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Hitchhiking from Lhasa to Nyelam
A few pictures from a hitchhike trip along the Tibetan Friendship Highway, the principal road connecting Lhasa and Kathmandu. The trip took place in 1994, so these pictures might actually gain a bit of historical value. Who knows what parts of the Highway since then underwent rapid asphalt development. I started in Lhasa, continued to Shigatse, the stray dogs capital of the world, and then through Lhatse and Tingri to Nyelam. The highest point (literally) of the trip was spectacular Tong La Pass, just before Nyelam. As the pictures might suggest, hitchhiking in this vast and remote wasn't that easy. I got to the point, that even sight of a car coming from the opposite direction made me ecstatic.I didn't have much time to do the trip back and forth, maybe over a week or so. Still, a lot of things happened. I was attacked by dogs in dark Shigatse (pants torn, but luckily no bites). Forced to hide behind backs of Tibetans in a Russian army GAZ at the ever present Chinese army checkpoints. Took rides on top of impossibly overloaded trucks, or trucks full of nomads. Got a ride on a peasant's horse carriage and later that night, in peasant's house where I was given overnight shelter on the porch, me and my host were teaching each other how to say "potatoes" in Czech and in Tibetan respectively. We might as well be teaching each other tonguetwisters. In Nyelam, in the smallest and dirtiest noodle dive, to my amazement I am hearing the sound of my mother tongue being spoken in the corner - of all the places in the world! A group of Czech climbers, led by Czech mountaineering star Leopold Sulovsky, was on their way home, abandoning an attempt to climb Sisha Pangma due to a tragic accident. I spent the night with my kinsmen at a local disco (!), drinking beer and watching Chinese soldiers in uniforms dance with each other...
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