these points. This entirely removes whatever thin oxygen he
had left in his body at this altitude and leaves him gulping like a guppy.
As
the ladies wrap up the sessions on our bodies, I vow to learn how one spells
the word "sadist" in Chinese, so I'll be better prepared to read the
signage on establishments we enter in the future. I consider this an important step in being
able to properly calibrate one's expectations with one's experiences.
Leaving
Llhasa
It's
always hard to leave a place when you've been so captivated by the people,
their land, history and culture. Truly,
Tibet has left me breathless in every sense of the word.
Tibet
is a land of contradictions and of competing forces as well as visions for the
future. You'll see fiber optic cable
being laid in front of nomadic herders living in tents. You'll find cell phone signals in valleys
ringed by 17k ft tall mountains and where the only people are those passing
each other on a roadway that varies from semi-smooth, to axle breaking ruts and
pothole encrusted, gravel detours. A
place where history is best left to be interpreted by the listener after asking
some probing questions and gathering some facts.
We
all realize as we board the bus for the airport, that we came together, in many
cases with little more than the knowledge of each other as names in emails or
heard in phone conversations. Yet during
the course of a little over a week, we've come to know and respect each other
as friends and colleagues, forged around what is probably a once-in-a-lifetime
experience and a shared vision of the potential of education and for future colleges/universities
in China. Furthermore, our professional
circle has been expanded to include some family members and most certainly, our
guide as well as our driver. Our
departure at the airport check-in desk is sincere and heartfelt.
However, Llhasa has one final request
of us.
No deposit,
no return...
We
get our boarding passes and head towards the gate on the second level. Only the escalator is out of commission. Over the past week, we've become more
accustomed to the thin air, but now both Bob and I are carrying our fully
loaded camera bags and duffle bags packed with gifts we've bought or been
given, including some very beautiful, but very heavy books. It's not a light load. By the time we get to the top of the stairs,
we're both heaving for air. Oh well, we
didn't have any oxygen when we got here, and I suppose this makes sure we're
not taking any with us. When we reach
the top of the stairs, the rest of the group waves us down to tell us we're
actually at a gate on the other side of the airport down on the first
level. After repeated inquiries, they
assure us they're not kidding. So off
we go, running, on a complete oxygen deficit, until we arrive at the proper
gate and board the plane.
What
a beautiful place, what history, what people and culture. We board the plane bringing to a conclusion an
experience of a lifetime.
If you want to see more pictures from the trip, you'll find them on my FLICKR site.
If you want to see more pictures from the trip, you'll find them on my FLICKR site.
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