Tibet

For Violet-My Sex Life In Tibet

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

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This is for Violet. Because Violet wants to know how my sex life went while over in Tibet. She wonders if this 29 year married couple who are temporarily without the bat ears of their children will fare as they explore Asia together. I promised I would give her the juicy details about whether or not you can have sex in a monastery… I am a woman of my word.

January 11- Leave San Francisco for Shanghai. The plane is cold. I rub strategic spots on B’s body in hopes that he will warm me up under the flimsy cotton blanket. No dice. He’s not that kind of guy. Reminds me of the time we were naked on the nude beach in Kauai. He passed then too but to this day swears it was the pneumonia he was in the process of developing that waylaid his libido while on laying naked on the sand all those many years ago.

January 12-Arrive at Shanghai after an 11 hour flight. I survived. I can only assume it is some sort of cosmic miracle but hell we have 7 more flights to take so I am not taking bets yet. Eat some incredible Chinese food and crash after promising one another that tomorrow will be our “special” day.

January 13- Take green subway line to subway line 16. Take bus 1068 to Xinchang where we enjoy the “Venice” of Shanghai. Reverse process only it is rush hour. We are packed into the subway like sardines when I feel someone grab my left boob. I turn and smile at Dave for being so frisky…only it isn’t Dave at all. It is an intoxicated old man with missing teeth. I give him the death stare and he smiles. Okay, that is one “feel up” for the day, zero sex. We get back to the hotel room and defrost our parts. Since we understand you can get in serious trouble (think prison) for “doing it” in front of an open window we opt for something more like home…the bed. Great foreplay. Fantastic sex. No children anywhere around. No wonder!

January 14- Land in Lhasa, Tibet. Upon touchdown I get an immediate headache. Altitude sickness descends. We get to our room which has old single pane, handmade wood framed windows. The walls appear to have frost on them at first glance. We see our breaths all night as we talk across to one another in the rigid, very hard and not going anywhere twin beds. We decide that self-preservation is our best bet as we crawl under yet another blanket in our light thermals, heavy thermals, 2 pairs of socks, pajamas, gloves, blacava covering our heads and a coat on top. Wake up numerous times during the night feeling like an elephant is sitting on our chests as our hearts think about giving out. It is doubtful anything is going to rise this night as frost bite is a definite possibility.

January 15-It’s gotten colder. So has our room. Need I say more?

January 16-Can you believe that it is still colder? Our room is cold enough to be used as a morgue except that unlike a morgue there is nothing stiff in this room. I am thinking the next vacation will be to a warm clothing optional place with free booze. Lots of free booze. Even tho I am not a pot smoker I suspect that the next trip will involve it because after this journey I am sure I will be missing parts and will need a medicinal high to forget the feeling of phantom pain where my limbs used to be.

January 17-Shigatse. Well what do you know…a warm hotel room…with twin beds. What is it with the twin beds for goodness sake!!!! Luckily, love is in the air along with an unidentifiable smell that is not either one of us even though we had not showered for so long. No…it is something unique and different enough to turn your stomach. But we refuse to let it defeat us and we do one for the Gipper. In the morning everyone in our group wonders why we are smiling so much that our teeth hurt. Of course they are all under 30 without children… but someday they will know why those smiles were plastered all over our faces.

January 18-Bad news. The Rongbuk Monastery is closed. I am deflated with this bit of news as I really wanted to be faced with ethical decision of whether it is proper to have sex in a monastery and see whether the devil or angel on my shoulder would win out. Sigh. Instead we are booked into a hotel in Shegar a small town of about 1,000 way out in the middle of nowhere but about three hours from the Mt. Everest base camp. The good news…dinner is a delicious full bodied noodle soup. The bad news (I know you are asking how could you have BAD news on a vacation you whiny, spoilt b****)…the temperature is -16 while the sun is still up. There is no water in our room and the bucket that you fill with water to flush the toilet is frozen solid. This time we sleep with one pair of light thermals, 2 pairs of heavy thermals, gloves, three pairs of socks, blacava, sleeping bag and down parka in TWIN BEDS. But really we don’t sleep. Instead we gasp for air and watch as my coat emits thousands of static electric charges as it lights up the room. SEX…doesn’t even enter our minds as we just struggle to survive.  The next morning we find the people who run the hotel sleeping around a huge coal/dung stove. They are walking around with smiles on their faces….hmmmm!

January 19-After almost being blown off of Mt. Everest by the wind we make it back to Shigatse. Half our group look like death warmed over but when we end up at an Sichuan restaurant eating amazing food and there is no yak in sight, the color returns to the faces of all. The room is once again pleasant and warm. Two blissful sighs are heard around the world and Mt. Everest rocks.

January 20-Back to Lhasa and the first hotel only this time I ask if we might have a room with something other than twin beds. So we are put in room 207 which I am happy to report it is an inside room and is at least 20 degrees warmer than the first room. Are you spotting a trend here, Violet? Warm=happy=sex. Yet, during and afterwards we are panting hard like we just ran a marathon and seriously question whether our hearts will explode due to this high altitude exertion. Getting old should = purchasing larger and larger amounts of life insurance especially when getting it on while in the two mile club without the benefit of an airplane.

January 21-Fly back to Shanghai by way of Xian. We are exhausted and spent when we land at 9:30 p.m..

January 22-Wake up at 3 am for an early morning flight to Jinan. B has business. Attend a late night dinner of fish, fish and more fish.Eyeballs of fish linger in our psyche and we can’t get past that tonight.

January 23- Violet, its warm…do you even have to ask?

January 24-Fly back to Shanghai. We leave tomorrow for San Francisco. I’ll leave this one for you to fantasize about my dearest Violet. I leave for an 8 hour trip in the morning.

 

 

Spied Upon In Tibet

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment

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In the good old US of A we take for granted that our private conversations are just that…private. Sure we know (thanks to Edward Snowden) that our government spied on European Leaders such as Angela Merkel but as a whole somehow we believe that for the most part if we aren’t doing anything “wrong” our government will leave us alone. The sense of freedom we feel on a daily basis because of these beliefs is part of what we count on to live lives fairly free from worry and in a state of blessedness. That is the beauty of freedom. It provides opportunity, power, privilege and latitude based on our own accord.

I didn’t really realize how much this was missing in Tibet until I met a woman from Australia at our guest house. As we talked she cautioned us about asking questions that would put our guides in harms way. Seems all the tourist buses/cars were equipped with cameras and microphones to record our conversations and indeed when I sat down in our small 10 passenger bus there they were in plain view. They served as a visual warning that all we said and all we might do could have repercussions for both our driver/guide as well as ourselves. That is a sobering feeling for someone used to a sense of freedom that permeates her daily life. More sobering was the fact that I could be responsible for a native Tibetan spending time in jail if I inadvertently did something to put them at risk.

I was told by this woman that many of the people I would meet while in Tibet had been arrested by the Chinese government. That Tibetans were essentially forbidden to discuss the exiled Dalai Lama, the past uprisings against the Chinese as Tibetans tried to preserve and protect their culture/country and they were to hold their tongues about the current state of affairs in their occupied lands.

“Why don’t they fight back against those that they see as their oppressors?” I silently wondered.

There was an obvious answer of course. The Tibetans are a peaceful people who are outnumbered, have no weapons and as a result of Chinese re-settlement of native Chinese to the area; they are dwindling in numbers. But it was the not-so obvious answer that was the most compelling. Tibetans believe that due to the indiscretions of a past Dalai Lama that their nation is paying the price for his actions that occurred centuries ago. Karmic law evident and played out to the max. And so they wait. Believing that things may change or may not but it is their duty to pay the price of those that came before them. That this occupation that is distasteful/disrespectful and limiting to them is just the way it is and must be.

Another glaring difference in regards to personal freedom soon became evident as we traveled from place to place. This difference came in the form of check points. Sometimes we would get out at a check point while at others our guide would disembark to show our travel permits and passports. Often, we had to stop and wait for several minutes at the side of the road a mile before the checkpoint to ensure that we did not arrive too early. While the “official” version of these checkpoints were that they served to keep vehicles from going over the speed limit, hence the wait; in fact to me it felt as though the government was keeping track of where everyone was at all times and to ensure that people were not trying to escape over the mountains to distant lands or to incite action against Chinese authority.

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It has been “interesting” ( a poor choice of word) to experience this lack of freedom; this silent and debilitating way of life for so many. I didn’t feel it in China as a whole because it is much less obvious than in Tibet. But for the natives of this mountainous land it must be wearying, disheartening, bleak and daunting to lose something so precious and so valuable. To live in fear of discovery because your thoughts do not match those of the official party line must be mournful to the soul and to have others determine if you can reach your full potential is distasteful to say the least. But most of all, for me, it is a silent reminder that those of us who “experience freedom” on a daily basis have an obligation to ensure this sense of opportunity for generations to come and when we see individuals who wish to limit the lives of others that we do our best to make sure that their rise to power is thwarted. I only hope that my fellow Americans recognize this when they take to the polls in the coming weeks.

Lhasa, Tibet-Meeting Compassion Face-On

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 4 Comments

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There are places we travel to in our mind wishing with all our might that we might one day arrive at this “in-our-dream” destination. There are spots we travel to and remember every sight, sound, smell and voice that we heard. There are places we visit that forever remain stuck in our soul try as we might to pry them out. Tibet is that place for me.

It was a hard journey. Two airplane flights totaling 18 hours and altitude sickness that brought the youngest members of our small group of seven to their knees. Luckily, being a tough old broad, I adjusted quickly except for the times I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling like there was an elephant sitting on my chest. Shivering in our freezing cold hotel room, I would quell my panic by counting sheep and meditating to slow my breathing as I tried to gulp the thin air like a person who suddenly comprehends that they are drowning at sea.

I could see my breath in my hotel room between the hours of 8 p.m.-9 a.m. which is when it finally warmed enough to remove all traces of “morning breath” haze exiting my mouth. All my past medical training threatened to overwhelm me with anxiety as I checked everyone’s nail beds for signs of cyanosis. The constant dull headaches, sinus “pops” and lack of energy taking its toll on some in the group. That is what 11,975 ft/3650 meters does to you. It makes you temporarily miserable and somewhat nuts while time slows down to a crawl as you wait for your body to acclimate. But then I visited Jokhang Temple and suddenly everything slipped into its proper perspective.

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Imagine rounding a corner and being swept away into the mass of religious pilgrims forever circling clockwise around the large outdoor square surrounding the temple. Colorful prayer wheels whirling, canes of the ancients clacking on the stone, babies crying and old men chanting as you are pulled into something deeper than yourself and what you momentarily comprehend as a “life force” which sweeps you all together for a greater purpose. Imagine the pungent smell of incense catering to believers and non-believers seeping like coal dust into your pores and pouring into your soul. And imagine in all your disbelief and mesmerization almost tripping over a pilgrim who is two years into his journey and only 1,000 ft away from his goal of achieving a better future for himself and his family; this accomplished by devoting himself and his life for those years to the Buddha. You watch as his scraped and dirty hands first clasp together at his head (to think of the teachings of the Buddha) then at his mouth (to listen to the teachings of the Buddha) then his hands moving to his heart (to feel the love and compassion of the Buddha). And then, I watch with morbid fascination as the man soars like a bound eagle just a few meager feet forward until he crashes prostrate on the ground. The only thing moving now are his charcoal black bare feet which twitch in anticipation of rising once more so that he may move ahead only as far as his body length to start the entire process over…day after day, week after week and year after year. Truly, if he can show this sort of dedication I can surely see that my slight “suffering” is nothing compared to his. Suddenly this cold ache I have been feeling since I arrived never felt quite so alive and warm.

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Dinner is yak. Yak milk tea (yuck!), yak cheese soup (double yuck!) and hot right-out-of-the-oven pastry stuffed with yak (mighty tasty). I think of the faithful outside of the temple wondering if they will have anything warm to fill their bellies tonight as they circle the temple three times to complete their journey. And I finally comprehend the importance of alms in this era of “ME, MONEY and MORE” as I think back upon the times I could have showed greater compassion. Because in the end (according to the Buddha) in order to alleviate suffering (both our own and the immense suffering within the world) compassion must be practiced. And for compassion to develop we must be willing to open our eyes.

So here I am Tibet…my eyes are open…show me what I need to see, teach me what I need to know, and let me experience those things that will shake me to the core. Thuk-je zig.

t'oo-je-che

 

 

A Few Of My Favorite Pictures of Tibet

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

I am just too tired to write as we just arrived home several hours ago so I decided to post a few pictures. Of course, the Chinese government does not allow people to access Facebook and Word Press so I was unable to write about our trip but here are a few pictures until I wake up from the living dead.

 

Monks Debating

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Girl From Countryside in Tibet

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Man Carrying Yak Skin Boat After Crossing River

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Mt. Everest Base Camp

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Listening for Buddha’s Wisdom

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Woman Waiting

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Mt. Everest At Sunset

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Woman and Yak at Receding Glacier

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