As you say, but in defense of what is visible, Tibet is a relatively poor country. There are few paved roads. The terrain around Lhasa is desert canyon lands. The canyons are long straight and narrow, easy to see across to the rocky barren hillsides opposite. There is only one road up the Brahmaputra from the airport to the one bridge that spans this great river. Lhasa proper lies another 40 or 50 miles up a different canyon on the "Lhasa He" river fork. There is only one road. It is a paved two lane hiway it is the main entrance to Lhasa and passes directly by the mainly empty military barracks area. Lhasa itself is a mighty small town. The views from Potalla Palace encompass the entirety of the valley. Not much can be hidden there in the basically treeless flatish canyon desert land. Especially to the eyes of an old soldier.
Its a wonder those old boys of centuries past had the luxury of commanding warring efforts across such expanses, considering the traditional road taken by our bus took 10 hours from Lhasa (home of the Yellow Hat Sect's prior Dalai Lamas) to Xigase (home of the Panchen Lamas).
On our return from Xigase, we took the new way down the river canyon, only 5 hours! Lest anyone thinks this was a high speed freeway, let me just say at least it was mostly paved. Two lanes only at best. In places the side rivers had washed it totally out or a fallen boulder had so damaged the road surface to such a degree that the bus had to take to cross country manuevers to negotiate its progress. And this is the great new road just built in the early 90s.
In one place the road completely ended as we entered an area that is being dammed. Here the bus driver found some workers who after much discussion described a route through this dam site. We basically wandered around on dirt construction roads to the core of the dam site where the guide pointed out that the manual construction was being done by members of the PLA. Pick and Shovel Corps, tough way to build a dam. We waved, they waved back.
Rest stops along the way were shall we say primitive ? Basically the boys would head one way up the river and the girls the other, looking for boulders large enough to crouch behind. A memorable trip in all its many facets. I treasure the memories, except for the time that I stepped in, well lets not go into that...<g> |
