Aside from being an Arts Institution, it is also a wonderfully beautiful place. We like it so much that we are going to stay in its guest house for a couple of nights before we forge ahead to Amritsar. It looks like a good place to reload, and to review the status of our writing projects.

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The Chinese will never let go of Tibet. They can’t. They don’t want to. First of all, whoever owns the Tibetan plateau has all the military advantages of the area. In strategical terms, if you own Tibet you can’t lose China. The Chinese know this. The Indians and the Russians certainly know this. The Chinese have invested billinos and billions of dollars into infrastructure in Tibet, and they feel that they have done a lot to pull the area out of the dark ages.

On the other hand, their human rights record in the area is appalling. The Dalai Lama recently referred to the Chinese conquest as an ‘ethnic genocide’. They keep policement in the monasteries to make sure that no meaningful activities ever take place there. They keep untold numbers of political prisoners, and they have a long-term plan to outnumber the Tibetans with Han Chinese immigrants (who gets all kinds of monetary incentives to move to the plateau). This is just what’s happening now – I won’t go into what happened during the Cultural Revolution, because it is too depressing for this forum.

As China now emerges as a superpower, thinking people areound the world are trying to broker a solution. The best deal, they say, is if China accepts the Dalai Lama in the same role as the Pope had during much of Europe’s history. He would reign supreme in all matters of religion, and would defer to Beijing in other matters. It is a solution that has worked before, as this was the way things worked between China and Tibet for many centuries before the upheavals of the 20th century.

While we talk about this, matters in Tibet continute to be dismal. The Olympics, and now the Communist Party’s 60th jubilee, has led the Chinese to clamp down on things even more severely than before. It is harder than ever to travel independently in Tibet. The Dalai Lama is backed into a corner here in Dharamsala, surrounded by refugees, backpackers and aid workers.

It’s all a pity, because things could really be so much better for everyone involved.

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The immediate future sees us flying to Bali on the 7^th, where we’re set to spend three days. At the moment, Bali is chock full of tourists, but we’re hoping to make the best of our little stay there. We’d be happy if we can see a couple of temples and take in a performance or two.

After Bali, we have a three day stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This will be the third time on this trip that we’ve touched base with KL. Bangkok used to be the main travel hub in South East Asia, but evidence points to KL being the number one these days. Good for us: we happen to like it – it has all the modern conveniences, and we plan to re-stock on a bunch of travel supplies while we’re there. Oh and they have great sushi and high speed internet!

After that, we’re off to India. We’re flying in to Delhi, but we’ll only stay there for a night before we hop on the next flight. Our destination is Leh, far up in the northern province of Ladakh: the Tibetan part of India. Once up there, we hope to do some trekking, but as we’re going there at the end of the season we’ll be pretty weather dependent. Altitude acclimatization will also be a factor: Leh sits at more than 3000 meters (9000 ft).

Looking further ahead we hope to make our way southwards from Ladakh through Himachal Pradesh, Uttarkhand and maybe Punjab and Bihar. After that, the picture is muddier, but Nepal is definitely in our sights.

We’ll report back here as soon as we know more!

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While there are several pros and cons about going to Tibet, the main problem remains the fact that the Chinese authorities have imposed pretty harsh restrictions on unorganized travel in the region. For starters, if we wanted to explore outside Lhasa, we would have to do it in a chartered Landcruiser together with a Chinese guide. Naturally, we would have to pay the guide (salary, hotel rooms, meals). Considering all the things I wanted to do, the costs could easily run far too high far too fast.

One of the goals I had was to go to Mt Kailash – a remote mountain in western Tibet. It is a place that is held sacred by three religions, very beautiful and totally awesome. Getting there and back would take three weeks on bumpy rides through some of the world’s remotest wilderness.

At this stage, I guess we can take the wait and see approach. September is a while away, but recent riots in western China are probably stacking the odds against an easing of the travel restrictions. A possible backup plan would be to explore other parts of China.

Looking at the above picture, though, I can’t help but think that we should give it a go.

Photo: Ondřej Žváček

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