May the King Rest in Peace, Phnom Penh

The scene outside of the Royal Palace

When King Norodom Sihanouk passed away on October fifteenth from a heart attack, after months of ailing health, the whole of Cambodia was swept up in a wave of mourning for a leader whose lifetime witnessed some the country’s most turbulent and painful transitions of the past century. As king, Sihanouk led his country from French rule to independence in 1953, abdicated to become prime minister and foreign minister, was imprisoned inside his own walls during the brutal massacres of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime, campaigned from abroad the Vietnamese invasion that followed its toppling, witnessed a subsequent guerilla civil war, and then partook in the key negotiations that shakily developed into the constitutional monarchy of today when he was again crowned king in 1993. Many Cambodians see Sihanouk as a father figure, a key anchor serving his country during decades of conflict. A week of mourning was called as tens of thousands of mourners from all walks of life flocked to the Cambodian capital, from the remotest corners of the country, to offer their condolences; they now await outside the Royal Palace for the moment where they will be allowed to pay their respects to the former King’s body before his cremation.

The crowds are now entering their second week of mourning

Smoke billows overhead from mounds of burning incense, as mourners who have now been waiting for weeks on end are camped atop plastic tarps on the concrete floor outside of the Palace, with bare facilities supporting such large crowds. Yet, neither the scorching midday sun nor unbearably harsh conditions can dissuade the dedicated grievers who eat, sleep, and sit patiently waiting for the day that the Palace will be opened. Over two hundred and thirty people have already been hospitalized due to fainting, most likely from exhaustion, but still the massive crowd lingers on. Kept in suspense, it remains unclear when the general populace will be allowed to enter the palace and pay their final respects to the King.

A group of teenagers lighting candles
in front of images of King Sihanouk

An elderly nun sat waiting to view the King's body

When we stumbled upon this powerful scene our first evening in Phnom Penh, I was informed that as a tourist I would be eligible to enter the palace earlier; in surprise, I asked how this could be. Surely the loyal mourners who, despite all impediments, travelled for days on end and have been camping outside the palace for weeks, for their own king, should be allowed to view his body first? “No,” came my reply, “You foreigners have come from much further away and should be given priority.” Stupefied, I viewed the crowd around me, groups of weakened old women with shaved heads barely able to walk, orange robed monks in patient meditation, devout men burning incense whilst they prayed, and wondered how I could possibly have been given any priority over these people who were infinitely closer to their king than I ever will be.

(Getting to Phnom Penh: We decided to take the option of crossing the Cambodian border up the Mekong by boat from Chau Doc, an effortless and pleasant journey lasting several hours, where you can be granted a visa upon arrival and gaze upon grazing buffalo and drifting river boats). 

Where the Boats have Eyes, Mekong Delta

The Mekong Delta… A name romanticized by eras bygone, vibrant epochs of civilizations that ploughed the land and transformed muddied river canals into basins of agricultural wealth, where devastating battles were waged amongst tall reeds and hidden sentry points, and the life-giving torrent of the great Mekong flows into the sea in a complex web of tributaries and fertile channels. Although the dizzying metropolis of Ho Chi Minh is just a few hours away, life along the river banks remains traditional; but slowly, combusted highways are beginning to link bustling ports, populations are rocketing and cities are encircling the fertile rice fields. In a transitional flux, to enter the Mekong is to experience a changing Vietnam.

Ushered from the port in Vinh Long at the painful hour of 6am onto a slender bright blue boat with peeling paint and a spluttering engine, between moments of semi-sleep and bouts of lucid dreaming I watched the Mekong float by in a daze. Indeed, this was the Mekong I had always imagined- large waterways giving way to tributaries of smaller islands, vein-like structures with main arteries of commerce slowly ebbing off to winding narrow capillaries hardly a meter in width, throughout which drifted canoes and boats of all shapes and sizes laden with goods undergoing various different activities.We had arrived to Vinh Long by bus from Ho Chi Min City, and were departing the next day by six hour bus through Can Tho to Chau Doc (the border town next to Cambodia).

Quintessential waterway scene

Upon each boat, crouching figures sorted mounds of tubers, rinsed dragon-fruits and pineapples in the river water, broke shells off tree nuts, sifted through endless piles of rice, and directed their vessels to the day’s destination or to nearby floating markets. It seemed that a considerable amount of enterprise went into the preparation of each good, yet every object is always sold a thousand times over in neighboring stalls and barges; for example, one would see five women hunched over a pile of pomelo grapefruits, cutting and dividing them to be sold in markets that are already saturated with pomelos... Which stall a customer ends up choosing over another is so random, that it seems a precarious existence for your whole income to depend on the chance sale of a few fruits. It was again a reminder that in such regions, the financial requirements of a household and the cost of living must collectively be set very low in order for most people living off agriculture and other odd jobs to be able to get by. Because to be honest, I have not seen much abject poverty in Vietnam; perhaps people just live off the food and products that they fail to sell.

The view from our boat

Mekong barges are endowed with a very particular trait that makes them extraordinarily human-like. Two simple black and white ovular eyes, painted on the bow on either side of each boat’s keel, personify these floating companions and give them amusingly goofy and silly looking expressions… Each boat ferrying on with resolute determination, waves parting ahead, mind fully focused on the mission at hand. Small customizations on each boat also made a very entertaining visual game- white anchor symbols painted in between the eyes, sometimes an intertwined yin and yang, a club symbol, maybe a heart. Once you get accustomed to seeing boats decorated in this manner, suddenly the ones that do not have painted eyes seem cold and forbidding, now mere vessels used to carry cargoes of dredged-up riverbed sand or vegetables from point A to B. I like to imagine that because a boat on the Mekong Delta has become such an essential partner in a local’s life, an intrinsic part of their daily living and sustenance, it transforms into a living thing in and of itself.

Now you see me, now you don't

We made several stops along that day’s journey.  Firstly, to a bee farm, where we were served cups of gentle Jasmine tea sweetened with delicious homemade honey and where they tried to sell us various bee-related paraphernalia such as Royal Jelly, a healthy nectar collected by the worker bees for their Queen’s unique consumption, bee pollen claiming cures for insomnia and other muscle ailments (I succumbed), cinnamon flip flops, and vials containing alcohol inside which marinated miniature snakes gripped large scorpions in their mouths. We also visited a coconut candy factory, and watched as a thin pancake mixture made from coconut and black sesame seeds was poured onto a heated surface powered by rice fire, and then spread onto wooden sheets to be fired up and made into crunchy, tasty coconut delights.

Coconut candy

Lastly came a bonsai garden whose bonsai trees themselves were completely unexceptional (looking more like trimmed shrubs than miniature artistic trees) but luckily did contain other secret discoveries. In a back corner, a prehistoric dinosaur loomed its silver beady eyes out at us from the shade of a weathered stone fountain, an antique fish drawn to the surface by any object that would pierce into its subterranean lair. However, I think its life might have been drawn an unfortunate bitter end as I ashamedly admit that one of my not-so intelligent friends with misplaced kindness decided to feed it a litchi fruit, outward sweet flesh not betraying the hidden indigestible large seed inside. 

But the fish was not the sole ancient resident of this odd garden lost in time and space- in the courtyard of a small building sat splay-legged in a dark green hammock one of the most emaciated human beings I have even seen in my life. Mumbling incoherently to herself, skin drawn over the three orifices in her face, lips, eyebrows, eyelashes and any other features worn away by time and now indistinguishable, lay a woman whose haggard skeletal features distorted a maybe-smile into a thoroughly unsettling grimace. Pretty much, the stuff that nightmares are made of. At first I thought the woman was trying to speak to me and I awkwardly attempted to tell her that I did not speak Vietnamese, but soon I gathered that she was not really saying much at all, gazing into the distance as she muttered on, staring at me but looking through me. I shivered as I thought about what happens when the body remains whilst the mind has departed, and contemplated this poor grandmother who lived under the same roof with relatives who took no notice of her as they went about their daily routines, clearly accustomed to such ramblings, having converted the elderly lady into something not at all human, an invisible element that life simply passes by. 

In photos: Hoi An, Vietnam

Hoi An waterfront late afternoon

Our befriended fruit saleswoman

Never Mess with Elephants, Vietnam

The recipe:

1 ancient citadel,  reduced mostly to rubble due to heavy bombing during the Vietnam War;

4 curious youths getting lost in the back pathways of said city;

2 chains to which are attached a one-tusked, understandably irritable and strangely sexually aroused elephant.

And most importantly... 1 over-zealous male approaching elephant with perfectly good intentions but perhaps not much foresight.

Add all ingredients, stir and let bake for 10 minutes.

If instructions have been followed adequately, results should be as follows:

 

"Where the Dragon Descends into the Sea"

Fishermen at dawn in Halong Bay

Legend has it that many years ago, a giant dragon came down from the mountains and plunged into the Gulf of Tokin, carving out valleys and gorges with his thrashing tail and in his wake creating the thousands of islets that jut out of Halong Bay. Today, these limestone peaks emerge at hazard from the calm sea with their borders worn away by the force of lapping waves, hazily hovering like mirages above the water. Our guide would not give us any other geologic explanation save for this one, no matter how hard and repeatedly we pressed him, but I remain contented... Some things are better left as wondrous tales.

Cave exploration at low tide

Sailing around the bay for two days on a rented Chinese junk boat, we set out on kayaks (life jacket free - I am sorry but I simply refuse to join those hordes of grinning fluorescent tourist groups donning floating plastic on still waters) and made our way through echoing karst grottoes dripping with condensation, shrouded in darkness and then emerging to spectacular emerald lagoons, deserted save for the sound of our carefully manoeuvred oars and the echoes of an ornithologist's dream in the distance. Always in the back of my mind dwelt the question of what if we waited too long and the tide would rise, sealing off our 'exit' and trapping us for the night..

Local fishing boat heaped with the day's catch

Scattered throughout the jagged pillars floated clusters of fishermen villages, perched miraculously atop meters of bright blue Styrofoam cubes, replete with small grids of fish farms where bounty caught offshore is brought home to be fattened up and then sold to local restaurants and cruise companies. Life begins early here, with the loud sputtering of boats breaking dawn at 4 am, rousing you from your slumber to go up on deck and watch the deepening pastel colour of the sunrise, and ends naturally when the sun goes down. Later, the barks of dogs on board the farms break the still silence of the night, as the same dog keeps hearing its own voice echoed back to it and, not realising, responds accordingly: "Hello! ... Hello! ... Who's there? ... Who's there? ... I asked YOU! ... I asked YOU!" on and on and on.

(Some tips on getting to Halong Bay: Our journey consisted of a four hour train journey from Hanoi to Haiphong, one overnight in a dismal hotel and partaking in the severely limited nightly activities of Haiphong, and a morning hydrofoil boat to Cat Ba island. This means that you avoid the chaos and combustion of Halong City and Cat Ba bay in itself is very beautiful, very similar to Halong Bay and much less touristed. A good starting point.)

In photos: Bac Ha, Vietnam

Sunday market in Bac Ha, Vietnam

Our overnight sojourn in the hilltop village of Bac Ha was motivated by its renowned Sunday morning market and a desire to avoid the hundreds of day buses arriving from Sapa and Hanoi heaped with tourists. We boarded a two hour bus from Sapa down to Lao Cai, and then for several hours back up the hills to Bac Ha. The market was organized in a winding loop that made its way through the quaint town, labyrinths of small offshoots and different sections dedicated to the tourist trade, a ‘food court’ and an animal market up on a hill (more on that later). Entering the market stalls, my eyes were bombarded by a never-ending variety of fabrics and clothes, all in absurdly bright colors, composing numerous bags, scarves, shirts, pillow cases, small teddy bears, you name it. The vendors, Flower H’Mong and Dzao hill-tribe women, are famed for their dazzling clothing with tightly woven strips of multicolored fabrics, frilly cuffs and ornate edges, and their handicrafts bore the same designs, woven and intricate. The H'Mong originally migrated from China around two hundred years ago and now populate the far northern region of Vietnam.; being animists, they do not follow an established religion and mostly worship spirits, and also have a spoken dialect and script separate from mainstream Vietnamese. 

However, this discombobulation of shapes and colors very quickly began giving way to an unexpected repetitiveness. Previously ‘original’ patterns increasingly began to suspiciously resemble each other, each a slight variation on the thousands of others, coalescing into a mass of only a few discernible structures until I was a hundred percent certain that I had indeed seen that blouse with the woven coins in the previous stall, and all the ones before it as well… What was going on? It was not possible that each individual saleswoman had handcrafted such identical objects with bare hands only, and I began eyeing the wares with a much more apprehensive eye. The personal, the homemade, had become the mass-made factory-produced, and I found that my inclination towards the objects had diminished, having lost the unique touch that had formed a major part of my motivation of buying them in the first place. Needless to say, when we later wandered around the Old Quarter in Hanoi, the same objects were on sale as well.  

Meat vendor in the food market

Slightly frustrated, I entered the culinarily oriented part of the market. This area was completely different, inhabited by all the locals who had been visibly absent beforehand. They were sitting on thin wooden benches barely elevated five inches off the ground, cramped around different ramshackle wooden structures, huddled over bowls of the national favorite pho bo noodle soup, and around them masses of redolent shining carcasses and bones being diced up with no real care for differentiation between meat and organ, subsequently toppled into massive cauldrons of steaming water and topped off with a plethora of herbs. The air was thick with sooty smoke emitting from open wooden fires, and often when I passed in front of a particular food stand the smell of raw rancid meat made me gag and hold my breath for several seconds. Of course we did stop to get lunch here, indicating with two upheld fingers our order of what that particular stand was serving up and were not at all disappointed by the tangy elaborate flavor of the soup we received. Some of the locals sitting on the next bench over generously offered us large mugs of their beer, which we gladly accepted with a smile and contentedly enjoyed for dessert.

Fancy some pig head?

The most interesting and perhaps most disconcerting moment of the day came when making our way up the slippery hill towards the animal market. Up until now I had not seen the living state of animals in China or Vietnam before they made their way decoratively unto my plate, and this was my wakeup call. One man knelt down with two disheveled, diseased-looking chickens, with half of their feathers missing and eyeballs popping manically out of sockets, and further up cages and cages of wicker baskets were filled to the brim with scrambling chickens piled on top of one another. At the very top of the hill, bulky grey cows were chained by rings in their noses to the sodden ground, irresolute eyes cast downwards, whilst congregations of men and women stood around bartering their lives. Seeing their expressions, I could not help but wonder whether the cows were somehow aware of their predicament.

Chicken run

But as always the best was saved till last. All of a sudden, the air was pierced with the shrill sound of hysterical cries, and some animal instinct inside of me was aroused as my skin began to crawl- where could this sound be coming from…?!

I peered over the edge of the hill and there below lay the pig market. Never could I have imagined the inhuman scene before my eyes- dozens of small brown and black pigs were lying on the ground, the majority with their front and back hooves roped together, thrashing and flaying about in vain attempts to free themselves but instead toppling over with legs in the air and all the while frantically emitting the manic screams that had called my attention. Many pigs also lay cramped in cages, lying in pools of their own excrement and vomit, unable to avert their faces. Just as I began leaving, having seen about all I could take in, a yellow plastic bag right next to me began trembling and moving slightly. “There’s a living animal in there…” I said to my friend, and began to discern the snout of a pig in the upper left corner. The creature had been tied up, half-alive, wrapped blindly and shivering in a plastic bag, its absence of sound almost more disturbing than the surrounding squeals.

Bag containing the live pigs
(with cages behind)

This entry may have me sounding like a daisy-chain-making Greenpeace or WWF activist but what I witnessed in the market gave me a reality check about the living conditions of many animals before they are killed to serve as meals. Of course, I understand that in countries where people can scarcely afford to maintain their own standard of living, such treatment of consumable animals is unavoidable... And perhaps even understandable. I love eating meat probably more than many people out there and could never even contemplate vegetarianism, but I also think that there is definitely some truth in the theory that the way in which an animal is treated is reflected in its flesh; I think I will find it difficult to eat pork in Vietnam without remembering the squealing pigs of that day.

Vietnam Bound

A woven flower given to me as a present
by a H'mong tribeswoman

Our arrival to Vietnam was shaky at best. The swerving sleeper bus that carried us for seven hours from Kunming to Hekou, a border town in southern China, was infested with an ceaseless army of miniature cockroaches that would continuously appear without warning and scuttle over your arms, legs, feet, and god knows where else, no matter how many you attacked and crushed to death with a deftly wielded flip-flop. This glorious ride also happened to arrive four hours early, so there we were stranded and homeless at the Vietnamese border at 2:30am; the bus driver, far from being a helpful guide, refused to acknowledge our English-speaking presence and took off with a prostitute on his motorbike. So there it was- my first ever night spent as a vagabond, sleeping on the cold grey concrete floor outside of the Customs building.

Once we managed to cross the border, we promptly got hustled for our ride up to the mountain town of Sapa by a tight, lime-green T-shirt toting, slicked back and buffed up Vietnamese man who insisted on showing us his (topless) bench press pictures and tried without hesitation to hijack our iPhone. However, as the minibus swooped and swerved up the mountain roads, the scenery hidden from view by a thick mist that stuck to the lush foliage, my apprehension and exhaustion gave way to wonder as I squinted my eyes and began to discern shapes in the horizon... Rice paddies ebbed and flowed away beneath us in steep steps whilst huddles of villages, conical straw hats and wandering children would emerge from the seemingly impenetrable mist and towering green hills.

Local farmers wading through dewy rice paddies
(notice the three tiny heads bopping out of the wicker baskets)

Vietnam took me surprise- the French legacy could not be more apparent in both its delicate mix of cuisines and in the architectural heritage. The colonial buildings, small pastel-colored doll houses with balustered facades, charming balconies and narrowed dimensions, visibly eroded away by time and the damp weather, were interspersed with capillaries of foliage and a mix of evergreen trees and tropical plants. It felt strange to be in a place in which the surrounding scenery resembled a mountain resort in the Swiss Alps, yet was decorated with stucco flourished Havana-esque buildings above and Asian store fronts and lettering below with a tangle of cables and mounts of hanging laundry. I couldn’t quite place myself. Interestingly, I later learned that the government used to collect tax revenue according to the width of the commercial shape and so "the slimmer the cheaper" when it came to construction.

Charming Vietnamese architecture

Mastering my first ever motorcycle ride, we surged up and up the mountain roads and managed to escape the enveloping fog, rising into the warming sunshine, clouds clearing right before our eyes. Valleys soared beneath us, now illuminated by the sun with colors coming out in full splendour and trees turning silver in the new light, each bend holding unknown surprises and breathtaking views of the fertile emerald landscape. I loved Vietnam at that moment, with its friendly welcoming people and an atmosphere that somehow felt like being back home. In the local villages we passed through we were greeted with smile after smile, animated waves and hellos, old ladies and women and children looking up at us with kind acknowledgement. I instantly felt accepted and welcomed. Although this may be just one face of the country, tucked away in a northern corner famed for its outgoing inhabitants, Vietnam is growing on me fast.



View from the hilltops once the mist cleared

Chinese National Holiday, Chengdu

On the first day of the chaotic nationwide Chinese holiday, where almost a billion people are on the go, we headed to the bar-lined waterfront of Chengdu. Settling down in the only bar where they could understand my order (a giiiin – and – toooonic? Gin? Tonic? Bombay sapphire? Eternal frustration), we observed the street slowly coming alive, night falling and the empty streets filling with a whole multitude of people. As we walked out of the bar, I realized the night sky was ablaze with dozens of Chinese lanterns floating into the sky, each being lit and sent off with its own desires, every point of fire rising in the night followed by an intent look from somewhere on the ground, with the hopes of its sender that it would go higher, further, that it would not suffer the fate of the other lanterns that were drifting past in the water, sizzled out, or those tumbling from their heights with half of their paper sides set on fire, oddly beautiful as they metamorphosed and changed form, cindering away into nothingness. Down below, sailing on the river, were small lily pads designed out of paper and plastic, shaped like pink flowers, upon which was lit yet another candle and placed delicately into the water as they drifted away. Fire above, fire below, reflections of blue, green, yellow, red, from the buildings and skyscrapers along the river that came alive dazzlingly at night. From each bar emitted the sounds of karaoke, of different music channels, laughter, cars beeping amongst dozens of bicycles, couples walking by. The street was pure energy, and I felt like a seamless part of it, sending off my lantern with my own wish simply being that life would be full of moments that made me feel as this one did.

Yangshi street by night

Panda Time!

 

Yesterday made me start to like Chengdu a whole lot more, albeit in a superficial way: at eight in the morning we were carted out to the panda reserve outside of town to go bear-watching. Only about 1000 of these fuzzy, goofy and lazy beasts still exist in the wild, victims to city development and their own ridiculous eating habits- their diet consists of the necessity of 40kg of bamboo a day, bamboo being their sole dietary input, and they therefore spend the majority of their time just waddling around and eating... No wonder they are nearly extinct if they can only eat one thing and in such abundant amounts. We arrived just in time for the feeding hour, a completely hilarious spectacle- four chubby pandas sprawled out, hardly moving, munching away on their bamboo stalks, prostrate amongst shards of eaten shoots in a feast of gluttony and gorging. One panda held two bamboo shoots in either paw, with his mouth already full of them, his belly and bed covered in yet more bamboo. I couldn’t stop laughing, and am now the proud owner of a very fashionable panda backpack.

 

Panda gluttony

Bamboo.. Bamboo.. And more bamboo

 

In photos: Mountain Procession, Xining

Driving up to the Yellow River gorge on a blind foggy day, our ascent was momentarily halted by this mysterious and reverent event taking place on the road ahead. To this day, I still have no idea as to the identity of the suited-up man who descended from a convoy of black cars, to be greeted by billows of smoke and incense, singing and bowing, from a procession of Buddhist monks and women who had been standing there waiting in anticipation for his arrival.

Long Life Ceremony, Tongren

Whilst in Tongren, through a family friend who has had much impact in the region, we were lucky enough to have a Buddhist Long Life Ceremony organized for us. I had no idea what to expect and was admittedly quite apprehensive. The monastery was located further down in the valley, a bright white-lined temple with circular stupas and again, colorful wooden gates and statues. Buddhism architecture is very appealing, with its smooth perfectly symmetric curves and almost ‘friendly shapes’, in stark contrast to Gothic spires or minaret towers. Throughout the countryside we constantly spotted odd shapes off into the horizon, on top of mountain peaks and too far for the naked eye to see. From a distance they looked like trees reaching into the sky, beckoning human tributes, arms heavenwards. On triangular bases were attached prayer sheets, made out of thin material, some visibly worn away by time with browned and ragged edges, others newly erected, breezing in the slightest wind.

Buddhist Lunga-prayer flags

The Long Life Ceremony. Walking up the stairs, removing shoes, entering a large hall with around twenty chanting monks seated in two wooden pews facing each other, between them a deep burgundy carpet. The chants were performed at a very low and resonating decibel level, causing the room and the inside of my body to vibrate. We followed the head monk, walking around the room (clockwise), praying and kneeling at different Buddha representations. I had absolutely no idea how I should be praying, what I should be thinking, if it was a desecration to be going through the motions of prayer without internally worshipping the figures in front of me, just acting out what was expected of the moment. We lit candles, incense, and were seated on a bench beside the monks. The total amount of time we were seated was in reality about half an hour, although time began to melt away once the humming of the resonating room began infiltrating my being. I closed my eyes and tried to focus only on the sound of the monks, emptying my mind. One boy was chanting at a particularly high pitch, his voice rising out of the mass, and I focused on his words. Another monk, seated directly in front of me with his back turned, right in the middle, would carry on the chant every time it faded away and his was the most powerful, deep, resounding voice, almost inhuman and guttural, rhythmical and enchanting.

Long Life Ceremony hall

At first, I couldn't calm my thoughts, they were dancing around in circles: how should I sit, how was my friend reacting, were the others watching me, there goes a camera click, empty your mind, think of a beautiful place, dammit you’re thinking, clear your thoughts, on and on and on… But after a while, the individual voices and tones faded and all I could feel and hear was the flowing, rising, falling of the chants and being carried away by them. Afterwards, when the ceremony was over, we were ushered out and the dazzling bright sun of the outside world made me squint; it was strange to be back in the ‘real’ world, the small universe I had just experienced now closed off to me forever. I was consumed by a very powerful emotion, almost to the point of tears... It was very bizarre. On my way out, I looked back at the monks, still chanting in the same pattern, at a fast pace, never ceasing, and locked eyes with the monk who had been sitting in front of me. We exchanged a silent nod of acknowledgement, mine of complete gratitude, and to have had that tangible connection with one of the monks changed the experience for me - otherwise, I fear I may somehow have felt alienated from the whole thing.

Lighting the prayer candles

In photos: Xining, China

Origin of the name Nalishan

One day we went to go spend the night in the house of a Tibetan family, a homestay residing on the banks of the grand Yellow River. Not knowing what to expect, I was doubtful as the past few days had socially been exhausting- meals where I could not speak with half the table, being watched and observed constantly by countless strangers, having to attempt to communicate relentlessly through dumbed down body language. However this particular evening took me by surprise.

The old couple who greeted us were incredibly adorable and kindly, two textbook-looking ancient Tibetans, with huge smiles and the cutest panda bear faces, humble and accommodating. Their daughter also emitted a kind, naïve glow and her smile was one that genuinely warmed your heart. The food they cooked for dinner was by far the best we had had in China, and despite being up to my neck in Chinese food I easily managed to eat everything placed in front of me. During a conversation with the grandfather, he asked me what my name was in Chinese and I admitted that I did not know; because “Alexa” was too short for a real translation, he bestowed upon me the Chinese name for Alexandra- Na li Shan. The three parts of the name mean Elegant, Beautiful and Lady. Naturally, I fell in love.

Our hosts

Longwu Monastery, Tongren

One afternoon, as a spontaneous side trip we decided to go visit the Longwu Buddhist monastery complex near Tongren, a place hardly mentioned on any tourist maps or guide books, and with no reason as to why this should be so- it was one of the most stunning things I have ever seen. The monastery was set in a backdrop of deep beige and dry Tibetan mountain ranges, with around six hundred monks living inside its walls, interspaced with normal civilians living their daily lives. There was not another tourist in sight, echoes bounced off perfectly silent facades, and each temple was beautifully intricate, bursting with colors and minute attention to detail, exquisitely decorated, linked by a series of meandering stone passages that crumbled at the touch and into which were built large, closed, wooden doors.



Three-headed Buddha statue in entrance



Barred wooden doorways

Greeting us at the entrance gate was an ironic sight- a monk on sitting on his motorbike, in full robes, and talking on his cell phone. This has been a major shock for me, processing the fact that monks are not how we stereotypically picture them in the West. Often, the sight of a burgundy and yellow robed monk pacing down a busy city street in Xining or Chengdu had me turning around in surprise, but this is of course completely normal. Monks clearly must have existences outside of their religion, living amongst regular citizens- the romantic image of prayer in seclusion, tucked away amongst high peaks leading detached lives and abstaining from modern culture is not the whole picture. This duality exists, and boarding the plane today I should not have been surprised to find a monk, sitting in first class, with a (fake) Gucci bag tapping away on his iPhone. The contrast that one finds in city architecture, temples superimposed over skyscrapers, is even more present when encapsulated in a human; for surely, one must be in contrast to the other? The Buddhist religion teaches dissociation and non-interference, a state of non-interest in material possessions or bodily pleasures. How this is being dealt with by practicing monks, in our modern society of constant sensory overload and consumerism, must be a fascinating topic to ponder.

                                         

 

Back to Longwu. The only other people around us were local Chinese and Tibetans, deep in Buddhist prayer, pacing around the temples in clockwise directions (we desecrated this tradition by sheepishly attempting to go counterclockwise on a shorter route, and were reprimanded by the angry scolding of an old man leaning against the temple walls), mumbling prayers to themselves as they held their palms together, first touching the top of their heads, then the forehead, the chest, the middle body, and laying down on the ground- even old women were doing this strenuous activity with incredible agility. The power of religion and devotion epitomized. They appeared like something out of a movie, dressed in traditional gowns, bright eye-catching colors, head scarves, beads, and leather-worn faces marking the paths of their lives. I couldn't believe that this was a real scene, that it wasn’t construed for tourists passing by- this is how people dress, live, and pray, every day.

Ancient Tibetan woman in prayer



At one point- this was one of the most marking moments of the trip to date- we were walking back past the main temple in a clockwise direction (after feigning surprise and repealing our shortcut), when all of a sudden, where before the vast wooden gates of the temple with lion-embellished knockers had been closed, the doors began opening. A darkly colored, bald monk with pale, piercing blue eyes and this unutterably intense expression opened the doors and looked at us very strangely, almost daring us in. We followed him hesitantly into the temple. Inside, one realized the vastness of the interior space, shrouded in darkness, practically empty save for rugged prayer mats on the ground and ornately painted vivid pillars, the sole light seeping in through the open door with a very pale white glow, and the far end illuminated by candlelight. Walking deeper into the temple, as our eyes adjusted we began discerning the massive shapes in front of us, enormous Buddha and dragon-like statues, under which were placed a plethora of candles, incense, and other objects I couldn't discern, begging prayer and homage. The room was completely silent, only broken by our cautious footsteps and the movements of the monk as he continued lighting candles and filling golden cups with a clear liquid. Words could never do justice to any of this however; it was just so eerie, haunting, and sacred.

Young monk walking around the temples

 

In photos: Tibetan Himalayas, Chinese Border

Nomad school in Tongren, China

Up here in Tongren, a small grimy lost township near Xining in the feet of the Tibetan Himalayas, with some heavy industrial work seeming to animate the area but still permeated by mud huts and communal brick living quarters, the scene is very different. The people are physically in contrast to those on the East coast of China, rugged and tanned, and were you to tell me that they originated from villages in the Bolivian mountains or elsewhere in Latin America, I would have believed it. It is strange how different peoples around the world can resemble each other in this way, a thought that struck me again today when we went to go visit a nomad school in the wilderness, 3800m above sea level. Getting here was already a task in and of itself - a four hour flight from Shanghai, a three hour drive up to Tongren and then another four hour drive deep into the Himalayan precipices. The mannerisms of the children we met, altering shyness with vivacity and outbursts of spontaneous interaction, reminded me a lot of the children we worked with in Mumbai and in the north of Argentina. Me and my friend questioned this ‘common humanity’, and discussed about whether people are born as clean slates, tabula rasa, or inherently in a certain way. However, that is a subject aside. I just found it funny that my interactions and personal emotions evoked when we met the school children was so similar to those I had had in those previous times- a certain shyness, a feeling of intimidation and a bit of overwhelmed-ness, in a situation where really there is no logical reason to be shy around a group of children. It’s just a case of numbers perhaps, and here especially of not being able to communicate (that is something that I am actually enjoying much less here in Tibet- the total inability and utter incapacity to even get across the most basic of phrases).

Our arrival at the school

Curiosity, confusion, apprehension, shy smiles...

We rounded the corner with the car and were suddenly greeted by two hundred children lined up on the muddy road, chanting out incomprehensible words and placing scarf after scarf over our necks, subsequently following us into the school, a maze of heads bopping and staring behind us.



Finally warming up to us

A smile though is indeed a common language and today I felt my heart warmed so many times by a genuine smile and look shared with one of the children, a meeting of energy across a sea of people and a moment shared. I wonder how they would have seen me, imagining myself through their eyes, what they could possibly think about this tall alien yellow haired creature who walked into their school for a few hours, handed them out apples and noodles, and left.

Tibetan nomad girls

Lining up for lunch hour

It was inconceivable how isolated the children were, almost three hours from the closest town, Tongren, and that town itself being two hours from the airport. The road getting there was trial to be reckoned with in itself, and I found myself gripping the door handle and watching in disbelief as the driver, with deftly practiced agility, skillfully navigated a maze of stony bogged down potholes and sheer precipices at a breakneck speed. Just contemplating having to navigate these roads every time you would want to go anywhere - even to get food, how do you do it? – is unfathomable. You are truly, completely isolated if not by socio-economic status but by geography alone.

Good luck navigating these roads

The view from the drive up to the nomad school

The landscape appeared so barren, so hostile, totally inhospitable, so that when passing huddles of nomad tents erected on top of scraggy stone foundations, you cannot help but struggle to realize that these people who are living a life so completely different to yours are humans just like yourself. Sometimes I get the impression that in such moments,  it is as if we see snapshots of how other people live but from a very distanced platform. On a side note, I think that this is also why I appreciate nature so much, because it something you can partake in irrespective of any other factors, and it is an interaction that is truly personal and lived internally- you do not need to show a person an emotion, struggle to get your words across, or feel self-conscious about how you are acting, when you are in nature. It is something that is just perfectly there, in the moment and without distraction.

A final cautious peep