Day 109. Kyle & Leanne joint blog.

We are supposed to leave at 9:30 am for Tingri but it just isn’t looking good as we are battling the wicked Tibetan hat trick of altitude sickness, cough and head colds and Montezuma’s revenge.

Despite our taking medication, inhaling the hotel’s entire supply of oxygen cans and guzzling enough water to supply a small country, we are still feeling the effects of 12,500 feet altitude.  One of the clan throws out, “I thought the medication was supposed to prevent this?” Kyle grumpily responds, “it’s supposed to reduce symptoms, it’s not supposed to make you feel like Mary Poppins.”  As you might guess, Kyle was one of the ones hit by the wicked hat trick.

We left Chengdu with varying cases of cough and colds but clearly getting over them at altitude is a lot harder than at sea level.  Making things worse, we got little to no sleep for three nights in Lhasa on the concrete beds and with no heat in the hotel rooms (it’s not warm in Oct at that elevation).  John’s cough is really bad by this morning.

Two of the clan have taken on a case of Montezuma’s revenge.  We don’t care if Montezuma was from Mexico, he is inflicting his curse all the way across the globe here in Tibet. Today’s schedule calls for a 9 hour van drive further up into the mountains to Tingri at 14,500 feet.  The challenge is that on the journey, there are no western toilets in sight and let’s just say we are not so practiced in the art of the squatting pit toilet which usually means holding number two until we get to the hotel with the western toilets.  However; this strategy creates more than a little problem for those with a case of the Mexican guy’s revenge.

At 7 am, we are waiving the white flag, crying “uncle” and calling an audible. The trip has gone flawlessly until this point but we knew we would eventually hit some speed bumps and today is the day.  Although we might more aptly call it full on hitting, no slamming into a wall versus hitting a speed bump.  It’s not like getting sick in London or Sydney as Shigatse is a small town of 9,000 in the middle of the central Tibetan plains. 

So we call our tour office to rearrange, get our guide to the hotel earlier and work out a plan B for today.

Plan B consists of changing rooms to the hotel’s new wing (for more warmth) and getting to the hospital so everyone can medical grade oxygen therapy and for John to see a doctor for his cough. 

On the way out the hotel to go to the hospital, we meet an Australian writer/photographer Julie and Mark of Adventures of Penny in their 1923 Vauxhall convertible car.  Mark and Julie are also on an interesting long journey driving the convertible for four months from London to Bangkok. It was good for the kids to see we are not the only crazy, lost their minds, out-there travelers attempting something extraordinarily huge this year. And the teens seem a bit relieved we hadn’t thought of accomplishing our goal driving in a 97-year old convertible car.  Here’s their blog to check out - www.adventuresofpenny.com<http://www.adventuresofpenny.com>.  She wished us all to feel better as the car sputtered out of the hotel parking lot towards their next destination.

On the drive to the hospital, Kyle calls Geo Blue (our international health insurance company).  Not that we want to, but at least we have and will employ our insurance.  Bemba tells us that the hospital has no concept of insurance so Kyle settles for the Geo Blue rep opening claims for the 7 of us where we pay and Geo Blue reimburses us but he is not looking forward to the paperwork.  

We get to the hospital around 10 am.  Bemba gets John checked in and Kyle, Bemba and John go up to the waiting room.  Kyle looks in and sees a giant room full of people waiting and groans. Bemba gives the paperwork in and tells us John is #17 and it will be 30 min wait.  “Are you sure? In the US, this would be a 4 hour wait,” Kyle asks. John settles in to wait and Kyle and Bemba come to get the others set up with Oxygen. 

All of us (less John) get our oxygen saturation level checked. Normal oxygen levels are above 95 and 90 and below are at risk of hypoxia.  The results: Justin 96, Ashlynn 91, Leanne 89, Kyle 89, Ashley 88 and Corey 86.  So we crown Justin with the Mr. Oxygen title and head off to find our oxygen therapy while Kyle goes back to wait with John.

The promised 30 minute wait turns into a 3 hour wait (so in the end, not so different than the US).  As John finally gets called into the doctor, Bemba presents the doctor with our paperwork.  The doctor takes one look at it and starts shouting at us.  Bemba tries to respond but the doctor pounds his first on the desk and with that we are thrown out into the hallway.  Bemba has turned white, tells us to wait here and runs down the hall like his life depended on it. Kyle is having nightmarish visions of having to back to the starting point, do not pass go, do not collect $200.  Bemba returns looking relieved and explains there was a clerical error and we go wait on a different doctor’s line that only has three people on it.  The doctor listens for 30 seconds and sends John for an X-ray.  John get the X-ray and after 20 minutes the doctor confirms there is no fluid in his lungs and sends him off.

Kyle and John return for their oxygen with Leanne.  The other four kids have gotten their oxygen so we arrange to have the driver take them back to their hotel.  On the way out, we see if we can get their oxygen checks for comparison but apparently the nurse station has lost the oxygen finger monitor in the interim so we are left to wonder how much of an impact it had.

Ok, now Leanne is sure some of you worrier types are reading this saying “oh no, they have to go to a hospital in Tibet,” like Kyle did. This is precisely why we shouldn’t assume anything when traveling to another country. We have to take off our USA sunglasses and take in a new perspective.

The hospital is brand new and the staff are super nice. We are still sticking out like a sore (and now sick) thumb.  While the wait was longer than we’d like, it was their 70th anniversary holiday (which lasts a week) so it would be like going to the ER in the US on the 4th of July with a cough.  You’d probably still be waiting there in October. So it wasn’t perfect but what is in this world?  The Tibetan nurses wore the cute traditional nurse’s caps that we in US only have in our nurse Halloween costumes now. But, after spending the full day in the hospital, our bill for all seven of us was a whopping $80 including an X-ray. Kyle pronounces that he will gladly absorb the $80 cost to avoid spending two days filling out seven claim forms and mountains of paperwork with Geo Blue.

We are feeling refreshed enough after the hospital for the three of us to hit the Tahsilumpo Monastery.  Although John has been the hardest hit, he refuses to pass up this one.  This is a big deal monastery as this is the Tibetan home of the Panchen Lama. The Panchen Lama is the next biggest person behind the Dalai Lama.  Bemba tells us that the Panchen Lama is actually considered the higher spiritual leader but the Dalai Lama has both spiritual and political power so he is the more recognized leader.  

The monastery houses 700 monks. It has four gorgeous white, brown and gold-accented buildings. While this is the Tibetan home of the Panchen Lama, he only spends two months a year here and the rest of the year in Beijing.

 The monastery has the tombs of many past Panchen Lamas and was built in the 1440s. It has a large Tonka wall like the one we saw at Sera Monastery in Lhasa. A Tonka wall is used in an August festival where they paint a beautiful mural on it and later whitewash it to represent how fleeting life and beauty is.  We hope we gave that answer well enough or our theologian master son is going to be very upset with us.

Inside one the monastery rooms, Kyle asks Bemba about what will happen when the current Dalai Lama passes away (he is currently 84 years old and had a recent health scare).  Leanne, tired after the long day, says “ask him on the van while we are sitting.”  Bemba gets a frightened look and says “the van is not safe; they are watching us via surveillance cameras and monitoring our conversation via audio mike.”

John has known all along about this but it is news to Kyle and Leanne.  Leanne starts to panic as she has been making jokes about the Chinese government all week.  She even snapped pictures from the van of the Chinese military with their guns and joked “let’s see how they’re going to stop me from the van.”  

Kyle points out that Chinese interrogators will in all certainty be waiting for Leanne at the Tibet – Nepal border with a massive amount of incriminating audio and video evidence.  He promises to send her postcards from the Nepal while she is detained in China which does not result in the intended laugh. 

As we climb back on the van, sure enough there is the video camera and behind the passenger sun visor is a large transmitter sending back all the data.  We ride in absolute silence back to the hotel and as we are scared to death to say anything now knowing we are being monitored.  

Given that we are required to have a driver and guide and that the van with the surveillance equipment has been provided by the government, we’re presuming that the Chinese government is monitoring to ensure we’re not secretly planning a Tibetan independence revolt with the locals.  Despite our jokes, we are hoping it will be pretty obvious that the five teenagers are more interested in their iPhones than in overthrowing the Chinese government. 

We head back to hotel for a rest before dinner at the Third Eye Restaurant that caters to Westerners. We now see that “Caters to Westerners” in Tibet means having a menu in English and serving French Onion Soup, Spaghetti Bolognese and beer not made from barley (like the local beer).  John and the girls opt to stay in the hotel and rest while the rest of us are driven to the restaurant by our driver Kazan and guide Bemba.

After dinner, John and Leanne decide to watch the Chinese 70th parade on TV and ended up watching a Chinese documentary on Chairman Mao and the founding of the PRC.  Despite it being in Mandarin, we got the point on some level. Kyle lasts five minutes before falling asleep as the lack of English subtitles is apparently a deal-breaker vs getting some sleep on a good bed. 

John & Leanne catch the parade on YouTube and it’s an impressive display of synchronized marching with over 100,000 citizens marching in the parade. That’s marching, millions more were watching or trying to watch about 1,200 people deep.  On this blog, we have been joking around about all the signage for the 70th (because it’s literally everywhere!) but it is quite eye opening to witness how this nation has grown and advanced in our own lifetime.

After nearly two weeks here in China, we feel we possess a much better sense of the magnitude, history, and culture of this fascinating country.  Mainland China and Tibet feel like two totally different countries to us.