A lot of people ask me what it was like living in Tibet.  To answer that I have to tell a story…..

 I had been living in Shanghai for a couple of years working as a cultural consultant, and was fed up with the big city life and the Chinese. One of the few people that kept in touch with me during my years in China was fellow archaeologist/adventure buddy and photographer Dick Steele. He was in Austin, Texas languishing as a sell out and working for the “man” at a friggin bank of all places. After telling him about the plan it didn’t take much pushing to get him to quit the bank job, load up his cameras, meet me in Shanghai and head for Tibet.

I had heard a story from a western educated Tibetan I had met in Shanghai about a tale that he had heard as a child.  He was living in Tibet when the Chinese army was rampaging monasteries stealing their gold, destroying the structures, killing monks etc. and that monks had hid 1000 gold Buddhas in a remote monastery somewhere in Tibet’s Shigatse prefecture.

treeline monastery


first encounter none of these monks had ever seen a foreigner

That story stuck with me for over a year and I couldn’t help but dream of seeing those Buddhas. I mean a treasure hidden in a 2000 year old monastery in the Himalaya! I knew my odds of laying eyes on the Buddhas were slim to none but a chance is a chance and going after (not to steal just to see) 1000 gold Buddhas in Tibet was no doubt an Indiana Jonesesque adventure plus Everest was in the region, so I thought, “What the hell, I’m going.  I needed a partner though and I knew I could talk my old adventure buddy Dick Steele (that is his real name Richard Steele) into going.

That is Dick Steele in the back with the head Lama

In Lhasa, by chance, we found an interpreter/guide named Popo.

Popo

Popo means Thursday in Tibetan so they named him after the day he was born on.  If you look it up it’s actually Purpou.  As promised, our man Thursday took us into the hinterlands, never giving us a price or asking for money. His words when I met him in Lhasa were, “Do you want to see the real Tibet?” We rented transportation in Lhasa and the drives either by 4x4’s or these rugged little breadbox Chinese vans were amazing!  We normally rolled in beater 1980’s model Toyota Land Cruisers for the rough shit like over high passes, through streams, Mad Maxx looking dusty towns and remote traditional villages.

 


The little vans though trudged through way more than either of us could believe. We were once in a village on our way to Everest with a Chinese colonel in tow.  The colonel hitched a six hour ride from us at a Chinese military road block.  We figured he wanted to keep an eye on us because we were American. It made Popo nervous as hell and Dick rolled the guy a couple of cigarretes with hashish in them.  The colonal thought the tobacco was way to strong and declined after two or three. I had no idea Dick had hash (neither did the colonel) until two years later. Below are pics of the village where we dropped the colonel off. 




Dirt poor Tibetan pilgrim


child labor

In the above village one of our drivers backed over a pony that had lain down behind our Cruiser.  The driver looked out the window, laughed and drove on.  There wasn’t much emotion or conversation out of Popo or the drivers. One driver that we spent over a month with had only one cassette tape that he played loud hour after hour.  The music was a mix of Tibetan pop and traditional the whole high altitude, low oxygen trip was surreal as hell. I have a pic of Dick’s Sunto altimeter showing us at over 18,000’ and we were driving.


I got this shot at an 18,000' pass she lives there!

It was our first trip to the hinterlands and to our chagrin we had not adapted yet to the altitude. Dick got nosebleeds, I felt stoned, got altitude sickness and the funky Tibet music was raging the whole time. We told him to turn it off but he insisted and explained that it got him through the hell of driving hours on end with no roads in the Himalaya.  His explanation made sense to us so we didn’t complain, it was a tough job to say the least. The great thing was that when we arrived at monasteries Popo knew everybody; his father it turned out was the premier art restorer for monasteries throughout Tibet. We totally lucked into a major connection and were glad that we never mentioned the gold Buddhas to him.  We spent a few months going from monastery to monastery (different drivers thank god) where we lived and observed everyday Tibetan life.


Sheep herder

nomads

 For example the women and girls do all of the heavy labor and the men supervise.


restoring a temple

We were surrounded by curious monks and locals, went to morning prayers, crapped in holes that were in the roofs of rooms below (Tibetan toilet, they had the young monks shovel the shit out every once in a while) I personally was not real sure where I was exactly on the map, hell there were no maps or roads.  All I knew is that I was somewhere in the mountains of the Shigatse prefecture hanging out with monks and secretly searching for a cultural treasure.


village with a monastery on the hill



closer shot of the same village

 We finally got to the point where we really didn’t care about the Buddhas, the real Tibetan treasures were the people.  All and all we spent about ten months living in Tibet with the monks in different monasteries, returning to Lhasa and civilization every two to three months to get a hot shower and western food.


Lhasa


Lhasa



Lhasa

Lhasa

The best salad I ever had in my years in  Asia was in Lhasa in a place called the Yak Hotel. I even met the blind guy that summited Everest there.  The Yak was affordable and damned civilized.
 


Mostly though, while in Tibet, we ate yak jerky, hung out with monks, spent time at Mt. Everest and drove countless miles through the Tibetan highlands.

 
Mt. Everest


Everest base camp



The head Lama

The whole treasure hunt thing just dissolved and our focus became a cultural one. The trip was absolutely fascinating from an anthropological point.  For many of the monks we were the first foreigners they had ever seen so they welcomed us and asked for nothing in return “Free Tibet” literally.  They were as intrigued of us as much as we were of them. We would often lounge in our room surrounded by young monks observing us.  They were always touching and hugging us, it was another world from Shanghai.  Eight months into Tibet and six weeks in at one monastery and I must say the most amazing one (hence the six weeks) we had befriended the head Lama.
He cooked us dinner several times a week, we drank beer and pretty much just sat around saying nothing unless Popo our interpreter was there.  One night when Popo was there I asked the Lama for the first time if he had heard of the 1000 gold Buddhas. I really wasn’t probing I was just curious.  He looked at me with surprise and asked to meet us in the morning after prayer and to leave our cameras behind.  The next morning we were brought to a room located in the most dilapidated (Chinese army blasted) part of the monastery.  We walked in and to our total surprise there on several stacked shelves were the 1000 gold Buddhas.  Each one about six inches high by three inches wide and solid gold.  Through Popo he told us a story.  The Lama, who was in his late sixties, had been at the monastery since childhood told us how the Chinese government in the 50’s and 60’s sent soldiers to Tibet to destroy monasteries and rob them of their treasures.  The Chinese army was making their way through Tibet systematically and the monks knew the gold Buddhas would be lost forever if they were found.  So the Lamas at the monastery put the word out to the faithful to come collect the Buddhas and to keep them safe. Hundreds of families made the pilgrimage to the monastery one thousand of them taking a separate Buddha and told to keep them safe until the call went out for their return.  The Lama told us that in 1997 he personally sent the word out to return the Buddhas and within a year all 1000 of them were returned.  After finishing the story he looked at us, waved his hand around the room and said. "This room is a testament to who the Tibetan people are".
  For decades poor families held onto a fortune they could have had if they had sold one.  More money than ten generations of their families could earn but they held on to them, protected them and grandfathers to grandsons were told to never let them go until the Lamas called for their return. We couldn’t believe it, we knew how poor the Tibetan people were and yet all 1000 pieces were returned.  We were in Tibet in 2004 pre-railway and even then it was being assimilated into the Chinese hive.  I wonder if the Buddhas are still safe.
Watch this video and judge for yourself it was shot Sept. 10th 2007..... Link

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