Write Around the World: Throwback Tuesday

So I've been on a kind of spiritual kick these past few days, doing a lot of thinking, a lot of soul searching, asking myself big questions. And all of this got me thinking about my trip to Lhasa, Tibet. Personally, the less likely I think I am to visit a destination, the more special that place ends up being. I know that sentence is awkward, but it's late. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure it's grammatically correct.

Anyhoo, Lhasa was a dirty, unkempt, slightly crowded city and I loved every minute of it. I believe in energy in all things, and Tibet had a fantastic energy. It didn't matter that I saw monks begging (not really living the chaste life there, are we?), or carrying cell phones (and what did Buddha say about owning stuff?) or that everyone seemed to be wearing a face mask because those who weren't were already sick (and that's just regular flu, not the bird stuff). The city spoke volumes about tradition, and beliefs and a bizarre, surreal connection with nature.

Amid the Barkhor (the square), mixed with students and vendors, prostraters (people doing repeated rhythmic push-ups in prayer) and sightseers, there's colour and modernity mixed with eons-old temples. Despite the crowds and jostling I had experienced all around China, and the fact that Lhasa was no less busy, I still felt like I was in a little piece of the world that hadn't acquired "the rush". That's what I'm calling tweeting and "unfriending" and constant email access: "the rush". There was life, and it was moving, but it wasn't rushed.

Ah, no rush, like the butcher, peddling the simple things, like a nice slab of yak meat.

And yet simpler, just the yak butter. Warm, toasted rolls anyone? A little jam with that?

Then after your solid breakfast of yak bacon and yak butter toast, you walk around town, happy as a lark (pictured above), and see buildings like this little hole in the wall, you have to stop and think, where is this place and what do the people living here feel like? I'll you what they feel like, they're thinking, why can't I be the Dalai Lama and have this sweet bachelor pad as my "Summer Palace". That's right, the Potala Palace is his summer spot, not even year round. The D Lama is a pimp!

But then you get upstairs in just about any building, and this is the view. Not having your own summer pad doesn't seem like the end of the world.

Or you can drive for a night and wake up to Everest outside your car window. The mighty Everest, slayer, breaker of bones, silent, dormant and unknowing. The Tibetan name for Everest is Chomolungma, which means "Saint Mother". Perhaps the Tibetans call her a saint because they know that as long as you don't wake her, it's all good.

Or back in town, you stop by a shop and for about US$1.00, you get a steaming bowl filled with dumplings, soup, veggies and meat, and you don't have to guess which kind.

Outside the shop, old and new worlds collide. My Korean travelling buddy Bok Yeon stops to show a monk her picture on the screen. She's done this before; she knew to ask to see it, but it was like she was seeing it for the first time.

So I have two parting thoughts: when you find yourself somewhere you never expected to be, a new place, in hot water at work, at a strip club at 3:00 am on a Monday, facing a fork in the road, wherever....take it in. Try to see it as if for the first time, be open to the newness, the strangeness and take from it whatever you need. The be grateful you're not a guset in Lhasa. Gusets don't seem to have much luck there.