TIBET
Entry is not easy. At that time we traveled from Beijing to Cheng Du as the necessary entry documents should have been there - they were as well for more than $1000 per person - cash! After long negotiations we simply bought flight tickets to Lhasa against all warnings to the contrary. We entered the country and relatively problem free brashly found space in a hotel. After a few days we were discovered by the hotel management, an Australian, who found it great that we had managed to get past the Chinese authorities (although at dinner Richard Gere did get all the heaters and we just a blanket ... never mind the yak burgers were really exotic). | On the roof of the world you feel different, better, spiritually removed and that is not just the 3700 metre altitude which makes breathing more difficult with every step up to the Potala, but the Tibetans who still smile despite all the injustices they have suffered. A Tibetan smilingly gave me the following answer to my question of how they could stand the Chinese occupation: 'You know we are Buddhists and believe in reincarnation and if the Chinese torture us than we think deep inside that in the next life they will certainly be pigs.' |
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