Stone soup: a trip out of Lhasa

The late morning was bright and now familiar mountains, streets, shops rumbled past the bus window making way for wasteland. The ingredients used to make this land would also make a nice, though dry, pot of stone soup.

Nothing. Only dirt. Dirty mountains and a smattering of dirt colored villages. Dirty people in dirty clothes making prostrations to Lhasa in the dirt. Dirty sheep scrawny from a diet of dirt.

Up, up, up we zigzagged. The roof top of the world is brown.

Then, like a jewel dropped from a careless prince's crown, a lake the shade of turquoise so deep and pure your eyes water looking at it. And wind, so windy you feel yourself coming apart at the seams and your already damaged hair whips and shreds around your face. Wind so fierce it rips your breath from you.
Back in the bus.

More dirt, made dirtier by the contrast of the lake.

A curve in the road and a valley too tempting to pass. A jump over the creek and climb slide up the ravine begins a hike up through the valley towards glaciers suspended from the tops of mountains like frostbite on meat left in the freezer too long... nearly as blue as the lake. Glacial runoff forms lakes left like treasures behind piles of rocks and mounds of dirt. Minuscule flowers prickle the ground like glitter after a parade. And frozen mist sweeps off the mountain like an icy cold slap on the already raw face. Lips chap instantly. A nomad woman selling jewelry initiates a scarf exchange... one buttery scarf of filth for that nice smelling one around your neck. Done.
Back on the bus.

One traffic light blinks lazily as a horse cart passes beneath it in a sleepy town. The surest sign of modernity is the fact that popsicles can be found there though only with significant effort. A ruined dusty fort stands guard for the residents, a tower with eight eyes watches over them greedily. Cobbled streets narrow and widen at their leisure and yak skulls and colored flags adorn roofs. A mannequin bearing an uncanny resemblance to Michael Jackson displays traditional wear. The food is good, the beggar children ask for pencils, the monks are chatty, and the view of the surrounding valleys is spectacular.
Back on the bus.

A distance of about a dozen songs of praise and truth plus an hour puts us in the next town. Achey travlers nearly as dusty as the streets walk through the market selling a remarkable amount of animal skin and take pictures of the dried sheep carcasses sitting obediently in rows. An evening walk around the local monastery and footprints mingle in the dust with other pilgrims spinning wheels. Women selling green salty paste line the path and a grandmother grabs a foriegners butt to exclaim how fat it is. The city, though tree dotted and quiant, becomes a blur of buildings and temples and long braids and butter.
The next morning we are back on the bus.

Nothing. Only rocks. Roads cut into the mountains revealing rocks so deep and thick into the dirt it seems like a bad joke to see a yak and a skinny grandfather at the plow. The bus stops for a rest and we pile out of the bus onto the rocks, we kick rocks, throw rocks, climb rocks... then back on the bus. We stop again and behold the strangest thing: water rushing over the rocks from some mountain peak. Water splashing rocks, making rocks dark from the damp. Water blessing the rocks with a stripe of green, the first such color in miles. Water pouring, gurling, singing, shouting over rocks content to take it all in.
Back on the bus.

Nothing. Dirt. Rocks. Lhasa. Back.

A weekend spent sipping this stone soup of land. Stone soup not being a very good cure for lonlieness.