Ray Kreisel - A Different Kind of Freedom

During the last part of the climb up the Drolma La Pass, the trail turns into a staircase-like path that climbs steeply. Since I had cycled at high altitude for the last few months and I did not carry a backpack, climbing up the Drolmala seemed pretty straightforward for me. A large rock covered with prayer flags and offerings marks the top of the Drolmala Pass. When I spotted the prayer flags, once again I felt happy to be alive for yet one more day, I stopped in front of the rock and like thousands of pilgrims before me, I did three prostrations to the mountain that connects this physical world to the spirit world. Before I left the USA a friend had given me a small yellow seashell to remind me of California and to protect me during my travels. I placed the shell on the rock alongside hundreds of other offerings from the pilgrims who had come before me. I took a few moments to think about Jay and his 15-year-long wish to make a pilgrimage to Mt. Kailash, I was thankful for the aid that he had provided me with and grateful that he helped enable me to complete my pilgrimage to this mountain. Lauren arrived a few minutes later, we both needed a break and some food to give us strength for the next 15 miles of walking.

Just down from the Drolma La lies the frozen Lake of Compassion. At 18,400 feet [5609 meters] it is one of the highest lakes in the world. This small lake, which remains frozen for most of the year, marks a sacred place where some pilgrims will immerse their bodies three times in order to become more compassionate or merciful. I am such a wimp, when it comes to cold water, that I have never succeeded in convincing myself to actually break a hole through the thin ice, take my clothes off and plunge my body under the water.

Just past the lake I spotted a pilgrim prostrating around Mt. Kailash. He wore a rough cut leather apron and crude leather mitts to protect his body and hands. Tan dirt stained his forehead from daily prostrations. For the entire kora he would make a prostration and then walk forward two or three feet [1 meter] to the point where his hands and head had just touched the earth and then start over with another prostration. In this way he slowly made his way around the 32-mile circuit taking a week or more to complete the course.

We continued to pick our way through the boulder field, moving down, losing altitude quickly. I knew I had completed about half of the 32-mile walk, when my body started to feel the first 15 miles. Once we cleared the boulder field, the trail turned south and followed a straight southerly course, along a clear flowing river. I could feel my body growing weaker, after all, this was supposed to be my day off. I laid down in a small grassy section near the river to wait for Lauren, and within a couple minutes I had dozed off. With a great amount of reluctance I finally stood up and continued to move on closer to Darchen. To keep moving I followed the example of all the pilgrims around me and started to recite “Om Mani Padme Hum,” the most powerful Tibetan mantra of Chenresig, the Buddha of boundless compassion. The Dalai Lama is the living incarnation of Chenresig, a Buddha that practices objectless loving-compassion, kindness equally directed toward all living beings. This mantra translates to “The Jewel of the Lotus Flower,” which refers to the teachings of the Buddha, or the “jewel.” The mantra gave me a rhythm to breath to and walk to, it allowed me to keep moving on and on.

Fourteen hours and 32-miles after we started, Lauren and I dragged our aching feet in to Darchen. In our exhausted and thirsty stupor we walked into a tent set up in the courtyard of the hotel. Inside the tent a young Tibetan woman sold cups of sweet tea and cans of soda. At the front stood a VCR hooked up to a TV powered by a small gasoline generator. When we walked in, Tom Cruise spoke in dubbed Chinese as the movie “Top Gun” played. The images and culture of the Western world were starting to impact even the most remote reaches of Western Tibet.

One of the women who worked in the hotel told me that the police had taken a couple day trip down to Purang at the Nepal border. With the police gone for a few of days, I figured it was a good time to get out of Darchen, especially if I wanted to ride my bike out of town instead of putting it in the back of a truck. For the first time in a while, I cycled on a road that I had traveled before. The familiarity of the bumps and turns of the road made traveling the route to Ali a little easier.

After a couple days I got back into the rhythm of riding all day by myself. I had traveled the roads of China and Tibet for more than three months but it seemed as if a year of my life had gone by. I tried to think about my friends back at home and what events they had lived through in the last couple months. I know for them it had just been a couple of paychecks, a few new movies, or maybe a change of seasons. I knew that if I was to be transported home after only three months that everyone would tell me how it seemed like I just left a couple weeks before. Time passed in a vastly different way for me when I spent ten hours a day feeling every bump on the washboard dirt roads of Western Tibet.

There was nothing special about coming around a turn in the road to see a Chinese army camp, but when I saw three people sitting at the main gate with backpacks next to them I knew that there was something out of the ordinary going on. The stretch of road from Mt. Kailash to Ali is not one in which even Tibetans usually stop. Once I pulled over, I learned that Damien and Dominique lived in France and Ray in Hong Kong. The French couple had sailed from France to the South Pacific by hitching rides on small 30-to-40-foot [10 to 15 meter] sailboats. They were on an extended trip around the world. When she was back in France, Dominique had drawn inspiration from one of the same books that had inspired me, Sorrel Wilby’s Journey Across Tibet . This book told the tale of a young Australian woman in her twenties who walked 1800 miles across Western Tibet in 1987. When I met them they had just finished walking a 150-mile portion of the same journey that Sorrel had made. They had followed the Indus River southward from Ali, heading toward Mt. Kailash.

During our conversation I mentioned something about the problems I had with dogs along the road, especially in Drongba. When Dominique heard of my problems she told me of a horrific incident that happened to her in Shigatse. For one reason or another, Dominique had been walking alone outside town at 2 A.M. As she strolled down the road, a pack of wild dogs started to surround her in the darkness. She stood far from any Tibetan homes, and only a single light shown far in the distance. The dogs moved closer and closer until they finally started attacking her legs. She tried to beat them off as she ran down the road. After more than half a dozen dogs bit through her pants and into her flesh she finally escaped from the angry pack. A short while later she arrived at the building where she had earlier observed the single light. Upon walking inside, she realized that the dogs had shredded her pants, leaving her with practicality no clothing below her waist and at least 15 different bites that had punctured her skin. The people in the building gave her a pair of extra pants so she could return to the hotel room where Damien anxiously awaited her arrival, wondering why she had not returned much earlier.

The next day, they went to the medical clinic in Shigatse. When they finally tracked down a doctor, he assured them that there had not been any documented cases of rabies in the area where Dominique had been attacked, but in Sakya, which lies only 100 miles to the south, there had been a few cases. The doctor advised them to return to Lhasa where they would be able to find the rabies vaccine. The problem with rabies is that once you are bitten there is about a 7-to-10-day window before the symptoms develop. If you receive the vaccine before the symptoms develop then you should be okay. Otherwise, if you see any sign of the symptoms it is too late and because no known cures exist, death will follow shortly. So, this means that even if there is a remote chance that a rabid dog bit you it is advisable to get the rabies vaccine. But, like everything else in China and Tibet, resources are often difficult if not impossible to find. The doctors at the main hospital in Lhasa told them it might be possible to locate the vaccine in Lhasa, but to be sure they should get on the next plane to Beijing where they would be guaranteed to find the vaccine. Neither Dominique nor Damien wanted to fly all the way to Beijing. They took their chances and spent the next couple days tracking down the vaccine in Lhasa. Finally after a long and protracted search they located a full course of the vaccine. The doctor showed Damien how to administer the injections to Dominique and off they went. When I met them in Western Tibet, only the fifth and final injection remained.