Thieves Versus Sun

I apologize for the hiatus in my writing. I was inadvertently involved in my first Facebook flame war this past weekend and it did not end so well. I will only say three things on the subject: 

1. If you have a problem with me, take it to a private place. 

2. If you persist in attacking me in my public venue, please be civil.

3. If you continue to attack me, at least have the courtesy to actually read my responses and try to find out what happened before jumping to conclusions and projecting your own frustrations onto me.

Now onto the actual post!

There is an island off of Lhasa known in Tibetan as Thieves' Island (Kumalingka, although there are a variety of ways to transliterate it) and in Chinese as Sun Island (Taiyang Dao). The river that separates it from the mainland is barely a river, it is more like a stream so its status as an island is debatable. It is also an extremely small area with literally around four or five major streets, two of which are called Sun Island Road 1 and Sun Island Road 2. No mental gymnastics required here.

Anyway, Kumalingka has always been described to me as a gambling area and I was very curious to see a different part of Lhasa. When we were trying to figure out how to tell the cab driver where to go, we found out that the name of this island differed drastically between Tibetan and Mandarin. My guess is that the Chinese are trying to make the island seem happy and welcoming, hence the Sun label. Personally I prefer Thieves; makes it seem more mysterious.

After crossing an overly large and ostentatious bridge, the first sights you will be greeted with are large resort hotels. There is also an area with rows upon rows of clothing stores with brand name labels such as: FHJY and Made in China.

I wasn't joking.

This area is very distinct from the streets around the Barkhor and the Jokhang. Those streets are winding with bricked white walls and have a very Tibetan feel, especially with the architecture. Here it feels more Chinese. The blocks of stone and layered facade of Tibetan buildings isn't seen very often. The stores are reminiscent of cities like Chengdu and Shanghai. 

One of the main attractions here is clearly marketed towards tourists since it is a theater that boasts extra oxygen.

There are also a ton of bars and KTV centers around this area, so if you are looking to get your drink and song on, this is the place to go! 

Another noteworthy bit of information is that I have heard that parts of this island are known for... female companionship. If that's what you are into, it is allegedly available here.

Tibetan mastiffs are huge as pets here and I always thought it was strange that I didn't see many breeders or pet sellers within Lhasa. Most advertise their farms and kennels on the outskirts. As I was discussing this with the Boy, we rounded the corner of Sun Island Road 2 and saw a street full of mastiffs for sale. These ranged from puppies to grown adults, primped in their red collars. I have thus renamed this street Mastiff Road.

 If you wanted to pick up a mastiff for cheap, go here. I asked about prices, just out of curiosity, and the adults were offered for 100 yuan and above. This is definitely a departure from the hundreds of thousands of dollars that are spent on pedigreed dogs: article on Mastiff prices.

I assume they will be more expensive if you call this number

I was a little confused about the puppies. They were only 70 yuan but the man who was telling me the prices differentiated between the puppies and the grown mastiffs. I couldn't tell if he meant that the puppies were mutts, that because they were puppies they were cheaper, or that they weren't even mastiffs at all. In any case, it was pretty hard to walk away from these dogs...

Across from these mastiffs are rows of actual pet stores selling other purebred dogs like golden retrievers and Pomeranians. This is also where the pet food seems to be sold. 

Finally, the last major attraction that I saw on Thieves' Island was a carnival. It had all sorts of rides and plenty of people to enjoy the day. They even sold cotton candy and sweet kettle corn. It seemed like a lot of fun and I plan to return to enjoy the go carts. 

Sorry if this is a little blurry. I had to squeeze my lens into a hole between the wires.

If you are ever in Lhasa, I highly recommend visiting Thieves' Island, if only for something really different.

Coron, Philippines: Many Reasons To Go (and A Few To Not)

Limbo is so much worse than hell because at least in hell, there's something to do.  This characterizes my stay at the beautiful island of Coron, Philippines. It is a tropical paradise of azure and blinding whiteness. The cloudless blue sky stretches for miles and there are craggy, tar black stones erupting from water that is by turns periwinkle blue, lapis lazuli, and dark turquoise. It’s the airport that’s the problem. Dingy and dilapidated, with only a ramshackle lean to serving as the restaurant, the airport (Busuanga) is so small that there are no lights installed on the runway. This means that if you don't take off before the sunsets, then you won't be taking off that day. If you are unlucky enough to have your flight cancelled, which is not as rare as you’d hope, you are likely trapped for at least a day. I once had to spend an eternity in the airport, about three days, with only one book and “Slum Dog Millionaire” playing on repeat. As a creative means of torture, the sadistic staff always stopped the movie right before it reached the end. To this day, I have not seen the end of “Slum Dog Millionaire.”

I went to Coron in May 2009 with my dad since we are both avid divers and my mother is not. Coron is known for being littered with sunken Japanese World War II ships. While you have to be a certified diver for a few of these ships, there is at least one that you can snorkel. Coron is also known for Mangroves, giant lakes for swimming (Kayangan Lake is especially beautiful), and the Twin Lagoons, which becomes very important to my story.

Our adorable little plane

Banka to take us to our resort

View from the dining room

 Being stuck in the airport was actually the third strike of bad luck to mark my journey.  People always say that bad things come in threes, and in compensation for the overdose of beauty, I was subjected to a string of suffering. It all began on the first day. I had decided to go for a swim at the convenient beach located right outside the ant-ridden shack that served as my shelter. In and of itself, this mini-beach barely deserved the designation. Rocky, spread out about four feet by four feet, it wasn’t impressive. Little was I to know that this barrenness masked horrors that lurked beneath the seemingly docile waves. As I stepped into the cool, crystal clear water, I luxuriated in the silky and crisp feel of the sea. As I gingerly stepped further from the shore, avoiding all manner of sharp objects, I squished into something. It wasn’t until a roaring, burning, inferno of pain rushed through my foot that I realized I had stepped right onto a jelly fish. Needless to say, I had a foot that looked like a lobster body part version of Frankenstein’s Monster. I wasn't about to pee on myself (ammonia is supposed to stop the pain) and when I went to ask the hotel staff for help, they gave me sea salt to rub on. I can't tell if it helped since the pain was already subsiding by that point.

Can you see where its tentacles wrapped around me?

This might not have been the end of the world, had I not been scheduled for three deep water wreck dives. Now, from personal experience, there is only one thing that will make a person forget the incessant nagging irritation of a jellyfish sting, and that is to see the corrugated shell of a World War II battleship emerging from the depths to greet you. 

I actually wrote a description of my experience for a writing competition. I didn't win but here it is for those who want to read. Sunk in Coron

The first two dives are around 100 feet and the third was around 10-20 feet.You could choose to dive that last one or just snorkel! Watch out if you swim too far from this area since there are jellyfish close to the shore that is nearby. I put a picture of it as seen from the surface in my Sunk in Coron post but here it is again along with a few others:

Sorry about the quality. It is a picture of a picture.

While my foot had begun to shrink after a day of the jellyfish's poison slowly disappearing, the dives aggravated my foot and it swelled up again. But, it was a price I willingly paid! If you have never gone wreck diving, do it. It is by far and away one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had.

Compare this to the photo above. Do you notice a difference?

Looking spiffy!

Sunset

 That just about wrapped up the first day. The next we spent island hopping and doing the whole tour with a rented banka (boat). We went to a hot spring which is surrounded by mangrove trees. Then we did a little light snorkeling before heading to Kayangan Lake. To get to the path that leads to it, we had to cross a bridge of bankas since it is such a major tourist attraction. After walking up some stairs, there is a cave at the top and a little plateau that allows for the most beautiful views of the lagoon. The lake itself is extremely sizable and also worth snorkeling for the rock formations on the bottom.

Mangroves!

Heading to the path of bankas

We walked through like five or six

View from the plateau. The cave is right behind

The cave! It doesn't go very far...

The lake

More views from the top

 From here we went to the Twin Lagoons. Here is where the second misfortune I suffered occurred. The Twin Lagoons is exactly what it is called. Literally two beautiful lagoons with crystal clear water separated by a tar-black craggy mini-mountain. However, there is an underwater path through the mini-mountain which connects these two areas. You only really have to hold your breath for about 10 seconds before you are through to the other side. What you should be VERY careful about is how furiously you are kicking and how far you are from the top of the tunnel. I was not given this warning and I ended up slicing off a corner of my heel when it connected with the surprisingly sharp tunnel surface. Luckily it wasn't terrible but it still hurt a lot. I was able to bandage it up in the boat and the salt water cleaned the wound. I am very glad there are no sharks around that area...

Heading to the Twin Lagoons!

That is where the underwater tunnel is

Finally we ended up at Banol beach. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Sunset the next night!

During our time in Coron, my father and I also went night diving. We brought flashlights along and even turned them off at one point to see the phosphorescent plankton in the water. Just wave your hands and watch the fireworks right in front of your face. If you haven't been night diving, do it. It is just like wreck-diving in that it is a very unique experience that you will never forget.

Thus concludes the end of my trip to Coron. Again, before we were able to leave, we were trapped in the airport. While we were given a free place to stay, I woke up with bedbug bites. And, as amazing as the rest of the island(s) is/are, the airport leaves a lot to be desired. In spite of the negative experiences I had, I definitely recommend going. It will spoil you for other beaches.

Sunk in Coron

This was a recount of what I experienced in Coron, diving sunken Japanese World War II ships. I wrote this for a travel competition that I did not win. I have also submitted this to a couple of other companies but since I haven't heard anything, I might as well put it up for everyone!

There comes a certain depth when direction loses meaning. On all sides, a vague, muted blue fills with swirling white flakes. The lifeline is a rusted metal rope that stretches into nothingness on both ends. Heightening the isolation is the restricted vision of the facemask. The gurgling regulator rhythmically interrupts the distant roaring that fills my ears. An enveloping seclusion always accompanies dives and creates intimacy among the divers. Penetrating deeper, the indistinct outlines of a monstrous being emerge. The pooled darkness forms into the metal rails of the deck of a ship. Gigantic, blurred towers erupt from the surface of the deck and the hull curves into obscure shadow.

Bulbous anemones with squiggly tentacles sprout from every surface. Schools of shimmering fish stream by, indifferent to my presence. Multi-faceted fish like jewels coyly hide behind arching fans of blood red coral. There is a dark opening, a beckoning gap in the side of the hull. I enter a caged space that constricts into a narrow tunnel filled with jutting metallic edges, punctuated with hard swirls of coral. Mindful of the oxygen tank, I navigate through a vertical obstacle course. Weaving from side to side and threading through grate openings, I work my way deeper into the ship. Only a little light creeps in from behind me, providing just enough illumination to make out the various spongy, riotous strings of yellow and red tendrils reaching out to touch me.

Encroaching grates looming from above feel like a video game. Unless you take care to avoid them, they will temporarily trap your dull silver air tank. Use your hands to back away from the grate, move lower to dislodge the tank, and continue onwards. After what feels like an interminable length of time, a wide opening appears, beyond which is pure black. I plunge forward and am immediately swept into a stream of light that filters through a massive hole in the side of the ship. The edges of the hole are warped and contorted into craggy points blown inward.

The light provided from this cyclopean opening illuminates the giant boilers in front of me. The room extends so far down that for the first time since entering the ship, I feel dwarfed by its size.  So much unobstructed space is exhilarating. All of the squat tubes, and what look to be the blades of very large fans, are encrusted with a green, writhing mass of life. I see a striped scorpion fish drift by with its tell-tale poisonous spines aloft and extended, rather like an elaborate headdress. Reveling in this spectacular view, I reluctantly make my way back to the lifeline. Grasping gently onto the rusted cable, I ascend, watching as the preserved ship disappears again into the haze of deep blue. After I break the surface, I am assaulted with the sounds of the ocean crashing against our boat. Removing the regulator and breathing in the salty tang of the sea, I paddle my way toward the dropped ladder. Having come from below, it is strange to think that unseen through the wall of water lays the Olympia Maru, a Japanese ship sunk in the Philippines during World War II.              

The hull of the ship that you can snorkel

Mount Hepori

This is a continuation of Dorje Drak and the Drive to Samye Monastery and

Samye Monastery

If your guide doesn’t know how to get to Mount Hepori, just ask. People will direct you the right way. Or you can just, you know, look up and try to angle your way towards it. Mount Hepori is a famous pilgrimage site. This is the most famous place that Padmasambhava subjected all of the gods and demons of Tibet. This area just becomes more and more Mortal Kombat-esque. I was told that a few years ago, practitioner and tourist alike had to scramble up the sides of this very dusty and pebbly mountain and then slide the way down. While there was a sort of trail worn in by the sheer amount of people who have gone, it was by no means very secure. To the surprise of the Boy, who had been here twice before, this time there were stairs!

See that mountain there? That's Hepori!

Here's the entrance to the path that leads you up!

Poor cow =(

Stairs and sign, in case you had any doubts

Up until the point, I hadn’t really been feeling the altitude. It felt much worse in January with the cold, but really wasn’t bad this time around. The climb definitely changed this. I was panting and gasping my way up. Add to the fact that this was the most physical exertion I had felt in a while, it was slow going. I would say that I couldn’t even imagine how difficult it was without stairs except for the fact that the stairs stopped halfway there… I masked my need for stops by making excuses to take pictures frequently. Hence the 900+ photos I came back with. To add insult to injury, there were a couple of Tibetans steaming ahead of me and they were not using the stairs. Our guide was puffing along with us, but this didn’t even assuage my feeling of incompetence since he is a few years older than me and a bit more rotund… But, this hike is well worth doing, in spite of any physical inconvenience it may cause.

It is a spectacular view on all sides. Going up, you have the streams of colorful prayer flags motivating you. They crisscross and flutter beautifully in the breeze and make you long to be among them. When you reach that level, it feels like you are completely surrounded in color. I’ve never seen anything like it. Right below this level is where the stairs stopped. Once you reach the top if this stage in the climb, there is a platform where you can take some pictures. Be careful if you decide to take any jumping ones. You won’t fall far before you are stopped by prayer flags, but it still wouldn’t be pleasant. Also, as you climb, you will be able to see Samye Monastery the whole time. It’s a great feeling to see it get smaller and smaller.

From this point, you get your first views of the other side.

It's great to see Samye from different heights

That's not even the top

Pretty handy stairs considering the terrain

And then they stop...

We've reached the fluttering level!

It was a pretty spectacular view. It must be amazing at sunset or sunrise

Still going up!

The middle platform

Don't fall off!

A bit less stable...

From here on up, there are no stairs but the “trail” is fairly well developed. If you take the stairs we did, you also bypass this white stupa, so it is up to you which way you want to go. 

Heading up from here is fairly straightforward. Mind your footing, it gets a little steep but then evens out a bit more as you reach the summit. 

It took us about 40 minutes to an hour to get to the top. There is a small chapel there, very quaint and a sharp contrast to how huge Samye Monastery is. Again, if you decide to take jumping pictures, watch out for the drop. It won’t be far before you are stopped by something but it would hurt. We actually ran into another group of Australian tourists heading down as we were heading up (in fact, we had been seeing them all day and they were always one step ahead of us!). Even though you can choose to go down the other side of the mountain and do a full circumambulation, it seems the common tourist route is to just head right back the way you came. When we suggested going the full way around to our guide, he didn’t seem the most thrilled and we eventually gave into his way of thinking. Apparently the other side is much steeper and I guess doesn’t have even partial stairs.

The other side!

The little temple

Samye!

See, even if you fell, it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would sting...

Yes, I like pictures of the sun through prayer flags

By the time we made it back down, it was close to seven. The entire trek took a total of about two hours. It was slower going the way down because even though it wasn’t as tiring, we had to watch out for our footing a lot more. There is actually another set of stairs leading down from that middle platform, so if you wanted an alternate route, there you go. We saw some people working on building the stairs there so tourists in the future will likely have them the full way up.

This is the other way down. Takes you to what I think will be a parking lot

 In the first post Dorje Drak and the Drive to Samye Monastery, I mentioned how much I was dreading spending the night in the hotel in the monastery. During lunch the guide and driver had suggested we go to Tsetang, a city an hour away, to spend the night. Then they went back on this idea, saying it would be more costly and time consuming. More than us, they appeared to not want to experience this hotel and suffer any sort of inconvenience. All this while, I had been mulling over the merits of staying the night. I had seen as much as I really needed to see of Samye barring the green stupa and I could always do that another time. With Samye only two hours to three hours away, it has become a very manageable day trip. I kept asking the Boy (hinting really) whether or not we needed to stay and what he wanted. All he needed was a book on the history of Samye.  After I finally told him that it might not be the end of the world to head back to Lhasa that day, he jumped on board, provided he got the book.

Since it was nearing 7:00 p.m. we hurried to the gates of the compound and he dashed in to see if the book store was still open. Ten minutes later, he returned, book in hand! We then told our guide and the driver that we were okay with leaving that night. They were ecstatic and said it was the best idea we had had all day. So, after a pretty quick dinner, we were on our way.

Apparently there are two ways to get to Samye from Lhasa. One that goes past Dorje Drak with rougher roads and one that doesn’t with smoother roads. We were expecting to go the smooth route but instead our driver took us back past Dorje Drak. I wonder how much this had to do with a joke the Boy made about going to Dorje Drak…This trip ended up being a full three hours since it was dark and the driver had to be more careful.

Thus concludes the epic three posts on Dorje Drak, Samye Monastery, and Mount Hepori!