The Hotel on the Roof of the World (22 page)

We dropped everyone off at their respective villages, with big waves from the seven little village girls. Slightly anxious that there may have been a search party set up in the village – a lynch mob on their way to find who had absconded with the daughters of the village – we asked Dorje to step on it. This was of course totally unnecessary; a) because Dorje always stepped on it and b) because he didn't understand a word we were saying. In the Tibetan vocabulary that I had picked up I had learnt the essential phrase for ‘please drive more slowly' but I had never thought I would need to know the Tibetan for ‘step on it, there is an angry-looking man with an axe approaching us at speed'.

Back in Lhasa, the celebrations for Chinese New Year were under way. I survived the inevitable party and managed to be in bed before midnight. A few fireworks were going off outside, but this was nothing unusual and I snuggled into bed trying to get to sleep. Suddenly, at midnight, yells and shrieks rang out from the staff quarters. Chinese fireworks lit the sky. Firecrackers were being thrown out of the windows of the army barracks across the road and the concrete walls of the staff quarters were lit by flashes from giant Chinese firecrackers, as the pounding thuds echoed between the buildings. The pack of dogs in the hotel grounds raced, terrified, barking and howling from their hide-outs as rockets, golden rain and Roman candles poured across their territory. Any thoughts of sleep were out of the question.

Tibetan New Year was a week later. The Tibetans follow the lunar calendar and divide the year into twelve months of thirty days each. Unfortunately, this doesn't quite work out, so just as we have to add an extra day every leap year, the Tibetans add a whole month every so often. And why not? It makes a lot more sense than having a year with months of 28, 30 and 31 days.

Every Tibetan at the hotel took leave for a week and the expats were also given time off. It was a wonderful occasion and we were invited from house to house by the Tibetan staff. It was a time for singing Tibetan songs and drinking
chang
and the streets were filled with happy, staggering Tibetans in their finest party clothing. They grinned and waved to us and called out
‘tashi delai'
with even more gusto than usual.

Traditionally the highlight of the New Year celebrations is Monlam, where monks from the surrounding monasteries descend upon Lhasa for the Great Prayer Festival. Some 20,000 monks and nuns would cram the streets of Lhasa and control of the city would be handed over to the Shengo – the head of the elite Drepung fighting monks.

The Chinese had rather dampened things down this year by cancelling the Great Prayer Festival. It was a strange notion – a bit like cancelling Christmas. I went down to the Barkhor but nothing was happening. There were fewer monks around than usual. A large flag was pinned to the front of the Jokhang temple and all the Tibetans passing by on the Barkhor were throwing
khatas
up to it.
Khatas
are the white offering scarves which can be simple muslin or made of pure silk inscribed with auspicious symbols. I had never seen
khatas
being offered to a flag before and I had never seen a flag like this one. Two snow lions stood either side of a white mountain and the sky was coloured in bands as though in a glorious sunset, of yellow, red, white and blue.

I walked up to the front of the Jokhang to take a closer look and suddenly realised what I was seeing – the forbidden Tibetan national flag. The prison at Trapchi is crowded with monks and nuns who have done nothing more than fly this flag. I returned quickly to the hotel but the thought of the flag and the act of defiance of the monk or nun who had put it there, knowing they would be caught and knowing what it would cost them, stayed on my mind.

After the Tibetan New Year celebrations, I set off to Europe for a sales trip. Each year I would visit tour operators at their offices and at the major travel shows, with the aim of persuading them to feature Tibet in their brochures. Once they were sold on Tibet, there was only one hotel they would be staying in – the Holiday Inn.

On my way out of China, I first visited Xian with Tashi, to make a presentation to a group of expatriates. After a night in Chengdu, arranged by the ever-helpful Mr Li, we survived another death-race Chengdu taxi driver and arrived in record-breaking time at Chengdu airport for the early morning flight to Xian. We waited and waited. And we waited some more. No information was given as to what had happened to our flight. Three hours went by. I stared out into the grey mist that always hangs over Chengdu. It was so different from the clean, crisp air of Lhasa, with the dazzling brightness of the Tibetan sky. Chengdu was always humid, miserable and grey. Another three hours passed with nothing to do. I paced up and down the corridor, careful not to slip by the spittoons. Another four hours passed by. In total ten and a quarter hours passed before a wailing voice came over the tannoy to announce the departure of our flight to Xian. As if a starting gun had just been fired, the Chinese immediately grabbed all their belongings, hurtled down the stairwell from the waiting room and spilled out onto the tarmac, racing towards the plane. I held Tashi back. ‘What is the point?' I said. ‘We all have boarding passes. We are all going to get on.'

I was determined that amidst this bedlam I would remain ‘British', form a queue and approach the plane with some decency, instead of scrambling and pushing to get on first.

It was a strange plane – an old Russian Illyushin 18, second hand from Aeroflot. These were christened the ‘flying fossils' by the expats. ‘So old they have an outside toilet.' Curiously, the baggage is stored with you in the main part of the fuselage, behind a section which is cordoned off with netting. The seats next to me were all taken and I looked around for Tashi. He was nowhere to be seen. I went back to the doorway, and found him at the bottom of the steps with five other passengers, arguing with the stewardess.

‘Mr Alec!' Tashi shouted up to me. ‘There are not enough seats. Too many tickets. She say I cannot come on!'

So this is the explanation for why everyone in China sprints, pushes and kicks to get on the plane. A boarding card is no guarantee that you have a place. Feeling guilty that it was my fault he had not made it on-board, I helped him argue with the stewardess. The pilot held the plane while we tried to sort something out. He was already over ten hours delayed, so another half hour wouldn't really matter. The stewardess came up with a solution. Tashi and one of the other stranded passengers could come on-board but there would be no seats for them; they would have to sit on suitcases in the luggage compartment.

Tashi made himself comfortable on some large sacks stuffed with garlic grass and one by one the four propellers of the flying fossil chugged up to full speed and the pilot drew away across the runway.

The show went well and as Tashi returned to Chengdu and Lhasa, I carried on to Hong Kong. I had brought with me a suitcase containing a sheepskin
chuba
which I would wear at the sales shows in Europe. I had worn normal
chubas
before but I thought an authentic sheepskin one would go down even better. I opened the bag in the Holiday Inn Golden Mile in Hong Kong and was knocked over by the stench. While the sheepskin had been fine in Lhasa at an altitude of 12,000 feet (3,600 m), in the dry air, here in the humidity of Hong Kong it had started to deteriorate. I looked at it closely. There were still pieces of meat on it.

There was a bottle of 4711 aftershave in the room and I emptied this over the coat in the hope that it would beat the sheep smell. It didn't. I went outside to Watsons and bought a can of Odour Eater which I sprayed systematically over every part of the sheepskin until the can was empty. I hung the coat in the bathroom and closed the door. At least the smell was out of the bedroom. As soon as I opened the bathroom door, there it was again – dead sheep. The Holiday Inn cleaners refused to touch it and asked me how long I intended to keep it in the room. I asked at a dry cleaners but they sent me away, suggesting I try a furrier.

I had never been in a fur shop before. I rang the security bell of a very superior looking one on Nathan Road and explained my problem to the rather precious Chinaman behind the counter. In a very affected Eton accent he told me that he was well accustomed to dealing with furs from China and asked me to bring it in. Nothing I could say about the state of the sheep could dissuade him. He smiled to the two ladies in the shop who were trying on minks for the Hong Kong ‘winter' season. ‘We always please our very discerning customers,' he said, bowing to them and smiling obsequiously. They smiled back, flashing their heavy jewellery at us.

Ten minutes later I returned with the
chuba
stuffed into my suitcase and lifted it up onto the display counter. ‘Errgghh,' he leapt back as the odour hit him and clutched his silk handkerchief to his nose. ‘That is quite by far the most difficult fur I have ever seen. Quite disgusting. Disgusting!' The two women hurried out of the shop without saying a word.

A day and $200 later, the
chuba
was back on the shop counter. He had, as promised, tried to clean it. The wool was soft as silk but the smell was exactly the same. I tried to argue about the price but he told me that wool from the
chuba
had blocked his cleaning machine, causing thousands of dollars of damage. He was negotiating with his insurance company. He had also received complaints from his regular customers about the awful smell of their minks, which had also been cleaned in the morning. Perhaps even today there are some Barkhor dead sheep odours mingling at the high society dinner parties in Hong Kong. I would like to think so.

In Europe, even without my
chuba
, the sales were going well. On the second morning at ITB in Berlin, the largest travel show in the world, I met up with the rest of the Holiday Inn Asia-Pacific team.

‘Have you seen the news Alec?' they asked me as I arrived. ‘Dozens of Tibetans have been killed! The Chinese have closed Tibet!'

I rushed back to my hotel room and watched the events unfold on CNN. As I sat hunched up on the end of my bed I saw the Barkhor in flames, crowds of monks throwing stones, and yes, the police station on fire again. Martial Law was declared and all tourists expelled. No more would be allowed in until further notice.

I returned to Lhasa via Kathmandu, instead of through Hong Kong. There is a large Tibetan community in Kathmandu and I was told all sorts of stories about the conditions in Lhasa. Apparently rioting was still going on. One told me; ‘Some Tibetans are still being arrested, I think
four to five
of them yesterday.'

Another picked up the story; ‘
Forty-five
of them? Tibetans in trouble?'

The rumour gathered pace; ‘Forty-five Tibetans killed yesterday?'

A Tibetan told me; ‘You know, it's disgraceful how the Chinese are oppressing the Tibetans. I have relatives there who do not even have proper bathroom facilities in their house. These Chinese are oppressing them so much.'