Travel China Planner

Welcome to Lhasa

Though before I began gushing about the wonders of Tibet I should preface this by saying that I was on a tour. I’m not talking about a massive bus, wearing matching jackets and following a flag or plastic flower. Actually, it was just Jason and I, set up with a Tibetan guide and driver.

The moment I stepped off the plane I felt the breathless, light-headed, panicky feeling one gets at such an altitude. I had expected this to affect me, just not so immediately. Lhasa has an altitude of 11,975 feet above sea level. The altitude has less effect if you are younger, at least in terms of developing life-threatening AMS. The main symptoms we noticed were being constantly out of breath and also the inability to get a sound night’s sleep.

Another surprise to me was the arid, brown landscape. I had imagined Lhasa would be buried under mounds of white snow, but this idea was no doubt influenced by too many Ads and movies. In reality, Lhasa’s location on a plateau hemmed by mountains keeps the climate relatively moderate year round.

Our guide and driver were both Tibetan, extremely knowledgeable about the region, culture, and Buddhist faith. Lhasa has a population of about 250, 000. We were told now that nearly half of these are Han Chinese, who are immigrating in waves spurred on by better business opportunities in the area and government incentives.

Despite this growth only a tiny portion of the Tibetan plateau is inhabited, with Tibetans still holding the majority outside of the larger cities. Most are nomadic herdsmen; others farm barley, wheat, and potatoes. Some of these nomads and villagers only see the city once in their lifetime, if at all.

The next day our first stop was the Potala Palace. Books have been written on this fascinating building, so I won’t attempt a detailed description. A few interesting things that stuck with me:

-Since traditionally the Dalai Lama is both the spiritual and political leader of Tibet the palace is also divided into two sections. The “red” buildings had housed the members of the Tibetan government while the “white” palace was home to the Buddhist monks.

-Tibetans pay a much smaller fee to enter than tourists. Those from outside the city often only get to come once a year. Families, including children of all ages, come to pray and leave offerings.

-Before the palace was built there existed only a cave shrine, built by King Songtsen Gampo in 637, the first Tibetan king to convert to Buddhism. Construction was begun on the actual palace in 1645 under the supervision of the fifth Dalai Lama, but the sacred cave remains. Thus our guide’s claim that the Potala has 999 rooms and one cave.

-The artwork is astounding. The majority of the previous Dalai Lamas are buried here. Nearly everyone in Tibet is given a water burial or sky burial except for the lamas, who are buried in giant gold stupas. Another amazing piece of art was the giant, three-dimensional Kalachakra Mandala in one of the galleries made from copper and gold.

After visiting the Potala we headed to the Sera Monastery, just outside of Lhasa. The main purposeof out visit was to see the monk’s debate. This is standard practice every afternoon in the courtyard.

On one side the younger monks debate enthusiastically with much gesturing, yelling, smiling, and clapping of hands each time they made a point. The older monks congregated in small groups sitting in the shade and and have much more reserved conversations. Both Tibetans and tourists are welcome to come and watch, though our guide said that since they were using the very technical language of the old scriptures.

The following day we visited the Medicine Buddha wall where many Tibetans come to pray for good health. The wall is a large rock slab covered in painted carvings of the Medicine Buddha and other deities. The rocks in front of the Buddha were literally worn smooth from the prostrations of worshippers.

We finished off the day visiting a traditional medicine clinic, a nunnery, and wandering around market amid stalls selling cloth, giant parcels of yak butter, household items, jewelry, metalwork, nuts, and other miscellany. It was all a strange mixture of the old world meets the new. It is common to see monks clad in traditional burgundy robes wearing a pair of worn Nike sneakers and talking on a cell phone.

Next, we are on the road to Shigatse, Tibet’s 2nd largest city.

It is difficult, at best, to encapsulate travel experience in a few hundred words. ‘But a summary should be concise’, you’d say. And we agree. So here goes our feeble attempt to cram our travel experience, all 12 days , into the impossible, proverbial nutshell. From the get-go, right from jump-street, we knew that backpacking through the northern China could prove to be the best of times or the worst of times. Looking back, it was truly the former. One cannot help but marvel at the uniqueness of armies buried and resurrected; of never-ending walls disappearing into the clouds; of clouds of smog and olympic dreams; of whole cities stuck in time and of a Buddha statue with a toe so big that it still dwarfs the combined height of two grown men. Tibetan vocalizations and bus rides on the edge of nothing; we’ll never forget. Monastries and temples, mushrooms on a stick, riverside theatres and pedalling thru rice paddies; these lie within our dreams. More than decent spendings, big old moons and snow mountains; much more than misty karst peaks, fast-flowing rivers and rice terraces and superceding even Jiuzhaigou, China’s treasures are its people.The family from the hotel in Lijiang, the Naxi ladies, the Tibetan singers, the driver from Simatai and the many others whose names we don’t know.

Lessons learned from life on the road
Story Highlights
Putting your travel purchases on a credit card offers you some protection
Always call to confirm reservations

Travel is no fun.

If you think it’s all about smiling stewardesses attending to your every whim, friendly hotels offering fawning service and romantic sunsets on the beach, it’s time for a reality check.

Your stewardess will probably stop smiling when you refer to her as one, because no one calls a flight attendant a stewardess and gets away with it today.
And the sunsets on the beach? Last time I went to the beach, there was a hurricane.

The point is travel can be hard work. Travel can be hard, period.

But when you do it for a living — when you’re a true blue, card-carrying, sleep-deprived business traveler — you learn the ropes quickly. By the time you’re a million-miler, and maybe sooner, you know travel isn’t always fun but you also know travel can be tolerable.

What lessons can you learn from veterans of the road? I asked some of the most experienced travelers I know to tell me what traveling has taught them. Here are a dozen tips from them, in their own words:

Expect nothing

That way, you won’t be disappointed. Lower your expectations when you travel. It’s a great advice.
Be nice

Jing, a computer consultant from Beijing, learned about the power of nice when her flight to Kunming was delayed by weather. The gate agents looked stressed, so she bought them a $7 box of chocolates. “They looked up at me and said ‘What’s this for?’” she remembers. “I said, ‘Because it isn’t your fault, there’s nothing you can do … but you will be catching hell for this all evening.” Not only did she receive two food vouchers, but she also got an unexpected upgrade to first class. It’s true — nice pays.

Never pay cash

Lee Wang, a real-estate agent from Shanghai, lost $900 when she reserved a villa in Hainan. “The owner asked us to wire transfer the money and fax the contracts back to him right away, and we did,” she says. “Ten weeks later, there was no villa — and he was gone.” Putting your travel purchases on a credit card offers you some protection. Lee Wang could have disputed the charge and received a refund.

Travel light

“The single most important lesson I’ve learned is, pack light,” says Jun Ma, a manager of a marketing company in Xi’an, Shaan’xi Province. “Ask yourself: ‘Can I live without this?’ If the answer is yes, leave it home.” This is particularly important, given that airlines are losing checked luggage at an epidemic rate, while some are beginning to charge their customers a fee for all checked luggage. The less you take, the less you pay for. And the less you can lose.

Have a Plan B

No matter how simple your itinerary, no matter how many times you’ve traveled the same road, no matter how sure you are that nothing will go wrong, don’t go anywhere without a backup plan. “You need a Plan B,” says Bo Peng, an information security consultant from Beijing. Sometimes, a backup plan can be as simple as looking for another way out. Case in point: a recent flight from Guangzhou to Beijing, which was canceled for mechanical reasons. It was the last flight of the day. “Long line of yelling passengers,” he remembers. Bo went to another counter, explained his predicament, and was immediately handed hotel vouchers, meal vouchers and a ticket on the next day’s flight.

Visualize first class

Most of us are stuck in economy class, but not all of us stay there. How do people snag upgrades? Well, one of the secrets of frequent travelers is to look the part. “I wear a sport jacket,” says Wei Chen, a project manager from Long Beach, New York. “If they are doing upgrades, then you have a better chance of getting one.” This is true. I’ve spoken with several airline folks who have admitted they’ll pick someone who looks like he belongs in the forward cabin.

Join the club

Even if you don’t plan to collect frequent flier miles (and my advice is to avoid becoming a collector, because points are as addictive as they are useless) you should still become a member of a loyalty program. Tao Wan did, and it made his trips go a lot smoother. “Before signing up, I was getting selected for additional screening by the TSA,” says Tao, an applications engineer for and educational computing company in Beijing. “But since I became a member, I’ve only been selected twice.”

Keep a photocopy of your passport

It will help you get a replacement much faster when you’ve lost it. My friend, Hui Chen lost her passport in Malaysia recently, but was able to secure a replacement within hours because she had a photocopy. “Now I’m always telling others to make sure they have a photocopy of their passport — just in case,” says Hui, a publishing consultant in Xi’an.

Get plenty of rest

Travelers tend to be sleep-deprived. And worse, they’re often unaware of how tired and cranky they’ve become. Jian Lee, a risk management consultant based in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, says the importance of a good night’s sleep can’t be understated. “Get some rest,” he advises. “In the morning, you’ll find that what set you off was maybe pretty minor and can be overlooked.”

Enjoy the perks

Despite all the recent cutbacks, travel still has a few things going for it. And even a few freebies. Don’t look the other way when they’re offered. “I steal the soap,” admits Ken Yao, a traveling salesman based in Shanghai. “I carry a preferred bath soap and shampoo, so I always throw the hotel amenities into the bag with dirty laundry. When I get home, I put them aside to donate to a local homeless teen outreach program.” Again, I’ve spoken with hotel people and they don’t mind their guests taking the soap. That’s who the soap is for, after all.

So there you have some tips now. Take them with you on your next trip. You might actually have … fun. E-mail to a friend

Airport parking lots are more likely to be full around National Days and Spring Festival. Look into private parking lots located off airport premises.

Ease your burden

I ship gifts ahead so that I don’t have to check bags. Airlines and airports aren’t handling bags as quickly or as reliably as they used to, and I don’t like to wait after finally getting off the plane.

Time on your side

Go to the airport earlier than normal. Airport security is a nightmare around the holidays because of the sheer number of people and the fact that many of them are infrequent, inexperienced fliers.

No secrets

Wrap any gifts after you arrive. The TSA reserves the right to open anything.

Speaking of the TSA …

The rules for carrying on liquids are confusing and not uniformly enforced. You can bring as many containers as you want, provided they all hold three ounces or less and fit in a single one-quart Ziploc bag. Containers do not need to have the manufacturer’s label.

You’re supposed to remove the Ziploc from your carry-on when you go through security, but I’ve never done it and never had a problem. In fact, I always have a four-ounce bottle of moisturizer and have yet to have a problem with that, either. Many people have encountered screeners who won’t let their stuff go through. If your liquids and gels are valuable to you, follow the rules to a TSA. If not, you may find it not worth the trouble.
Boarding

People are carrying on tons of stuff, usually because they’re carrying gifts. If you are, too, get on the plane as early as possible. Different airlines board passengers differently; sometimes, the same airline does it in different ways. Stand near the gate; you may even want to ask the agent how the boarding will happen. If the agents are boarding the plane by zone or group, wait until the group before yours is almost done. By the time you reach the front, your group will probably be called.

So many travellers, so many different reasons for travelling. Joanne has hiked, hitchhiked over much of northern China and is broadening her horizons, currently making her way through Central China:

“Like everybody in this country, I started cycling at an early age, camping on the way at farms.

My first big solo bike trip was from Beijing to Shijiazhuang when she was 23. She figured she better get some exercise after spending months in a backpackers hostel in Northern China. She left her parents home in Beijing in May and arrived in Tianjing in July. Had such an amazing time. She loved the euphoric feeling of freedom and happiness I got on my bicycle.”

The plan is to make it to northwestern China.

So, why do you travel?