TALK: The Green Mountain College Blog

We packed up all the vehicles and were ready to start off, when, once again, that little red light switched on, and our car refused to move an inch. Every single one of the drivers ended up looking underneath our hood and trying something to get the car working. Finally, someone did something right, and we were ready… although I think the members in our car were still quite scared because for some reason the drivers didn’t think about perhaps putting our car in the middle of the caravan, rather than at the end (the cars were numbered and they were quite anal about having car 7/YAK ATTACK!! in the back). I would have honestly felt a lot more comfortable being in the middle… what would happen to us if the car died again??!!

But of course, others were not as worried as I, and our driver even made a quick YAK ATTACK! stop for Caitlyn so that she could get right up in the face of this yak by the side of the road. She told me to go with her—I was honestly petrified. These animals are HUGE, mind you, and probably not that intelligent. Just another reason to not trust them. Due to our minor distraction, we lost sight of the rest of the caravan. So we were just driving along, when suddenly our driver made a sharp turn onto this dirt road. Everyone in our car started freaking out, thinking that perhaps he got lost or something, since we had only been on the road for a short while and our professor had told us that there was going to be a lot of driving that day. But no. We soon caught up to the rest of the caravan and began to realize that the rest of the ride to Mount Everest was to be on dirt roads. Evidently, the normal way Jim goes (which is PAVED, by the way) was under construction, so we had to take a route that he had never taken before.

And that was when we realized that day 7’s drive had nothing on day 8’s. Not only were we driving on dirt roads, we were driving on muddy roads because of the intense rain we had the night before. So there were huge puddles, mud traps, and bumps everywhere. We even saw a medium-sized truck that you would normally see on … I don’t know… a HIGHWAY perhaps??!!! that was stuck in the middle of the road. We naturally had to go around him… and got stuck ourselves in the process. Finally, after backing up a bit, and spinning mud everywhere, we were off… but I still want to know what that huge truck was doing out there in the first place.

We eventually came to this small village where we stopped for a couple of hours. To be honest, I was unsure as to why we had stopped at first because I refused to get out of the vehicle. The reason? The locals. Now, that sounds horrible, but please bear with me for a moment. There were so many kids in that town, all of them desperately poor, and the only English they knew was “Hello. Money?” We had bumped into people like this before—lots of people begging by the side of the road for a single yuan, which is honestly worth less than a US quarter. Before leaving for my trip, my father told me that I would see poverty like I could never imagine, and he was right. So when we stopped and people started getting out of their vehicles, I was afraid to face those children with their poor, yet beautiful eyes. I didn’t want to admit to them that I had already given out as much as I could to the kids I had seen before, though I did throw a few pens out the window for them. And I also didn’t want to admit to myself that regardless of how much I gave these kids, their situation wouldn’t change. It didn’t matter if I gave them a thousand US dollars, their lives would return to normal once that money ran out and… I just felt so helpless. I knew that I could only give them fish, not teach them to, so that anything I did give them was useless. I felt useless. I wondered why these kids had it the way they did; why I wasn’t born into those types of conditions; why I took everything in my life for granted. So I sat in the vehicle in hysterics, stifling back tears, and trying my best to ignore the pleading faces that would occasionally show up pressed against the windows.

And then Mike of all people showed up. Mike Campbell—the one dude I knew before the trip, the dude from GMC. He told me that Kate, a future elementary school educator, had started playing games with the kids that they didn’t need to know English to understand. He told me that sitting in a vehicle for the couple of hours it took Tenmpa and Jim to go up the road a ways and check if we could actually take this route to Everest was silly. (That’s when I found out why we were there… evidently, due to the crazy rain, Tenmpa wasn’t sure if the rest of the route would be passable… since we had to ford rivers and such…) He told me that although I couldn’t give these kids money, at least I could give them happy memories, and that was something that would last regardless of the circumstances. And I looked at him, and I stuttered a bit in a vain attempt at a rebuttal, and then I agreed.

So I joined the crowd, the voices, the music, so to speak. I played tag with a group of kids and their smiles warmed my heart. Duck-duck-goose was another favorite, but I think the best part was when we had our dance party at 18,000 feet. Our driver put on his music and Caitlyn and I swung the children around and showed them some of our moves. It was great. And after that, the kids wouldn’t leave us alone. They just wanted to run around and have more fun, just like any other kids. They were just like any other kids, just a little bit dirtier, a little bit hungrier, but I guess they didn’t know what it was like on the other side of the world, so maybe without a comparison, they really weren’t too miserable about it. Some of the older members of our group were actually invited into the living quarters of this lady from the town and were offered tea and soup. This lady didn’t have much more money than anyone else there—she was poor by any American standards—but she was Buddhist, and Buddhists give as much as they can to everyone they can. I still wonder if they are happier than us who have everything, as they appreciate the very little they have so much more. I can’t be sure though. They could be miserable or they could be happy, but the Buddhist theory is that suffering is suffering, and that everyone’s suffering is as equally painful to that individual as anybody else’s, regardless of how petty the cause may seem from an objective perspective. Le sigh. My heart stays with ‘em anyhow.

Here’s some pictures we got of those cuties. Will never forget their faces. I only wish I could have done more for them.

Here's a picture of Brian playing with the kids.

Eventually, Tenmpa and Jim returned to tell us that the way was safe. So we got back into our vehicles and our driver played J.Lo’s greatest hits for the tenth time. It was sort of funny when he first started playing it. Caitlyn and I were so surprised that of the two English cd’s he had, one of them was Jennifer Lopez. So her and I reminisced—she went back to eighth grade and I to freshman year (she’s a year younger than me)—back to the days when we adored her music. But by the tenth time, it just got ridiculous. I honestly think our driver was playing it only because he thought we enjoyed it, but even if we had really enjoyed it, listening to it ten times in a row would make anybody crazy.

And we were off again.

We got even more surprised by the road that Tenmpa and Jim had declared safe. WE LITERALLY FORDED RIVERS!!!! Actually, it was the same river, but we had to ford it FOUR TIMES.

It was so bumpy and so crazy and then we had to go on these crazy roads that were very similar to the ones we had been on before, only this time they were only wide enough for ONE vehicle, they were DIRT, there were HUGE CLIFFS to our rights, HUGE MOUNTAINS to our lefts, and NO GUARD RAILS. But I have to admit, fording rivers and risking death on crazy mountain roads while listening to J.Lo is probably the most unreal adventure I’ve ever been on. Just an impossible series of events.

And then we stopped again, this time by a couple of tents to visit some nomadic yak herders. They, too, were pretty poor, but they, too, invited us in to tour their tents and to offer us anything they could. I’m fairly sure Tenmpa and Jim gave them some money, but they were really discreet about it. The two of them were handing out money left and right during our travels, trying to help out as much as they could. Really good people, they are.

Here's a picture of one of the homes.

We finally made it to what I can only describe as a Tibetan “main-road” (it was still dirt, but wider, and there were people working on it). Said “main-road” was a lot safer and there was an actual bridge!

Eventually we made it to the Everest Hotel. Hotels in the middle of nowhere Tibet are sort of a joke. Most of the ones in that area are really low buildings that have a bunch of bugs and sheets that haven’t seen cleanliness in years… or possible ever. Other hotels involve sleeping in the back of some dude’s tent on the side of the road. The one we were in was pretty upscale for the area, but nonetheless had no running water, only two bathrooms (at least they were inside!), enough electricity to fuel the lights in the hallways at night so you can get to said bathroom, no front door (it was more of a hanging tapestry than anything else) and was mighty chilly inside, considering we were among the Himalayan Mountains. The food, however, was DELICIOUS. It was the best food we had since going on our adventures beyond Lhasa and Beijing. I’m still unsure of how they had such good food there, but it was so nice. Jim also handed out small candy bars that he had been hiding in his pack for one of our more “I need American food now!” days, and distributed these out to the joy and “Oh my god! Is that chocolate??”s of the group. What a great idea! He also unveiled a jar of peanut butter at breakfast the following morning. Oh man, oh man, we were being spoiled!

After our rather late lunch, we headed to the highest monastery in the world, Rongphu. I’m uncertain if it’s technically also the smallest monastery in the world, as only twenty monks live there, and even some of those live off grounds, but it was pretty tiny.

Here's a picture of part of the monastery.

And here's another.

This was one of the only monasteries we went to that also had Buddhist nuns; I think the other female members of our group were just as excited as I to see their soft faces and beaming smiles. We ended up meditating in their assembly hall (which we barely fit into…), while some of the Buddhist nuns were making candlewicks and/or saying their chants for the evening. There was one nun in the corner who kept looking at me, and maybe I’m ridiculous or egotistical for thinking this, but I really think she was praying for me during parts of that awfully long and tumultuous meditation. That sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? You see, the meditation for that day was on “precious life,” but in recognizing how precious one’s own life is, one has to recognize the types of things that others don’t have that you do. All I could think about were the kids in that village—and I wasn’t alone. A lot of us were crying by the end of it, either because we missed our parents or our friends (we were advised to be thankful for the important people in our life and to try to show them all how much they truly mean to us as soon as possible because time is always ticking…) or because we realized how helpless we were in the face of the devastating poverty that the kids in the villages, or the nomadic yak herders were dealing with (rather well, I might add) on a day to day basis. I felt guilty for not appreciating tap water or vegetables. I felt guilty for not realizing how lucky I am to be in a country where I can get an education (even if I’m going to be in debt for the rest of my life because of my educational aspirations). I opened my eyes during part of the meditation to wipe a stray tear from my face and that nun in the corner was looking at me intently as she quickly, yet gracefully spun her mala beads around in her hands. I wanted to feel embarrassed, but I could feel her wordless empathy, which warmed me, and made me feel better in some ways… It was such a fantastic experience; I really don’t think words can express it. When we were done meditating, I also noticed another nun across the room slowly rubbing the back of one of the other members of the group who was in hysterics at that point. I think what captivated me the most about the entire situation was that the nuns couldn’t even tell why we were crying, but it didn’t look like they needed an explanation. They just knew we were in pain, knew we needed some comfort, but also seemed to know, due to their subtle ways of providing that comfort, that we would find the strength we needed eventually to move on all by ourselves. It was just so… amazing. The amount of compassion those nuns have is really indescribable.

After our meditation in the monastery, we headed back to the hotel to hang out for a while. We all ended up heading to this sort of porch area (it really was the roof of part of the hotel, but there were guardrails all around it) to sit and wait to see if we could actually catch sight of Mount Everest. Since it was a bit of an overcast day, there were large patches of clouds that came in and out. The hotel itself was situated in a sort of valley between two branches of the Himalayan mountains. These two branches, with their snow-capped peaks, made a sort of corridor, at the end of which was Mount Everest herself. So we sat on the hotel roof, patiently waiting for some sign of her brilliant face, and praying for sun for the following day when we would climb to base camp.

Here was the view to the left/ the left side of the corridor I speak of.

And here's the view to the right (along with a bit of the hotel roof in there).

Here's a better view of the right.

As we waited, we found idle things to pass the time with...

here's a picture of me wasting some time taking pictures of myself in front of the Himalayans.

We eventually resorted to group sing-alongs. It was absolutely awesome, actually. We had Linda, the choir director, as well as Crystal, an alto singer with beautiful harmony capabilities, and myself, a sort of mezzo-alto, meaning I dabble in high notes, but I tend to feel more comfortable and have much more volume when I sing the lower notes. There was this guy Ted, too, who, although he lacked the vocal quality of most, enjoyed singing ridiculous songs with me, including some interesting duets that really humored the drivers and some of the hotel workers. I caused quite a ruckus when I resorted to singing that song from Little Rascals that they sing at the talent show… you know… “L is for the way you look at me…. O is for the only one I see…” that song. Yeah. I was getting really into it without realizing how into it I was. Evidently, as I was singing, the hotel workers began gathering at the door… when I finished, they burst into a round of applause and laughter… so I was a little red, but was quite thankful that we were the only ones in the entire hotel at that time, else I suppose I would have made an even bigger fool of myself… but it was fun.

Here's a picture of us all hanging on the roof. I'm not exactly sure what I was doing in this picture... trying to remember the words to a song, maybe?

As we still had a little while to wait for dinner, Caitlyn and I went on a short walk to see if we could find any fossils. We learned through our professor that an ocean covered all of Tibet only 3,000 years ago, and that many of the locals were making quite the top dollar by walking around and picking up fossils. So we kicked things around for a while and talked about the adventure we were on, and how sad we were that it was already halfway over. It was really nice to have someone to chat with—I was beginning to get rather close with Caitlyn, which was really nice, as I was really beginning to miss my friends at home. Though we didn’t find any fossils, we did find a lot of discarded yak bone. I think at any other point in my life this would have freaked me out, but the bone was clean of meat and seemed rather normal lying there in the pale sand. We eventually got too cold and went to hang out in the kitchen near the stove until dinner.

After dinner, a number of us made phone calls from the tiny little phone in the corner of the dining area. It’s just so wild to tell people that you’re staring at the road that leads to Everest while talking to them. Though I made several phone calls, no one was home… so I just left a bunch of messages, one of which was a birthday wish to my boyfriend Evan. Nothing like getting a 21st birthday wish from Mount Everest.

Unfortunately, Mount Everest never did show herself that night. Even more unfortunate, however, was the fact that the sky remained overcast late into the night. Bud and I stayed out talking for a couple hours waiting to see if the stars would come out, as Jim said they would be the most breathtaking stars we would ever see. Only a couple peaked through the clouds, though, so we made a vow that we’d both wake up at 5am the following morning to see if it had cleared up by then. Naturally, it was raining when we woke up… so we went right back to bed and hoped. That’s all we could do. Most of us were determined to hike up to base camp the next day regardless of the weather, but we knew that good weather would help. And those were my last thoughts before I fell asleep for another couple hours, and before the ninth day of my adventures would begin.