After days of porridge for breakfast, we finally had something new: 豆浆油条. It was a luxury to find it here in Tibet, according to ZK, because it is not easy to make at high altitude. Rubbish. We could see these soyabean milk stalls in almost every town after that day. Guess ZK just doesn’t want to eat.
Although the soyabean milk was thin and quite tasteless (had to add sugar ourselves), it was something different and a taste closer to home. And it seemed to be a perfect day today, cool weather and good road condition (although music was lousy in the jeep. 梁永绮’s song played for maybe 5 times).
While we were driving into a forested area, a truck was parked in the middle of the road horizontally, blocking the passage. We got down and saw there was a major road repair some 100m in front. ZK said it should be temporary and we could only wait. There was no other way around. So we just hung around the road, doing nothing.
JH and I were really bored and so decided to make a coca-cola commercial. JH the director, told me to start running from 20m away towards the DV. My line was, “在森林喝可口可乐，另有一番滋味！“ It was a well shot advert until the moment I opened the bottle. Because I was running with the bottle, all the gas and foam spilled out. Very cock.
Even with the advert, we were really bored just waiting. ZK was taking his puffs away. A truck loaded with kayaks (and angmohs) came and stopped behind us. A group of Aussies came out and chatted with us while their Tibetan driver went ahead to find out info from the repair workers. These Aussies had been to Tibet before and they came here just to canoe in the river. We shared our travel experiences with 1 of the guys while the rest of their group was playing chap teh.
Their driver came back with good news. There seemed to be a side path into the forest which would lead us out of the place. There is no way the repair will finish by today and so was pointless to wait. ZK that useless bum. No initiatives at all. We found that narrow path at the side of the main road but it was at a lower ground. Driving down directly might damage the exhaust of our cars and so the Angmohs started carrying logs and boulders found around the forest and created a connection between the main road and the side track.
After 20min of hardwork, we let their truck try on the newly laid path and it took another 10min to finally get the truck down to the side track. Just then, 2 jeeps from the opposite end came and as the track in the forest was so narrow that only 1 vehicle can pass at a time, the truck had to reverse slowly back to the main road to let them through. When finally the passage was cleared, it was our turn to use the track and because ours was a jeep, we made it down effortlessly.
The next 10min or so was spent driving in the middle of the forest, and occasionally there were cows strolling across the jungle track, blocking our path. After a few turns, we came out of the jungle and were on the main road again. I guessed we were delayed for about an hour but we should still reach our destination in time.
Along the way, I caught sight of a magnificent scenery. Coming down from a cliff was a straight line of water. It was called One-Line Waterfall, 一线瀑. A very unique waterfall. After we passed 雅卢藏库江, there was another trailer blocking our path and it seemed like a road repair again. However, strangely, there were jeeps coming from the other end at the same time. I went over to the truck this time to find out what was going on. There was a notice on it, saying the road was closed from this time to that due to some reason. Before I could finish reading, a man came and took the notice away and said, “没事，没事”. I was confused and even more so when that man climbed into the cabin of the trailer and drove the vehicle away. What was that all about?
Anyway, we don’t really care as long as we could continue moving. Very soon, we entered a big town, 八一镇. It was more like a city than a town. A few high-rise buildings, clean streets, neat streetlamps at the sides. It had everything a city would have except for people; not a single soul at all! It was like a ghostly modern city. Our guess was this must be a new extension to the old BaYi Town and perhaps the population from the old town will move into here soon. After driving around this place for some 20min, we finally found our way out and reached the real, old BaYi.
It was still consider a big town, with traffic lights and plenty of shops. We decided to shop around for supplies as well as some warm clothes (long john in particular) to prepare ourselves for Everest. ZK said we don’t have to buy now because we were definitely going to spend 2 days in Lhasa so we could do our shopping then. That was when we realised that ZK wanted to spend the extra 2 days we have in Lhasa. However, this was unfair to us because we were paying 600rmb for the jeep per day and the jeep would not be used at all for that 2 days in Lhasa. Moreover, our intention was to pass by Lhasa (stay 1 night at most) and then move on to Everest. Because, we will return to Lhasa again at the end of our trip and we wanted to tour the capital after we have parted with the driver. It would be our last destination for this 16-day jeep tour.
The more we thought of it, the more we felt that the driver wanted to cheat that 2 days out of us. So we started to converse in English while shopping, to come out with a plan on how to tell ZK. Guess, ZK sensed that we were plotting on something, but of course we weren’t, just discussing.
When we were back at the hotel (our 1st ‘real’ hotel, with TV, personal washroom), we were undecided on how to confront him. We didn’t want to sound as if we were suspicious of him of trying to cheat us. But we wanted to bring up our points firmly too. I felt we worried too much on this issue. Why can’t we just be open and said what we feel? So I decided to do the confrontation and I asked ZK if he really planned to use that 2 days in Lhasa. He said tentatively that was the case. Then I asked if these 2 days were part of our 16-day itinerary and he said yes. I told him this plan was wrong because we wanted to tour Lhasa only at the end of the trip, after that 16 days. As such, I asked if he could find other places for us to visit in Tibet and passed to him the guide book found in his car. He kept quiet and started flipping the pages.
I wasn’t sure he was embarrassed or unhappy but I did what I had to do so that was fine with me. He was probably unhappy, because he thought he could save 300rmb on petrol cost by staying put in Lhasa for 2 days. Fat chance I would let him get his way. JH said that I could have approached him more diplomatically and less accusingly. He told me later that after that confrontation, the gap between ZK and us (which already existed in the beginning), had drifted wider. At this rate, it would be hard for us if we wanted to still keep in touch with him back in Chengdu after our trip. Perhaps he was right. We were skeptical of him at the start but slowly began to trust him as days went by. After today, I think we were back to square one, if not worse.
After that incident, the 4 of us were still talking about our relationship with the driver. Seriously, I wasn’t bothered at all. Although I seemed to be getting along well with ZK (we even had telepathy thoughts some times, haha), I only regarded him as a driver employed by us and nothing more. It would take more than just a few days of conversation for someone to be considered my friend. Especially someone like ZK whom I couldn’t trust at all from the very beginning.
PS: during our dinner, 5 big sized Lamas came in and started praying beside us. They then demanded $ and said will go back and tell how good we were to his Big Lama. We gave them 2rmb but they wouldn't go. In the end, it took us 30rmb to get rid of the group of cheaters. Sigh... if these monks were in SG, I surely would give them a good scolding. But we were in their turf then. The restaurant owner said that these people will beg for $ (extort I would say) in the day, and 吃喝嫖赌 at night. I sincerely hope these monks get punished by God.
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