Lhasa

1.
LHASA
Well, there we were on Saturday afternoon, having just arrived in Tibet, and had decided to go for a gentle potter up the road to get a cuppa from a restaurant I knew, and had just crossed the road when a flash of maroon went by. I did a double take when I realised I knew that flash of maroon- it was my monk buddy who I've know since 95. I hailed him and he grabbed my hand and started shaking it up and down grinning madly while we both gabbered away in outr relative languages trying to work out what on earth the other was saying. He'd say things that I thought I understood but couldn't remember how to answer, so he eventually gestured towards his monastery and led us all back there. I introduced the boys on the way (saying that Rik was my younger brother as I couldn't remember the name for older brother) but it got the message across. Luckily he had hte phone number for another fried who speaks great English and 5 mins later he arrived to do the translating. Which was good timing really as I had told my monk that Rik was a doctor and he'd suddenly sat at his feet and proffered his wrists for his pulses to be taken! Tom took over and tested his pulses and we just about managed to clear up his confusion by saying that Rik works at a Western hospital and Toma t a Chinese hospital (not quite true but it got the message across...again). So a bit of diagnosing later nd between them tehy'd sort of worked out his problem, for which he was extremely grateful. He ran off and reappeared witha thermos of sweet tea, after which we left and spent the rest of the evening with our other pal, Jigme back at the hotel. We'd actually arrived laden with goodies for him, including a laptop, an mp3 player, surge protectors, memory stick, digital camera, etc. It was like Xmas, and he was so embarrassed and happy and overwhelmed! He agreed to join us for dinner too so the boys got to spend more time with him. So that was their introduction to Tibet!



The boys and a monk