China
Day 39: Towards Everest, Tibet - 108 Days Across Eurasia by Martins Ate
Sometimes I feel very lonely on my trip. Like today. Yesterday I received a letter from my business partner Vadim I have not got in touch since Brussels when he visited me about 2-3 months ago because off afterwards he went to India and just now he got back. So after reading his letter I felt touched for rest of the evening so much I could not sleep for half night.
Victor - my close friend - recently he wrote me a letter, too, where he said he's very happy for me and that he has understood the meaning of old Russian proverb: Better have hundreds of friends than hundreds of rubles. And that's so true!
Vedas are explaining that everything we give away from pure heart towards other people is coming back to us when we experience the bad times. During this trip I felt so much the meaning of donations: each time I received some help From people I could remember the situation when I was giving away the same help to other people a while ago. So I understood the deepest meaning of donation. It is like a law of donation. And it works perfectly. And no modern and ever-changing science will get to the point of development to be able to explain it. As it will never explain intuition, materialization of things, reiki healing and e.t.c. ..
So I'm giving even more. Each time I visit some temple I'm leaving as much as I can afford even if I'm on low budget. Because - actually - everything we give away - comes back to us. Everything.
So it's better for us to give away the best things we can give: Love, Patience, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Hope. It doesn't cost much - but theese are more personal and meaningful donation when turned towards people than just a money left in a temple. But sometimes they cost us much more than we can imagine: to let go Ourselves - our understanding of who we are and how we are. Sometimes donation means donate some of our qualities we used to think is ourselves. Donate and let go of our Ego is the greatest donation everything rest will come from. Our Ego is like a stone towards a way of a love powered seed in the land willing to rise above the ground, spread the leafs to produce oxygen for all living beings, blows for those who understand their beauty and nectar - a gratitude to insects who spreads the seeds of the plant further.
We where borne to be good. We just need to remove the stone that covers our goodness. Our true Ego is to help others and to do as much as we can for others. Our fake Ego - to do everything we can for ourselves. Funny how sometimes plants are more filled with understanding of their true selves than humans. Now I'm waiting for a car who will pick me up towards Nepal border from where I will drive a bicycle again.
I got lucky again! :) my company towards Kathmandu in a jeep is a French couple who have traveled all around the world - Leo and Margo. They have a website, too: www.sur-la-route.net and it is interesting to speak on our road about The World! I attached my bicycle to the jeep using one lock-chain, one rubber strap and 40 meters of rope I bought in Brussels for cases of emergency...:)
Himalayan mountains are out of describable beauty! How colours flows with everything and makes such a harmony together. It seems like everything is in it's places - even clouds.
I got in the car in altitude of around 3800 m and the highest peek we reached was when we passed mountain Gyatsola pass 5200 m beyond see level. That's the highest place I have ever been. We took off our T-Shirts and make a pictures in the highest point. It was cold and snowy.
Afterwards we stopped at Tingri at hotel Snow Land, 300 km from Shigatse. On our way there was three checkpoints - but now I didn't had to worry about them as finally I was officially driving with tour guides.
Two of the checkpoints where empty - without any guards in them but the third was the serious one - more serious than any other I saw on my way.
It was not just a regular checkpoint - it was a military one. All of us had to go inside of it and give our passports where they checked our visas and compared photo in passport with our faces. The guide hanged in all permits and soldiers made some remarks on them and in their journal. On our way we also passed road which led to mountain Everest base camp.
Snow land hotel is a typical Tibetan style building complex with small but cozy rooms for which I paid only 3 euros and a Tibetan restaurant where I had a fried vegetables with a ginger soup.
We where laughing about my similarity with Leo: both of us have got iPhones, both of us has got websites, both of us works as a web designers, both of us have a car charger that doesn't work and we are very similar on our faces - we have the same haircut and beard, and both of us have the same rounded face and green eyes. In my passport photo he looks the same and our high is the same - 177!:) so many similarities!!!:)
I'm at altitude 4700 m now and to avoid undeserved headache of altitude sickness. Electricity here is bad. It is not as strong as in the cities and it takes a TIME to charge it up. So nothing to do - day 39-40 I'm celebrating by charging my phone and drinking beer mixed with coca.:)
Probably because of high altitude I could not sleep all night. Finished reading a book about all Dalai Lamas and started one all Dalai Lamas have studied - Tantric one, in my "yak's room":)... It's not even so cold!:) Almost all Dalai Lamas have studied sutras, tantra, astrology and Sanskrit - which is basis of Vedic texts. But "veda" from Sanskrit translates as "knowledge" or "science". It's no wonder that the Dalai Lama we know today have written over 85 books and have succeed in so many ways that his name is known worldwide. It's so important to study the essence - the true science. The real knowledge!!!
...waiting for tomorrow to see giantic Everest..