Seven Years in Tibet. Heinrich Harrer
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It also entitled us to change our yaks without payment at each halting-place.
The weather by day was pleasant and comparatively warm, but the nights were very cold. We passed a number of villages and inhabited caves, but the people took little notice of us. Our donkey driver, who came from Lhasa, was nice and friendly to us and enjoyed going into the villages and swaggering about. We found the population less mistrustful—no doubt it was the influence of our safe-conduct. While we were trekking through the district of Rongchung we found ourselves following Sven Hedin’s route for a few days, and as I was a great admirer of this explorer, lively memories of his descriptions were kindled in my mind. The terrain we traversed remained very much the same. We continued to cross plateaux, climb down into deep valleys and climb painfully up the other side. Often these ravines were so narrow that one could have called across them, but it took hours to walk across. These constant ups and downs, which doubled the length of our journey, got on one’s nerves and we thought our own thoughts in silence. Nevertheless we made progress and had not to bother about our food. At one point, when we had the idea of changing our menu, we tried our luck fishing. Having had no luck with the hook we stripped and waded into the clear mountain burns and tried to catch the fish in our hands. But they seemed to have better things to do than to end up in our cooking-pot.
So we gradually approached the Himalaya range and sorrowfully the Indian frontier. The temperature had become warmer as we were no longer so high up. It was just here that the Sutlej breaks its way through the Himalayas. The villages in this region looked like little oases and round the houses there were actually apricot orchards and vegetable gardens.
Eleven days from Shangtse we came to the frontier village of Shipki. The date was June 9th—we had been wandering about Tibet for more than three weeks. We had seen a lot and we had learned by bitter experience that life in Tibet without a residence permit was not possible.
We spent one more night in Tibet, romantically encamped under apricot trees whose fruit unfortunately was not yet ripe. Here I succeeded in buying a donkey for 80 rupees on the pretext that I would need a baggage animal for my things in India. In the interior of Tibet I could never have managed this, but near the frontier it was different and I felt that a baggage animal was absolutely essential to the successful accomplishment of my plans.
Our donkey man left us here and took his animals with him. “Perhaps we shall meet again in Lhasa,” he said with a smile. He had spoken to us enthusiastically about the pretty girls and good beer to be found in the capital. Our road wound up to the top of the pass where we reached the frontier, but there were no frontier posts, Tibetan or Indian. Nothing but the usual heaps of stones and prayer-flags, and the first sign of civilisation in the shape of a milestone which said
SIMLA 200 MILES.
We were in India once more, but not one of us had the intention of staying long in this land in which a wire-fenced camp was waiting to receive us.
3. Into Tibet
Once more over the frontier—A better reception—Gartok, the seat of a Viceroy—Another strenuous journey—A red monastery with golden roofs; Tradün—Kopp leaves for Nepal.
MY plan was to seize the first opportunity to slip over the frontier again into Tibet. We were all of us convinced that the minor officials we had hitherto encountered were simply not competent to decide about our case. This time we had to approach some higher authority. To find what we wanted we should have to go to Gartok, the capital of Western Tibet, which was the seat of the governor of the region.
So we marched down the great, much used trade road a few miles till we came to the first Indian village. This was Namgya. Here we could stay without arousing suspicion as we had come from Tibet and not from the plains of India. We passed ourselves off as American soldiers, bought fresh supplies and slept in the public resthouse. Then we separated. Aufschnaiter and Treipel went down the trade-road which flanked the Sutlej, while Kopp and I drove our donkey into a valley which ran in a northerly direction towards a pass which led over into Tibet. As we knew from our maps, we had first to go through the Spiti valley, which was inhabited. I was very glad that Kopp had attached himself to me as he was a clever, practical and cheerful companion, and his vein of Berlin wit never petered out.
For two days we tramped upwards on the bank of the Spiti river; then we followed one of the nearby valleys which would clearly bring us over the Himalayas. This region was not well marked on our map, and we learned from the natives that we had already passed the frontier when we crossed a certain bridge known as Sangsam. During all this part of our journey we had on the right of us Riwo Phargyul, a beautifully shaped peak more than 22,000 feet high on the crest of the Himalayas. We had reached Tibet at one of the few places where Tibetan territory extends into the Himalaya range. Of course we now began to be anxious and to wonder how far we should get this time. Luckily no one knew us here and no unkind official had warned the people against us. When questioned we said we were pilgrims bound for the holy mountain of Kailas.
The first Tibetan village we reached was called Kyurik. It consisted of two houses. The next, Dotso, was considerably larger. Here we ran into a number of monks—more than a hundred of them—in quest of poplar trunks which they were going to carry over the pass to Trashigang and there use for one of the monastery buildings. This monastery is the largest in the province of Tsurubyin and the abbot is at the same time the highest secular officer. We began to fear that our journey might come to a premature end when we met this dignitary. However, when he questioned us we said we were the advance party of a large European force that had obtained official permission to enter Tibet from the central government at Lhasa. He appeared to believe us and, much relieved, we continued our journey. We had a gruelling climb to the top of a pass called by the Tibetans Büd-Büd La. This pass must be over 18,000 feet high. The air was unpleasantly rarefied and the ice-tongues of a neighbouring glacier were to be seen below our route.
On the way we met a few Bhutias, who also wanted to go into the interior. They were nice friendly people and they invited us to share their fire and drink a cup of rancid butter-tea with them. As we had pitched our camp near them, they brought us in the evening a tasty dish of nettle spinach.
The region through which we were travelling was completely unpopulated and during the next eight days of our march we met only one small caravan. I have a vivid recollection of one person whom I encountered on this stretch of road. This was a young nomad, muffled in a long sheepskin coat and wearing a pigtail, as all Tibetan men do who are not monks. He led us to his black tent made of yak’s hair where his wife was waiting for him. She was a merry creature, always laughing. Inside the tent we found a treasure that made our mouths water—a haunch of venison. Our host gladly sold us a portion of the meat for an absurdly low price. He begged us to say nothing about his hunting or he would get into trouble. Taking of life, whether human or animal, is contrary to the tenets of Buddhism and consequently hunting is forbidden. Tibet is governed on a feudal system, whereby men, beasts and land belong to the Dalai Lama, whose orders have the force of law.
I found I was able to make myself understood by these pleasant companions, and the feeling that my knowledge of the language was improving gave me great pleasure. We arranged to go hunting together the next day, and meanwhile made ourselves at home in the tent of the young couple. The nomad and his wife were the first cheerful and friendly Tibetans we had met, and I shall not forget them. The highlight of our host’s hospitality consisted in producing a wooden bottle of barley beer. It was a cloudy milky liquid which bore no resemblance to what we call beer, but it had the same effect.
Next morning the three of us went hunting. Our young friend had an antediluvian muzzle-loader and in a breast-pocket carried leaden bullets, gunpowder and a quick-match. When we saw the first flock of wild sheep he managed laboriously to light the quick-match by using a flint. We were anxious to know how this museum-piece of a gun would function. There was a report like thunder and by the time I had got clear of the smoke, there was no sign of a sheep to be seen. Then we saw the flock galloping away in the distance; before they vanished over the rocky ridge some of them turned round to eye us with a mocking glance. We could only laugh at our own discomfiture, but in order not to return with empty hands we picked wild onions which grow everywhere on the hillsides, and which go