11/2/2006 China Day 38: Everest Base Camp, Tibet - Mr. No Fucking Clue

Tibet is a beautiful place in many respsects. In my 15 days here so far, I have never been in a place where I could not see beautiful mountains (either very nearby or in the distance). And from the map, it looks like there are very few places in Tibet (if any) that are not near mountains.

However, it is also a very trying place for foreigners to visit for several reasons:

1. All foreigners must obtain an Alien Travel Permit (ATP) in order to visit all areas in Tibet outside the greater Lhasa area.


2. The ATP requirement makes travel to remote areas in Tibet very expensive. Since ATPs for remote areas are only available through travel agencies, you must book an expensive Land Cruiser with a driver (and officially, a tour guide too) through them.


3. Since Land Cruiser tours are expensive, you most likely need to find 2-3 other travellers to fill up the Land Cruiser.

The 1st requirement forces the 2nd which forces the 3rd. The ATP is expensive (150 RMB ~= $20), but not overly so. Hiring a Land Cruiser and driver for a 15-day tour to western Tibet is extremely expensive by local standards (13,300 RMB = $1,660). And yes, you actually do need a driver because (1) foreigners aren't allowed to drive in China, and (2) you won't know where to turn on the unmarked, unpaved roads between remote destinations. The huge expense is why everyone tries to find 3-4 people to share the cost of the trip.

Yes, it is possible to try to forgo all 3 of these burdens. You can try to hitchhike around Tibet with or without ATPs (as I alluded to earlier, you cannot obtain ATPs yourself for the most remote areas in Tibet). If you get caught in a restricted area without an ATP, the fine is something like 200-500 RMB. I met some people who hitched through Tibet successfully. But they had to allow plenty of time, and not have their heart set on any particular destination. Also, as the weather starts to get colder after October, the number of travellers and vehicles on the road diminishes, making hitching even more difficult. Several hitchhikers I met during this trip spanning October-November noted this difficulty and some even had to turn around and abandon some of their destinations.

Mr. No Fucking Clue

I could handle the waiting in Lhasa to assemble a group of 4 people to rent a Land Cruiser together. I could handle the costs of obtaining travel permits and hiring a Land Cruiser and driver. But by the end of our trip, I couldn't handle Mr. No Fucking Clue (NFC).

NFC is in many ways like my younger brother, but way worse in the bad respects. NFC is jovial, outgoing, likes to joke and be the center of attention, but is sometimes painfully immature and egocentric (which I regard as a form of immaturity). The things that really annoyed me about him was that he was perpetually late, often acted as if he were the only one on the trip and could make unilateral decisions, and was stingy.

Over the course of our 15-day trip, I would estimate conservatively that he wasted 8+ hours x 4 people waiting for him = 32 hours - that is, an average of 30+ minutes per day. In fact, I cannot remember any day where he was less than 30 minutes late for our agreed upon start time from the night before. On the morning we left from Lhasa, we waited for him to wake up, pack, and come down outside his hotel for 1 hour, which put our driver in a foul mood for the entire day. NFC knew he was habitually late too; he just didn't give a fuck. In fact, on one morning when he was 30 minutes late, he knew he was already late, but he still trudged to go to the bathroom (because he was still tired), then took a smoke, then finally felt ready to break down his tent and pack his bags. He laughed and said, "Hehe, I know a lot of people a lot lazier than me," - as if that excused him for anything. I don't think he realized that he had wasted 8 x 4 = 32 hours over the course of the trip until I told him today.

Sleeping late, not packing the night before if you know it's going to take forever, and generally not respecting other people's time is one form of egocentrism, but there were too many other times where NFC just did not have a fucking clue that he was not the center of the universe. For instance, the same morning he made the remark about knowing lazier people than him, I asked him to get his bottled water from his tent so that I could make myself some hot tea. He response was later, I'm eating right now. What he didn't realize, but everyone else around him did, was that the only reason he was eating anything at all at that point at all was that:

1. I had slept with two 1.5 L bottles of water in my sleeping bag/bivy sack the night before to keep them from freezing in the -20º to -25ºC cold overnight. Everyone else had put 1 bottle in their tent with them, but they had both frozen. I was slightly cold until about 3 AM until the 2 water bottles I slept with warmed up to my body temperature.


2. Kim boiled the water for his instant noodles on my camping stove (NFC didn't own or purchase one) using Kim and Rembi's fuel, and Rembi gave NFC one of his instant noodle packages and poured in the boiling water for NFC.


3. The only reason I needed to ask for his frozen water to make myself tea was that he had already used my thawed water for his breakfast of instant noodles.

Another time NFC really couldn't see beyond his own selfish desires was on the last day of our Mt. Kailash trek. First, he arrived back in Darchen 2.5 hours after Matt and I (the first 2 to leave) arrived, even though everyone was awake when we left. It was an easy hike that day - only 2.5 hours. NFC arrived 2.5 hours after us not because he just walked slower, but because he woke up late, no doubt had to pack in the morning, had 2 slow breakfasts, and decided to smoke a joint or two before leaving. Now, while there's nothing wrong with taking it easy on an easy day, taiking an extra 2.5 hours is kind of excessive if it hadn't been discussed what the plan was for the rest of the day - which it hadn't, because that pushes back everyone's plans (if any) for the rest of the day.

That was the least of the problems, however. When NFC finally arrived in Darchen at around 4 PM, Kim said they were really hungry and were thinking about having dinner in Darchen before we headed to Lake Manasarovar to sleep for the night. I said I would prefer to head to the lake (20 km ~= 20 minutes away) to have dinner, because the water from the river in Darchen was disgusting with plastic bottles and other trash strewn throughout and animal (and perhaps worse) manure on the banks and probably in the river too. And before anyone else could give their opinion and come to a collective decision, NFC just blurted out, "Well I'm fucking starving and I'm having dinner here (Darchen)." I paused, stared at him coldly, and replied, "What, do you think you're on the trip alone?", but he ignored it.

It happened yet again after dinner. I waited 1-1.5 hours for the 3 of them to have dinner (I planned to have dinner when we got to the lake). When they got back from dinner, NFC announced that he smelled terrible and wanted to take a shower. I asked if he wouldn't mind taking a shower once we got to the lake without mentioning that I hadn't eaten dinner yet, unlike them, but he said no, he smelled really terrible and he heard there wasn't a shower in the monasteries or guest houses by the lake. Then he proceeded to make another unilateral decision for the group and take a shower (Kim went too).

By the time they got back from their showers, it was after 6 PM, and nobody, including our driver, felt like budging to go to Lake Manasarovar for the night. It turned out not to be a big deal for visiting Lake Manasarovar, because we were able to visit it all we wanted the next day, but it was just another example of how NFC's totally self-absorbed, unilateral decisions modified the actions of 4 other people, completely oblivious to him. I made myself a dinner of instant noodles from bottled water at this point.

To make matters worse, NFC is on a 2 or 2.5 year trip without any income, so he is really stingy. In our first night in Darchen, we had a 97 RMB dinner bill divided by 6. He collected all of the money and paid with a large bill, but he didn't want to pay the extra 1 RMB (12.5¢). Then when we learned that we owed an extra unexpected 10 RMB for some bread with the meal, I miscalculated and asked everyone to toss in an extra 1 RMB, which left about 5 RMB (62.5¢) extra for NFC to pay. He once again objected and Kim and Rembi just threw a 5 RMB note at him and he shut up.

Another time on the day we left Darchen, we stopped in a small town to buy a case (12 bottles) of water (60-70 RMB). Kim and Rembi had purchased the first case for the group. I purchased the second. I had to ask him to purchase the third (he was, once again, oblivious), and he objected! He didn't feel he had used 1/4 of the water we had bought so far, so of the 12 bottles, he was only going to pay for 9! I threw up my hands in frustration and left the shop, saying that he was quibbling over $0.80 per bottle (x3 = $2.40). Kim and Rembi picked up the tab for the other 3 bottles, and I'm sure they would have been happy to purchase the 4th case, being 2 people.

So yeah, that's Mr. NFC. I had made a few frustrated comments before, but yesterday he heard almost all of it - but not on purpose. He eventually would have had to hear some of it, but I wouldn't have told him all of it - just the minimum to get my point across. The reason I would have had to make a point was that he made yet another unilateral decision for the group, which at this point, would have been just him and me.

I was discussing with him the timeline for returning to Lhasa from Zhangmu (the Chinese border town with Nepal on the Friendship Highway). He said I would have to spend a night in Zhangmu because he needed a night there to decide if he was going to Nepal with Kim and Rembi or not. I got furious inside that he had made yet another unilateral decision without considering anyone else (just me in this case). But I didn't say anything at the time. His desire to spend a night in Zhangmu instead of start the trip back to Lhasa actually conflicted with my desire to get back to Lhasa, set up my trip to Eastern Tibet, and get out of Tibet ASAP (and also to get away from him). In this case of conflicting preferences in a 2-person group, I would have been happy to settle it with a flip of a coin, but he had just made the decision in his mind for the 2 of us!

NFC overheard all of my frustrations as I was telling them to Elija, a Canadian friend, in the Rongphu Monastery restaurant/guesthouse. When Kim alerted me to this fact, I told them I had nothing to hide. NFC got defensive and threw some insults at me, but couldn't deny anything I had said. The rest of the afternoon and evening was very tense, but we had mostly gotten past it by the end of the night.

Kim and Rembi get along a lot better with NFC than I do. They seem to be able to enjoy his strong qualities while mostly overlooking his weaknesses. Every once in a while, even they throw a light jab at his habitual tardiness. I, however, am much less able to tolerate his total disregard for other people's time and rights.

Banking Good Karma

I did a good deed today. Yesterday while hanging out in the Rongphu Monastery restaurant/guesthouse, I met a lone Chinese tourist. Excluding the Tibetan restaurant employees, he was the only Chinese in the room, and he didn't have anyone to talk to. He talked to me some, and the rest of the time he spent silently by the warm stove, or talking to Tibetan drivers trying to find a ride down from the mountain.

Seeing him again in the restaurant in the morning, I asked him if he had found a ride off the mountain yet. He said no, he had found a motorcyclist who would give him a ride for 250 RMB, but he was thought it was too expensive and that it would be too cold and dangerous on a motorcycle. A Tibetan Land Cruiser driver overheard us and offered to take him down for the same price cramped in the luggage space of his Land Cruiser that was already full in the passenger seats. I was internally outraged by the driver's greed, and I tried to convince the driver to do something good for his Karma and give the Chinese tourist a ride off the mountain for less money (especially if it was going to be in the luggage space of his Land Cruiser!) After all, aren't all Tibetans Buddhists - people who actually believe in Karma and don't just throw it around as a catchy phrase without a better translation?

Well, I tried several Karmic angles with the driver. I told him that someday he would need a favor, and why didn't he do a favor for his fellow countryman first today? He wasn't interested. He said, up here, money doesn't matter luck does (as in he can charge whatever he wants, because he has the upper hand). If the Chinese tourist didn't want to pay his price, he could stay up on the mountain. Isn't greed a decidely un-Buddhist trait? Well, that's kind of a problem throughout China right now - finding a Chinese citizen that will do something just because it doesn't cost him anything (or much) to help someone else out and not gouge another fellow human being just because he can - although you still can find someone like this once in a while.

That driver left without coming to any agreement with the Chinese tourist. Then I noticed the driver and a Dutch woman from a 4-person Dutch group that I had met 2 days before on the road between Saga and Old Tingri. I knew they were headed off the mountain that day, so I first asked the Dutch woman if she wouldn't mind doing this Chinese tourist a favor by squeezing 4 instead of 3 in the back seat of their Land Cruiser for the 3-hour trip off the mountain for 200 RMB (divided 4 ways would be 50 RMB each). Of course, she said yes, she'd try with the rest of her group to squeeze the Chinese tourist in, and if it wasn't too uncomfortable, they would shuttle him off the mountain. Then, the Chinese tourist came back from somewhere, and I asked him if he would be OK with 200 RMB for a real seat in a Land Cruiser, and he said yes, happily.

Then came the pitfall. The Chinese tourist asked who he should pay, and I asked both the Dutch woman and their Tibetan driver. The Tibetan driver responded first that it should go all to him, because it was his car (not really), he had to pay for the gas (big whoop), and he had to pay for any repairs if there were breakdowns (not sure how true this is, but he had already been paid in full for the whole trip, and I don't see how adding another passenger added to any substantial degree to this liability). I politely disagreed with him while smiling, but he still got angry and said, "Fuck it then. I won't take the Chinese tourist off the mountain then." My driver who was sitting around the stove also said something to the effect that if I wanted to take the Chinese tourist off the mountain the next day when we left the mountain, I could walk off myself.

Well, so much for cool tempers! I told the Dutch group's driver to forget it - we obviously disagreed. Couldn't we have a discussion without getting angry? This only caused him to become angrier and challenge me by saying, "What did you say? Say that again!" I let out some of my anger then, and I said, "What? Didn't you hear me the first time? I said we can be calm and have a discussion without getting angry." I walked away then to talk to the rest of the Dutch group. I obviously didn't have anything to gain from talking to this driver anymore.

When I recounted the story to the Dutch group, they smiled knowingly and said, yup, that's our driver! He seems to get angry for no/small reasons all the time. I was consoled by the fact that it wasn't just me who managed to spontaneously anger Tibetan drivers. Later, I recounted the story to Kim and Rembi, and Rembi agreed and said that he had the same experience (Tibetan male getting really angry for no apparent reason) with the Tibetan tour guide he had on the tour from Yunnan province to Lhasa. So now I really have the opinion that Tibetan males have hot tempers under a sometimes friendly surface.

My walking away had the desired effect. It allowed the Dutch group's driver to cool down and for the Chinese tourist to negotiate the final details of getting of the mountain. The Dutch group, to whom I believe any transport fee belongs because they already paid the tour company/driver for all of their services for the duration of the trip, agreed to let the driver keep the entire 200 RMB as his tip (he wouldn't be getting any other) and were happy to help another human being in need. And in the end, the Chinese tourist fit fine in the back seat for 3 hours off the mountain. He was on a 2-week vacation from his job selling auto parts in Shenzhen, Guangdong and now, maybe he'll be able to get back home without losing any more vacation days or his job!