Oh my bola... we've reached our final destination.

When the minivan, which had been accidentally dropping packages out of the back door most of the way there, finally stopped we stepped out into the haze of tire and street dust and stared up at the huge, freshly painted gate declaring the birthplace of the famous Tibetan king: Songtsen Gampo. We knew we had reached our final destination.

But really we hadn't. Instead we walked through the gate and into the small deserted town and spoke with the only two gentlemen for miles. Oh you want to see his birthplace... you're going to need a car. My student suggested we take out a loan.

So about a dozen barley fields, an uncountable number of yaks, one short and scary tractor ride, one grandmother watching cows, one minuscule town composed of one tea house and one police station, maybe a hundred pictures, the greenest mountains and the bluest sky you've ever seen, and about six kilometers later we showed up at a building that was perhaps the only one built within the last century we'd seen all day. At last, our final destination.

The only incident marking that time of note was when one student proceeded to proudly show of his new movie star sunglasses only to have the left lens pop out and land on the street to his wild exclamation of "oh my mother!" The mountains chortled with green laughter and the stream nearby went wild with giggles and the yaks raised their heads to guffaw and I had to sit down because I was laughing too hard to stand. And how much were those glasses? chirped my other student, one yuan?

Once inside our final destination, the elaborately painted memorial hall, like a jelly bean dropped in a sandbox, we realized that maybe it wasn't our final destination after all. Just a nearly empty building with a few extremely amusing life size replicas of important events from the king's life which my students enjoyed interacting with immensely. After we had climbed to the roof and surveyed the courtyard, in which stood only some weeds and a few odd mud bricks, from every possible angle we went back out to see what else there was to do. And to find a new final destination.

Turns out there was nothing to do. Everyone in the surrounding village was hard at work harvesting barley and though they said that there were many tea houses and many cars that could take us back we never did see any of them. We decided that the top of a hill would become our final destination and we climbed up up up past tiny purple flowers, flocks of chickens, and matted prayer flags to have a rest. The breeze was light but didn't conceal the sure signs of sunburn to come, and the crisp white clouds moved across the shocking blue sky like a circus train of wild contorting animals and disappeared over the green mountain peaks. I was content for this to be my final destination.

But it wasn't long before "oh my bola" my students were hungry and so we set off in search of a tea house final destination. Back through the fields, over the streams, past the stacks of harvested barley to the only tea house there was anywhere in the valley. Lunch, simple and predictable, sunflower seeds covered the floor, my students quizzed me with English pronunciation questions and we grew to realize that this could no more be our final destination than the memorial hall was. We needed to get back to the main road and my student again suggested we take out a loan. To which my other student wondered who would give a loan to someone who could only afford one yuan sunglasses.

Bellies full and sky still bright we set off again for our final destination... which of course would only be temporary since what we really wanted was a bus back to Lhasa. The grandmother tending cows remained exactly where we had left her that morning and since she was the only person we had seen that afternoon we decided to enlist her to take our photo. Crippled hands numbly clutched my camera and she looked right at us and grinned toothlessly as she proceeded to take about a dozen pictures of the ground near her feet. The one picture she managed to get of us reveals a scene where laugher cannot be controlled and after which we had to have a rest just to catch our breath. Maybe such a state of fierce hilarity should have been our final destination.

Of course it wasn't. So we skipped and sang and laughed in the breeze until we reached the deceptively large front gate which we had first mistaken for our final destination. A snack of some apples as we waited on the stoney streetside in the "oh my bola it's hot" sun for a bus, car, truck, donkey, anything heading back to Lhasa revealed our true weariness. By the time the large long distance bus pulled up with only two seats available we were happy to squeeze three into them and call the bus our final destination.

Back in Lhasa, a bright valley surrounded by sheets of rain, we ate a dinner of greasy noodles and one student insisted on a summary of our trip. This is the second trip of my life, he started, Ms. Kelly you were also there for the first. I think it is very happy. But next time we should do some more research.

Why?

We didn't know anything about our final destination. It could have been disappointing.

Which is when it dawned on me: yes, indeed it does pay to know something of our final destination.

Visions of a kingdom with only Glory as its light danced in my dreams that night... perhaps it did for those students too.