Tina's Yak Attacks

One fateful day in Lhasa, Tina decided to skip out on breakfast and had some instant noodles in her room instead.

Uh oh, bad idea.

Not sure if it really was the noodles, but I had a feeling that if she came downstairs to eat with the rest of this, she wouldn't have had to deal with the yak attacks that were to come. And I'm talking some serious yakking!

A few hours into the drive, she was already complaining about nauseau, irritable bowels, and cramps. Man, what a truly crappy triumverate to have! Especially when bouncing up and down on rocky all-wheel-drive roads. Finally, on one of our infrequent stops to the rare town that randomly appeared before us, Tina's stomach let it all out right in front of the Turks.

Bilge ran to his car to give her some pills that, according to him, "simply make you not throw up."

Tina popped those in. Minutes later, she promptly threw those pills back up. Somehow, the of throwing up pills that were supposed to make you not throw up was lost on most of the now growing circle of team members surrounding Tina.

Bilge tossed her another pair of his pills. "Take these with hot water this time."

Of course, the yakking continued. We stopped in front of a glacier and well got out to take pictures, except Tina, who got out to continue her puke fest. Poor girl. At that point, I had already given her Immodium for her potential diarrhea, Dramamine for her motion sickness. She had also mentioned that she had taken Advil to counter her headaches, as well as two pills of altitude sickness medicine.

When we arrived at the hotel, Tina crawled upstairs and refused to come down for dinner. While eating with Bilge, I mentioned that Tina would probably be tired because everything I gave her, except for the two Charcoal tablets I made her down before going to bed, was sleep inducing. Bilge paused.

"So are the pills that I gave her."

Christine then piped in. "I also gave her some cold medicine that was supposed to relax her."

"Let me get this straight," said Bilge. "We all gave her pills that make her go to sleep, and she took them all? And now's she in her bedroom completely passed out? Perhaps we should go check on her."

We all looked at each other.

"These potatoes are excellent," said Ertan.

And they really were! So we ordered more.

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By the time we reached Base Camp Everest, everyone except Rainer was in top form, save for the occasional altitude-induced headache. We excitedly unpacked our stuff in the tent, meticulously assigning cots based on who would most often get up, who would get up the earliest, and who had a tendency to snore. We even arranged it so that no one was sleeping by anyone else' feet. It was a beautiful group effort (except for Rainer, who had already taken the first cot and was snoring in a grumpy fashion). While, Tina went outside to use the "water closet," which was nothing more than a hole in the ground, I stuck my head out the tent to breathe the fresh air. I couldn't believe I was here, at the doorstep of the tallest mountain in the world!

I heard a yelp, and I turned. Tina had finished up and was apparently trying to walk back to the tent, but one of the yaks lounging nearby had gotten up and was attacking her. This was a surprise on many levels, particularly because most of the yaks Simon and I had tried to approach earlier ran away in fright.

Tina yelped again as the the yak tried to knock her over with his horns. Raphael and I started running toward the creature, who indeed saw us and turned around and bolted. We turned to Tina, who was in shock at nearly being mounted by the mountain animal.

"I can't believe I got attacked by a yak!" she cried.

"I can't believe it either!" I yelled, and gave Raphael a Hi-Five. To see someone brave the perils of not one but TWO yak attacks in the span of days...well, let's just something you don't see every day, is it now?!

Battery Drain

"I may be old, ja, but I have a big battery!" the middle-aged German man said while rubbing his enlarged stomach. His accent was thick (he had only learned English since arriving in Shanghai two years prior) but it was jolly, and the twinkle in his eye confessed a belief that being young was purely in the head.

The man was called Rainer, and he was the first person from our tour group to introduce himself to Tina and me. At 40, he was by far the most senior of everyone on the roster, but as he rubbed his gut and cracked jokes about his fellow Germans in Shanghai, I was happy to have his enthusiasm (and crazy funny accent!) along for the ride.

Little did I know that that day in Shanghai, hours before boarding the plane, would be the last time I would see the man smile.

We arrived in Lhasa in the afternoon, and we spent our first few hours as a group taking pictures in front of the Potola palace. After that, we were free to wander around or follow the tour guide to do some additional shopping. Rainer mentioned that he intended to walk back toward the hotel, and I offered to follow him, thinking we'd have a fantastic conversation about sauerkraut. Strangely enough, he kept quiet despite my attempts at provoking conversation:

"Don't skinny people suck?"
"I love beer. But German beer is terrible."
"Can I call you Rain-ey?"

No dice. He would stay stiff and wooden for most of the trip, eating a single egg for breakfast, skipping lunch, and staying on the bus while the rest of us scoped out monasteries and bought souvenirs. On a good day, Rainer would warn us before heading off to the hotel room right before we were to hit the bus for some more siteseeing. On a bad day, he liked to scream at the little kids trying to sell him crafts.

"RAUS! RAUS!" he screamed at the two little Tibetans who had wandered onto our bus and were playing Taiwan pop songs for spare change. "RAUS!" He even curled the "R's" as to make it all the more surreal.

It wasn't until the third day that Simon told me that prior to the trip, Rainer had visited a trio of Eastern medicine "specialists": a masseuse, an herbalist, and an acupuncturist. Wanting to prepare himself for the high altitude, he tbought he'd try the buffet of remedies for ailments he had yet to experience. The acupuncturist told Rainer that he was too fat, and gave him a needle that was supposed to decrease his appetite.

Who knew it would make him eat nothing but an egg a day?

After a while, we stayed away from him, though we all felt sorry for the big guy. But something about a 280 lb. 6 foot German man who only glared and slept that made us keep away.

Inevitably, it was this fear that made NONE of us willing to be the one to break the news to Rainer that our flight out of Kathmandu was going to be canceled...indefinitely. After all, he was routing directly at the Shanghai airport to head back to Germany, and this was certainly going to make him want to wrestle someone! Why not the Nepalese airport dudes who were a quarter of his size?

And that's what happened.

Buddha Breathes a Sigh of Relief

It’s been far too long between today and my last official blog entry, and I attribute that completely to the fact that I’ve not had a good thirty minutes to sit in front of the computer and ruminate since I came back from Tibet. My friends Spencer and Henry made a pit stop here in China on their grand tour through the sights and tastes of Asia immediately after I returned from Nepal. However, to the chagrin of many of you, I am back and as garrulous as ever, and ready to unleash upon you the details of my spiritual journey through Tibet and Kathmandu, with details of the less mystical but no less fruitful “Chronicles of Spencer in Asia” sprinkled into the mix.

Instead of continuing along the much trodden path of chronologically listing destinations and events from my trip, I’ve decided to summarize the basic itinerary in this short initial passage/entry, and then proceed to single out the best anecdotal nuggets of the journey for more in-depth narration. This way, you can worm your way into my head and have a good feel for what I remember best about the trip before heading over to the picture gallery and looking at postcard-like photographs that have absolutely no personal meaning to any of you.



Our starting point in Tibet was Lhasa. After spending three days there in the capital we hopped into some really old Land Cruisers and headed west toward the Himalayas and Base Camp Everest. To say the area we drove through was grossly underdeveloped is a gross understatement. The land is arid and dry, with very little vegetation; you truly feel like you’re at the end of the world. After Lhasa we overnighted at Gyantse, then Shigatse, then Tingri, which is the smallest town that I have EVER seen in my entire life (there’s a hotel there, a bridge, and four shacks). Next was our night at Everest, before we drove to Zhangmu, an adorable border town between Nepal and China. Then, it was off to Kathmandu, where we were afraid that the political riots and strikes that serendipitously hit the city when we arrived would keep us trapped in Nepal for four or five extra days (turned out to be 1).

There were a good three days there where all we did was drive, with stops for pictures and yak-meat lunches. Some of the sights of Tibet were spectacular while others, especially the poverty of many of the peasants in the rural areas, were sobering. The air everywhere was fantastic, and the sky had to have ranked as one of the bluest I have ever seen (along with New Mexico). I did get a little “monasteried out,” as there is little in Tibet other than monasteries and yaks. Even the nunneries are kept geographically inaccessible, perhaps for fear that the monks would partake in a little co-ed mischief. Mount Everest was disappointing at first, but at sunset and sunrise her majesty becomes startlingly evident.

I won’t soon forget my experiences in Tibet and Nepal, not so much because of the enlightenment factor, but more because the simple purpose of visiting these places is to not forget these strange and wonderful sights. I encourage you all to make the trek one day, and if on this journey through the Tibet hinterlands you stop your car and take a stroll near a sparkling creek in the shadow of a canyon wall that looks like a stovepipe hat, look down and search for a pile of smooth, sandy-colored rocks. If a wildflower with violet petals is blossoming between the cracks of the stones, I hope you think of me…because I seriously fertilized the hell out of it.